Hew Locke’s “Patriots” Opens at P.P.O.W Gallery
Hew Locke, Patriots
October 11 — November 10, 2018
Opening reception: Thursday, October 11, 6–8pm
P.P.O.W Gallery
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
As shared by P.P.O.W, the exhibition Patriots by multimedia artist Hew Locke will his first with the New York-based gallery. Read below for information on the show as released by P.P.O.W:
The exhibition will continue Locke’s investigation into the idea of The Hero, and the role public statues play in the way national identity and history are formed, an element of his practice that he has been exploring since 2002. This interest was born out of seeing a toppled and discarded statue of Queen Victoria dismantled during his childhood in Georgetown, Guyana — an event that shaped his realization that the status quo is in fact fluid. Later, while living in London, Locke became fascinated with the historic statues spread around the city, monuments that are so visible that they have essentially become invisible to passersby. Embarking on a project that he thinks of as the “impossible proposals,” Locke began photographing these iconic statues — from Richard the Lionheart, to the slave trader Edward Colston, to Edward VII — at first painting over, and later embellishing the photographs with objects, creating elaborate fetish figures referencing a history largely overlooked.
The exhibition at P.P.O.W will take as its starting point a series of contentious sculptures in the US, including of Peter Stuyvesant, George Washington, J Marion Sims, and Alexander Hamilton, among others, several of which have recently been the subject of debate for removal. He is also inspired in part by a tradition in Brussels in which local or international groups create and present traditional or symbolic costumes to the City, used to dress the little Manneken Pis, Belgium’s iconic national statue. Starting with large-scale photographs of these statutes, Locke richly decorates them with neo-baroque additions.
Text courtesy of P.P.O.W. Find out more about this exhibition and other work by Hew Locke here.
