December 8, 2008
PRESS RELEASE

Iao PROJECTS
925 EAST 900 SOUTH SUITE 40
SALT LAKE CITY UT 84105
T. 801.879.1971
http://www.iao-gallery.com/index4.html

BUSH AND CRONIES, INC.
Jeff Faerber
January 16, 2009 – March 14, 2009

George W. Bush leaves the executive office with a rather controversial and problematic administration that has been clouded by the abuse of political power, particularly with the invocation of executive privilege not seen since the time of Nixon. Based on a sleight-of-hand, Americans have been infused with a sense of dread as the Bush administration extended extraordinary rendition, destroyed the Constitution’s principles, and stomped all over scientific/cultural truths. All of this while the country’s economy has been reduced to tatters for the next president, Barack Obama. In contrast to all of the influx of Obama art that has been spreading across the nation (started by Shepard Fairey), Brooklyn-based artist Jeff Faerber vigorously redirects political and artistic focus on the root of the nation’s problems with his brilliant, provocative exhibition of his critique of the Bush administration.

With this large cast of characters, Bush along with Cheney, Rice, Rumsfield, and Rove who are/were his fellow cronies become dangerous players within the worldly stage of the political arena. Faerber combines his painterly expressionism and satirical wit to poke subtle fun at these buffoons whose misguided intelligence and gun-toting disregard for fairness marred their legal interpretation of American precepts. Sometimes the artist depends on a hidden visual pun that depicts the dark and not so obvious side of the political figure being depicted. For example, in “Turd Blossom,” Faerber revamps the infamous Karl Rove (Bush’s brain) as a masked bandit/villain by highlighting the shadow details around Rove’s eyeglasses; With a sharp eye, the painter taps into a deeply humorous vein of caricature without being too oversimplified in his illustrative judgment. Could Rove be thinking of himself as Zorro? The Lone Ranger, who was a hero to most yet took matters in his own hands like the way that Rove had done? The lack of pensive self-reflection and self-portrayals as superheroes by this cast of characters apparently pops up again and again within the collective delusion that politics has been caught within during the past few years.

Within some of the other paintings, Faerber examines the media myth of the main man himself, George W. Bush. In “Liar Liar,” the president is collaged against headlines of the cooked-up news that the Bush cronies has attempted to control while his suit pants are caught within flames. Apart from the obvious child rhyme “Liar lair, pants on fire,” the artist’s implication is that Bush and his friends seem to treat the political sphere as a form of playground, where rules can be interpreted loosely or broken outright. With the childishness of the whole affair, Faerber decides to implement his strong figurative techniques towards gentle mockery of these characters like a hybrid between Theophrastus and Martial without any hint of pessimism that infuses the artwork.

Some of the other paintings are politically connected yet there is one which stands out as a form of photorealistic appropriation. Faerber takes a Reuters photograph of a wounded Iraqi child taken by Damir Sagolj and remixes into a much more poignant and bloody painting. According to the caption, "A wounded Iraqi girl is treated by U.S. Marines in central Iraq March 29, 2003. Confused front line crossfire ripped apart an Iraqi family on Saturday after local soldiers appeared to force civilians towards U.S. marines positions. The four-year old girl, blood streaming from an eye wound, was screaming for her dead mother, while her father, shot in a leg, begged to be freed from the plastic wrist cuffs slapped on him by U.S. marines, so he could hug his other terrified daughter." This 2008 piece reflects an issue that is traditionally within the domain of a concerned photographer similar to that of James Nachtwey. This straightforward and sober tenor of this recent piece behaves as a counterpoint to the Grosz-like satire of the remaining paintings.

With his broad thrust of his imagination, Faerber takes fearless steps towards a cultural exchange between the public body and the private individual about the legacy of the Bush administration. By acknowledging our role within the overall system, the artist becomes a political curator of imagery, a ballast against the invasive marketing of a corrupt presidential regime that has been acting as a Big Brother on an America reverting into a postmodern 1984 universe obsessed with the working of Britney Spears rather than the operations of a hostile government body perverted by its sense of cowboy justice.

Jeff Faerber, a Brooklyn artist, was born in 1974. Trained at San Jose State University and the Visual School of Arts, his work has appeared on various magazines, CD covers, and websites. His figurative work has been exhibited at Artists Space, 706 Gallery, and Zelle Arte Contemporanea. In 2008, he was also the featured artist for Iao PROJECTS at Anna Kustera's conceptual exhibition "The World's Smallest Art Fair." During 2009, he will be featured in a juried group show at the Art Raw Gallery located in downtown Chelsea.

For more information, please contact Shadna Sieger at (801) 336-0924 or shadna@iao-gallery.com or Albert Wang at (801) 879-1971 or albert@iao-gallery.com.