Pope Shot, Obama Crucified at BBG
TORONTO, Jan. 20 /CNW/ - 'Persona Non Grata - The Veil of History' opens at the Bezpala Brown Gallery on February 5th. Peter Alexander Por, a Toronto artist of Hungarian decent, tells the
story of oppression, pain, suffering, persecution and death across 30
paintings and four sculptures. His first task was to refine the list of
despots to be included in the infamous portraits - for there are far
more than 30 to choose from - some expected, some perhaps not. It is a
coincidence but apt that news comes from Ireland of a Vatican letter
instructing Irish Archbishops to abandon their zero tolerance policy
against suspected priests/pedophiles in favour of Canon Law
administration. Pope Benedict XVI's portrait is riddled with bullet
holes, a less than subtle expression of the hurt and anger directed at
a Pontiff and an institution that has abandoned its flock, choosing to
focus on dogma while its subjects suffer and, in many instances, die
from its archaic policies. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, is
portrayed as laden with a ball and chain, unable to break out of the
strictures that reinforce wrongdoing under the guise of spirituality.
The United States of America has not escaped Por's scalpel. The
vindictive, divisive and distorted hyperbole that has polarized
American discourse together with the avenues afforded corporate America
and lobbyists to forge Government policy have left President Obama a
victim, crucified in the wake of special and distorted interests. Por's
props - a pacifier and his image of Obama on the cross shown here convey a somewhat different "Audacity of Hope" than that parlayed
through Obama's writings.
While Obama is the victim, Bush is a perpetrator. As with all Por's
executors, Bush's face is but a white sketch covered with grid lines to
bring the viewer to focus on the eyes of the villain while taking note
of the estimated death toll etched numerically over his upper chest
from a war initiated on a fiction.
Judy Stoffman is one of a few art critics who were given the privilege
to preview what was then Por's work in progress. Stoffman noted, "It is
not easy to look at these pictures. The viewer's instinct is to turn
away. Portraiture is an aristocratic privilege. The image cannot help
ennoble the subject. Throughout centuries of Western art, it was the
great and the good and of course, the rich, who had their portraits
painted. It is a sort of honour to have an artist look closely at one's
face and try to discern the character therein. Why would an artist
waste his talent and attention on ignoble and depraved figures?"
She continues, "Peter Por has lived through dark times. Born before the
end of World War II in Hungary, when Hitler and Stalin were still
ripping up Europe, he is a contemporary of many of his subjects. They
have shadowed his life. Brought up as a Catholic, he is acutely
sensitive to the great struggle between good and evil in the world. The
existence of cruelty and murder offends him personally and he cannot
forget it. It is as though he lacks the protective skin that most
people have developed to be able to function."
The steely eyes of these evil masterminds together with the sheer
numbers their actions affected render this Exhibition thought provoking
and solemn - from the genocide of Rwanda to the killing fields of
Cambodia to the decades of Stalinism, Por looks back to look forward.
Join us for this solemn journey.
/NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release is available
at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are free to accredited members of the media/
For further information:
Fariz Kovalchuk, Gallery Manager, (416) 907-6875, fariz@bezpalabrown.com.
Bezpala Brown Gallery, 17 Church Street, Toronto, ON M5E 1M2, www.bezpalabrown.com
"Audacity of Hope" by Peter Alexander Por. (CNW Group/Bezpala Brown Gallery)
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