Good & Bad Government

Curator: Paul Smith

Artists: Robert Birmelin, Stephen Petegorsky, Ram Rahman, Paul Smith

Gallery: Abrazo Interno Gallery

Dates: April 23rd - May 21st, 2021

Opening Reception: April 23rd, 2021, 5 - 8PM — Sign up using the Eventbrite link

Good & Bad Government, curated by Lower East Side resident Paul Smith, will examine themes of war, riots, and redacted transcripts including photography, installation, and shaped canvases.

The inspiration for the exhibition are Lorenzetti’s three frescos, painted in Siena in 1339, “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government”-and recent history.

Robert Birmelin recently has been drawing and painting political demonstrations, subjectively seen by a participant, or observed from high windows, with an imaginative energy comparable to Goya’s. His work, widely exhibited for 6 decades, is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, The Whitney, and 38 other museums.

Stephen Petegorsky shows lucid, beautiful photographs that document The Polus Center’s assistance to victims of conflict in Peru, Columbia, Nicaragua, Honduras, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Jordan, Ethiopia and Tajikistan. His photographs have won numerous awards, including from the World Health Organization, and have been widely exhibited and collected in institutions including The Nelson-Atkins, The Bibliotheque National, the New Britain Museum, and numerous university museums in Western Massachusetts, where he is based.

Ram Rahman’s “Sites of Conflict”, featured at the 2018 Gwangju Biennial, uses his documentary photography, graphics and text to explore architectures like Ayodhya and the World Trade Center that have become symbols of contention. He’s a co-founder of activist group SAHMAT, curator, lecturer and writer. His work has been exhibited and collected by The Pompidou, The Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, Bodhi Art at Rhabindra Bhavan, and Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi. The show’s organizer, Paul Smith shows curving photo-constructions and paintings of a Lower East Side bicyclist, hit by a car and lying in the street as police and emergency services arrive. Smith’s exhibition at Daniel Cooney Fine Art was described by Arthur Lubow in The NY Times as “ghostly emanations, from a place and a culture that was about to be destroyed by AIDS and gentrification.” He’s received the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painter Award.

A PDF catalog with an essay by P C Smith is available on request.

PRESS:

https://hyperallergic.com/645372/major-delhi-art-institutions-to-be-razed-as-part-of-controversial-redevelopment-plan/