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Topic: Artist shows war in a different light (Read 232 times)
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Jesse Reed
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By Don Fraser, Standard Staff
For: www.stcatharinesstandard.ca
Tuesday, April 24, 2007 @ 01:00
They are the faces of war that stare at you from the realm of the dead and soon-to-be-dead.
Some are coy and smiling; others in terrible agony. A few are without the bodies once connected to them.
On one wall, 24 of the 54 Canadian soldiers who’ve fallen in Afghanistan are arranged, checkerboard-fashion, in glowing red, blue and yellow panels.
The images from Tobey C. Anderson’s forthcoming St. Catharines exhibit The New American Century Project are arresting. They are also not for the faint of heart.
The coloured portraits — based on images downloaded from the Internet — shout, rather than suggest. They demand that you feel the suffering and remember their short lives.
“It was an idea that came to me naturally, because of my outrage with the Bush administration,” says Anderson, 60, an Iowa-raised St. Catharines artist, who was drafted for combat in Vietnam and deserted to Canada in 1969.
“With this exhibit I’m trying to even the playing field, there really isn’t a direct commentary,” Anderson says. “There is, however, a strong anti-war sentiment. It’s an act of resistance.
“But as artwork, it transcends politics — this asks us to see things in a different light, when we look at the news and think of our involvement in Afghanistan and our relationship to the U.S.”
Work on the epic installation — which runs at the downtown Niagara Artists Centre from Saturday until June 9 — began in earnest two years after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the U.S. and allied nations’ war on terror that followed.
New American Century includes more than 120 portrait paintings and an accompanying publication of political players from conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
The title itself comes from the Project For a New American Century, a Washington, D.C. think-tank in 2000 comprising senior Bush administration officials who were exploring ways to bolster U.S. presence worldwide and secure American interests.
The exhibition goes beyond being an obvious critique of the Bush administration, with paintings sectioned into different and related parts.
KIA_CA_Afghanistan depicts Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan and K_IA, represents 24 American soldiers from Anderson’s home state of Iowa who have died in action. Foreign Terrorist, taken from an anonymous website, shows terrorists who have died in combat and suicide bombings.
Another, Collateral Damage, turns the exhibit on its head by displaying Iraqi civilian casualties, with some faces burned and deformed from napalm and phosphorus.
Other related panels — the Shock and Awe Trilogy — depict the burning World Trade Centre, a decapitated suicide bomber and the bombing of Baghdad.
New American Century combines the Internet images, which are projected and painted onto wood panels. Fluorescent and acrylic paint and ultraviolet light give the images the feel of lurid TV and computer screens.
It was mounted for the first time in Kingston in late February and March, where it had a “wonderful reception,” Anderson says.
The work also has a Niagara element. One of the panel portraits is of Cpl. Albert Storm from Fort Erie, who was killed in Afghanistan last November by a suicide bomber.
Dozens of Canadian family members are planning to visit the installation at the NAC on Monday. It’s to be followed by an evening dedication honouring Storm at Fort Erie’s Royal Canadian Legion.
“I’ve established a relationship with the Storm family and they have been very supportive of this project,” Anderson says. “It’s wonderful the way it has worked out.”
Anderson adds that he is not against the soldiers — he respects their lives and the real sacrifices they’ve made.
However, he believes the overseas war on terror is misguided and its ill effects are spreading. With his latest work, Anderson says he unveils that web of “despair, deceit, power and pure craziness.
“Some of this stuff is disturbing,” Anderson says. “But if people have an issue with the artist, then they have an issue with the Internet.”
Anderson himself immigrated to Kingston. He became a Canadian citizen in 1975 and built a career in senior arts administration in that city. After a stint back in the U.S., he moved to Niagara to become the NAC’s director from 1990 to 1999.
Anderson, who is married to local artist Carolyn Wren, plans to keep painting panels of soldiers killed in Afghanistan — he’s just finished doing the recent nine Canadian deaths. He is also planning more work on a war-related exhibit about the effects of combat and the war on terror.
“This whole project is still building,” Anderson says. “It has a certain momentum.”
Stephen Remus, the NAC director, praised Anderson’s “fearlessness in tackling really difficult subject matter.”
Anderson, he said, is “navigating politics to make work that transcends political commentary from the left and right.”
WHAT: The New American Century Project, a painting installation by Tobey C. Anderson
WHERE: Niagara Artists’ Centre, 354 St. Paul St.
WHEN: Saturday until June 9, with an opening reception on May 6 at 3 p.m., with an artist’s talk at 4 p.m.
On Monday at noon, NAC will host visiting members of the family of Cpl. Albert Storm, from Fort Erie, who was killed in action in Afghanistan and who is featured in the exhibit.
NAC is open Wednesday to Friday, 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., Saturday from noon until 4 p.m., and otherwise by chance. Admission is free, call 905-641-0331 for information.
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Jesse Reed
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ranrad
Ron [Andy] Andrews
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Great report Jesse and thanks again for sharing with us all. These will be a lasting image of our heroes and one can feel what they will about the war, and all wars, but the thought and tribute is there. I hope to see them one day..i believe i owe that to our brothers and sisters..it is the least one can do for their sacrifices...ranrad
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RCAF,CAF, converted RCR?,1RCR 74-77 CD: SSM (Nato);CPSM,;UN-Cyp.; UN- Golan
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Chet Malone
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Pro Patria
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AMEN Ranrad.
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Battle school depot 79/80 Petawawa
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Infantry school Tpt Pl Gagetown 1986 - 1988
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31 Bge HQ 1999-2001 Desk jockey.
Medical release in London 2001
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