(un)American @ Babylon Art and Cultural Centre
Wednesday 16 October @ 09:57:36 |
 by Jenny Assef
I’ll admit I decided to catch the latest exhibit at the Babylon, Anthony Sclavi’s (un)American, based on the title alone. This week, more than ever, I’ve been finding myself at odds with the face this country shows the world. I wasn’t surprised to see the same sentiment expressed in Sclavi’s paintings, which turn the concept of being American inside out.
In much of his work, Sclavi adopts iconographic images—including Christ, a Ken-like businessman, and a figure that looked to me like the Jolly Green Giant—and plays with the heavily packed baggage they carry. These paintings, some of which resemble billboards, effectively satirize the commercial culture of the U.S., while others, like “11 Year Unheard War” and “Your Country Our Choice” present a kind of narrative about the failure of the media and elected officials to represent us.
However, it is in his less symbolically loaded works that Sclavi’s skill really shines. In “Fear,” a series of three portraits, he expertly examines emotion as it resides in the human face. Building each image from a composite of contoured shapes, he creates an aesthetic that sits somewhere between paint-by-number pictures and classic cubism. The overall effect is intensified by bands of color that guide the viewer’s gaze.
The same aesthetic can be found in “Material Fallacy” and “A True Patriot,” where Sclavi marries social commentary to technique. Here, shape and color are used to highlight certain aspects of the characters portrayed; in both works, Sclavi chooses bright orange for emphasis, underlining one man’s starved body and another man’s strong fist.
But the show’s most abstract painting, “Assertion of Evil,” was the one that really struck me. Something about its curved lines and warm tones felt reassuring. I returned to it again and again, glad to have found something soft beneath the title’s suggestion of harshness. Perhaps it was that very contrast that Anthony Sclavi intended to achieve.
(un)American continues through Oct. 25. Hours: Mon. – Fri. 5 – 10 p.m. and weekends by appointment. Babylon Art & Cultural Center, 1624 E. Lake St Mpls. 612-722-5438.
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