GARDAR EIDE EINARSSON – RAWHIDE DOWN
2018-10-22Titled “Rawhide Down” – after the code used on March 30th 1981 by secret service agents to signal that Ronald Reagan had been shot by John Hinckley Jr. – the show consists of paintings depicting state leaders and political figures who have been the subject of assassinations and assassination attempt by shooting. These figures of authority have been shot by assassins (or would be assassins) for reasons that exist on multiple points on a scale of rationality and mental illness. Einarsson’s portraits are based on idealized images, appropriated from various cartoons, of each of the state leaders. Despite coming from different historical eras and countries and to some extent ethnic backgrounds the faces blend together to a kind of non identifiable middle-aged powerful Caucasian man, a non specific face of (perceived) repressive power. With the distance added by the secondhand depiction through a found image and the cartoonish flatness of the way the paint is applied, the paintings are intended not as portraits-as-psychological-study. They are less about the character depicted and more about what these characters represent to the person who goes to the step of making the decision to assassinate them. These portraits become less about an individual person and more about how this powerful public figure is perceived by the world at large and by the shooter in particular – an abstraction away from humanity that would presumably be necessary in order for the shooter to pull the trigger.
Opposite – Real Name: Ronald Reagan, 2018
Exhibition runs through to October 27th, 2018
STANDARD (OSLO)
Waldemar Thranes Gt 86 C
N-0175 Oslo
Norway
