11/14/2022 0 Comments Manifest destiny painting![]() In one of the most complex of the new paintings we view Disneylands Magic Kingdom through a purple/violet-the color of royalty-layer of misty memory. Related questions arise from the painting of the Statue of Liberty and our gradual realization of the presence in it of a secondary line painting of Miss Liberty in restraints, or from the painting of the Supreme Court Building with its obscenely-distorted frieze and its larger than life line figure plagued by a pain in the neck.Ī less obvious instruction is contained in the particularly elegant painting of an old reconstructed southern mansion revealed behind a mist of green with little spots some viewers might see romantically as fireflies and some as bruises on a southern mythology which veils undermining social and historical realities. Clean taking command of it, are we echoing the OK we see there? Are we celebrating the myth of the four presidents (clearly decomposing when we look at the details of their faces), or are we finally recognizing the carving on the mountain as a desecration of the sacred Black Hills, as graffiti on land stolen from the Indian people in the name of Manifest Destiny? When we look at the painting of Mount Rushmore, for instance, (painted ironically in the commercially labeled hue of "Indian Red") and gradually become aware of the sinister Mr. OK was, we remember, originally a military term meaning Orders Known, used before executing a command. #MANIFEST DESTINY PAINTING SERIES#Several paintings in the series contain the letters OK, which add to the irony already present in the juxtaposition between the ubiquitous face and the monuments. The figure takes many forms but is perhaps always us-the audience as well as the painter-the participators in the process by which we allow ourselves to be contained by the destructive lies of our culture. Clean figure seems gradually to emerge and to superimpose itself on the monument in question. In several of the new paintings a line drawing face of a Daddy Warbucks/Mr. But, through distinctive coloring, symbolic details, and a novel technique of layering, the artist presents us with new, less traditional instructions. When we look at the paintings we begin with monuments such as the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, or the Supreme Court Building clothed in a smoky mist of dream and myth, and our first impression is of the traditional instruction: the Statue of Liberty, for instance, stands in our national memory for Liberty and the Supreme Court for Justice. The artists concern is how these icons or monuments exist in the American psyche as acts of memory and how these acts of memory can instruct us as Americans. The body of work as a whole is entitled Instructions. In this present exhibition, Cook turns his attention to what he calls mythic American monuments both literal and implied. Embedded in his new works are questions relating to a national mythos contained in such political and cultural phrases as Manifest Destiny, liberty and justice for all, the Golden West, and the American Way and to the monuments that represent them. ![]() In so doing he revealed a world of nuclear waste repositories under the desert wilderness and exposed the Land of Enchantment (and, by extension, the Land of the Brave) as a secret lab for a desolate future. ![]() In darkly ironical paintings of the late eighties he attempted to come to terms with the glory and horror of his environment, both local and general. In turn, what Cook sees in New Mexico and the West and, in fact, the nation, is a reflection of what he sees in the contemporary world as a whole. Gallery, Chicago, 1982įor some time now Michael Cook has been living and painting in New Mexico, and his paintings since the late eighties reflect both his understanding of the beauty of his surroundings and his recognition of the threat to its sacred ecology or wholeness. Michael Cook: Manifest Destny MANIFEST DESTINY ![]()
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