Lake Mead (make love not war): an antique photo, circa 1920(?), overtly homo-erotic, is trisected: at the top a happy, cheery, rainbow-filled sky; the middle a dying lake; and their legs planted into a different basin, almost waist-deep in a crimson-tinted pool. Dimly seen in the pool-of-blood is a sea of unemployed men from The Panic of 1893, and a military cemetery.
Serendipitously, this piece came to life just before Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What better reminder of that hippy-era slogan, make love not war, than a World War II-style military onslaught, reminder that empires, post-empires and want-to-be empires are gleefully ready to send their young off to death for no good reason no matter what the time or place? A splash of Russian red, for freshly-spilled blood, was added at the last minute of the drying of the liquid plastic.
As civilization becomes more and more under threat by ecological catastrophe—like the super-droughts of the American Southwest—that divide between peace, love and understanding and fuck you-warfare is disappearing.
Materials: Antique frame with convex glass; liquid plastic with vampire blood colorant; antique image (circa 1920(?) with Photoshop manipulation adding rainbow, a sea of faces of unemployed men in a Recession in Chicago, and a military cemetery.
Dimensions: 42cm x 58cm x 3cm, 1.7kg
