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The Last ChargePost an Event »

Mission: Comics & Art

January 22 - February 28, 2011

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3520 20th Street Suite B San Francisco, CA 94110
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The Last Charge Bean Gilsdorf, Untitled (2010). Digital print (from collage) and acrylic on cotton; fringe.
Opening reception: January 22, 6-9pm From the exhibition statement: Historical accounts often unfold gracefully in the "one damn thing after another" fashion of conventional timelines; yet the actual events on which they are based overlap, pile up, obscure, and distort. The study of history may be a search for clarity, but in the end what we have is less of a tidy explanation than a melee of names, dates, and costumes, with some blood splashed around for effect. Perhaps the most trenchant commentary on history comes from Ambrose Bierce, who describes it as, "…an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools." Recently I've been using imagery from the Civil War as a way to approach the glut of information that complicates a clear view of the past. The Civil War was the first conflict to be documented by traditional forms such as printing and painting, and also by the emerging technology of photography. As such, it's the first war to explicitly blend fact and fiction--tall tales, first-person stories and propaganda all manufactured and presented as the true account. The images I've used are taken from the pages of a popular mass-market series. They provide an allegory for the construction of history: a constant friction between the unknowability of the past and the desire to shape foolishness and tragedy into heroism and glory.