Opening August 4th, 2011, MMG artist Chad Person explores the concepts of heroism, manifest destiny and apathy in A Hero Never Fails at Freight + Volume Gallery (NY). Using his signature repertoire techniques of inflatable sculpture, currency collage, and video Person’s objects ask the viewer: what is heroism and why do we care?
This is Person’s first solo show in New York. The centerpiece of the exhibit, is a defeated caricature of the 50’s cartoon character U…nderdog titled Hero. The goofball “hero who never fails” has resigned to abject apathy. Hero is rendered as a gigantic inflatable (a la used car dealership gorilla). Strung out on the “super vitamin pills” that provide his super powers, he sits slumped forward, meditating on his iPhone.
Person describes the work as three parts culture, one part self portrait. “In a political state dominated by an agenda of ‘distract the public and rob what’s left,’ with two endless wars draining the last of my great grand-children’s hope for prosperity, why be anything but apathetic to injustice? Hero is a metaphor for my own vocational and economic struggle, my country’s role on the global stage and whatever is left of my American dream. Has the time come for heroism? Or should we just give up, sit back and have a good laugh?”
A Hero Never Fails is on view through September 10th, 2011.
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