Remember
ink , 14x21cm , 2021 , (MAJ20211201005)
Dear Peter,
At first glance "Remember" might appear to be one collective mass of faces, human faces, huddled together.
But this is not how i read it.
The perimeter of faces in the back row are taller and have a larger scale and vista to look over the group in front of them, as a herd.
From a geopolitical perspective, what you present has been deployed over and over again, in an infinite variety of means, all ending in horrific ways. War and peace, all in the name of a "resolution", either end badly, or in centuries of bad blood. Subjugation of civilization by all well intended regimes, from democratic to authoritarian dictatorships, or in the name of... all end badly or not at all.
Do we want perpetual war or conflict? Apparently so.
Do we want to "Remember," and if so, what? How do we solve the problems of ethnic cleaning? Stripping people of their identities and subjugating them is the subject of "Remembering" .
Picasso's "Guernica" is a great example of exploding a civilization on a grand scale to emphasis its importance. And Peter, you have taken the opposite tact, not bringing out the hammer, but looking at the diminuation, annexation and bullying of a mass of people forward into the unknown darkness.
That is Remembering.
John Reiff Williams