Wako Works of Art
Closes in 36 days
American painter Leon Golub (1922-2004) explored the universal theme of human suffering common to all conflicts, regardless of where they take place, with his unsparing depictions of war and torture. As a cartographer stationed in Europe during World War II, he had experienced war up close, but only started to observe it critically during the Vietnam era.
His paintings are tormented and visceral, both in subject matter and technique: the figures he portrays are either sinewy, humiliated victims or their thuggish, laughing oppressors; their forms have been painted and scraped into the linen with rough brushes and sharp knives.
With the works in his current exhibition at Wako Works of Art (www.wako-art.jp), Golub does not allow the viewer to be complacent -- throughout them he has repeatedly stenciled the ominous words "This could be you." A 3×4-meter painting, 1997's "Les Realites Provisoires" dominates one of the gallery spaces physically and psychologically. A lifesize lion stands on the figure of a man and stares directly at the viewer, giving it a frightening sense of immediacy. Divided into fields of blue, white and red, the work refers to the French Revolution, and the title implies that the revolution's "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" are nothing but "temporary realities." Though they may be put in place through regime change and revolution, such fragmented and precarious ideologies can equally be swept away with the next inevitable cycle of chaos and bloodshed.
