“Internally Displaced”

at Leviton A+D Gallery

Time Out Chicago / Issue 214 : Apr 2–8, 2009

Enrique Chagoya sees the world through the eyes of the Bush administration in his 2003 lithograph Road Map. The size of the U.S. is grossly distorted, and the map is covered with symbols of economic, military and cultural conquest: dead whales, warships, dynamite, oil rigs—and Uncle Sam idly picking his nose.

Even though Chagoya’s political satire is unremarkable, he’s a master printmaker, as is Jane Hammond, the other artist featured in “Internally Displaced.” Chagoya references printmaking’s rich history as he reimagines the critiques of society in Francisco de Goya’s 18th-century Caprichos aquatints. In Chagoya’s rendition of Goya’s iconic The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters, the monsters are replaced by the menacing silhouettes of Apache helicopters and B-2 bombers. His fidelity to the spirit of Goya’s original prints is flawless.

Hammond’s large-scale 1997 print The Wonderfulness of Downtown maps her own experiences in the southern half of Manhattan with photographs of fleeting moments rather than stable landmarks—as well as a startling portrait of the artist standing beside the island as a Cortés-like conqueror. Hammond’s other works on display demonstrate her versatility as a printmaker: Her clear, vibrant lithographs, 3-D collages, and silkscreen, woodblock and Iris prints contain a wealth of interesting detail.

While the exploitation and colonialism that Chagoya skewers obviously still exist, his Pop Art approach sometimes seems like a relic of the 1980s. But in using cryptic images and cartography to challenge the authority of politicians, collectors and historians, he and Hammond show that a very old medium continues to yield subversive ideas.

-CW