Dominic McGill
Project for a New American Century
June 29 - August 6, 2004
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 1, 6 - 8 pm
Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present new work by Dominic McGill.
Like a modern-day Bayeux tapestry, Dominic McGill’s latest drawing, Project For a New American Century, is an epic graphite on paper panoramic loop that stretches 65 feet. Standing at almost 8 feet high, the drawing hangs suspended from the ceiling and fills the entire gallery space.
Project for a New American Century takes its name from a Washington-based neo-conservative think-tank “The Project for the New American Century“. Drawn largely from historical quotes, political slogans , media buzzwords, and pop culture references; this endless timeline spans from Hiroshima through the Cold War to the present, ending and beginning in nuclear fire. The work functions as a hypertext of conspiracy, the sensational, the propagandist and the revolutionary . Hundreds of names, events and slogans that have made the papers are scrawled over a panoramic wasteland.(Whittaker Chambers, Martin Luther King Jr., Osama bin Laden , Dresden, Levittown, Bloody Sunday, By Any Means Necessary , Axis of Evil, Chernobyl) Numerous curious coincidences appear throughout the work. “Bob Dylan Finds Jesus” appears close to “Jonestown Massacre”, and Gary Gilmore’s quote “We are sentenced to die the day that we are born” crops up next to the Hyde Amendment. Thick lines of gothic text referencing anything from the Prison Industry, to the Religious Right, to O.J., unravel across the surface of the drawing leading the viewer into a dark forrest, a silent place, where the words are obscured and the present is uncertain.
Born in England, Dominic McGill lives and works in New York. This will be his first show with the gallery.
Derek Eller Gallery is located at 526 West 25th Street, 2nd floor. Summer gallery hours are Tuesday - Friday from 11am - 6pm and by appointment. For further information or visuals, please contact the gallery at 212.206.6411 or visit www.derekeller.com.