Nude Fin
Fiona Banner
There¹s a line from a poem by Randall Jarrell that is an impassioned
response to World War II: In bombers named for girls, we burned the
cities we had learned about in school--². During World War II,
pilots painted cartoonish like pictures of pin-up girls, bombshells,
on to the bodies of fighter planes, coupling the awesome power of
sophisticated war machines to erotically charged subjects. Now,
British artist Fiona Banner explores this further, linking images of
war technology (fighter planes and helicopters), with sex and
language in her two-venue show at Tracy Williams Ltd.
For Nude, installed at the West Village gallery, Banner shows
several word scapes - some hand drawn, some silk screened, and
other¹s written directly on to real tail fins. In Nude Fin (2006), a
long text is drawn in pencil as well as etched in to the surface.
Taking the place of visual imagery, the text describes a female
nude, highlighting the limitations of language to articulate a
subject. In Nude Standing (2006), an oversize text drawing,Banner
makes meticulous and sober observations to describe a classical
subject: ³...purple under her tits where her ribs stretch slashed
with blue shadows, moving, in, out-stretching and falling with her
breath...²
In Parade, installed at 462 Greenwhich Street, are over 60 drawings
of fighter planes taken from newspaper clippings, a neon sign, a
DVD, and 159 hanging Airfix models of every type of fighter plane
currently in service anywhere in the world. Projected behind the
models are all of their names. That such ferocious aircraft have
names like Fagot or Hormone is a little strange, but perhaps no less
strange than a pilot referring to his stealth bomber as Martha or
Betty.
by Adam E. Mendelsohn
by Adam E. Mendelsohn is
a art critic for Time Out New York
www.timeout.com
