“Art has spirit”
Al Farrow
The California based sculptor Al Farrow is an intensely spiritual person,
but rejects organized religion. As he stated in the Mel Van Dusen video A Visit with Sculptor Al Farrow, “I
think religions have become power structures, I think they have become like the
government itself, their after the control of the people, money and the power
that brings.”
This belief when coupled with the concept inherent in Mao Zedong’s
famous dictum "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" has
seen Farrow produce a series of found object sculptures of Churches, Mosques, Synagogues
and religious objects he has titled Reliquaries. The found objects
Farrow used were guns and ammunition.
About this series of works Farrow told Sangha
News’ Tova Green “I have been doing social commentary art all my life. I
began the series of religious objects and buildings 17 years ago after a trip
to Europe in which I saw Catholic reliquaries. I thought about all the violence
done in the name of religion.”
This allusion to impeding violence is a common theme in much of
Farrow’s work. His 1980’s Africa Series of bronze sculptures is his comment on
the international arms trade and child soldiers. And then there is his earlier
Icarus Series of bronze sculptures one of which has the mythical figure who
flew too close to the sun crucified on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped
the first atomic bomb.
But it is the choice of materials employed in the construction of
the Reliquaries that has sparked people’s interest in his work especially after
the De Young museum purchased his The Spine and Tooth of Santo Guerro. About which Farrow has said "I'm
not dogmatic. I'm trying to get people to ask, 'What are the connections
between faith and war?' I stop there. If they're asking the question, I've done
my job."
A selection of the Reliquaries is currently on
show in the exhibition Al Farrow: Wrath
& Reverence at New York’s Forum
Gallery until the 2nd of May.
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