PRESS / THE WASHINGTON POST
Galleries: ‘Vaiven,’ ‘Vantage Point,’ ‘Peace. Love. Insurgency,’ ‘The DC Paintings’
By Mark Jenkins November 8, 2013[…]
Peace. Love. Insurgency.
Various revolutions link the work in Furthermore’s two-man show, “Peace. Love. Insurgency.” A former Washingtonian who now lives in Berlin, Scott Holmquist crafts handmade books that document the marijuana cultivation culture of Humboldt County, Calif. He plans to do so well into the future, symbolically if not actually. The sixth in his series of “Chronic Freedom” volumes is a sound book “compiled in the 26th century.”
Political yet whimsical, Holmquist has designed an exhibition for an imagined “Hippies & Weed Center for Insurgency.” Its floor plan is on display beneath a banner that frames a clenched fist with marijuana buds. Since arriving in Germany, Holmquist has become involved with a museum that recounts the history of Kreuzberg, a neighborhood known for leftists and squatters. The artist has devised a fictional show for that museum as well. But it can’t be mounted anytime soon, since one section covers the years 2100-2200.
Also on display are several pocket copies of a German law that protects the right to rebellion. They’re worn and tattered, as if they’ve been consulted often. But the fingers that damaged the pamphlets can’t exist yet, since the law — another Holmquist invention — won’t be enacted until 2090.
In a black-and-white video piece, people read Holmquist’s 26th-century sound book in front of scenes from the American Revolution. Kenseth Armstead, too, has fashioned a version of that war. His graphic novel, “Spook,” recounts the exploits of an African American spy. In other pieces, roughly painted on wood, the New York artist conflates tales of American originators with black pop culture. His painted list of “founding mothers” includes the names Mo’Nique, Minaj and Pinkett Smith. Both the past and the future, it seems, are more revolutionary than the mass-media present.
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