May 12
The Index
1 result(s)
- Mario Ybarra Jr. - The Black Squirrel Societyhighlight
1- Mario Ybarra Jr, Black Squirrel Society Large, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 18 panels, each: 20 x 16 inches, LM11391
2- Mario Ybarra Jr, Black Squirrel Down, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 8 panels,
each: 16 x 20 inches
3 and 4- Installation views at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
It's a weird gang, Mario Ybarra Jr's. As its name indicates, membership in the Black Squirrel Society is open exclusively to black individuals of the nut-eating species. Ybarra Jr created a mythology for his organization: commemorative flags and banners, propaganda music, T-shirts, posters and drawings celebrating the clan and its legacy - a long history strewn with great victories and homeric defeats, as well as daily routines and rites of passage. In short, a tradition.
The artist adopted a similar approach for his 2006 installation at the Serpentine Gallery in London, featuring peacocks (The Peacock Doesn't See its Own Ass/Let's Twitch Again: Operation Bird Watching in London). But the Black Quirrel Society is here to stay, and it will only fade back into anonymity after the show to reemerge some time from now, unpredictably, somewhere else within the country, as part of another shock maneuver orchestrated by Mario Ybarra Jr.
Mario Ybarra Jr: The Black Squirrel Society
June 24 through August 8, 08
Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
