For ‘Time Out New York’ Magazine
Even if Dan Perjovschi’s doodle-like, politically charged wall drawings seemed a little out of place in MoMA’s pristine atrium last year, the incongruity created a certain frisson. His first New York solo show is just as arresting, despite being relegated to a much smaller space. Using white chalk on gray walls, the artist turns the gallery into a giant blackboard on which he has scrawled lively if uneven critiques on issues ranging from the environment to Iraq.
Perjovschi’s nervous line, and his tendency to overlap bold and faint images by erasing as he goes along, give his work an energetic, experimental feel. On the downside, drawings of a naked derriere surrounded by puckered lips and of a puppeteer making anonymous figures dance, amount to little more than generic symbols. Perjovschi’s spontaneous approach often misfires, as in his unnuanced drawing of a giant trash can scrawled with .
Most of the time, however, Perjovschi’s economy of means yields more trenchant results. A sun labeled rich on one side and poor on the other emanates more rays on the “poor” side—a concise commentary on the inequity of global warming’s impact. The clarity, punch and provocation of such pieces suggests that they’d be just as at home outside as in a gallery—which would be just as well, given Chelsea’s recent profusion of mindless street art.
