Tag: hew locke

Hew Locke at PPOW Gallery

Two ships appear to float in the center of PPOW’s Tribeca gallery space, their tattered sails and apparition-like figures on the cabins and crates suggesting that they’ve floated in from another place and time.  The sense of disorientation is key to Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke’s consideration of Guyana’s colonial past and its future as the country experiences an oil boom.  The dilapidated house on the deck of this ship is echoed in photographs on the wall of Guyanese houses that have seen better days; Locke adds acrylic renderings of water inundating the lower levels as a warning that human aspirations can be washed away by greater forces.  (On view in Tribeca through April 1st).

Hew Locke, The Relic, wood and mixed media, 88 5/8 x 98 3/8 x 24 ¾ inches, 2022.

Hew Locke’s Facade Commission ‘Gilt’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

As museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art continue to address accusations of improperly acquired artifacts, the museum’s façade commission of Hew Locke’s ‘Gilt’ is both appropriate and daringly self-critical.  Locke explains that his cast fiberglass sculptures, gilt to resemble valuable artworks, are a pun on ‘guilt’ and a prompt to consider how the objects in the museum have been gathered to satisfy our pleasure.  While a creature at the base of the vessel literally devours it, eyes at the top look on in witness and a figure inspired by an 8th century BCE ivory in the Met’s permanent collection ironically brings tribute to the Assyrian Empire.  (On view on the Met’s façade through May 30th, 2023).

Hew Locke, ‘Trophy 2’ in installation view of the Façade Commission ‘Gilt’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, fiberglass, stainless steel, gilding and oil-based paint, Dec 2022.

Hew Locke at PPOW Gallery

Amid glinting filigree and chains, an emaciated figure plays a horn above two skeletons in Hew Locke’s photograph embellished with mixed media.  Underneath is an image of a public sculpture memorializing Peter Stuyvesant, namesake of several New York landmarks and the Dutch governor who saw slavery as an engine to drive New York’s colonial economy.  In his first solo show at PPOW Gallery in Chelsea, Locke alters portraits of public figures to examine how their lives and decisions have extended beyond their sanctioned, public images.  (On view through Nov 10th).

Hew Locke, Stuyvesant, Jersey City, c-type photograph with mixed media, 72 x 48 inches, 2018.