"Not Too P.C!"
Galerie Marie Laure de l'Ecotais Au fond de la Cour, Paris - March 5 to April 5, 2009
Kristine McCarroll opens her latest exhibition at Galerie Marie-Laure de l'Ecotais with the title "No Too P.C!" In so doing, the French Australian artist remains in the line of her preceding two series in terms of political art, based on recuperation and re-interpretation of the image, better described using the famous motto:" le poids des mots, le choc des photos"(the weight of words, the shock of the photo) of the well known French tabloid Paris Match.
The series "Not too P.C!" stems from the artist's first hand experience of censorship. Her two previous series of works, "Le Temps Beni des Colonies" and "The G8 Series", were exhibited in November 2007 in Vietnam, a country with a totalitarian government where freedom of speech is still an alien concept, and were heavily censored. It seems that even in France, country of "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite", this concept is increasingly under attack. Recent examples include the court case against the iconic French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, for the "affaire des caricatures de Mahomet"; the revocation of artist/satirist Sine from the same magazine for his ironic criticism of Jean Sarkozy's (son of Nicolas Sarkozy, France's head of state) possible conversion to Judaism; the retaliation against a demonstrator for publicly expressing with a poster his critical feelings about Sarkozy in his own town: and sanctions taken against a French prefet and a director of police because they could not prevent the crowd from expressing their anti-Sarkozy feelings during an official visit of the French head of state in their home town.
In the current period of 'crisis', when international and domestic political and related social issues have re-taken the front page of every media outlet, how can artists not respond in their own way? With "Not Too P.C!", Kristine McCarroll claims her right to freedom of speech. One of the censored pieces from "the G8 series", entitled "La Grande Bouffe du G8", is included alongside the artist's latest works. Aesthetically, she works within the current art movement called "New Pop", influenced by the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg. Like American political activists and artists Ron English, Shepard Fairey and Robbie Conal, who are taking it to the street, she uses bold provocation and in-your face satire and takes it to the quiet conservative environment of the rue de Seine, Paris.
McCarroll shares the opinion of famous US artist Barbara Kruger, that "in a world filled with racism, poverty and right wing Neanderthals wanting to turn back the clock on civil rights and humanity, does it really make sense to be making art that does not address these things?" And like L.A artist John Colao, who collaborated with R.J Berman on the political poster "Vote Obama", which McCarroll in turn re-appropriates to fit a French context, she believes that "the power of art is to be compelling so that it challenges people to think and to act".
Respect Mag,Press review in French
