BUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE!
MARJORIE BENDER, long acknowledged for excellence in printmaking and ceramics and for her unfettered imagination, has surprised everyone again! She has combined her disadmiration for the Bush administation with her unimpeachable (!) knowledge of Shakespeare! Sometime in 2004 she built and painted a wooden theater, 30 x 5 x 24 inches. Inside it she sculpted and placed familiar, if recalcitrant, dramatis personae.--The name of her mixed media construction? THE NEW SHAKESPEARE PLAYS, ACT I: SCENE II FROM the FIRST BUSH ADMINISTRATION, A TRAGEDY.
In this clay and mixed media sculpture the well known players, seen mostly from the shoulders up, as in Roman busts, have been depicted realistically if whimsically. Again, each character is recognizable and, actually, has been portrayed with a kind of droll empathy.--CARL ROVE,as Iago,in full figure, dominates the stage, in a non period costume which includes a plaid vest! He gestures affably, like a used car salesman or a Hyde Park agitator. Behind him red curtains open to reveal an exploding tank and flying soldiers.--Is this a swagger I see before my eyes?
Out, out, acrylic spot,lay on, MacDuff. A sympathetic COLIN POWELL delivers the soliloquy from Hamlet . LAURA BUSH and CONDOLEEZA RICE, in evening dresses, appear as Ladies in Waiting from MacBeth. They're lovely, and were actually sculpted from wooden sock darning forms!--As red headed Cardinal Wolsey in drag, who else but DICK CHEYNEY! JOHN ASHCROFT wrings his hands as Richard III. GEORGE W. BUSH appears monarchial, recognizable--ah those elfin ears--as King John. Pleasantly goofy, suitably crowned, and caped, he probably doesn't remember the little murdered princes in the tower.--Or did somebody else do that?
What's remarkable about Bender's theater is it's finesse. The figures have been painted with accuracy and skill.--No slap dash poster art here, but a serious, if zany, work of art worthy of consideration.--As Laurence Olivier once said, and Colin Powell never did, but might have, "the play's the thing in which. . . oh well." Bender's creations are available thru Gallery V which shows the very very best in contemporary art.
In this clay and mixed media sculpture the well known players, seen mostly from the shoulders up, as in Roman busts, have been depicted realistically if whimsically. Again, each character is recognizable and, actually, has been portrayed with a kind of droll empathy.--CARL ROVE,as Iago,in full figure, dominates the stage, in a non period costume which includes a plaid vest! He gestures affably, like a used car salesman or a Hyde Park agitator. Behind him red curtains open to reveal an exploding tank and flying soldiers.--Is this a swagger I see before my eyes?
Out, out, acrylic spot,lay on, MacDuff. A sympathetic COLIN POWELL delivers the soliloquy from Hamlet . LAURA BUSH and CONDOLEEZA RICE, in evening dresses, appear as Ladies in Waiting from MacBeth. They're lovely, and were actually sculpted from wooden sock darning forms!--As red headed Cardinal Wolsey in drag, who else but DICK CHEYNEY! JOHN ASHCROFT wrings his hands as Richard III. GEORGE W. BUSH appears monarchial, recognizable--ah those elfin ears--as King John. Pleasantly goofy, suitably crowned, and caped, he probably doesn't remember the little murdered princes in the tower.--Or did somebody else do that?
What's remarkable about Bender's theater is it's finesse. The figures have been painted with accuracy and skill.--No slap dash poster art here, but a serious, if zany, work of art worthy of consideration.--As Laurence Olivier once said, and Colin Powell never did, but might have, "the play's the thing in which. . . oh well." Bender's creations are available thru Gallery V which shows the very very best in contemporary art.
posted by Liz James at 12:56 PM
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