Untitled, New York #1, 2007

graphite and charcoal on paper, 84 x 96 inches

: : Artist Statement : :

Hugo Crosthwaite's, New York, Victory Leading, is a parody of Delacroix's, Liberty Leading the People, meant to celebrate July 28, 1830 when the people rose up and dethroned the Bourbon king. The Delacroix painting is filled with rhetoric - the outstretched figure of Liberty, the bold attitudes of the people following her, contrasted with the lifeless figures of the dead heaped in the foreground, the heroic poses of the people fighting for liberty. The young, ignorant soldier is stepping over people of other races.

While New York, Victory Leading is constructed with the same triangular composition and imagery as Delacroix's masterpiece, Crosthwaite's drawing is not a celebratory artwork. Rather, it is an accusation on the intent of war propaganda and why the act of war is being mass marketed to contemporary society. In Crosthwaite's work, the background is anchored in rows and rows of the blown out windows of the collapsing World Trade Center. The bare breast of Liberty is ripped open, commenting on how she is violated by the ineffectiveness of war. Her likeness, akin to the image of World War II pin-up girls, is overly sexualized, lending a sense of comedic perversion to her image. She is flanked by a young boy, the face of the soldier, with his rocket erection where he finds his power. This overall baroque composition, with its imagery compressing the space and its chaotic action, drives home the message of Crosthwaite's political satire.



: : Exhibition History : :

2008
Pierogi Et Al, Summer Group Show, Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn, New York
2007
Hugo Crosthwaite at Mason Murer Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia




: : Press : :

04/08/06
Exhibition Reviews, Lauren Buscemi, Art Ltd.