Artists "Review" Artists: Ken Weathersby on Joseph Barbaccia

The Artists "Review" Artists Project was launched on June 30, 2008.  Below is a "review" of Joseph Barbaccia's work, Naked Aggression, written by Ken Weathersby.  Barbaccia provided the second jpeg, an image of Obesity, as well as a brief response to Ken's "review."

Joseph currently resides in Potomac Falls, VA, and Ken lives in Monclair, NJ.

If you would like to participate in this project, please email me at jtkirkland [at] gmail [dot] com.

Naked Aggression
Mixed media
15" L
2004

The "Review"

Naked Aggression is apparently a modified found object.  It is a long hunting knife photographed against black velvet, as I imagine it might be at a knife show. The blade is clean, shiny and sharp-looking, and the handle of the knife resembles an erect penis.

Resemblance is an issue raised by the way the penis/handle is crafted.  I have the sense that the artist was reaching for the (uncanny) verisimilitude of “perfect” resemblance, an attempt to underline the realness of the represented organ through hyper-specificity, but without an artistic exaggeration constituting expressionism. Hyper-real intention is signaled by how the surface is varnished to appear glossy and moist, and the detail of the carved and painted bulging veins.  It’s as though the artist meant to project the sense of the thing itself, and the slightly awkward and naïve quality of the carved and painted organ might be unintentional, but informs how I see it, as with outsider art. I get the sense of what was meant, even though the illusion falls slightly short.

Together, the blade and the penis/handle making the knife, with the similarly two-part title, Naked Aggression, seems perhaps so overstated, that the symbolic meaning might be assumed to be single and obvious.  However, when I try to summarize the message, it becomes clear that things aren’t so clear.  There is potentially more to consider than it initially appears.  Since there is little formal visual interest in the object (its power, threat and shock derive almost completely from literal physical and psychological implications), asking questions about joining the symbols “knife” and “erect penis” seems the way to go.

In the current cultural climate, when we are at war, is this joining a political statement?  Is it meant to point to a unity of male sexuality and violent aggression on the scale of war?  Or does it refer to male sexual violence on a personal level (rape)? Is it a personal statement of pain by a victim (or, contrastingly, a threat by a psychopath)? Is it meant as a concentrated, condensed symbol, emblematic of all levels of violence, and how they are somehow the same?  Or is it a fetishistic object, meant to trade upon sexual and violent energy in these images, the goal being an aura of power in the object?  How would such an object be used, if used? Surely it would be for violence (not to make a peanut butter sandwich!) A man or woman would have to grip and hold the handle/penis and then move it about to threaten, slash or stab.  If a man, and it seems so male that I picture the wielder a man, homoerotic or possibly autoerotic content is obvious.  If a woman, it suggests another sexual politics, achieving aggression through co-opting male sexual power.  Maybe Freud would have fun with this, or maybe it would seem too much a typical generic product of dreams.  I cannot say which.

By Ken Weathersby

Obesity
Mixed Media
3.25"H x 10"W x 4.5"D
2006

The Response

Naked Aggression is part of the “Integration Series”. The series is a group of works that concern the human condition and how the juxtaposition and integration of the relationship of the human body with objects in its environment can reveal important aspects about our being. To accomplish this I use simple graphic constructed so that the intersecting meanings provoke a new perceptive.

By Joseph Barbaccia

Previous "Reviews":
Pam Farrell on Ken Weathersby
Paula McCullough on Aric Calfee
Lee Gainer on Leigh Waldron-Taylor
Aric Calfee on Paula McCullough
Matthew Ballou on Heather Levy
Giovanni Garcia-Fenech on TJ Norris
TJ Norris on Giovanni Garcia-Fenech
Susan Tolbert on Mary Klein
Heather Levy on Gail Vollrath
Sharon Butler on Matthew Ballou
Mark L. Power on Steven Alexander
Steven Alexander on Mark L. Power
Molly Norris on M. Trigos

Comments

[J.T. Kirkland]

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