Download jim riswold the people`s liberation army goes shopping

ART | PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Pamela Morris | [email protected]
Cell: 503.312.3390 | Oranj: 503.719.5338
JIM RISWOLD
THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION
ARMY GOES SHOPPING
EXHIBITION: January 9 – March 31, 2016
OPENING: Saturday, January 9, 5-7PM
Exhibition Courtesy of Augen Gallery
Over the previous decade since leaving his notable marketing career as creative director and copywriter at the renowned Portland firm Wieden + Kennedy, Jim Riswold has worked on successive and
distinctly provocative bodies of his own artwork. A primary impetus for his image making is Riswold's
aim to skewer, ridicule, and ultimately deflate the potency of notorious characters and history's most
grievously impactful “bullies.” Satirically implicating or referencing infamous icons, Riswold’s exhibition
titles include Göring’s Lunch, Napoleon 1769-2005, Mao Home and Garden, The Last Supper, Selling
Jesus, Art People and a Cow, The War to End All Wars that Didn’t End All Wars, and Art for Oncologists (in which cancer was targeted among history’s biggest antagonizers).
Riswold entered into his own battle with CML (chronic myelogenous leukemia) in August 2000 and
has spent years, both before and since his diagnosis, tapping his previous and extensive studies in
philosophy and history and melding them with his caustic sense of humor. In this way he thwarts the
menace at his own heels while addressing the portent of threats to larger society. His self-proclaimed
“obsession with really bad people” allows for Riswold's unforgiving inspection and exposé of breakdowns in society and oft-recurring patterns of power and corruption. In The People’s Liberation Army
Goes Shopping, Riswold drives his point home with representations of women in the three branches
of the People’s Liberation Army (Air Force, Ground Force, and Navy) with smartly uniformed officers
followed by marching and saluting cadets with shopping bags in hand, accessorized with recent
purchases from Tiffany & Co., Gucci, Versace, and Givenchy to name a few. Spearheading emblematic subjects in double entendre photos of posed doll figurines and cheery toys in high-gloss color,
Riswold’s images capture the eye with glitz and sheen, at once commanding our attention while
simultaneously pointing out ominous undercurrents— here as a biting caveat toward commercialism run amuck in a new capitalistic society.
Jim Riswold graduated from the University of Washington with majors in philosophy, history, and
communication. He has exhibited broadly in the region and has work in numerous public and private
collections, including the Portland Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington,
Seattle, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, Salem, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum
of Art at the University of Oregon, Eugene, the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, Washington, and the
Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio.
For additional images and information please contact Pamela Morris.
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