Faile NYC Solo Show 06.09.07

by Peter Aleksa

As I first enter the warehouse on Chrystie St, announced by a large yellow 'Faile' Banner hanging above the entrance, I'm greeted by a metal statue of an orally fixated boy with a look in his eyes that I can't quite discern, something between nervousness and sadism. This opening theme, representative of an emotionally neglected yet over-protected society, stares you in the face as you enter, and returns a number of times throughout the exhibition. There are a number of common themes and images splattered throughout the show: images of Mao Zedong, images of women in danger, desperately needing to be protected by a strong hero of a man, and alternately women with a sense of power, holding a gun, or simply holding out. But it is this first theme of menacing vulnerability that everything else seems to run a connective thread through the works.

The expansive warehouse is an appropriate setting for Faile's work and a number of the artists' consorts mill about the entrance, while a deejay (i use this term loosely) runs through an eclectic playlist, lest you thirst for some aural stimulation.

The works--displayed on canvas and on a collection of stacked boxes--are intricately layered works combining elements of wheatpasting, stencil, and comic art. All these techniques converge to form a juxtaposition of words, speech bubbles, ads, and assorted images of pulp heroines, cultural icons such as Mohammad Ali and Chairman Mao, and distorted surf imagery of dashing young men on surfboards wearing horse heads atop bodies you would expect to see topped with beaming, all-american features and a perfectly coiffed do. Images and themes extend across panels and seem to continue into spaces beyond the canvas--blurring the line between the works on display and the broader canvas on which the collective is used to working.