(^20) | APRIL 2016
THE REPORT
one another. Why would it start now? We are almost seeing
a crisis of what it means to be an individual right now on a
global scale, and that is sort what the work speaks to.”
What Peterson’s work may also be exploring is the concept
of marginalization, of the increasing effectiveness that world
powers have in labeling masses of people as “the others”
or even more dire, “the enemy.” Each painting graphically
demonstrates a big winner and an obvious big loser,
heightened by the “dominating” character’s lack of remorse
and almost revelry of excitement in the violence.
“I was curious about how people were going to react [to
the work] here,” commented Dimitri Lorin, head of Over the
Influence, a few days before the exhibition opened. “But a lot
of the younger generation here in Hong Kong is open-minded.
Maybe for the older generation, it’s more shocking, but the
reaction is interesting to me. I like what Cleon is doing in the
message with these recognizable icons you see in the work.”
What makes the presence of such work in Hong Kong so
compelling is not only the city’s international citizenry and
long history as an imperial outpost, but the 2014 “Umbrella
Revolution” protests that marked the Chinese government’s
proposed reforms to its electoral voting system. The street
conflicts and resulting censorship proved to be another
example of the world’s increasing separation between
decision makers and the disenfranchised. Asking Cleon about
that connection with the Umbrella Movement, he noted,
“Maybe what we are going through is on a global scale. For
the U.S., we have been at this stuff for decades, been at war,
and perceived by the rest of the world as sort of a pariah. But
now some of these issues are being felt in Europe and other
places, so maybe my work is being felt in different places now
as the world goes through these policing conflicts?”
Make no mistake. This work wasn’t made specifically with
Hong Kong in mind, nor does it take a generalized swipe at
any one specific conflict. This is what humans do: we perfect
the theater of brutality, almost to absurdity.
“I think it’s sort of like Kurt Vonnegut,” Cleon says. “As things
gets worse and worse, you start to recognize that the world
is completely senseless. Violence is arbitrary, the whole ‘So
it goes’ philosophy. In a way, it’s depressing, but I think you
just need to be honest, and you just need to be making the
work you feel like you should be making.”
—Evan Pricco
Cleon Peterson’s Purity was organized by Over the Influence in Hong
Kong from January 21–31, 2016.
overtheinfluence.com
above
Purity (Installation view)
Over the Influnce
Hong Kong
2016
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