Art Pick of the Week

BY PETER FRANK

Hall of Judgement from Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths, 1990.

“New Orleans based-artist Dawn DeDeaux suggest that the expected source of the ‘trouble’ is itself troubled, yet manifests its own tragic nobility. The focus of her darkly dramatic Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths is the young African-American male. She populates the corridors of her catacomb-like – or jail-like – installation with gilded, over life-size photographs of black youths, former or current gang-bangers and/or prisoners who here assume the stylized attitudes of ancient deities and modern ‘stars’. Ensconced in certain cul-de-sacs are other beautiful and menacing icons of the violent life these doomed adolescents have led; and, behind false cell doors, various videos document that life. The media-intensive, ‘Sensurround’ Installation bombards the visitor with Impression and Information, all designed to de-heroicize urban warfare, including the prison lire visited (often unjustly) on survivors, and to re-validate the warriors/victims. DeDeaux’s anti-funhouse Soul Shadows may be heavy going, but it is not blame-slinging “PC” agitprop: It conveys not anger, but empathy, engagement and hope.”