In his Pie Fight series, Ghenie
combines episodes of Nazi
history with the metaphor of
a pie fight, portraying Adolf
Hitler, in one Pie Fight Interior,
as an almost faceless buffoon
recognizable by mustache
alone, wearing a dress, his
visage obscured by "pie", a
thick impasto of paint. Hitler
in drag is histrionic, his hands
clutching the air, eyes rolled
upward. He stands before a
kitsch tapestry or painting of
a stag in the forest, Ghenie's
commentary on the descent
of art under the Nazis and also
the role of art in promulgating
the banally evil tenets of that
regime. The colors of this
interior are garish: mustard
and turquoise predominate. It
is a salon from the netherworld;
one is reminded of Clare
Quilty's death throes in Stanley
Kubrick's film of the Nabokov
novel, Lolita.
Pie Fight Interior 8
HYLAND
