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My most recent series, Untitled (Undead), springs from my persistent interest in the destruction of the Lebanese Civil War and its aftermath. The series consists of life-size interpretations of dead bodies silkscreened onto polished stainless steel, with ink and gunpowder cued by my earlier series 15 Untitled Men. The overall presentation references Michelangelo Pistoletto’s seminal mirror pieces from the late 1960s as well as Cady Noland’s sculptures of the early 1990s. |
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“I attempt to enliven the mortality of each victim through the disposition of imagery and the process of making the image.”
John Jurayj, Untitled (Luggage), 2010. Cast gunpowder and plaster, ed. of 5, 14 3/4 x 21 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. Courtesy of Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles.
John Jurayj, Untitled (Man with Checkered Shirt), 2010. Gunpowder and ink screened on polished stainless steel, ed. of 5, 89 x 48 in. Courtesy of Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles.
The Undead
John Jurayj
My most recent series, Untitled (Undead), springs from my persistent interest in the destruction of the Lebanese Civil War and its aftermath. The series consists of life-size interpretations of dead bodies silkscreened onto polished stainless steel, with ink and gunpowder cued by my earlier series 15 Untitled Men. The overall presentation references Michelangelo Pistoletto’s seminal mirror pieces from the late 1960s as well as Cady Noland’s sculptures of the early 1990s.
Using photos of dead bodies appropriated from journalistic sources, I attempt to enliven the mortality of each victim through the disposition of imagery and the process of making the image. Slain figures appear unconscious, lost in a deep sleep, lying on the ground with hands out to either side. My intention is to free these casualties from their constraints by returning them to a vertical position and inverting them into photographic negatives. This process creates the space of the positive through the double negative: the black inverts to white and the white to black. The figures are freed from their worlds and silkscreened using black gunpowder ink on the mirrored surface. A carefully chosen medium, polished stainless steel is commonly used in penal and psychiatric institutions in place of glass for safety precautions. The gunpowder with its combustible potential suggests danger and alteration, while creating a symbolic awareness of the violence and profound adaptation each body has experienced. The bodies are suspended, becoming apparitions that dance, walk, or float through the new spaces they occupy. Their confrontation with the pictorial field is intersected by the reflection of the viewer, allowing for contemplation of one’s own mortality.
The series also includes more intimate pieces of cast luggage that my parents used to travel through the Middle East during the heady days of the 1950s and 60s, ranging from a large trunk and standard suitcase to a cosmetics case and an evening purse. The process of casting the sculptures in plaster and gunpowder replicates them as life-sized simulations with flaws and marks that recall passage and disruption. Evoking tombstones and memorials, the blackened ghost objects are inoperable vessels, un-transportable baggage that play on the psychological term “family baggage.” As art objects, they defy the optimism that was implicit in their era.
