Stay at home, Dad—just in case
Since the late
1980s, Juan-S� Gonz�lez has distinguished himself by the sociological,
anthropological and, more than anything else, political nature of his
work. The artist’s engagement of these humanistic disciplines is often
through reflections on his personal circumstances, using his own body
and actions, as in the piece Backwards from the project Interface – Interfase, conceived and realized as part of the JP-paralelos
duet (with partner Paloma Dallas) and exhibited in 2005 at Herndon Gallery in Ohio. This work documented a vasectomy reversal
operation, which literally allowed him to be able to create the series
Stay-at-Home Dad and its subject matter, both of which are still
works in progress.
In Stay-at-Home Dad —Trainings, the present project room installation
for Hardcore Art Contemporary Space, Juan-S� addresses his parenting
experience during his daughter Camila’s first year of life. He reflects,
in particular, on issues of religion, patriotism, and propaganda, themes
that have been prevalent in his most recent work and now threaten to
infiltrate his domestic life. Living in the heartland of Ohio over the
past seven years, he has “witnessed a growing, and aggressive,
advertising campaign that combines patriotism and religion” and even
targets children, a chilling realization that came upon him as he began
seeing children’s merchandise through the eyes of a father. The
child-targeted advertising and propaganda recalls the indoctrination our
generation was subjected to growing up in revolutionary Cuba during the
60s and 70s, where we were taught how to read using books that managed
to connect everything to the Fatherland, the Revolution, and its Leader.
Thus, Juan-S� instinctively made the connection when confronted with
these toys intended for children over 3 years of age.
Despite the
explicit social commentary, these photo and object installations also
evoke a cozy feeling by drawing on the lingua franca of old family
albums, mixing the iconic black and white photos (that typically
documented the infancy of Cold War children) with well-calculated
touches of color aimed to highlight ideologically suggestive elements.
Complementing the combination of graphic image and ready-made is a text
—a found object itself, as it mostly reproduces the information printed
on the original packaging of the toys on display. These revealing pieces
of information, which might be seen as an on-the-ground sampling for a
hypothetical sociological investigation, go beyond being ironic when
taken out of their everyday context and put under the halogen lights of
a cultural space. The text accompanying Stay-at-Home Dad —
Religious Training reads: “Jesus our Lord – Jesus Christ is
‘The Way’ to life. (John 14:6). Made in China.” It is the olive green
camouflage lunch box included in Historical Training, however,
that is the element that best illustrates the militarization of the
faithful in American society. Its label reads: “Army Of The One,
The Lord our God is one Lord! (Mark 12:29),” a statement that, more than
anything else, spells F-u-n-d-a-m-e-n-t-a-l-i-s-m.
Rafael L�pez-Ramos
