Ethan Cohen Gallery presents Beyond Obedience, a major solo exhibition surveying nearly six decades of work by Clark V. Fox (born 1946). Clark Fox is an American artist whose practice defies conventional distinctions between abstraction, Pop art, political painting, and cultural critique.

“Clark is a direct descendant of the Cherokee and Powhaten Indian tribes; both his parents spoke, in his childhood, of their ancestors’ experiences during the ‘Trail of Tears’ when Cherokees were driven out of the Eastern states. The family tradition in this artist’s family was one of radical resistance to ‘internment’ in the reservations. They lived in a place beyond obedience.

In the last 20 years, the artist has focused increasingly on his Native American heritage and the many tragic cultural depredations of its history. He has become both more satirical and more literary in his representations of contemporary culture, and ever more bold in his graphic style. He continues to paint in series—of historical figures such as American presidents, of still life icons such as the orange and pear—and his character Mr. Peanut, who always signifies Capitalism. He has represented his favorite Indian Chiefs, among them Sitting bull, Goyaale and Cunne Shote; he continues to make eccentric sculptural pieces, both wall-bound and free standing.”— Ethan Cohen Gallery

“America is a nation built upon layers of memory, some celebrated, others deliberately obscured. My interest in Indigenous history is deeply personal, but the larger question is universal: Who determines what a nation remembers, and what it chooses to forget? The names of Indigenous peoples remain embedded in the American landscape, even where their histories have been displaced. My work is an insistence that memory itself is an act of preservation.”— Clark Fox on Native American history and memory

“George Washington interests me not simply as a historical figure, but as an American symbol whose image has become inseparable from the mythology of the nation. I am interested in the distance between the ideals a country celebrates and the contradictions upon which its history was built. Art allows us to inhabit that distance without pretending those contradictions can be easily resolved.”— Clark Fox on Gorge Washington

“I have lived long enough to see political systems change, cultural movements emerge, and once radical ideas become institutionalized. What remains constant is the responsibility of the artist to question the narratives that power constructs around itself. I am not interested in illustrating an ideology. I am interested in examining the images, symbols, and assumptions through which societies understand themselves.”— Clark Fox on Politics and the responsibility of the artist.

Clark Fox: Beyond Obedience was curated by Jane Livingston.

Title image: Clark Fox.TWO AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES LITTLE CROW AND GEORGE WASHINGTON (Partial), 2006. Oil on wood. 243.8 x 487.7 cm. 96 x 192 in.
96 x 192 in. Courtesy of the artist and Ethan Cohen Gallery.