Featured Artist OCT 2010 Karen Grossman

ARTIST STATEMENT

Power- “not an institution, and not a structure: neither is it certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategic situation in a particular society” Michel Foucault

Foucault uses different institutions as examples for power structures. The military unit and the religious unit would be considered power institutions. This collection concentrates on military and religious power structures.

The blurring of the individual faces is meant to illustrate the problems of both hegemony and the power structure of the institution. Without individual thought the institution is able to control the masses in many forms, the military and religious unit only being two examples of the overall theme. My past work concentrated on the museum structure.

I chose the example of military and religious because it affects both the unit and the individual. However I am not anti-war in all circumstances. This is not an anti-war concept: it is just an illustration of a power structure and an exploration of how this structure turns the individual into an institution through the uniform and other means of control.

View more of Karen’s Work @ http://karengrosman.blogspot.com

The religious theme and the imagery of the pope interested me because of the current events involving the Catholic Church. The issues within the structure and the media coverage surrounding the pope inform my current work.