FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT    
Lorraine Molina, Director
213.621.4055

"...who art in Heaven..."

JONATHAN LEE STEVENS &
ISMAEL CASTRO GARCIA

NOVEMBER 2 - DECEMBER 14, 2007


BANK
125 W. 4th St. Los Angeles, CA 90013
Gallery Hours: TUES. – SAT. 11am-5pm
lorraine@bank-art.com http://www.bank-art.com

"...who art in Heaven..."

The relationship between art and religion has a long history. As the world
grew more modern, theologians and historians predicted religion’s power and
influence to wane. But with the turn of the 21st century, the exact opposite
has occurred. Religion and spirituality have played a much more significant
role in the shaping of society, popular media and world politics.
Contemporary artists have taken this social phenomena to task, creating
works that ask critical and challenging questions about religion’s impact on
culture and identity.

“…who art in Heaven…” introduces Jonathan Lee Stevens (U.S.) and Ismael
Castro Garcia (MEX), two emerging artists who each reframe questions of
devotion, faith, myth and divinity through their respective works. Both
artists’ works transform the gallery into a space where notions of faith and
obsession, truth and fiction are constantly in flux and in question.

Jonathan Lee Stevens’ work deals with the relationship between evangelical
religion in America and how it affects its culture and history. In Stevens’
untitled work he creates a narrative sculpture of manifest destiny
influenced by the work of Clergyman John Murray Spear, a leader in the early
American spiritualist movement. Spear’s 1855 attempt to build a mechanical
New Messiah yielded a larger-than-life metal and wooden structure, a
sculpture that attempted to transcend its material form. With Stevens’
work, the viewer is confronted with a construction of supporting pulpits
seen in many Midwestern evangelical churches, sprouting forth an overgrown
mass of wooden forms, a topographical sculpture reminiscent of a view of the
mountains or a rocky stream. Attached to this is a large glowing painting
facing the gallery wall, a nod to Christian notions of transcendence and the
inevitable paradox that comes with manifesting faith in material form.
  
Ismael Castro Garcia's project, El Lupon, serves as an investigation into
the intersection between spirituality, immigration and folkloric tradition
in Mexico. Garcia brings to light the duality that centers around the
omniscient Catholic Church and the servitude of the believer. In this
exhibition, Garcia showcases his ongoing endeavor to propagate his creation
of El Lupon, a legendary Christian saint who protects those who cross the
border between Mexico and the United States. According to the legend, El
Lupon, a Mexican trucker, brought prosperity and honor to his family and
friends by successfully making his fortune from transporting produce back
and forth across the border. On the occasion that earned him his sainthood,
El Lupon extended a helping hand and the use of his truck to a large group
of immigrants in order to cross the border safely. Upon crossing, El Lupon
was stopped by La Migra (the border patrol) but rather than surrendering, he
sacrificed himself for the safe passage of the immigrants and through a feat
of miraculous intervention, he vanished with his captors in a field of
blinding light. Garcia actively promotes El Lupon, building upon the saint’s
myth with religious iconography, songs, prayers, and folkloric stories
regaling El Lupon’s past and present miraculous acts. While the veracity of
EL Lupon’s actual physical existence remains in question, his impact is
undeniable. Since creating this saint, many shrines to El Lupon have
spontaneously cropped up along the border, testaments to people’s faith in
El Lupon’s protective power. In the gallery a large shrine pays homage to El
Lupon, “Guardian del Camino, Señor de las Fronteras - Guardian of the
Journey, Father of the Boarders.”