“Dirty painful reality doesn’t allow these paintings to be abstract and enjoy abstinence from that dirt and pain,” Bread & Puppet Theater Founder and Artistic Director Peter Schumann writes of his “Bedsheet Mitigations” series. “This is sloganeering art, propaganda against the lousy capitalist system that feeds and tortures us.”
A portion of the series—painted on king-sized sheets discarded by a hotel—is on view at Fort Point’s Midway Gallery (15 Channel Center St., Boston) in collaboration with the artist collective Artspeech from July 1 through August 31, 2021. The series is accompanied by his “Crucifixion” paintings, which the Vermont artist concentrated on in February and March.
Schumann writes:
“1) I am not a professional painter because professional painters either make or hope to make their living from painting. I am a cheap artist which means: if I sell I also want to ridicule the for-sale system of art.”; 2) “Bad bedsheet research. Dumpster-retrieved bedsheets contain quantities of secret life, sweet dreams and nightmares of anonymous sleepers’ lives in relation to their history and planet.”; 3) “Dirty painful reality doesn’t allow these paintings to be abstract and enjoy abstinence from that dirt and pain. This is sloganeering art, propaganda against the lousy capitalist system that feeds and tortures us.”
Previous posts about Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater.
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If this is the kind of coverage of arts, nature, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon. And sign up for our free, (hopefully) weekly newsletter so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content ©Greg Cook 2021 or the respective creators.)