In some spiritual traditions the “Axis Mundi,” or axis of the world, is a place where heaven and earth come close together and can link.
In William Schaff’s mixed media collage “Axis Mundi,” on view in his exhibition at The Collaborative Lab, 508 Main St., Warren, Rhode Island, from April 26 to May 24, 2024, a seeming holy man in robes with a gaping wound in his side—like Jesus from the crucifixion—stands atop a mountain surrounded by calamity. A man digs up a skull. Another man tries to pull a knife from his back. A mob of white guys armed with guns and missiles and their penises face off against rampaging police in body armor. A town is beset by floods and tornadoes and fire. Naked people tumble from the clouds.
Schaff, who makes his studio and home at the storefront Fort Foreclosure in Warren, Rhode Island, has made album art for Okkervil River, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Mighty Mighty Bostonnes and others. Here, he writes, “When the opportunity came up to exhibit at the opening of the new Collaborative Lab, I collected a sampling of my works I have done during and since the pandemic. There is not a particular theme to the exhibit itself, but the pieces continue with themes I have worked with for years. Rather than explicitly tell you those themes, I invite you and everyone” to see the exhibit yourself.
In paintings and collages and ink drawings and scratchboards and linocuts, Schaff depicts a sordid society rife with death and violence and beauty. “Leaders of Men” are industrialists and police and oligarchs who menace the earth. “U.S. Law Enforcement” depicts a clown running a shell game. “Cain & Abel” is a two-headed man brandishing pistols. “Jesus takes up his cross, the 7th station in the spiritual way of the cross” depicts heads vomiting skeletons into the mouth of another man. The acrylic painting “The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” depicts a tree with a trunk composed of people—bony, blindfolded, maybe dead? The artworks are acid social commentary and haunted visions like a Christian doomsday Thomas Nast.
Schaff’s digital print “A Map for Jason Molina” is dedicated to Jason Molina of the band Songs: Ohia, who died in 2013 at age 39. It depicts a map on the back of a dog curled around a guitar. A ribbon drawn across the bottom reads: “It is a beautiful land, but filled with dark spots. When you find yourself in one remember you have friends, protectors, art & music to navigate to brighter roads.”
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