A Timely Dial Tone: We All Live Under the Same Old Flag at Marianne Boesky Gallery

“I only want materials that have been used by people, the works of the United States, that have did people some good.”

An astounding assemblage of wall reliefs and sculptures embedded within wooden canvases, We All Live Under the Same Old Flag, is an astutely nuanced narrative articulated by conceptual artist Thornton Dial and exhibiting at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City. Guided by his genius, and an uncompromising penchant for re-used man-made materials, Dial transformed and assembled old tires, twigs, chains, and tarnished tools to create inordinately textured paintings and abstract sculptures depicting the African American experience in the rural American South.

Dial, who is largely identified as an vernacular artist, was self taught, having harnessed his work experience in carpentry and rail car construction to create life sized sculptures and reliefs replete with sliced metal, rusted chain, tattered fabrics, and deconstructed doll parts. Included in the exhibition are a host of compositions that were crafted over the last twenty years. The result is an endlessly expressive repertoire that harbors a densely profound and utterly prolific narrative of a marginalized human experience.

Among the exhibited works, it is the title work, We All Live Under the Same Old Flag, that commands a most visceral response. The timeliness of such a politically charged piece is punctuated by the interlocking of materials, which have been spray-painted in the symbolic red, white and blue color combination. The life sized wooden canvas is a formidable backdrop for the highly textured juxtaposition of wood, cloth and metal, all of which have been painstakingly bound and sprayed to represent the American flag. What may at first seem like a capricious execution, is in fact a carefully calculated composition brought to life by a series of sharp edges and aggressive angles.

In a time of heated political debate, and apprehension of the future, the schism between hope and panic amongst the American populace is as palpable as the dense surfaces of Dials reliefs. His skillful manipulation of the material can be paralleled to the psychological maneuvering being dealt by presidential electoral candidates toward the American public. Arguably, such a profound, and loosely patriotic manifestation implicates the emotional lexicon of the country's present socio political consciousness. As the public outcry oscillates between a dignified sensibility and indignant opposition, the only certainty is: we all live under the same old flag.

Thornton B. Dial was born in Emelle, Alabama in 1928. As one of eleven children, he began working at an early age and subsequently ended his school career at the third grade level. Though illiterate, Dial used textured surfaces, cleverly composed of miscellaneous materials and figurative forms to transcribe the psychological language of America's inglorious past and precarious present. By the 1980's, his work gained national prominence; since then preeminent museums and art institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia have included his work within their permanent collections. The present solo exhibition at the Marianne Boesky Gallery is the first in New York City since the

artist's sudden passing in January of this year.

Constance Victory Small

THORNTON DIAL: WE ALL LIVE UNDER THE SAME OLD FLAG

April 30 – June 18, 2016

Marianne Boesky Gallery

509 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011

t. 212-680-9889 f. 212-680-9897