Raymond Pettibon

Five years ago, Andrew Card, then the White House chief of staff, explained to the New York Times why the Bush administration planned to wait until after Labor Day to unveil its plans for Iraq: “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.” I’d like to think that Raymond Pettibon had this in mind while putting together his atmospheric seventh solo show for this gallery, which opened on September 11 and features over one hundred new drawings. At their best, the works boldly portray the Bush regime (mostly George, Condi, and Dick) in harrowing situations—Bush with his hands covered in blood; the trio leaning over a casket as a mother cries—while, in typical Pettibon fashion, diaristic, often-prosaic captions add ancillary subtext.

The drawings are installed salon-style, in what appear to be thematic clusters, and are among the most striking works Pettibon has made to date in both content and form. Along with the explicitly political works, there are new pictorial elements that further prove Pettibon is an artist willing to take risks: Some pieces seem to incorporate etchings of nude figures made by his recently deceased father, a technique Pettibon first deployed in his 2006 solo exhibition in Los Angeles, while a group of fourteen drawings on the gallery’s north wall glows with supersaturated colors that complement his trademark black brushstrokes. This blend of narrative and news, the personal and the political, rebellion and self-reflection, is electrifying territory for this already well-established artist, who has trailed a significant fan base since working for SST, his brother’s record label, in the late 1970s. For those who have looked for proof that punk’s not dead in our increasingly apathetic and commercially co-opted times: Your ship has landed.