Victory in Iraq Triumphal Arch, Crawford, Texas (Primary Title)
Jorge Miguel Benitez, American, born Cuba, born 1956 (Artist)
"I continually stumbled upon science’s terrible neutrality, and I began to explore perspective as a metaphor for the Western identity and its tragic mix of greatness and depravity." —Jorge Benitez
Benitez’s images of real and imagined neoclassical architecture, beautifully rendered in precise single-point perspective, present monuments to Enlightenment and its embrace of reason, empiricism, tolerance, and pluralism. At the same time, Benitez introduces irony, suggesting that neoclassicism’s single-point perspective and cold objectivity are an official style detached from reality. This drawing proposes the construction of a triumphal arch—a classical form used to commemorate military victories—in the hometown of George W. Bush. The empty landscape, exaggerated perspective, and clouds reminiscent of airplane contrails suggest a critique of official policies, but the neutrality of style and absence of polemic leave the image open ended.
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