Sculptural social realist Mel Greet presents a powerful and unique show, The Truth of Consequences, at the Bruce Lurie Gallery, opening February 9th. Green’s three-dimensional work is commanding, as he conceptually reshapes conventional objects to provide meaningful insight into social conditions.
The familiarity of many images allows viewers to find and understand essential issues, while offering sometimes humorous takes on the world around us.
Paired with Greet at the Gallery are works by photographic artist Jeff Vespa, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the seventeen students murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb 14th last year in Parkland, Florida. Vespa offers 16 black and white portraits of the victim’s classmates along with a large screen video installation with testimonials created by Vespa. His work was originally featured in People Magazine and Buzz Feed.
Greet and The Bruce Lurie Gallery are donating part of the proceeds of two of his works “Going Shopping” and “New Math,” to the Brady Campaign. Greet hopes that the exhibition itself will serve as a focal point for politicians to recognize and act on sensible gun legislation.
As to Greet’s work itself, his sculptural pieces utilizes a wide range of mixed media, from copper wire and textured plastic to the actual taxidermied skin of a snake. The artist’s involving textures help to shape his subject matter, and his sometimes whimsical take on modern life reflects the surrealism of Rene Magritte, the artist’s namesake. His goal is to create a connectivity with his viewers to engage them, encourage understanding, commitment, and action.
“Going Shopping” exposes just how easy buying an automatic weapon is — as easy as going to the grocery store for a carton of milk. If we haven’t recognized the horror of our bullet-riddled shopping sprees before, the artist demands we notice it now. This work uses a classic, discontinued grocery cart model as base, with bronze automatic weapons rise like a bristling bouquet inside the cart basket.
“New Math” features a chalkboard as canvas, with hash marks that eerily appear to represent attacks from or death by automatic weapon. The weapon itself is suspended in front of the board and hash marks, as if it were the chalk used to write this legacy of violence and destruction.
“Ultimately,” Greet says, “the question we all must ask is, how will we embrace the future collectively and individually?”
Born and raised in Hollywood, Greet’s show biz experience as a child actor and film studio marketing executive informs his work, entraining and educating with visceral, vibrant images. His media experiences have made him acutely aware of how imagery can impact society and shape communication about issues.
His inclusion of Vespa’s work in his gallery show began with an introduction to Vespa by Ross Misher of the Brady Campaign LA office, he explains. “We all felt that it should accompany the sculptures, making the evening a much larger conversation, since it’ll be the 1 year anniversary of the Parkland shooting on Feb 14.”
