A Jewish kid growing up on a Christmas tree farm in rural North Carolina loses an eye at an early age, gets his life threateningly addicted to hard drugs, burns a church down, does time, becomes an artist, goes clean, and develops a sustainable career.
It’s easy to milk a background like this and form a plausible artist’s career full of gothic, hipster adventures. The freak show / train wreck marketing pitch is easy; something like a redneck, heroin (without the chic), Yid Basquiat. All manner of angst-suffused artworks are possible. However, Justin Lieberman is too sophisticated and intelligent an artist to interpret with such a simplistic strategy.
In this regard, McCaffrey Fine Art is delighted to present Justin Lieberman: Self-Portraits, an exhibition of video, sculpture, painting, photography, and drawing. The exhibition will feature twenty works produced between 2003 and 2007, all of which are representations of Justin Lieberman in all his complexity, truth, deceit, bluster, provocation, and fantasy. Self-Portraits will run from April 3 to May 1, 2007.