THE WASHINGTON POST • FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2010
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OnExhibit
“Sheep Over Vasari,” part of Matthew Mann’s “Cinecitta Chapel” series on view at Flashpoint Gallery.
PHOTO BY BRANDON WEBSTER/FROM MATTHEW MANN
A compelling spaghetti western
by Michael O’Sullivan
Everything Matthew Mann knows about America he learned from Italians. “I’m not the only one whose under- standing of ‘cowboy-ness’ comes from Ser- gio Leone,” Mann says. The Washington painter calls Leone’s iconic 1966 spaghetti western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” a significant influence on his current body of work, “The Cinecitta Chapel,” on view at Flashpoint Gallery. The sequence of six large-scale oil paintings, which follows the cryptic misadventures of a nameless, face- less cowboy, is meant to be read as a skepti- cal exploration of what the artist calls “the American character.” Italian painter Giotto is another influ-
ence. The underlying structure of Mann’s paintings (certain architectural details, for example) comes directly from a series of 14th-century religious frescoes the Renais- sance painter created for a church in Pad- ua. Mann’s title is a mash-up of Giotto’s masterpiece, the Scrovegni Chapel, and Cinecitta Stu- dios, where parts of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” were shot.
Don’t expect a nar-
rative that’s easy to read, however. Mann’s work is more poetic than cinemat- ic, more loony than logical. If the individ- ual images resemble frames of a film — and they do — they’re
closer to scenes from a Chuck Jones car- toon than a Sergio Leone film. Look for de- tails (such as the cliffs in the fifth work in the cycle, “Apprehension at Ondaatje Gulch”). They’re straight out of a Roadrun- ner cartoon. Like those cartoons, the story told in
“The Cinecitta Chapel” also involves a pur- suit. You’ll see a cowboy in a red shirt in ev- ery picture. He’s the hero — or antihero — chased by an equally anonymous group of gunslingers across a landscape that is part Italy, part Wild West and part Washington, D.C. “Arson at Nacotchtank Falls,” for in- stance, features snippets of the Navy Yard and Arlington skylines, as seen from Mann’s Anacostia studio. (The Nacotch- tank were a Native American tribe that once lived in what is now the District, but it’s not the only local reference. “Expulsion From the Green Derby,” refers to a defunct Anacostia nightspot.) Mann acknowledges his work’s political
subtext. “Arson” features a burning sports stadium, and in the artist’s view, the money that went to build Na- tionals Park would have been better spent on social services. Even the image of the cowboy is pointed. Ac- cording to Mann, the figure started showing up in his work toward the end of Texan George W. Bush’s pres- idency. As for what exactly
Detail from “Arson at Nacotchtank Falls,” with glimpses of Arlington and the Navy Yard, which Mann can see from his Anacostia studio.
the “American charac- ter” might be, Mann seeks out another for- eigner for a definition,
IMAGES ABOVE AND AT BOTTOM FROM MATTHEW MANN
Matthew Mann’s series of paintings, including “Escape From Christmas Island,” draw inspiration from spaghetti westerns and from Italian painter Giotto.
using French historian Alexis de Tocque- ville’s label of “pugnacity” to describe our national ethos; he further gives a nod to the “Democracy in America” author with “Massacre at Tocqueville Gate.” (And yes, all of Mann’s titles have that crazy hybrid flavor, halfway between western pulp fic- tion and history painting. “I love that there’s a little high and low in them,” he says. You’ll find a reference to another fa- mous Italian in “Escape From Christmas Island,” which alludes to the first European settlement in the New World, established by Christopher Columbus on the island of Hispaniola.) Mann’s take on America isn’t wholly crit- ical. Sure, pugnacity has a negative spin. But through his work Mann argues that there are at least two sides to every story. The impulse to fight can be carried to ex- tremes, but the flip side, Mann says, might be self-reliance and initiative. That gives the art a compelling ambigu-
ity. Maybe we Americans, with the help of movies and cartoons, have enshrined the cowboy character in our national psyche, but in this chapel you can’t always tell the good guys from the bad.
osullivanm@washpost.com
MATTHEW MANN: THE CINECITTA CHAPEL
Through Sept. 4 at Flashpoint Gallery, 916 G St. NW (Metro: Gallery Place). 202-315-1305.
www.flashpointdc.org.
Hours: Open Tuesday-Saturday noon to 6 p.m. Admission: Free.
Public program: On Aug. 25 at 6 p.m., Mann, painter Andrew Wodzianski and Adam Good and Jon Lee of the “thought DJ” duo We Are Science! will participate in a discussion of the exhibition moderated by art collector and blogger Philippa Hughes of the Pink Line Project arts support
organization. Good and Lee will also perform a piece inspired by Mann’s paintings. $10 suggested donation.
THE STORY BEHIND THE WORK Giotto painted 38 frescoes focusing on
the life of the Virgin Mary for the interior of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy. Six served as the inspiration for Matthew Mann’s “Cinecitta Chapel” cycle. They’re the ones about Mary’s father, Joaquim. Never heard of him? You won’t find his story in the Bible but in the so-called Infancy Gospel of James, one of the “apocryphal” early Christian texts that fall outside the four canonical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Don’t expect a one-to-one
correspondence between Giotto’s pictures and Mann’s. Mann’s muses are many and include — in addition to Giotto — Looney Tunes cartoons and writer Michael Ondaatje, whose book “The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems” probably comes closest to providing a road map to Mann’s twisted tale. But don’t worry. There’s no required
reading in order to get Mann’s art. “That’s just how art is made,” Mann says. “It comes from everything.”
— Michael O’Sullivan
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