Modern Art
 
‘Ivan Pembroke’s scatological art is by now legendary. His latest work, a massive silkscreen that hangs from the main span of the George Washington Bridge, depicts a dozen barnyard denizens  –  cows, goats, chickens, and one oversized peacock  –  all precariously perched on a clothesline, defecating into a group of Grecian urns that have been arranged in a pattern which conforms to the perimeter of the United States. Deftly intermixing the sombre tinted vases with the cheery coloured bronze, copper, and ivory tinted droppings of the animals, the artist has given this country a monument which it can long be proud of. Commissioned by the National Council on the Arts, the latest effort by this prolific genius will undoubtedly silence those critics who continually decry the use of taxpayer money to aggrandize public edifices.’


  
 
‘For years Ivan Pembroke’s sensitive and haunting renderings of organic decay have left viewers spellbound. His latest and most ambitious series of works, entitled The Trial of the Impious Cow consists of a set of fifteen exquisitely detailed huge enamel murals — each piece depicting in various stages the evacuation of a stool by a ponderous speckled cow. The cow, whose spots are rendered in garish hues that gravitate between purple and the darker shades of blue, is defecating onto an old splintered cross that bears the inscription ‘And the Lord shall soon be among us.’ Once and for all, this series serves ...