Just how do you draw a tyrant? Would you give him a little mouth, squinting eyes, or color him orange? Throw in a Charlie Chaplin mustache for good measure?
It’s a question that Brooklyn Wayfarers hopes to answer with a new exhibition called How To Draw A Tyrant, which opens on Friday.
This fall, Brooklyn Wayfarers, a nonprofit gallery and studio program at 1109 Dekalb Ave. on the border of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, invited Jasmine Dreame Wagner to explore the studios of Wayfarers members and select works that would serve as points of departure for a book of poems and essays.
How To Draw A Tyrant is the culminating exhibition of the selected works and a publication of the writings they inspired to grapple with big issues of today: ethics of consumption, war, race relations, generational exploitation, corrupt monuments, and the historical moment.
The exhibition features new drawing, painting, sculpture, video and installations by Wayfarers. In addition to the show in the main gallery, there will be several screenings of Keil Troisi and A.W. Strouse’s “Mono Generation,” a short film about generational paralysis, which stars (and which was blacklisted from distribution by) Lena Dunham.
The show opens Dec. 15 at 7 p.m.
Cover image courtesy of Brooklyn Wayfarers