
Quiet is far from the case at Parse, where Wesley Stokes' Caligula paintings and videos appear on the walls, while on the floor some little broken busts and concrete shards suggest a mini-imperial ruin. A series of sound performances by Philip Kruse, Philippe Andre Landry, Justin Benoit and Michael Jeffrey Lee, as well as a performance by Chicago artist Elija Burgher about occult symbolism, rounded out the schedule. Using the crazy and cruelly decadent legacy of Roman emperor Caligula as a foil, Stokes suggests multiple connections between the classical world and the present in stark abstract canvases rendered in asphalt that suggest scorched earth while harking to Rauschenberg's black paintings and Brassai's graffiti photographs. Curated by John Otte, Caligula employs dusky videos of dive bars, sinister figures and eerie soundtracks to round out an intermingling of the raw and the refined in an installation that slowly reveals its Plutonic essence while suggesting the power of decadence as well as the decadence of power.~Bookhardt
Bobbery: Mixed Media Sculpture by Christopher Deris and Karoline Schleh, Saturdays and Sundays through July 8, Staple Goods Gallery, 1340 St. Roch Ave., 908-7331
Caligula: Paintings and Mixed Media works by Wesley Stokes, Wednesday--Saturday Through June 29, Parse Gallery, 134 Carondelet St.
Bobbery: Mixed Media Sculpture by Christopher Deris and Karoline Schleh, Saturdays and Sundays through July 8, Staple Goods Gallery, 1340 St. Roch Ave., 908-7331
Caligula: Paintings and Mixed Media works by Wesley Stokes, Wednesday--Saturday Through June 29, Parse Gallery, 134 Carondelet St.