Barnaby Furnas's Second Solo Show at Marianne Boesky Explores Violence and American Psyche

Barnaby Furnas presented his second solo exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York from September 6 to October 4, 2003. The show featured three dozen works on paper that examined political paranoia, personal excess, and America's impulse toward self-destruction. Furnas depicted scenes ranging from shadowy operatives and bacchanalian orgies to Homeric battle spectacles where "Blown To Bits" represented an ideal death. His work connected violence with ecstasy, particularly relevant amid contemporary global concerns about terrorism and religious extremism. The artist portrayed false prophets not as desert-dwelling fundamentalists but as rock stars and U.S. politicians, including Abraham Lincoln. In one striking image, Lincoln shoots off his own head, questioning whether the Civil War's bloodshed was necessary. The exhibition's final work, "Killing the Dead," showed the maiming of corpses rather than their killing, suggesting that celebrating accepted wars and murders marks the beginning of history. Furnas used archetypal colors familiar from print media to explore how vanity and violence function as sexual currency in modern life, with rock concerts appearing as blood cult convocations and beach shadowboxing as ritualized conflict.