The Tank Man
IV Gallery X Band of Vices
Curated by Elliott Clarke
13 August - 3 September, 2022
Band of Vices is pleased to present THE TANK MAN, its first collaboration with IV Gallery.
The Tiananmen Square tank man has been a central part of NFN Kalyan’s work for years. The anonymous protestor became famous, the world over, for standing in front of an oncoming row of Type 59 tanks. He represented the best in all of us; the courage we all hope we have. Kalyan’s work is always a visual assault on the viewer. It represents what’s coming and we can’t stop it. In The Tank Man series, the viewer is put into the paintings themselves. Desaturated figures and landscapes face the oncoming gold frames. We stand with them. Through the progression of paintings, that motif is stretched, examined, rotated, and finally broken. Human innocence is questioned, and the mirror is turned on the viewer. In turn, we march, invade, get assaulted, or simply brush our teeth. In each case, the gold frame says something to us, about our actions.
We can’t stop what’s coming because it is us. The harder we push the further forward we move. We are both the Man and the Tank.
"The great people we have killed, the environment we have destroyed and the lies we tell ourselves are terrible things. But we are supposed to hate the sin and love the sinner. The sinner is everyone who looks at my work. And the sinner is me. Because we are all human."
- NFN Kalyan
This Exhibition is Curated by Elliot Clarke of IV Gallery.
