Proximity to Power, American Style

Just in time for the 2008 election, WhiteWalls presents a comprehensive collection of Silvia Kolbowski’s wry and searching responses to the questionable actions of the American government, as well as recent national shifts in legal, corporate, and cultural power. In 2003, Kolbowski interviewed men—deliberately left anonymous—who work in proximity to men who wield greater power in the fields of business, media, art, and politics about the men for whom they worked. Interested in the vantage point of the man who occupies a support position in relation to the masculine powers privileged by American culture, Kolbowski also interviewed boys between the ages of seven and eleven, asking only one question: “What most represents power to you?” The spoken responses of these forty children were then interpreted as visual images—including Francisco Goya’s “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” the iconic face of Malcolm X, tidal waves, and sports heroes of every size and style—here presented in over one hundred full-color and black-and-white illustrations.