Jack the Pelican is thrilled to present the extraordinary New York solo debut of Guerra de la Paz.

A GI tenderly holds in his lap his dying comrade. It is their final farewell. This larger than life Pieta of Guerra de la Paz recasts Michelangelo's masterpiece to honor the pathos of the Gulf warrior. More, it is the peaceful denouement of tragedy both timely and eternal and an emblem of love and caring devotion between men.

Cuban artists Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz collaborate under the name Guerra de la Paz. This fortuitous marriage of their two last names points to the inextricable convergence of peace and war in the long dance of history. —And makes of the two artists a living allegory. War is everywhere, and, everywhere, shadowed by peace. And peace by war.

Pieta looms at the entryway of the main gallery. In the background is Crawl, another GI, mortally wounded and struggling forward on his hands and knees in defiance of his imminent death. —His last steps on earth are like his first. And nearby is Ring Around the Rosy, a group of children, circled in dance around a bomb—their innocent play transformed here into a fervid and ritualized coping, as in the plague years of the Middle Ages.

With a striking precision of pose, proportion, costume and gesture, Guerra de la Paz evoke a strong human presence from these figures. One easily steps into identification. But they are as though seen from behind, or never quite seen. Like ghosts, the specificity of their individual countenances are obscured in the contours of their raiment. Bundled together into being from nothing more than recycled clothing, they are only as general or as specific as the clothing they wear. Indeed, it is just this aspect of used clothing that compels Guerra de la Paz.

The symbol comes to its most complete climax in the exhibition's conclusion, as one passes by the Pieta into the rear gallery. There, is Tribute—more than two tons of clothing, piled high to the ceiling rafters in a giant rainbow pyramid. Guerra de la Paz was more than six months collecting these cast offs, one color at a time, as they grew it up from the ground. It is imposing and solid, as one feels the weight of nearly 5,000 unwanted outfits, many in the improbable colors of seasons long past. As a perfect prismatic continuity of hue, it stands as a powerful symbol of unity across the spectrum of humankind. 

So too does it speak to the issue of disposable culture, a theme Guerra de la Paz picks up and amplifies in The Issue at Hand, their 3-monitor video installation. A pair of GIs sit on toilets to either side of a stack of news magazines. They reach for one, skim the news, tear a page, crumple and wipe. And then another, until they consume the pile. In the background, one hears the sounds of battle raging. The action becomes abstracted in repetition, like a word said over and over until it becomes unrecognizable. This is the too-familiar quotidian priority of the personal over historical insight or imperative. 

Guerra de la Paz addresses the similar consumer degradation of gay sex and love with www.GImHorny.com, the large 3-part mock billboard advertisement for their imaginary military-and-uniform gay fetish site. The work builds on the success of their Joe Series of photographs, in which they playfully depict GI Joes as libidinally overheated queers, acting out in stereotypical attitudes, poses and positions. But www.GImHorny.com moves away from the light-hearted pretense of innocence. Rendered in the medium of decollage and spiced with the leitmotif of "Man your Weapon," it is a well-worn, scraped and torn poke at the pervasive porn industry as a reflection of America's prudish and repressive attitudes towards human sexuality.

Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz have been collaborating under the name Guerra de la Paz since 1996. Born in Cuba, they currently live and work in Miami. They have participated in auctions, art fairs, and gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the US. Recent nominees of the Cintas Fellowship upcoming schedule includes the -scope New York art fair during Armory Week March 9 th -13 th 2006 and in June 2006 they will open a two month long site specific installation entitled Oasis organized by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs

A special thanks to Douglas Voisin & Roch Nakajima from The Rock Group for whom this show was made possible and to Peter Boswell & Nikki Beem of MAM (Miami Art Museum) for their dedication and support.