"Love in the Time of Covid"- Donald Perlis, View on Nov 6-25, 2020

Donald Perlis, the TriBeCa-based realist, is no zombie figuration artist, to use the ARTnews spin on Walter Robinson’s coinage zombie formalism, but a mordantly inventive trouble-seeker in the tradition of Honore Daumier, George Grosz and Otto Dix. Perlis, who has found rich material in our darkening Post-Post-Modern times

Anthony Haden-Guest

When the Covid crisis hit and it became evident this was going to be a serious pandemic I felt a strong need to address it in my work. I had already made a series of works beginning with my “Trump world” at the beginning of the malaise. Shocking events were quickly outdoing one another. The series of paintings I made of the Epstein debacle was fresh off my studio wall and now this. It seemed a kind of divine intervention like the Flood, a punishment for the moral depravity ubiquitous in the country and our government. The rise of radical Feminism as well as the arrest and indictment of so many prominent men were a direct result of Trump being out of legal reach because of his office, his transgressions nullified. I made paintings about this and now the Covid crisis. It was like the USA was Sodom and Gomorrah.

I needed a special setting for this drama. None seemed more compelling than the space of Leonardo’s Last Supper in Milano. The perfection of that scene was divine and to violate it a kind of Blasphemy. I took it all, including the 3 windows, and made it asymmetrical as if God’s creation had been cut and violated. I wanted to make something grand that expressed and froze the exact moment and needed the very space to express the meaning. I Included some of the men who were either accused or had been convicted. Harvey Weinstein as the most prominent of the villains has a central place like Jesus. He’s fondling a woman and reaching for a scarlet dildo while masturbating under the table. On the far left is a demonic Mike Tyson with his tattoo, standing in a half-light and fondling a compliant nude woman who stretches languidly across the foreground. There are two skulls behind them, one at Tyson’s feet with foliage growing out of it to show the continuation of life. There’s a more ominous larger skull behind them that makes a threesome. At Weinstein’s right is Jeffrey Epstein and he’s reaching for a young nude woman who is in a state of ecstasy. Behind them, there’s a Latin priest giving a blessing to it all to show religion has also participated in the “fun” The table in the center has a similar dimension as in the Da Vinci. Seated to the immediate right of Tyson is a very white Michael Jackson. There’s a young friend on his lap and a gold monkey that I lifted out of the Jeff Koons sculpture. On the red tablecloth, there’s a cross and a rotten apple with a worm trying to escape. Then there’s a woman in a Covid mask celebrating with her arm on the shoulder of an aging Bill Cosby. He in turn reaches for a woman with a big ass, and she reaches out to Weinstein.

Far to the right, is a little suburban house and tree to show this is hometown America. There are also more Covid 19s on the table and there’s a little white man sunning himself in the radioactive diseased light coming from the window. At the end of the table is a nude woman. She’s horrified by all the proceedings and repelled also by the huge skull behind the priest. Under the table, there are demons from Boschs’ paintings. There are Covid 19s, snake-like forms, and a Pompeian jug as well as an Aunt Jemima piggy bank seen from the rear. Finally, there’s a terrified young girl hiding under the table.

Behind Weinstein are three windows as in the Trinity. Garlic hangs on the wall to repel evil, a shrunken head dangles behind the priest. There are lovebirds making love and Covid 19s in the rafters above. The sky is filled with Covid19s and there is a “Dr. Strangelove” mushroom cloud lighting everything in the painting and making it all visible. I was genuinely surprised and delighted it all cohered and came together as forcibly and harmonically as it has.

While completing this there occurred the horrible murder of George Floyd. That too was almost biblical and mythical as it precipitated a world-wide uprising to protest a racial injustice that seemed hand in hand with the pervasive moral depravity. A young man brutally treated, and finally coldly executed.

I knew I had a show coming up and wanted to include a painterly statement as I thought the videos as horrifying as they are muffled the horror and injustice that took place. I set out to nail the definitive moment of this tragedy which was akin almost to a martyrdom. I wanted it to be more real than reality so I bent the reality. I turned Floyds head around and gave the sidewalk a large space so it would lead the viewer’s eye to the center of the violent act which was the crushing knee pressing down on his neck. The horror in his expression and the robotic and anonymous police were like the executioner soldiers in Goya’s “Third of May”. The eye is then led up to the Asian cop who’s acting out his authority role while indifferently looking out of the painting as if he’s just bored by the whole thing. I moved the “Cups” coffee shop from across the street and put it behind the police car. The little American flag which I did not invent says it all. As a coup de gras, along with the almost rural reflections in the police car window are a pair of horns adorning the chief assassins head. The hub cap on the tire is especially important. Above Floyd’s head, it forms a perfect Cartesian circle portraying the order and harmony this event is shattering and destroying. The painting was completed in two weeks. I worked on it until the last moment and delivered it wet.