A Benefit Exhibition Presented by WhiteBox Project Room
Curated by Raul Zamudio
Photography by Romulo Sans

May 20 – June 10
Wednesday, May 20th @ 7-9PM | Opening Reception

WhiteBox Project Room is pleased to present the solo exhibition of Romulo Sans titled Romulo Sans: Between Heaven and Hell. Like the Catholic posthumous, impure state of the soul in a nether region between salvation and damnation, the exhibition explores the liminal space of other dichotomies including sacred/profane, religiosity/secularism, orthodoxy/heterodoxy, individual/collective, spirit/corporeality, and East/West.

Whereas in previous works Sans created narrative sagas that ran the gamut of gritty urban New York street culture to impeccably staged mise-en-scenes that converge haute couture with memento mori, Romulo Sans: Between Heaven and Hell is more topical by indirectly citing events within the context of social violence, Religious authoritarianism, political corruption, corporate greed, media collusion, and consumerism. Exemplifying this is a photograph of what appears to be a runway model casually smoking a cigarette with a blue recycling bag over her head filled with environmentally toxic products. Is this some avant-garde fashion accessory or a poignant eco-political work about the complacency of culture and the culture of complacency?

In another work, the word Caliphate is written in typography used in Coca-Cola advertisements. On the one hand, the work mines Western Islamophobia and its perception of terror groups wanting to become ubiquitous and inevitably corporatized. On the other hand, it also alludes to shadow economies and vulture capitalism evinced, for instance, in Western multinational corporations with subsidiaries who indirectly fund religious and political violence to create economic opportunities in their pathological desire for global power.

Proceeds will benefit Whitebox Project Room’s new programming