Shots in the Dark: 2005-2012

Whether it stops in Darfur or Afghanistan, the war-machine consistently churns out death and there is nothing it seems we can do to stop it. Lisi Raskin's response is to de-fang the symbols of war, which she does using the grammar of her past works.

Since 2005, Raskin has produced large-scale installations that recreate bunkers and military bases via inconsequential materials and brightly colored wall paint. Her first exhibition at Churner and Churner finds Raskin reconstructing objects from her past installations alongside a new series of monochromatic paintings on linen.

Instead of feeling like a kaleidoscopic military camp, this exhibition feels more canonical; pedestaled sculpture, collage and oil painting hearken this show back to Constructivist displays. Yet Raskin manages to comically tweak the fourteen works in this show to enchanting effect. For instance, an aeronautic sculpture is bejeweled with toy airplane parts, while a nearby backwoods launch-rocket is topped off with an enfeebling pinecone.

Raskin has a coarse dexterity with materials and an eye for dynamic composition that extends to her newer oil paintings of industrial wastelands. Upon leaving, one is confronted with a painted David Wojhan poem, the last line of which bluntly states "everybody die together here", a phrase that invokes a reality so horrible that it should most certainly be hidden beneath artistry.