Just Do It

Crimes of Omission

by Mary Wilson

In St. James Park (The Wonder Gaze), a found photograph altered by conceptual artist Ken Gonzales-Day, a crowd of people stand with their backs to the camera, looking intently at nothing in particular. Or so it seems. The dark night sky that surrounds them obscures all other details, with the exception of a bare tree in the center of the frame — an unlikely cause for a crowd.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

There's something ominous about the picture, something missing. Those familiar with Gonzales-Day's work will soon guess what: The Wonder Gaze is part of his "Erased Lynching" series, in which he assembled photos of lynchings in California (roughly 350 instances, many racially motivated, between 1850 and 1935) and removed all traces of the victims from the images, as a comment on their continuing historical invisibility. The wall-size photograph is part of "Crimes of Omission," a student-curated exhibit at the ICA that focuses on the concealment of violence in art and life.

Like Gonzales-Day, each of the artists attempts to draw attention to violence by conspicuously masking its presence. In a series of screen prints titled "The Electric Chair," Christian Marclay reduces Andy Warhol's famous electric-chair image to a single element: the sign above the door that reads "silence." And, in a work that extends beyond the reach of the gallery, artist Susan Silton will be mailing out cards based on leaflets that the U.S. military has dropped over Iraq. Word to the wise: Don't call the Feds if you receive a card that asks, "Is this a stone or a grenade?"

Runs April 20-Aug. 5, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 118 S. 36th St., 215-898-7108, www.icaphila.org