According to a 1999 report written by John Orr of USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, “In recent years, the city of Los Angeles has surpassed London and New York as the world’s most religiously pluralist metropolitan region.  With more than 600 separate faith communities established in Los Angeles neighborhoods, many with different languages and a large number of racial/ethnic enclaves, most clergy and lay people remain strangers to those of differing faiths.”  The project “Does Religion Kill?” is a response to these statistics.  Created as a catalytic forum for exchange, the exhibition will include an interactive dialogue wall piece in which Los Angeles public of various faiths and ideologies are invited to contribute thoughts about the theme.  

The inspiration for this show, originally birthed and debuted in the city of Istanbul where an obvious clash of civilizations exists, has now uniquely manifested itself through a pluralist American, and more specifically Angelino, perspective.  The artists selected represent a wide array of ethnic backgrounds, approaches to the topic – both direct and ambiguous, and mediums utilized.  All the works, however, converge in the way each artist has reached from a very personal core to boldly grapple with an extremely provocative question.  

Ramsey Robinson’s raw ability, through the use of video manipulation mixed with private audio conversation, to freeze frame fleeting moments of pure human emotion, helps his work connect with the viewer on a very primal level and makes it ideal for this exhibition as a personal approach to a very personal topic.  Marquis Lewis’ bold willingness to take risks, apparent by the uproar elicited after creating a traditional representation of La Virgin in which Mary’s face is replaced by a grotesque skull, makes him a compelling choice for this project.  Noah Haytin’s western roots mixed with his use of Islamic iconography make his presentation of the positive/negative dichotomy of religion a fresh take on the question.  While angels are the pervasive theme in the current works of Melissa Trochez, the whimsical way in which she combines paint and textile, aid her attempts to contrast religious experience with personal spiritual encounter.  The piece chosen from Christine Morla’s very personal and therapeutic series of masochistic drawings perhaps contains the most layers of possible interpretation as it experiments with thresholds of pain and intricacies of the human breaking point.  Katrina Erickson, with her clean execution and use of negative space, effectively demands the viewer’s participation to decode her message and to awe at her transformation of the benign into something forcefully significant.   Burt Payne’s creation of the iconic Last Supper on something as nonreligious and discard able as an aluminum tv- tray, has been included in the show as a clever, satirical statement.  A noted and controversial political activist, unfeigning in the face of explosive reaction to her works, Persian born Amitis Motevalli is likewise anticipated to create a very satirical and provocative installation piece.  Bill Barminski’s piece, in which the thick, red letters “LIES” steal attention from a fading image of The Lord’s Supper, is bold and unapologetic in its message.  As a young, second-generation Iranian woman living in America, Samira Yamin uses symbolism in both her content and medium to tackle pertinent issues involving the clash between East and West with a fresh and centrific perspective.  It is an honor to include a work by acclaimed artist Raymond Pettibon in which he challenges a traditional religious perspective on creation.  Finally, Zara Kriegstein’s ability to exaggerate and bring to light what is normally hidden or taboo makes her an obvious choice to elicit controversial discussion.