The Superman Project: Man of Flesh (Third Thursday)

Statement: Texas artist David Alcantar will be presenting his years-long Superman Project at Un Grito gallery for the month of December, 2022. This exhibition is a partial culmination of his research about how societal negotiations surrounding power have defined American heroism, using the iconography of Superman as a tool to talk about those negotiations. The use of Superman as a vehicle is intentional because of the overwhelming overlap of the narratives of both Superman and America, which highlight questions about the nature and behavior of America’s political power, military policy, immigration policy, and its supposed constitution to moral righteousness, to name a few. 

This exhibition, The Superman Project: Man of Flesh, focuses on the myopia and dilemmas of fantastical hero worship in negotiations of real-world power. Every negotiation demands concessions; the specific question at hand here is: what do we concede in order to keep the fantasy of our heroes in tact, and how does that compromise the truth of American heroism, which asserts a global narrative centered on moral exceptionalism?