If a grown man told us that he had a comic-book character named BopBagBill for an alter ego – a persona with “the same attributes as an anti-hero who sometimes gets involved with heroic acts, but [who] mainly is a character that works as an agonist” – we’d look for Candid Camera. And pepper spray. When that man is photographer/sculptor Bill Berry (who says the above in his artist statement), we still think it’s insane, but in a good way.
Berry goes by BopBagBill in his new photo essay calling out the government for its continued epic failure in rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and makes the disaster/class themes global by showing similar damage from the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. In his latest incidental heroics, the erstwhile antagonist hangs out in a series of swimming pools, the only structures not destroyed by either disaster.
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 6-9 p.m. Starts: Sept. 2. Continues through Oct. 31, 2008
