Joe Sola: Atlanta College of Art Gallery.(film exhibitions)

Jacques Lacan once observed, "In the human being, virile display itself appears as feminine." The title of Joe Sola's recent exhibition, "Taking a Bullet," first mounted at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, hints at a similar paradox. Sola evokes memories of Hollywood genre films, suggesting that the person offering up the ultimate sacrifice is most likely to be either a man's male buddy or a femme fatale.

The gesture itself--the refusal to get out of harm's way--combines stereo-typically masculine action with stereotypically feminine passivity, and this ...

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