Artistry and Inspiration

"A Stamford art gallery owner who was arrested on June 22 after unloading an 800-pound steel sculpture of a bent, burnt heroin spoon at the Stamford headquarters of Purdue Pharma said his act of “guerrilla art” is the first in what he plans to be many unauthorized protests against the pharmaceutical industry.

The gallery owner, Fernando Luis Alvarez, whose gallery carries his name, is calling his planned campaign the “Spoon Movement.”

“That was the whole strategy we created for this. We are going after pharma companies, distributors, politicians and doctors,” said Alvarez. “Every time we go to a new company we will have a new spoon. That spoon will be taken away by the cops and I’ll get arrested and after that they will give it back and we will donate the spoon to a city that is suing the companies.”

Alvarez said his act of protest was engineered to draw attention to what he considers Purdue’s leading role in the nationwide opioid epidemic. Purdue is the maker of OxyContin and other opioids. The sculpture was made by Boston artist Domenic Esposito, whose brother’s heroin addiction began as a dependence on OxyContin and Percocet. 

Alvarez is due in court on July 10 on one misdemeanor criminal charge of obstructing free passage. After refusing to remove the sculpture, Alvarez was taken away by police. Police originally said Alvarez would also be charged with a felony, but he was not.)

The story of Alvarez’s act and his arrest went viral on the Courant’s website. That’s what Alvarez wanted and why he timed the unauthorized art drop to coincide with the opening of his multi-artist exhibit “Opioid: Express Yourself.”

“This goes back to the early roots of the gallery, its mission statement. It’s important for us to do this show to look at the problem from a different angle,” Alvarez said. “Artists, through their work, can hold accountable the architects of this epidemic.”

Easy access to opioids is one of the great scourges of contemporary society. It fuels the escalating nationwide toll of accidental deaths and has been cited as a major facilitator of the historic rise in suicides.

Alvarez blames the drug companies. He especially called out the billionaire Sackler family, majority owners of Purdue. The family’s fortune, earned through Purdue, has been donated to myriad institutions. The Sackler name is widely recognized, stamped on art galleries, museums and universities around the world. Meanwhile, the corporation has been the focus of numerous lawsuits regarding its marketing and labeling of opioids.

“There are many players here: the corporation, politicians, doctors, universities, museums. They should all be held accountable,” Alvarez said. “If people feel uncomfortable seeing the Sackler name, they should speak up.”

The spoon installed in front of Purdue — an “exhibit” that lasted about two hours until Stamford public works employees hauled off the artwork — is still in police custody. Alvarez said when he gets the sculpture back he will add it to the gallery exhibit, which opened with a bang. After news of his arrest got out, 1,000 people showed up at the gallery for the show’s opening. Openings usually attract 400 people or fewer, he said.

Alvarez said the traditional way of punishing pharmaceutical companies — with big fines — isn’t good enough. As a result of a 2007 federal lawsuit targeting the labeling and marketing of OxyContin, Purdue paid a $600 million fine and three top-level executives were convicted of criminal charges.

“It’s not a fine that does it. They’re playing the public with that. The big fine is agreed upon behind closed doors by the big boy network. People hear ‘millions, holy crap,’ but these people have made billions. What good is that? We want to send these people behind bars.”

Other Artists In ‘Opiod’

Matthew Paul Cleary’s biological parents died as a result of heroin addiction, and he used various drugs as a youth. He was inspired by his mother and father’s tragedy to create his three-piece work, seen in the Stamford exhibit. One piece, Cleary says, depicts a “community of lost spirits” to which his parents belonged. A diptych next to that work shows two skulls covered with a bright, colorful curtain. The third piece is a twisted, stunted tree branch, to symbolize addicts’ children.

Cleary, 45, said the start of his parents’ addictions predated the introduction of OxyContin, but he considers them both “victims of the irresponsible marketing of opioids.”

“OxyContin was introduced at a time when my father was in a methadone program, doing his best to confront his addiction,” Cleary said. “After OxyContin overflowed the market, my father found it very easy to obtain at various local pill mills.”

He added that Arthur Sackler’s success at marketing his products in the 1960s inspired other pharmaceutical companies to follow suit with aggressive marketing campaigns, “which began a brutal cycle of profit over people’s well-being.

“Make no mistake that Purdue Pharma and corporations like them are accountable for unnecessary deaths across this entire country including the death of my parents,” he said.

Clinton Deckert of Southington contributed two works, one a black-and-white of demons rising from a nightmare landscape, the other, called “Feeding the Beast,” a malevolent yellow eye staring out from a dark background.

“What is good for society must outweigh the driving forces of greed and profit,” Deckert said. “The medical field, legislature, law enforcement and especially the pharmaceutical companies must work in tandem to resolve this crisis.”
 

Artist Ben Quesnel said the opioid epidemic has taken a toll on his own circle.

“I’ve lost friends to it. I’ve had a couple close friends able to get themselves out of it,” he said. “It’s like #metoo. Everybody knows somebody in this situation.”

In response to the epidemic, Quesnel created the found-object piece “Prescribed Ruins,” a wooden structure resembling a wall ripped out of a bathroom, complete with two-by-fours, wall tiling and a medicine cabinet. The configuration of beams mimics Purdue HQ’s modernist architectural design. The medicine cabinet’s mirror reflects the second part of the exhibit: 17,000 clay pieces resembling pills, scattered on the floor of the Alvarez gallery. “I call that part of the piece ‘Take Two,’ like it says on the pill bottle,” he said.

John J. Bedoya’s oil-on-canvas of opium poppies is shredded at the bottom of the canvas, to suggest the ruination caused by the product of the flowers.

Lee Tal made an American flag, painted it black and crossed it out with a bar. Alvarez explained that work:

“Americans of the future will look at this era and ask, ‘how the hell did they let this happen?”

Other artists whose works are in the show are Antuan Rodriguez, Nathan Lewis and Jason Werner.

OPIOID: EXPRESS YOURSELF is at Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery, 96 Bedford St. in Stamford, until July 30. flalvarezgallery.com.