Close look: "Merchant, Bandits, and Certain Senators" at Laney Contemporary, Savannah
Burnaway
May 15, 2021
By Burnaway staff
Since 2008, Craig Drennen has used Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens to structure his studio practice and this exhibition title refers to the most recent three characters that he has addressed. Drennen’s interest in Timon of Athens stems from its position at the very edge of the Western canon and Drennen’s belief that edges become useful provisional zones that allow for new artistic potentials with fewer restrictions. The play itself deals with foolhardy spending, dubious loyalty, betrayal, and exile. Contemporary associations are grafted onto each characters’ artworks, moving fluidly through fiction and history, words and objects, Drennen himself and a 17th-century play.