Tim Holmes
Helena, Montana
Inert Projectiles, 2007
Mixed media

“Inert projectiles”is exactly what these hate books feel like to me: pieces of ammunition devoid of good ideas, which are simply blunt objects lobbed at an enemy. The metaphor of hate as ammunition seems perfect to me. The creator of these volumes of hatred was bent on fomenting a race war, and he thought the best way to make the result more poisonous was to turn his ideology into a “religion.” It’s ironic that he called this pogrom “Creativity,” an idea whose openness, curiosity, and hope is exactlythe opposite of the violence that he endorses!

Bio
Tim Holmes’ work primarily focuses on the human form, on the gesture as expression of greater human themes: the struggle for freedom, horror at inner and outer evils, the ferocity of hopelessness, the tenderness of love. Holmes is the first American artist ever invited to exhibit solo at the world’s largest art museum, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, where his sculptures remain on permanent exhibit. He has created sculpture for some of the world’s peacemaking organizations, from the United Nations to the Chinese dissident students of Tiananmen Square. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Jimmy Carter, President Vaclav Havel, and Coretta Scott King are among Holmes’ best-known collectors.

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