As Chief Surgeon John Collins Warren said on October 16, 1846 at the Bullfinch Amphitheater upon his completing the head and neck surgery on Gilbert Abbott with the first general ether anesthesia given by Dr. William Morton…” Gentlemen, this is no humbug!” In this same vein Kolker paraphrases the statement as voiced by Chief Justice Roberts, in Kolker’s large-scale (99 x 198 inches) painting, “Ladies and Gentlemen, This is No Humbug! 2012.” While not unlike Woody Allen, in his Midnight in Paris, Kolker sets to canvas his enumerated and resurrected heroes of the past hundred years of American healthcare’s progress from Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 to the present. With scalpel in hand, Chief Justice Roberts validates the enumerated powers of congress to preserve the general welfare of our nation, the patient in the picture, and in accordance with the constitution….while Justice Sotomayor holds the anesthetic genie in the ether bell and Justices Kagan, Ginsburg and Breyer proudly assist as Ted Kennedy hovers over the patient, the Affordable Care Act of 2010, taking the pulse while clearly displaying the Senator’s indefatigable smile of success as finally particularized in Kolker’s grid of colored dots!
The Dot is In!…Reflections on Roberts Rules is on view at Paul Kolker, downstairs in the salon at 511 West 25th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in Chelsea from September 13 – November 15, 2012. For information please email info@paulkolker.com.