TV fixtures overdue for an ‘Equalizer’-style update
Ihard to imagine there wasn’t some sort of blackmail in play. Or, at the very least, a seriously compromising video or two.
I mean, why else would producers pay for the rights to the musty TV show “The Equalizer” and then make a movie that bears only passing resemblance to it?
In the TV version, which ran from 1985 to ’89 on CBS, Robert Mccall (Edward Woodward) is a gray-haired British gent in a fancy suit, tie and overcoat. Recently retired from a spy agency, he immediately sets out to help New Yorkers in need.
In the 2014 movie,
Robert Mccall (Denzel Washington) took a toothbrush to his New
LAWRENCE
that incorporate those fried egg-like flashes of color surrounded by concentric rings — bringing to mind light bulbs or casino neon — and of pieces he created for a show last year that involved translating rolls of traditional dice into drawings.
“Polyhedral” takes those notions further by creating images on the basis of rolls of polyhedral dice, which have fewer or more sides than standard dice. A series of rolls determined each aspect of each painting, from how many fried egg-like nuclei would appear in it to how many concentric rings would surround those nuclei and, even, the colors he would use. (The charts Misko used, as well as the sets of dice used for each painting, are part of the exhibition.)
Chance also determined each painting’s title, which Misko selected from an old “Dungeons & Dragons” book, rolling a set of dice to determine specific page
numbers. And when the time came to mount the exhibit, dice rolls even determined which of each canvas’ four sides would serve as its top and where in the gallery each painting would be displayed.
Misko concedes that leaving artistic decisions to chance did sometimes result in paintings he wouldn’t have created otherwise. For instance, “I probably would never have put that kind of weird green by that peach color,” he says, indicating a painting on a far wall.
Misko says his own work tends to be “big, bright, bold” and Vegas-y, “where these are little bitty jewel-like things.”
But Misko’s notion was to tamp down his own ego and let chance take over. “It’s not about turning my brain off,” he says, but “shifting my brain to a different way of making art.”
The pieces in the exhibition took about three months to create. Misko admits that making the exhibition about a type of work nobody has seen him do — and through a process he didn’t entirely control — was scary.
“It was jumping off a cliff,” he says with a laugh.
“Going in, I knew it was going to be a disaster or pretty awesome, and probably not anywhere in between.”
Contact John Przybys at jprzybys @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280. Follow @Jjprzybys on Twitter. the inaugural discussion will be Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Fromme.” Light snacks and refreshments will be served at the meeting, scheduled from 6-7 p.m. Attendees are expected to have read all, or at least most of, the book, which is available at The Writer’s Block.
Got an item for Downtown Lowdown? Contact Al Mancini at amancini @reviewjournal.com.