BOOMERANG  by JOSE GERMOSEN, Village Voice, April 12th

Lee Quinones, José Parla "Ease" and RoStarr alter the view of 9-11


"I love this country, and I love being an American, but some of things our government has done to defend its interests are not right," says Lee Quinones on a Saturday afternoon in amid a gaping white Soho storefront, with artists Romon "RoStarr" Yang and José Parla (more familiar as Ease of the Inkheads). An argument shortly after September 11 had frustrated the artist out of making a case for the fact that the U.S. was more than an unwitting victim in the attack.

The three decided to collaborate on a group show to more clearly elaborate their views. Aptly titled "Boomerang," it would focus on the more metaphysical aspects of 9-11 and the kinds of long-standing energy and arrogance that might have moved things where they are, whether it was the cacophony of birds of piece, demons, crying babies, and "shit-talking" media faces in Ro's "Between the Lines," or the smoldering trail of tag-strewn smoke and ash in Ease's "Geminis (Piedra, Hierro y Fuego)."

"We all felt that what comes around, goes around," says Parla. Perhaps that's better stated as "what comes around is already here," the epitaph for a sunken the Atlantis of Midtown Manhattan in Quinones' "Chapter 11," as helicopters bear witness to the impending state of affairs.

Six months into its planning, fashion designer Agnes B. offered to host the show in her old temporary space, replete with a "reception" to premiere it to a select group of patrons and fans. Notoriously, the event turned into a massive Friday night party in which the most disparate assortment of people, from fashion editors to uptown taggers found themselves mingling and swigging champagne together. Even among all the chaos, the work wrenched emotion from people, confronting them with imagery and ideas that just didn't make the CNN specials.

"What actually went down was fire, steel and rock," says Parla. "But it was the people that fell."

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