The Assassination of Winston Church Mouse
as seen in Forever issue vThe Assassination of Winston Church Mouse is a three-tiered narrative sculpture depicting a political assassination, a chase, and a daring escape. The work takes place in alternative history caught between the Mediterranean and coastal Balkans and combines the tone of a European spy thriller with the aesthetics of young adult fantasy.
The story reimagines a forgotten event occurring at the end of WWII and right before the Greek Civil War. Winston Churchill, allied with the Greek King George II, visited Greece in December of 1944. At the time, the king and his government had been in Alexandria and then in London, having evacuated after Axis forces started approaching Athens. Churchill’s arrival in Athens functioned as a sign that the king, unpopular with the public and opposed by the Greek Communist parties EAM-ELAS, would be returning. A protest of Churchill’s appearance in Syntagma Square turned violent and British military killed 28 Greek Civilians. What ensued was a bloody six-week battle that was the immediate prelude to the Greek Civil War, and what could be seen as a prelude to the cold war.
In Greece, there is a rumor or folk story about a young Romanian sniper who attempted to assassinate Winston Churchill but missed her target and was in turn shot. This work reimagines that story playing out differently with a successful assassination of Churchill and a daring escape, tangling together fantasy and history.
PLA, plexiglass, silicone, Citadel acrylic paint, clear enamel, resin
33 x 27 x 70 inches
Previously on view with Alyssa Davis Gallery at NADA x Foreland
Genevieve Goffman was born in Washington D.C. and is based in New York. She graduated from the Yale MFA program in 2020. Goffman Recent solo exhibitions include Before it all Went Wrong, at Hyacinth in New York in 2022, Grind, Money Gallery, St Petersburg, RU, 2021; Here Forever, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York, NY, 2020; She has also shown work with Canada Gallery, Thierry Goldberg Gallery and Fragment Gallery in New York, EXILE in Vienna, Austria, Patara Gallery in Tbilisi, Georgia, Workroom.Daipyat in Voronezh, Russia, and Harawik in Los Angeles. Goffman is participating in her first museum exhibition in May 2023 at MAK- Museum für angewandte Kunst in vienna, Austria.