As attempts to inspire a discourse on the present as well as the past, many of Dial’s object-filled narratives also take on the urgent concerns of contemporary history, such as the problem of homelessness, the abuse of the natural environment, the struggles of labor, and the horrors of global conflict. In one of his pieces on the ongoing denigration of women, he covers his canvas with ladies’ lingerie and drenches it in a field of red paint to evoke the color of the slaughterhouse and the gory specter of exploited and abused humanity. The work, made in 2003, is simply titled Meat. —Joanne Cubbs
