Kent Twitchell: The End of Muralism?

On May 1st, 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that famed L.A. muralist Kent Twitchell settled his lawsuit against the U.S. government for obliterating his six-story mural depiction of artist Ed Ruscha. Starting in 1978, it took Twitchell nine years to complete his mural on an outside wall of the L.A. headquarters of the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2006 the mural was deliberately painted over by a maintenance crew working for the government.

Federal and state laws protect commissioned murals in the City of Los Angeles from desecration or destruction; specifically, the federal Visual Artists Rights Act states that an artist must be given a ninety day notice before a building owner can paint over a mural. Twitchell received no such notice before his mural was arbitrarily destroyed, so he’s been awarded a $1.1 million settlement. To date it is the largest settlement to have been paid out to an artist under state or federal laws meant to protect artist’s rights - and I won’t hesitate to say that Twitchell fully deserves the money. I first heard of his mural being destroyed the day it happened, and without delay I called the L.A. arts community to his defense, so it’s gratifying to learn of Twitchell’s court victory - which also bodes well for all other muralists and artists creating public art across the country.

I met Twitchell a short while after the destruction of his mural, when photographer Gil Ortiz and I visited his Playa Vista, California studio in August of 2006 - hence much of what follows is based upon the chat I had with Twitchell during that visit. He was affable and friendly, revealing his feelings concerning the destruction of his Ed Ruscha mural, his life as an artist, and his views regarding the state of art in America today. No doubt Twitchell was irate over the destruction of his mural, but he possessed a clear-headed understanding of the social implications of his next move - a lawsuit against the U.S. government. At the time Twitchell told me; "I don’t want to blow this thing, I could hurt other artists if I blow this thing. I’ve got to make them know that they can’t just paint out a work of art just because they feel like it - there’s a law that they have to follow… they can paint it out, they can do whatever they want to it, they just have to be polite about it, but they were not."

Known for his monumental works, I asked Twitchell if he ever created small scale artworks. "It’s a lot easier for me to work at least life-size. A lot of times when I work small I don’t pull it off, maybe two out of three times it’s ok. If I work life-size or bigger then almost everything I do I like." Then he went bounding off to the second story of his studio to rustle through his archives. He returned with a portfolio of original sketches and lithographs that were delicately wrapped in acid free paper for purposes of preservation. Some of the drawings were of individuals that appear in his massive 405 Freeway mural, L.A. Marathon, a work that celebrates the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics but is unfortunately now damaged by graffiti. The drawings were composed of tightly woven crosshatched lines, the work of a highly skilled and disciplined draftsman. Twitchell chuckled and said "Sometimes I draw this way, not because it’s better, but because I’m obsessive compulsive - that’s who I am."

[ Kent Twitchell in his studio, 2006 - Photo by Gil Ortiz. Twitchell holds his lithograph of artist Lita Albuquerque. ]

Amongst the portfolio’s drawings and prints there was an amazing portrait of artist Lita Albuquerque. The lithograph was immediately recognizable as a print version of the huge Lita Albuquerque mural Twitchell painted alongside L.A.’s Harbor Freeway in 1983. I mentioned to him that I had just recently driven past the mural, and that it was almost completely destroyed by graffiti, to which Twitchell replied "I won’t have to repaint it because she’s so protected, all of that graffiti will come right off without damaging the original painting." He then began explaining the process used to protect his street murals; "First there’s a type of wax that’s applied to the surface, followed by a coating of anti-graffiti material", but Twitchell is well aware that restoration of a damaged mural is a relatively simple matter - and that a far bigger problem lies ahead for L.A. murals. Once restored to pristine condition they will immediately be defaced by graffiti taggers who respect nothing but their own trivial notoriety. Twitchell’s Albuquerque mural is still in situ, but as of this writing it’s completely buried under layers of graffiti - only Albuquerque’s eyes peer out from behind the shroud of spray paint vandalism.

Looking at Twitchell’s vast body of work, it’s easy to see that he has a passion for realism in painting, yet I wouldn’t call him a photo-realist. In spite of the fact that he uses modern techniques and equipment in his mural making, Twitchell is very much a traditionalist whose influences range from the Old Masters to Salvador Dali - he confided in me; "I want to paint one of my heroes, Grant Wood, the great American regionalist painter, who just tweaked the New York art establishment. He used to wear bib overalls - a brilliant man, went to Paris, learned about Modernism - he could do it as well as anybody, but he went back to Iowa and continued as a regionalist painter with Hicks, Benton, and the others - and he did it on purpose. So unpretentious, and that’s what art needs - unpretentiousness."

A close up examination of Twitchell’s paintings reveals, not brush strokes, but tiny fields of pure color. He equates this to the Pointillism of French artist George Seurat, but notes that Seurat accomplished his paintings by using "pure colors, while I use values." For all intents and purposes the outlines of Twitchell’s murals look like an extremely complicated paint by numbers drawing, but by stepping back just a few feet, the crazy quilt patchwork of values becomes a sharp focused realistic portrait.

Los Angeles has a deeply rooted tradition of public murals, from 1930s works by the likes of David Alfaro Siqueiros, Hugo Ballin, Dean Cornwell, and those artists working for the Works Progress Administration - to the late 1960s mural renaissance that sprang from the Chicano and African American social movements. However, the forward thinking community based activism that served as a catalyst for the city’s mural movement utterly collapsed decades ago - only to be replaced by a nihilistic apolitical narcissism that is daily expressed in graffiti vandalism.

At present some of L.A.’s murals have been destroyed outright, most others have fallen into a state of disrepair, and all are threatened by graffiti, especially outdoor murals located at street level. Scores of graffiti scarred murals are now simply beyond restoration. The L.A. Daily News addressed the issue in a 2007 article titled L.A.’s street murals disappearing, framing the problem in the following manner; "Once the mural capital of the world, Los Angeles has quietly surrendered that distinction to Philadelphia over the past five years. While the City of Brotherly Love spends $4.5 million to paint, restore and maintain its 2,700 murals, the City of Angels has just $20,000 to look after its documented murals, which once numbered 3,000. Artists say 60 percent of them - about 1,800 - now are either gone for good or have been nearly obliterated by tagging and vandalism."

In 2006 I asked Twitchell what he thought about the state of the L.A. muralist movement and his answer was blunt, "The muralist movement is dead." That’s a bitter pill to swallow, but any impartial observer would have to agree. The L.A. Times article that reported on Twitchell’s mural settlement quoted him as saying; "What's really discouraging about most public art is the way that, in this city of ours, spray paint vandalism has kind of taken over the streets. What was once the mural capital is now the graffiti capital - although I don't call it graffiti, I call it spray paint vandalism. We cannot coexist."

I’m sure there are those who assume Twitchell is now "set for life" because of his settlement with the government, and that he can now retire to the lap of luxury. He is under no obligation to continue being a productive artist, and with his murals coming under attack from every direction, some would ask why doesn’t he just give up. That would be a complete misreading of the artistic spirit. Twitchell has devoted his life’s work to muralism, and knowing his devotion to the art, it’s a certainty he’d much rather have his mural of Ed Ruscha standing in pristine condition than to be awarded a cash settlement - no matter how large. Twitchell’s admonition that muralists "cannot coexist" with graffiti vandals is more an avowal to stand firm than it is a statement of surrender, and in the effort to re-establish the tradition of community based murals - I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with the muralists.

May 68: Posters from the Paris Rebellion

Among the many graffiti slogans scrawled upon the walls of Paris during the rebellion of May 1968, perhaps the one that best summed up the temper of the time was "Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible". But poetic, politically pointed graffiti was not the only thing to adorn the walls of Paris in 68. Anonymous street art posters augmented the May uprising, leaving behind a legacy of socially conscious graphics that to this day have not been outdone in terms of political sophistication, simplicity, and effectiveness.

[ Mai 68: Début d'une lutte prolongée - "May 68: Beginning of a prolonged struggle". Silkscreen street poster created anonymously by members of the Atelier Populaire, 1968. ]

Produced anonymously by the workers and students of the Atelier Populaire (Popular Workshop), the posters of May 68 Paris have been enormously influential over the years despite the fact that they have never been made commercially available. My understanding of how art can have an impact on public opinion was in part shaped by exposure to those posters the year they hit the streets. Years ago I wrote an online illustrated article that traced the history of the prints, an examination that remains one of the largest archives of May 68 Parisian posters to be found on the web, so I’m pleased to see the posters of 68 receiving a long overdue reappraisal.

May 68: Street Posters from the Paris Rebellion, opens on May 1st, 2008, at the Hayward Project Space in London. It will be the first exhibition of Paris 68 posters to be organized in the UK, displaying 46 of the original posters created by the Atelier Populaire. The poster exhibit runs until June 1, 2008.

Meanwhile in France, a collection of over 250 rare May 68 posters produced by the Atelier Populaire, went on exhibition and sale at the world famous Drouot auction house on April 5, 2008. While I’ve not yet read about the results of the poster sale, I did get word that starting prices for individual prints began at 100 Euros (around $150 yankee dollars) - that such influential and historic posters could be priced so low invokes a number of tricky questions.

[ Parisians take in the exhibit of May 68 posters at the Drouot auction house the day before the historic prints were auctioned on April 5, 2008. Reuters photo by Jacky Naegelen. ]

It should be evident that there is a tremendous difference between a historic May 68 poster and a street art stencil print created by a contemporary artist. How is it then that Bonhams London auction house sold a single Banksy stencil print of a Chimp for £228,000 ($449,000), while the starting price for any May 68 poster on the auction block at Drouot was so abysmally low? We should be aware of the forces at work here, and the Atelier Populaire itself had some instructive words regarding the commodification of political street art. As I noted in my previously mentioned essay on the Atelier Populaire, the poster making collective took an unequivocal stance regarding their works. "To use them for decorative purposes, to display them in bourgeois places of culture or to consider them as objects of aesthetic interest is to impair both their function and their effect. This is why the Atelier Populaire has always refused to put them on sale."

Edward Hopper: A Retrospective

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) is the subject of a major retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago, the last venue for a traveling exhibition that included stops at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Encompassing nearly 100 of the artist’s most notable prints and paintings, the exhibit features some of the artist’s most iconic canvases, New York Movie (1939) and Nighthawks (1942) to name but a few. As a youngster Hopper’s paintings provided me with an entry point into the art of the Great Depression period, and I recall as an adolescent being mesmerized by his works. So without hesitation I cite Hopper as one of my influences.

[ Automat - Edward Hopper. Oil on canvas. 1927. From the permanent collection of the Des Moines Art Center and currently part of the traveling Edward Hopper exhibit. ]

The figurative realist paintings of Edward Hopper continue to be extremely popular with the general public and a good number of critics. In 2004 the Tate Modern in London mounted an exhibition of Hopper’s works that turned out to be the second most popular show in the museum’s history - pulling in nearly half a million visitors during its three month run (a 2002 exhibit of paintings by Matisse and Picasso was the Tate’s most popular show). I think it’s a mistake to ascribe Hopper’s continued popularity to simple nostalgia, as I’m certain the allure of his work is based upon a modern audience seeing itself reflected in the portrayals of alienation he so often depicted. In essence Hopper was a social realist, and what he quietly revealed about late 20th century American society still rings true today. Conceivably, another explanation for Hopper’s lasting popularity might be found in his final written statement, published in the Spring of 1953:

"Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the intellect for a pristine imaginative conception. The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form, and design. The term 'life' as used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it implies all of existence, and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it. Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature’s phenomena before it can again become great."

Of course, Hopper made his statement when Abstract Expressionism was the dominant force in the American art scene, and more importantly, at a time when art elites had pronounced realist painting to be woefully old-fashioned - a viewpoint we are still largely saddled with today. But then, Hopper was impervious to the avant-garde movements that swept over the later half of the 20th century; Surrealism, Action Painting, Pop Art - all had absolutely no impact upon him whatsoever. Now that the chilly detachment of postmodernism has become the prevailing fashion in art, many are looking towards artists like Hopper for craft, beauty, technical virtuosity, and narrative without the tedious yoke of irony.

[ Night Shadows - Edward Hopper. Etching. 1921. Included in the traveling Edward Hopper exhibit. ]

Hopper’s social realism was of a psychological bent, showing individuals who were estranged from each other and at odds with their surroundings - even his depopulated cityscapes suggested disquiet. Hopper’s evocative paintings provide just enough of a story to pull in the viewer, even while maintaining impenetrable mystery - one is never quite certain what the people in his canvases are thinking or doing. While Hopper’s themes often dealt with alienation they were never alienating, and despite the depictions of emptiness and seclusion, Hopper’s works somehow imparted - and still do - a deep and unshakable humanism.

As a student Hopper studied painting and illustration at the New York Institute of Art and Design, where artist Robert Henri was his favorite instructor. Hopper would later be associated with the Ashcan School of social realism launched by Henri and his rebellious cohorts, in fact Hopper first exhibited in a 1908 group show in New York organized by some of Henri’s students. Early on in his career Hopper sustained himself by working discontentedly as a commercial illustrator, a profession he positively detested, and it wouldn’t be until the later half of his life that he met with any success as a painter. He sold his first painting at the 1913 Armory Show, and wouldn’t sell another for ten years. His premier solo exhibit in 1920 was a depressing affair that generated neither critical acclaim nor sales. Thankfully Hopper had the fortitude to press ahead with his work despite the difficulties he faced - a determination that should inspire anyone who swims against the conformist mainstream.

[ Office in a Small City - Edward Hopper. Oil on canvas. 1953. Alienation and emotional isolation in consumer society - a critique more applicable today than ever before. Painting in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. ]

Hopper was a private man of few words, and he made but three written statements concerning his views on art. The following quotation came from Notes on Painting, a short discourse published in the catalog of his 1933 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art:

"My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature. If this end is unattainable, so, it can be said, is perfection in any other ideal of painting or in any other of man’s activities. The trend in some of the contemporary movements in art, but by no means all, seems to deny this ideal and to me appears to lead to a purely decorative conception of painting. (....) I believe that the great painters, with their intellect as master, have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions. I find any digression from this large aim leads me to boredom."

The Edward Hopper retrospective runs at the Art Institute of Chicago until May 11, 2008.

Modern Painters: Art & War

The April 2008 edition of Modern Painters: The International Contemporary Art Magazine, is devoted to "the politically driven art made in response to war and its critical reception." An introductory statement from the magazine’s Assistant Editor, Quinn Latimer, sums up the profusely illustrated April edition thusly: "Each month, with some discomfiture, we publish art criticism that rarely touches on the Iraq war. But the fifth anniversary of the American invasion compelled us to unambiguously address the conflict. For while there has been no shortage of artistic responses, their critical reception has been scant. Modern Painters is devoting this issue to speaking to that void - and to filling any implied silences by putting words and images in their stead."

[ Modern Painters - Photomontage cover by Martha Rosler. ]

Ordinarily given to commentary and analysis of contemporary art, from painting to photography, film, architecture, design and more, the Modern Painters’ Art & War edition is indicative of what bubbles just beneath the surface of the art world. Editor Susan Morris struck what for me seemed a positive note, when she wrote in her editorial statement that the magazine’s staff; "began to wonder about art and activism, art in the age of terrorism, the nature of propaganda, and the role of art in wartime. The stories in this issue are, we hope, the start of what will be a continuing conversation." A single issue of a magazine is of course not enough, but it is a step in the right direction towards developing a questioning and contentious aesthetic. Morris’ words are pleasing to my disposition, since what she describes is in actuality the general direction this web log has taken since its inception.

Modern Painters’ Art & War edition offers its readership insightful articles coupled with multiple examples of artworks created by a wide array of professional contemporary artists. Ara H. Merjian is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches modern art. His article, Diminishing Returns: Wartime Art Practices, uses the American war in Vietnam as a starting point for his critique, writing; "During the Vietnam War, artists stopped making work as a form of protest against its atrocities. Why is a similar response to Iraq unthinkable, and what is the artistic community doing instead." Merjian answers his own rhetorical question by presenting an overview of current antiwar artworks and projects - but he also gives us a conundrum to brood over when he writes;

"(....) these commendable efforts have not led to an antiwar movement in a consistent - and consistently obstreperous - sense. Even sustained examples in various mediums - Fernando Botero’s paintings addressing human-rights abuses at Abu Ghraib; Martha Rosler’s photomontages; Paul Chan’s series of videos from Afghanistan and Baghdad; Mark Wallinger’s painstaking installation re-creating censored British activist Brian Haw’s protest placards - constitute relatively isolated cases, somehow stripped of a mass and momentum that might have stemmed the war’s relentless swell."

It’s not often that my name is mentioned in the same breath as that of Karl Rove, so you will excuse my wanting to share the following with you, but it’s one of the finer points made in Merjian’s article that has to do with the complexities of language, visuals, and of articulating views outside of acceptable mainstream parameters.

"Just as there is no geographic center to the global war on terror, there is no 'center' to its language. Terms ranging from peacekeeping to Patriot Act open onto consequences far less transparent than their monikers would suggest, evincing what artist and activist Mark Vallen has called, with his tongue only partially in cheek, 'totalitarian postmodern.' Karl Rove and company’s brilliant expropriation - conscious or not - of poststructuralist figures of speech to insidious ends has, in many instances, run circles around leftist efforts at subversion."

The April edition of Modern Painters also carries several other commentaries, columns, and reviews of note. In the article Display Tactics: Political Curating, freelance curator and critic, Tirdad Zolghadr, challenges the effectiveness of recent exhibits that have addressed the Iraq war. Five Years and Counting is a portfolio of images from over a dozen of today’s artists who have created works in opposition to the Iraq war. Home Delivery: Martha Rosler’s Photomontages, is Richard Meyer’s essay on the fierce cut and paste montage work of Rosler, who has four stunning works in the magazine’s pages, plus - she created the powerful cover art for the magazine. No doubt of interest to artists, activists, and academics, Modern Painters’ Art & War edition is available on newsstands most everywhere.

The Newspeak Newseum

On April 11, 2008, the inelegantly named Newseum opened in Washington, DC., to great fanfare. Ostensibly created to celebrate journalism in America and beyond, the seven-story museum is the newest and most expensive museum in the United States. Founded by the Freedom Forum and costing $450 million, the latest cultural institution to be added to the nation’s capital is so far receiving rave reviews from the press, but things are never quite what they seem - especially in a city like Washington, DC.

[ Opening day at the Newseum. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin. ]

Being the "fly in the ointment" that I am, I’d like to make a few observations about the Newseum that you’ll most likely not be reading elsewhere. I don’t mean to be dismissive of the museum’s noteworthy attributes - there are plenty of writers who will be focusing on those positive elements - but in the case of a museum dedicated entirely to news and how it’s gathered and disseminated, I feel some muckraking on my part is in order.

Let’s start with the name, "Newseum", which sounds remarkably like a word from "Newspeak", the fictional language from 1984, George Orwell’s novel about a totalitarian society. The function of Newspeak was to significantly decrease the number of words in the English language, thereby purging meaning and ideas dangerous to totalitarian rule. For example, in Orwell’s novel the Ministry of Truth ("Minitru" in Newspeak), was the government agency in charge of manufacturing news, entertainment, art, and educational materials. Its primary functions entailed the falsification of history and the concoction of the "truth". We’re hearing a lot of Newspeak-like words these days, and "Newseum" is one of them - it’s an unseemly name for an important museum.

One can learn more about the state of journalism in America today by examining the complicated financial ties, holdings, mergers, and acquisitions of corporate media than by strolling through the Newseum. The Newseum’s roster of "partners" is a veritable list of the cartels that dominate America’s media, and the museum’s founding organization, Freedom Forum, itself has ties to Gannett Co., Inc., which owns USA Today - the largest selling newspaper in the U.S., as well as 84 other newspapers, 1,000 non-daily publications, 23 television stations, and 130 web sites. The Newseum insists their partners have no control over the museum’s content or direction, but each has contributed anywhere from $5 million to $15 million to the museum, and with wings like the "Time Warner World News Gallery" and the "ABC News Changing Exhibits Gallery" - it’s difficult not to see the Newseum as one big advertisement for corporate media giants.

The concentrated power of the companies backing the Newseum can be illustrated by glancing at the portfolios of just two of the museum’s financial backers. News Corporation owns the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox News Channel, 20th Century Fox Film, and 176 newspapers. Time Warner is the largest media conglomerate in the world, and its holdings include CNN, HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network, TNT, America Online, Mapquest, Netscape, Warner Bros. Pictures, and over 150 magazines including Time and People. The operative word at the Newseum seems to be - monopoly.

The Newseum promotes itself as "the most interactive museum in the world", but it appears this interactivity could be more about shaping public opinion than it is in providing museum goers with an outstanding educational experience regarding journalism. A case in point; ABC’s flagship public affairs show, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, will begin broadcasting from one of the museum’s multi-media studios on April 20, 2008. This raises some interesting questions, especially since ABC is one of the Newseum’s major financial partners. On April 10, 2008, U.S. Commander in Iraq General David Petraeus, along with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, held a news conference at the Newseum where they defended U.S. military efforts in Iraq. It’s difficult to imagine the Newseum opening its multi-media studios to war opponents, who are also worthy news makers.

[ General David Petraeus sells President Bush’s Iraq war strategy at a special press conference held at the Newseum on April 10, 2008. AFP Photo/Alex Wong. ]

In his article on the opening of the Newseum, Howard Kurtz, staff writer for The Washington Post, flatly stated that the museum seemed to be "an overpriced monument to journalistic self-glorification", one "at odds with the growing public distrust of the news business and the huge journalistic blunders that have pockmarked its reputation." Kurtz is no doubt referring to the role corporate media played in selling the idea of war with Iraq to the American people, which the Newseum makes but one casual reference to. In a small exhibit case at the museum, there is a single diminutive plaque that mentions the false news reports filed by New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Her stories concerning alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would build a national consensus for war with Iraq - reports that would later prove to be utterly false.

The role of the corporate press in beating the drums of war for the Bush administration was the subject of Buying the War, a devastating documentary by Bill Moyers and Kathleen Hughes (watch the entire film on the Bill Moyers Journal website). Mr. Kurtz appeared in Moyers film, where he stated: "From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in The Washington Post making the administration's case for war, but there was only a handful of stories that ran on the front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite case, raised questions." Washington Post staff writer Tom Shales reviewed the 90-minute Moyers report, saying that it convincingly told the story of how "the media abandoned their role as watchdog and became lapdog instead." At the Newseum, the same media conglomerates that disseminated the deceptions that led America to war, now promote themselves as the guardians of a free press and the very pinnacle of professional journalism.

The Newseum was founded by the Freedom Forum, which touts itself as a "nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people." Formerly vice president of news and communications at Gannett Co., Inc., Charles L. Overby is the current chairman and chief executive officer of the Freedom Foundation, as well as CEO of the Newseum. He also holds a commanding position in another organization that seems a far cry from the world of journalism and press freedom - a powerful position not listed on his bio at the Newseum website. Overby sits on the Board of Directors for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest privately-run, for profit prison system in the United States. According to the CCA website, it is also one of the "largest prison operators" in America, running "63 facilities, including 38 company-owned facilities, with a total design capacity of approximately 67,000 beds in 19 states and the District of Columbia." CCA also runs the T. Don Hutto family detention center in Taylor, Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security - the first detention camp in America specifically designed to hold immigrant men, women, and children who have not been charged with any crimes.

[ The Lake City Correctional Facility in the State of Florida - operated by Corrections Corporation of America. Charles L. Overbuy, CEO of the Newseum, also sits on the Board of Directors for the CCA. ]

As the CEO of the Newseum, Mr. Overby understands that in order for the museum to be profitable, it must offer quality rotating exhibitions that will consistently draw crowds willing to pay the asked for $20 admission price - just as Overby understands that the privatized prisons of the Corrections Corporation of America must also be kept full if they are to turn a profit. It’s a sure bet the Newseum will never mention the link between the Freedom Foundation and the Corrections Corporation of America as personified by Charles L. Overby, but it unquestionably would make for an entertaining and informative interactive museum presentation.

Journalist Russ Baker’s 2002 article, Cracks in a Foundation: The Freedom Forum Narrows its Vision, reveals how the Freedom Forum made severe cuts to its well regarded journalism grants and programs, allowing it "to concentrate on its jewel, the Newseum." The eliminated grants, Baker wrote, had lent "succor to foreign journalists struggling in some of the world's toughest arenas. The overseas operation - with offices in Johannesburg, London, Hong Kong, and Buenos Aires - would be shut down in its entirety." Baker’s article quoted the former director of the Freedom Forum's European Center in London, John Owen: "The people who run the Freedom Forum, I am ashamed to say, betrayed the commitments they made all over the world to support the cause of free and independent journalism. The irony is that in order to construct a new, expensive, state-of-the-art facility in Washington, we have shut down other buildings and evicted the very people that someday this Newseum will be honoring for their journalism."

On public display at the Newseum are a number of historic artifacts pertaining to the history of journalism and press freedom - some of which make for thoughtful, interesting, and sometimes profound selections. However, the collection is as significant for what it includes as for what it excludes. To my knowledge, the Newseum makes no mention of the U.S. bombing of Radio Television Serbia (RTS) during the Kosovo war of 1999, when President Clinton and his NATO allies launched an air war against Serbia in order to force Serbian troops out of Kosovo. Whatever one may think of that war and the role America played in it, it seems a travesty that the Newseum would ignore the deliberate aerial bombing of a modern television station and the deaths of the civilian staff who occupied it.

[ The smoldering ruins of the Radio Television Serbia building in downtown Belgrade after it was destroyed by an American Cruise missile on April 23, 1999. 16 civilian TV technicians were killed in the attack.]

On April 23, 1999, an American cruise missile slammed into the RTS building in downtown Belgrade at 2 a.m., killing 16 civilian TV technicians working at the station - including a 27-year-old make-up woman. The U.S. and NATO argued that the station was a legitimate military target because it broadcast propaganda, but according to journalist Robert Fisk of the Independent who was at the scene of the bombing as the bodies were being pulled from the smoldering rubble, "Once you kill people because you don’t like what they say, you change the rules of war." Amnesty International issued a scorching condemnation of the attack on RTS, stating that: "NATO deliberately attacked a civilian object, killing 16 civilians, for the purpose of disrupting Serb television broadcasts in the middle of the night for approximately three hours. It is hard to see how this can be consistent with the rule of proportionality."

While the Newseum includes examples of media blunders, gaffes, and outright lies hoisted upon an unsuspecting public, they apparently could not find exhibit space for an alarming news story from the year 2000, when officers from the U.S. Army 4th Psychological Operations Group (PSYOPS) were invited to work in the news divisions of CNN and National Public Radio during the waning days of the Kosovo War. The story first surfaced in the Netherlands where the Amsterdam daily newspaper Trouw published the report. The article was translated into English but was picked up only by a handful of publications. One such periodical was the British daily, The Guardian, which wrote on April 12, 2000;

"For its part, the army said the program was only intended to give young army media specialists some experience of how the news industry functioned. The interns were restricted to mainly menial tasks such as answering phones, but the fact that military propaganda experts were even present in newsrooms as reports from the Kosovo conflict were being broadcast has triggered a storm of criticism and raised questions about the independence of these networks."

Both CNN and NPR admitted they allowed PSYOPS personnel to work in their news department headquarters, but insisted the officers were only interns who had no influence over news production. The American media watchdog group, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), wrote; "Even if the PSYOPS officers working in the newsroom did not influence news reporting, did the network allow the military to conduct an intelligence-gathering mission against CNN itself? (....) FAIR commends CNN for acknowledging that the presence of PSYOPS personnel in the newsroom was, in its words, 'inappropriate.' It is unfortunate that the network came to that conclusion only after the program's existence was revealed in February by the Dutch newspaper Trout."

The traditional concept of a museum as an elite institution dedicated to research and the acquisition, conservation, and safeguarding of humanity’s collective heritage - seems to be giving way to a profit driven, entertainment oriented, glitzy pop culture approach to museum management. As corporate monopolies move ever closer to controlling the cultural life of the nation, the Newseum provides the clearest look yet of a cultural institution in the service of big business.

Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed

Storefront for Art and Architecture is a non-profit organization in New York that prides itself on being one of that city’s few alternative groups focused upon architecture and urban design. Established in 1982, the group seeks to advance innovative architecture through education, artist’s talks, film screenings, forums, and exhibitions. For the first time the group is conducting an event outside of New York by coming to Los Angeles to present an exhibit and forum on Soviet architecture - the playfully titled, CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed; a showing of photos by Fréderic Chaubin documenting architecture from the last two decades of the Soviet Union ("CCCP" was the abbreviated Russian title for the former "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics").

The press release for the exhibit and forum states that Chaubin traveled extensively through the former Soviet Union, documenting the "startling architectural artifacts born during the last two decades of the Cold War." It further states that buildings from this late period were a far cry from the "vapid exercises in architectural propaganda" that form the stereotypical understanding of Soviet architecture. I believe the CCCP exhibit will frame Soviet architecture as a counter-point to how architecture is appreciated and practiced under capitalism, which should raise a number of significant questions.

Whatever one may think of the Soviet experiment, there’s no argument that from 1917 to 1932, the Soviet Union witnessed an eruption of avant-garde and experimental art. Soviet Architects were no less impacted by this upsurge, and they fused engineering and city planning with communal ideals. Groundbreaking Soviet architects like Alexander Vesnin, Vladimir Shukhov, Ilya Golosov, Yakov Chernikhov, and many others all labored to this end, designing and building worker’s clubs, sports facilities, offices, theaters, factories, communal apartment blocks, cooperative kitchens, collectivist living spaces and much more - all designed with a classless future in mind.

But the Soviet experiment in worker’s rule also attracted important architects and engineers from outside the Soviet Union, such as Le Corbusier from France, Erich Mendelsohn of Germany, and the American industrial architect, Albert Kahn. A highly successful young architect, Mendelsohn was given a commission by the Soviets to design and build a factory in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). He was the first foreign architect to be called upon by the young Soviet regime, and the result of the collaboration was the remarkable Red Banner Textile Factory, a masterpiece of Constructivist architecture. Albert Kahn’s architectural firm designed and constructed over 500 factories for the Soviets between the years 1930 and 1932.

[ Red Banner Textile Factory in Leningrad - Photograph by Richard Pare, part of the Lost Vanguards exhibit. The Soviets gave a commission to German Architect Erich Mendelsohn in 1925 for the design and construction of the ultramodern factory. ]

The CCCP exhibit opened on April 11, 2008, for a month long run at a so-called "Pop-Up" store located at the Paperchase Printing building on Sunset Blvd. "Pop-Up" stores are a novel concept that circumvent profit-making venues in favor of unoccupied spaces that can be used for short periods of time. On Sunday April 13, 2008, at 2 pm, in conjunction with the exhibit, the Pop-Up Store will hold a public forum on Soviet Architecture. The curator of CCCP and Director of Storefront for Art and Architecture/New York, Joseph Grima, will be a panelist along with photographer Fréderic Chaubin.

[ Red Bus Shelter - Photograph by Richard Pare. Architect unknown, date unknown. ]

Also included on the panel is photographer Richard Pare, whose photographic exhibit, Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture 1922-1932, was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The panel will also benefit from the presence of Barry Bergdoll, who as Chief Curator of Architecture & Design at MoMA, organized Lost Vanguard for MoMA. I very much look forward to hearing Richard Pare, who made eight trips to the former Soviet Union between 1992 and 2000, for the express purpose of photographing what remains of Modernist Architecture from the post-revolutionary period of 1922 to 1932 - a good deal of which is in danger from neglect or being torn down by developers. Pare made nearly ten thousand photos of Soviet modernist structures, with a selection of 74 photographs eventually being presented in his MoMA exhibition and accompanying book. On the eve of his 2007 MoMA show, Men’s VOGUE published a must-read interview with Pare, which also includes a slide show of the stunning buildings captured by Pare’s camera.

[ Melnikov House - Photograph by Richard Pare. Architect Konstantin Melnikov, constructed 1927-1931. ]

CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed, runs from April 11 to May 17, 2008, at the Pop-Up Storefront located at Paperchase Printing, 7176 Sunset Blvd. (2 blocks west of La Brea, corner of Formosa) Los Angeles, CA 90046.

Bearing Witness: Photos of the Iraq War

On April 7, 2003, Reuters photographer Faleh Kheiber took a photo that will forever speak of the cruelty of war. Kheiber’s photo, and dozens of others taken by fellow Reuters photojournalists working in Iraq, comprise an exhibition of war photography marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War, is the inaugural exhibition for the Idea Generation Gallery in London, a timely show that is actually a collaboration between the gallery and the Reuters news agency. The Head of Visual Projects at Reuters, Jassim Ahmad, said of the gallery exhibit: "This is a tribute to 125 journalists who have died in the conflict, including seven colleagues, and testament to the bravery and tenacity of those who have born witness through half a decade of conflict." Readers should be reminded that press safety advocates like the International Press Institute have designated Iraq as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists.

[ Iraqi guerillas - Photo by Reuters news agency, from the Bearing Witness exhibit. ]

The exhibit stretches throughout two floors of the Idea Generation Gallery, bringing together war photography, video, and information graphics so as to form a narrative concerning the harrowing nature of frontline war journalism. Americans may be familiar with a number of indelible images in the exhibit, but there are other photos included in the show that will be less familiar to an audience habituated to the sanitized version of the Iraq war as presented by mainstream media outlets. Faleh Kheiber’s photo comes to mind.

Faleh Kheiber visited Baghdad’s Kindi hospital on April 7, 2003, along with the Gulf Bureau Chief for Reuters, Samia Nakhoul - just as U.S. troops began capturing parts of the Iraqi capital. The two interviewed and photographed 12 year old Ali Ismail Abbas, whose family home had been hit by U.S. missiles; Ali’s father, pregnant mother, brother, aunt, three cousins and three other relatives all perished in the explosion. Ali suffered third-degree burns over 60 percent of his body - and the deadly blast had blown off both of his arms. The two Reuters journalists filed their story on the unfortunate Ali, and their report was picked up and published worldwide - with Kheiber’s tear-jerking photograph breaking hearts around the world. But that would not be the end of the tale.

The day after Faleh Kheiber and Samia Nakhoul filed their story, the two were in Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, where the Reuter’s Baghdad bureau had located its office in a converted upper floor suite. Some 200 international journalists from various news agencies were based at the hotel, covering the war from the Palestine’s balconies as the capital burned. The U.S. military was informed of the hotel’s role as a headquarters for journalists. As fighting raged near the Palestine, a U.S. tank fired a shell at the hotel’s 15th floor, killing two reporters and severely wounding three others - two of which were Samia Nakhoul and Faleh Kheiber. Ms. Nakhoul required emergency brain surgery in order to survive.

Bearing Witness, runs from April 9, 2008 to May 4, 2008, at the Idea Generation Gallery. 11 Chance Street, London E2 7JB. Reuters’ has also launched an excellent multimedia website in conjunction with the gallery exhibit.

Street Art: McCain, Police and Thieves

[ Police and Thieves - Anonymous street poster, 2008. ]

I spotted this anonymous street art poster of Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles. The title of the poster, Police and Thieves, comes from a Jamaican reggae hit written by Junior Murvin in 1976 and popularized further in a 1977 punk version by The Clash. Rebuking gang violence and police brutality, the lyrics chide: "Police and thieves in the street, Oh yeah!, Fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition. (....) No one stop it in anyway, And all the peacemaker turn war officer, Hear what I say - Police, police, police and thieves oh yeah!"

LA vs. War

LA vs. War promises to be one of the largest antiwar cultural happenings in the recent history of Los Angeles. Organized by the activist artists of Yo!, the same people who put together the Yo! What Happened to Peace? international touring peace poster exhibit, the LA vs. War extravaganza is scheduled to run April 10 - 13, 2008, at The Firehouse art space in downtown Los Angeles. In the words of the organizers, the show will be "an unprecedented gathering of artists united to deliver a message of peace, and offering resistance and opposition to war and violence."

[ LA vs. War - Anonymous street poster. A number of colorful handmade posters promoting the LA vs. War exhibit have been appearing on walls all across Los Angeles. This particular example makes use of a huge Xerox-like, black and white print-out, which has been hand-colored with brushes and spray paint. ]

Over the course of the event’s four day run, LA vs. War will showcase original artworks, present collections of current and vintage antiwar posters, conduct live workshops in poster and t-shirt screen-printing, display films, light installations and projections, offer music selections from antiwar DJs, and much more.

A core element of the exhibit will be the display of original drawings, paintings, and other unique artworks from the likes of Peter Kennard, Gee Vaucher, Poli Marichal, Robbie Conal, and many other talented artists too numerous to mention. I’m pleased to have two drawings in this section of the show, I Am Not The Enemy, and Not Our Children - Not Their Children. Most of the one of a kind artworks in the show will be available for purchase, with a percentage of sales going towards furthering the overall project. Plans are already underway for San Diego vs. War and New York vs. War.

[ Not Our Children - Not Their Children - Mark Vallen. Pencil on paper. 2003. On display at LA vs. War. Click here for a larger view. ]

Also of interest will be the presentations of antiwar poster art both current and historic. LA vs. War will have on view dozens of recent posters from the Yo! What Happened to Peace? collection - and many of the vibrant prints will be available for purchase. In addition, a selection of historic antiwar posters from the archives of L.A.’s Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG), will be on display. CSPG is a vital resource for artists, activists, researchers, and academics; and with its holding of some 50,000 works it has become one of the country’s largest archives of political poster art.

[ The Spoils of War - Winston Smith. Five color silkscreen print. On display at LA vs. War. For those unable to attend the exhibit, a good number of prints by participating artists are being sold on the Yo Depot website. ]

LA vs. War takes place April 10th to April 13th, 2008, in downtown Los Angeles at The Firehouse, 710 S. Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles CA. 90021 (click here for a map). For a full listing of participating artists and scheduled events, visit the LA vs. War website at www.lavswar.com. An Artists' Reception takes place on Thursday, April 10, 2008. 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. Regular exhibition hours - Thursday through Sunday, Noon - 11 p.m. All ages are welcome and admission is free.

[ UPDATE - Organizers of the exhibit tell me that around 5,000 people took in the LA vs. War show during its four day run. The following photos are from the exhibit’s opening night party. ]

Artist's Reception at LA vs. War exhibit, Thursday, April 13, 2008.

Kurt Brian Webb & the Dance of Death

War: Dance of Death in Black, White, and Blood Red All Over, is the name of a timely exhibition of woodcuts now on view at Los Angeles’ A Shenere Velt Gallery. Printmaker Kurt Brian Webb’s blunt, no-nonsense graphic style makes clear an unequivocal opposition to the forces of war and militarism through prints that are at once honest, sardonic, and mordantly funny. The pale rider of course stalks every one of us, but Webb chooses to focus on the military figures who have danced with Mr. D., and in so doing the artist reveals the human condition.

All of the prints in Webb’s exhibit are hand-carved from blocks of wood and printed in two colors on Japanese rice paper. Webb updated this venerable technique by printing his designs on faded images of corporate newspaper stories pertaining to the conflagration in Iraq - and the blending of traditional techniques, jarring imagery, and mass media detritus makes for some searing antiwar artworks.


[ Marching Infantry Corporal: Death toll in Iraq war reaches grim milestone - Kurt Brian Webb. Two-color woodblock print. 10” x 8”. 2006. ]

Marching Infantry Corporal: Death toll in Iraq war reaches grim milestone, depicts a doomed infantryman as he trudges along, burdened by heavy combat gear and a skeleton that rides him like a pack mule. The print was created in 2006 when U.S. military fatalities in Iraq had reached 822. That the toll has reached 4013 as of this writing only makes Webb’s print that much more foreboding.

There is a timeless quality to Webb’s prints, which not only attests to the artist’s considerable skill but also to his having tapped into a well established tradition in print making that makes use of death imagery for purposes of social commentary - José Guadalupe Posada comes to mind. At the turn of the 20th century the famous Mexican printmaker created over 1,600 satirical prints that featured calaveras (skeletons) deriding the pillars of society as well as the landless peasantry. But Kurt Brian Webb found his inspiration in the medieval prints of Europe.

[ Staff Sergeant Depending on Prosthetic Limb: Amputation rate for U.S. troops twice that of past wars - Kurt Brian Webb. Two-color woodblock print. 10” x 8”. 2006. ]

While traveling in Germany years ago I purchased a book titled, Der Tanzende Tod (Dancing Death), a compilation of woodcut prints by various German artists from the medieval period illustrating their views of death. The glumly humorous prints depicted skeletal figures and decaying cadavers mocking everyone from Cardinals and Kings to Knights and commoners. Such prints were widespread throughout Europe in the middle ages - an epoch of brutal feudalism, peasant revolts, religious wars, and of course the Bubonic Plague. Kurt Brian Webb has updated the medieval view of quietus and the Angel of Death, to frame imperialist war as our epoch’s plague.

[ Tod und der Kaiser/Death and the Emperor - German woodblock print from the 1480s. From the book Der Tanzende Tod. ]

War: Dance of Death runs at the A Shenere Velt Gallery until Sunday, May 4, 2008. The gallery is located at the Workman's Circle/Arbeter Ring, 1525 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles 90035 (Click here for a map to the gallery).

Blood: A Work in Progress

[ Blood - Mark Vallen. Oil on masonite. 18" x 24". Click here for a larger view. ]

A work in progress, my portrait of an anonymous African American man is intended as a rumination on racial politics in contemporary American society. The painting’s meaning and emotional focus is contingent upon who is viewing it, and while some may see menace, a great many others will perceive dignity. I have it in mind that my model’s unflinching gaze, the painting’s emotive color scheme, and the work’s very title - will all coalesce to form a challenging portrayal. While the work may seem finished to most, there are still a few painterly flourishes I wish to add.

Spiral Jetty, Big Oil, & LACMA

[ Spiral Jetty - Robert Smithson. 1970. The famous earthwork construction in Utah imperiled by oil drilling. ]

A story by Kirk Johnson titled Plans to Mix Oil Drilling and Art Clash in Utah, appeared in the March 27th edition of the New York Times. The article details how oil drilling in the Great Salt Lake of Utah may threaten Spiral Jetty, the famous earthwork construction created by artist Robert Smithson in 1970. Quoting the NYT’s piece:

"A fierce debate, with equal parts art, environmentalism and economics, has erupted over a plan by the state to allow oil drilling about five miles across the lake. The owner of 'Spiral Jetty,' the Dia Art Foundation in New York, in an alliance with a conservation group called Friends of Great Salt Lake, says the oil rigs would harm the work’s aesthetic experience. Led by their drumbeat of protest, more than 3,000 e-mail messages, mostly against the drilling plan, were received by the state during a public comment period last month. A decision by the state about whether to let the drilling go forward is expected in April."

But it’s not just concern over Smithson’s artwork that has made oil drilling in the Great Salt Lake a hot button issue. Environmentalist groups like The Nature Conservatory explain that the Great Salt Lake and its surrounding wetlands "provide important nesting and foraging habitat for over 250 species of birds." In fact the lake is a critical stopover for some six million migrating birds that fly annually from North to South America. Eco-tourists have been flocking to the lake for some of the best bird watching in the United States. It’s difficult to believe that oil drilling will not have a negative impact upon the migratory bird population and the associated booming eco-tourist industry.

The Friends of Great Salt Lake have spearheaded the resistance to the proposed oil drilling by Pearl Montana Exploration and Production, LTD., and the environmental group elicited the help of Mr. Smithson’s widow, artist Nancy Holt, who wrote an appeal to action that resulted in the State of Utah receiving over 3,000 letters protesting the anticipated oil drilling. I too am opposed to the despoiling of the Great Salt Lake area by the oil industry, and I have nothing but admiration for the coalition of art enthusiasts and environmentalists who, through democratic grass roots activism, have stood up to defend Smithson’s artwork as well as the Great Salt Lake environs.

It is interesting to note that the Dia Art Foundation of New York City, which is one of the major organizations opposed to the oil drilling, had Michael Govan as its President and Director from 1994 to 2006. Govan left the foundation in '06 to become the Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). One of his first moves as Director of LACMA was to broker a funding arrangement between the museum and BP (British Petroleum). The oil giant agreed to make a "gift" of $25 million dollars to LACMA, and in return the museum’s new entry gate would be christened the "BP Grand Entrance".

In a 2007 interview with the Los Angeles Times Mr. Govan justified taking BP’s money by saying, "What was convincing to me was their commitment to sustainable energy", a statement rendered ludicrous by a recent news report published by MSN Money on March 26, 2008. Titled Oil giant backs off green push, reporter Michael Brush’s article draws attention to the fact that BP’s "energy production declined 3% in 2007, and operating profits were down 6.4%", which has "brought growing pressure from analysts to build oil reserves fast." As a result BP is beginning to tap Canada’s oil sands, vast tracts of land in Alberta and Saskatchewan that contain a "hydrocarbon-rich mixture of bitumen, sand, water and clay" (....) These huge deposits give Canada the second-largest petroleum holdings in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia."

As the MSN Money report points out, "producing oil from tar sands requires so much energy that it creates three to five times as much carbon dioxide as production from wells." The extraction process "requires roads and pipelines that slice up forests - a huge impact on the local ecosystem." And "production of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide linked to mining tar sands has caused a spike in acid rain in Western Canada."

Commenting on BP’s move to extract oil from Canadian sand, Josh Mogerman of the Natural Resources Defense Council is quoted in the MSN Money article as having said, "There was this one shining moment where they (BP) looked like they were going to be the good guys, and they've just rapidly moved away from it. (....) This is an issue of how they portray themselves in the media compared to what they are doing to impact the rest of the world. They could live up to the image they portray. But they chose not to." LACMA’s Michael Govan should pay attention to those words and return the $25 million he accepted from BP.

4000 U.S. Fatalities in Iraq - So Far

Today the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed the deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Iraq, bringing the American death toll to 4,000. When I posted my very first article on this blog in November of 2004, some 849 U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iraq. The four American soldiers who lost their lives today died when their patrol vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad. The estimate for Iraqi civilian casualties is anywhere from 89,000 to well over 600,000, depending on the sources quoted. I have no art related anecdote to connect to these cheerless statistics - they offer they own profundities.

Artists Against The War - A Review

To mark the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, Foreign Policy in Focus magazine asked me to write a review of Artists Against The War, an exhibition of antiwar art organized and presented by the New York-based Society of Illustrators. A brief excerpt from that review follows, but you can read the entire fully illustrated article at the Foreign Policy in Focus website.

"Ellen Weinstein's 2007 Camouflage is a close-up portrait of an American soldier, the type of likeness one usually sees on television news broadcasts reporting on U.S. soldiers slain in Iraq or Afghanistan. Such images are always tragically the same, a gallant warrior in uniform imbued with the virtues of service and self-sacrifice, whose fresh face is unetched by life’s hard lessons - the physiognomy of a soul whose life came to an untimely end.

[ Camouflage - Ellen Weinstein. 2007. Collage. © 2008 - all rights reserved. ]

But Weinstein's artwork looks beyond facile patriotism to expose an unsettling reality. The soldier’s portrait, including his uniform and the American flag back-drop, are entirely composed of snippets of tabloid press reports trumpeting Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and other inconsequential celebrities. The collage presents the viewer with a conundrum. Does the camouflage hide a thoroughly narcissistic and debauched society - or does a manufactured culture of distraction mask a deep-rooted militarism? Yes, we "support our troops", but we care for our entertainment and pop stars even more. What blinds us to this psychotic behavior is the real camouflage suggested by the collage."

Witless Whitney Wasteland

The annual Whitney Biennial at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art is thought of by some as an important but frequently contentious survey of contemporary American art; unveiling the latest trends and directions in the U.S. art scene as well as plumbing the zeitgeist of the nation. If you accept that premise then you might also conclude that the country and its art are in very poor shape indeed.

Howard Halle of Time Out New York said the art on display at the 2008 Whitney Biennial "barely rises above the level of graduate school." Mario Naves of The Observer brusquely dismissed the exhibit as the "blandest biennial in memory", where "the easy gratifications of spectacle have replaced the rigors of engagement" and where "racial politics are no more meaningful than dressing in Viking drag." Ariella Budick of Newsday wrote a representative but altogether stinging assessment of the exhibit titled, Whitney Biennial is a wasteland, an acerbic review that not only describes the biennial, but the overall state of much of today’s art:

"The impending recession haunts us; the gradual warming of the earth terrifies us; the never-ending war in Iraq drains our strength and our emotional resources. And yet the art market soars blithely upward, impervious to crises at home and abroad. The Whitney is not in the business of selling art, but this Biennial shows that it's nevertheless caught up in the market's bizarre hysteria, swooning over mediocrity and prodigally handing out prestige. (....) The real elephant in the room is the impotence of art. This Biennial is filled with wan political statements, reluctant commodities, unpersuasively subversive gestures and acts of broken narcissism. There are not one but two pieces involving bits of mirror fastened to plywood frames - both of them incomplete reflections, hovering in midair. The entire exhibit seems gripped by awkwardness and a lack of conviction in art's ability to change lives, refract the world or even just make money."

Without voluminous wall texts and over intellectualized exhibit catalog entries, William Cordova’s installation, The House that Frank Lloyd Wright built 4 Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, is as cryptic and incomprehensible as any other postmodern mediocrity in the exhibit. A sprawling maze of wood beams that looks like a building under construction, Cordova’s work purportedly concerns the "strangeness of our own detritus and the too-often repressed histories they conceal." Little is mentioned of the historical figures the installation is named after, and museum goers are simply left to traipse about the faux construction site to wonder who Fred Hampton and Mark Clark might have been.

[ The House that Frank Lloyd Wright built 4 Fred Hampton and Mark Clark - William Cordova, Installation. 2006. Photo by Alejandra Villa/Newsday. ]

In the aftermath of the Second World War, art critics and intellectual circles redefined high art as aloof, nonrepresentational, inward looking, and unconcerned with narrative or social criticism - a judgment that represented the heedless cutting of the artist’s vocal chords. Realism in art was circumscribed as kitsch, lowbrow, and banal. The great incongruity of 21st century postmodernist art is that it has come to extol and embody those very things - with the 2008 Whitney Biennial exemplifying this contradiction.