Zombie Banks, Art Museums, & War

The equation is a simple one, in good economic times people feel they can afford to support the arts, in bad economic times - much less so. I do not mean to frame the question of art purely in financial terms, since some of the greatest art we know of has been created in the most impoverished settings and some of the best artists were, and are… paupers. Moreover, no matter how dire things are, art always has the capacity to bring relief and inspiration to those in low spirits. What I mean to express is simply that artists need to pay their rent like every other worker, and at present some one million American workers are losing their jobs each month.

Yesterday Wall Street stocks tumbled to new record lows as financial leviathans demanded billions more in bailout funds. A new term is making the rounds, "Zombie Banks", an expression that describes insolvent banks kept operating through infusions of government bailout money. An older expression is also making the rounds - Depression.

Americans for the Arts (AFTA) has estimated that this year national arts organizations will layoff some 10% of their work force, or roughly 260,000 people. AFTA has also voiced the expectation that of the nation’s 100,000 arts organizations - some 10% will permanently close down. Clearly, the arts are being deeply affected by the economic collapse and the situation will undoubtedly get worse. The following list of U.S. museums that are closing or enacting deep cutbacks is but a partial account from just this past February. It illustrates the absurdity of thinking President Obama’s inclusion of $50 million for national arts funding in his stimulus package will have any substantial impact upon America’s deteriorating cultural landscape.

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, will cut salaries and eliminate 7 percent of its workforce. Director Michael Shapiro said, "As with many non-profit institutions both in Atlanta and across the country, the High Museum of Art has been affected by the economic downturn, experiencing shortfalls in income we receive through donations and membership as well as losses to our endowment." Shapiro will take a 7 percent cut in pay and other director-level employees will receive a 6 percent cut. All other workers at the museum will receive a 5 percent cut in pay.

The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, has laid-off seven of its 150 employees, imposed a salary and hiring freeze, and cancelled a major exhibition of works by French painter Jean-Leon Gerome - an exhibit that would have been a collaborative project with the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and the Getty in Los Angeles. The museum’s budget has been reduced from $14.5 million to $12.5 million. The Walters also faces a 36 percent reduction in state funding, which means a loss of $420,000 for the museum next year.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is also facing state funding cuts, which could mean a loss of some $700,000 for the beleaguered orchestra. The Baltimore Opera Company is now seeking bankruptcy protection and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra has suspended performances for the rest of the season, with the Baltimore Theatre Project announcing it may have to do the same. The Maryland Historical Society, suffering a 31 percent reduction of endowments and a drop in state funding, has laid-off six staff members.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has laid-off 16 members of its staff. The museum is not only reducing staff, it is postponing exhibits, decreasing programs, and cutting salaries. Senior staff are receiving salary cuts from between five and 10 percent. The museum has suffered a loss of $90 million in endowments, and the donations continue to shrink. Museum chair H.F. Lenfest bluntly stated, "If endowment keeps being reduced in value there are going to be further steps taken. We would anticipate further reductions in personnel and operating." The museum is also being hit hard by reductions in state funding, which this year dropped from $3 million to $2.4 million - with further cuts expected for next year. The museum wants to increase admission fees, an act that must first be approved by the city.

The Detroit Institute of the Arts will be laying off 63 of its 301 employees, a 20 % reduction in staff, as it attempts to cut its budget by $6 million. The museum is reducing its number of exhibits in a further attempt to save money, and it has already cancelled three exhibitions this year for lack of funds - an exhibit on Baroque art, a showing of works by Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Jim Dine, and an exhibit of prints and drawings related to books. The museum also faces a total elimination of state funding, as Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s proposed budget for the state of Michigan puts an end to state arts funding, which would mean a devastating loss of $950,000 for the hard pressed DIA.

The Las Vegas Art Museum closed its doors on February 28, 2009. It shall retain its name in the hopes of re-opening if and when the economy improves. The museum faced a budget crisis that threatened to lay off workers and reduce salaries. Museum director Libby Lumpkin resigned over the announced cuts, and soon after the museum closed its doors.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a hiring freeze and is restricting staff travel, as well as the use of temporary employees. In addition the museum will close 15 of its gift stores across the nation. The Met’s endowment has suffered a 30% reduction and museum attendance and membership has fallen due to declining tourism. The Met is considering other ways to reduce its budget, with museum president Emily Rafferty saying that "we cannot eliminate the possibility of a head-count reduction."

The Indianapolis Museum of Art will cut its staff by 10%, eliminating 15 full-time positions and 6 part-time positions. Ten senior staff members will receive salary cuts in a plan that takes 3 percent of their wages as "donations" to the institution. Endowments have fallen $101 million since this fall. The museum receives less than 1 % of its budget from government funding.

The following should put everything in context. The Associated Press reported on February 26, 2009, that President Obama has proposed war spending that nears "$11 billion a month for the next year and a half despite the planned drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq." The AP went on to report that Obama plans on spending around $75 billion in emergency war funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through next fall, on top of which his new budget asks for $130 billion to carry out the wars for fiscal year 2010. The same AP story reports that these costs are just "part of the nearly $534 billion Obama wants for regular Pentagon operations next year. Altogether, Obama is asking for $739 billion for the military through the fall of 2010."

New York Times Proclaims End to Wars

Well… not really. Unidentified merry pranksters have published and distributed a fake "special edition" of The New York Times with a banner headline that proclaims; "IRAQ WAR ENDS: Troops to Return Immediately". The first sentence of an accompanying article reads: "Thousands take to the streets to celebrate the announced end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan". On Wednesday morning, Nov. 12, 2008, over one million copies of the forged edition were circulated for free by volunteers working with the anonymous publishers.

[ Front page of the fake "special edition" of The New York Times, Nov. 12, 2008. ]

The counterfeit edition also features full articles with titles like; "Nation Sets Its Sights on Building Sane Economy", "Maximum Wage Law Succeeds", "USA Patriot Act Repealed", "Nationalized Oil To Fund Climate Change Efforts", "Gitmo, Other Centers Closed", "Health Insurance Act Clears House", and "Bush to Face Charges".

It will certainly be argued that the intricate prank qualifies more as activism than art - but the hoax displays a good deal more inspiration and relevancy than the greater part of today’s conceptual or performance art practices. The press release for the sophisticated hoax reads as follows:

"November 12, 2008 - Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had come to an end. If, that is, they happened to read a 'special edition' of today's New York Times. In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street.

Articles in the paper announce dozens of new initiatives including the establishment of national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for C.E.O.s, and, of course, the end of the war.

The paper, an exact replica of The New York Times, includes International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline. There is also a timeline describing the gains brought about by eight months of progressive support and pressure, culminating in President Obama's 'Yes we REALLY can' speech. (The paper is post-dated July 4, 2009.)

'It's all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever,' said Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper's writers. 'We've got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do. After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven.' Not all readers reacted favorably. 'The thing I disagree with is how they did it,' said Stuart Carlyle, who received a paper in Grand Central Station while commuting to his Wall Street brokerage. 'I'm all for freedom of speech, but they should have started their own paper.'"

The pranksters have also published a phony New York Times website that mirrors the content of the faux paper. I have had trouble reaching the website - no doubt due to heavy traffic, and it remains to be seen how long it will manage to stay online before the real New York Times succeeds in shutting it down. The website includes clever additions unavailable in the paper - like videos and animated advertisements.

[ Still from video showing the distribution of the fake New York Times. ]

One video documents the distribution of the fake NYT on the streets of New York City - and the responses from the citizenry are remarkable. A fictitious ad for American Apparel apologizes for the company being "naughty", while pledging, "…but now we are unionizing our employees". The Fine Print, the editorial statement published on the sham website, fully explains the intent behind the guerilla art/activist project:

"This special edition of The New York Times comes from a future in which we are accomplishing what we know today to be possible. The dozens of volunteer citizens who produced this paper spent the last eight years dreaming of a better world for themselves, their friends, and any descendants they might end up having. Today, that better world, though still very far away, is finally possible - but only if millions of us demand it, and finally force our government to do its job.

It certainly won’t be easy. Even now, corporate representatives are swarming over Washington to get their agendas passed. The energy giants are demanding 'clean coal,' nuclear power and offshore drilling. Military contractors are pushing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. H.M.O.s and insurance companies are promoting bogus 'reforms' so they can forestall universal health care. And they’re not about to take no for an answer.

But things are different this time. This time, we can hold accountable the politicians we put into office. And because everyone can now see that the 'free market' has nothing to do with freedom, there is a huge opening to pass policies that can benefit all Americans, and that can make us truly free - free to pursue an education without debt, go on vacation every once in a while, keep healthy, and live without the crushing guilt of knowing what our tax dollars are doing abroad."

The NYT special edition guerilla art project not only encourages people to imagine a better world, it urges them to struggle for it. This is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in an ad featured in both the paper and online editions. The ad features a smiling Barack Obama, along with the words: "Epoch-making, Pivotal, Squandered. The more we look at the world the more we understand that some things really matter. Not only our choice of President, but how we make sure that he, like all of our elected officials, does what we elected him to do - its not over yet."

[ UPDATE: Late Wed. afternoon - 11/12/08, I received a Press Release from the organizers of the spoof, who are claiming that: "Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists" are responsible for the action. Quoting from the communiqué: "The people behind the project are involved in a diverse range of groups, including The Yes Men, the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin, and Cultures of Resistance".

Steve Lambert, one of the project's organizers and an editor of the paper, said; "We wanted to experience what it would look like, and feel like, to read headlines we really want to read. It's about what's possible, if we think big and act collectively." One of the project's organizers, Beka Economopoulos, stated that; "This election was a massive referendum on change. There's a lot of hope in the air, but there's a lot of uncertainty too. It's up to all of us now to make these headlines come true." Andy Bichlbaum, another project organizer and editor of the paper, stated; "It doesn't stop here. We gave Obama a mandate, but he'll need mandate after mandate after mandate to do what we elected him to do. He'll need a lot of support, and yes - a lot of pressure." ]

War & Empire: Video & Review

THE VIDEO: The War & Empire Video Documentary is now available for free on Google Video. Combining engaging visual imagery with commentary and interviews, this revealing 15 minute long video presents an overview of War & Empire, the groundbreaking 2008 exhibition at San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery. As a participating artist in the show, I guide the viewer through the powerful exhibit - where art and social reality converge. On view in the War & Empire video are artworks from some 40 artists, including Fernando Botero, Sandow Birk, Bella Feldman, Guy Colwell, Eric Drooker, William T. Wiley, Mary Hull Webster, Phyllis Plattner - and yours truly, Mark Vallen.

The video includes brief interviews with exhibit curators Anne Brodzky, DeWitt Cheng, and Art Hazelwood, as well as interviews with participating artists. Commentary on socially engaged art is provided by Jack Rasmussen - the Director and Curator of the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., and Peter Selz - Professor Emeritus of Art History at UC Berkeley and a former curator of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

THE REVIEW: I wrote a review of the War & Empire exhibit for Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF). Titled The Art of Democracy, the illustrated article includes insightful interviews with fellow artists participating in the show - Guy Colwell, Juan Fuentes, and Art Hazelwood. Here is an except from the featured report:

"As an artist long active in creating works with a critical vision, and as one who strives to inject social concerns into contemporary art, I view the 'War & Empire' show as a turning point. In 2003, when I created the drawing that hangs in the exhibit, 'Not Our Children, Not Their Children,' few artists and even fewer art institutions could be bothered with art that displayed political themes. Now, with the Wall Street meltdown and the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the possibilities for a new, socially conscious American art movement seem wide open."

War & Empire Opening in San Francisco

[ The Meridian Gallery in San Francisco, California. Photo by Mark Vallen. ]

All three floors of the beautiful turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts building that houses the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco, California, were packed full of people during the September 4th, 2008, opening reception of the Meridian’s War & Empire exhibition. As the show runs until election night on November 4th, consider this pithy article to be merely the briefest of updates on what has truly turned out to be a landmark show.

[ War & Empire - Official poster for the Meridian exhibit. Designed by artist Juan Fuentes and based upon his original linoleum cut. ]

I drove up to the San Francisco Bay area from Los Angeles to attend the exhibit as a participating artist and also to assist the gallery in producing a short video documentary on the show - which should be available on my web log sometime by mid-October. As part of the video project I talked to a number of the exhibit’s other participating artists, including the co-curators of the show, Anne Trueblood Brodzky, Art Hazelwood and DeWitt Cheng, who eloquently spoke of the exhibit’s history and purpose.

[ Abu Ghraib # 54 - Fernando Botero, 2005. Oil on canvas. 12" x 14". Collection of American University Museum, Washington, DC. "A refined painterly quality reminiscent of Eugène Delacroix." Photo by Mark Vallen. ]

I also conducted interviews with the Director and Curator of the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., Jack Rasmussen - as well as with the respected art historian, author, and former curator of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Peter Selz. Both of these gentlemen offered tremendous insights on the subject of contemporary political art. In the weeks to come I will also be writing a review of the War & Empire exhibit to be published on the Foreign Policy In Focus website. That illustrated article will present an overview of the Meridian’s exhibit, as well as interviews with participating artists Sandow Birk, Guy Colwell, Art Hazelwood, and Juan Fuentes.

[ Abuse - Guy Colwell. Acrylic on canvas. 2004. Colwell’s controversial painting depicting the torture of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. jailers while held in Abu Ghraib prison. Photo by Ken Duffy. View Duffy’s photos of the Meridian opening on Flickr. ]

For those who thirst for press reviews of the exhibition, here is a short blurb from ArtBusiness.com, a website that covers exhibit openings in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Reviewer Alan Bamberger wrote that the War & Empire show: "(…) cries out in opposition to the catastrophic domestic disasters of recent years including war, reduced personal freedoms, the concentration of wealth among the few at the expense of the many, environmental degradation, and more. Three floors of overwhelmingly well-placed outrage exemplify freedom of speech at its finest - take advantage of it while we still have it." Of course Bamberger is correct, but even his exclamatory remarks fail to convey the depth and breadth of this extraordinary exhibition.

[ Helicopter - RIGO. 2002. Push pins on wood. 45" x 45" Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Paule Anglim. The portrait depicts Geronimo (Goyathlay - or "one who yawns"), the famed Chiricahua Apache leader who led his people in fierce armed resistance against white settlement of Apache land in Arizona and New Mexico. Photo by Mark Vallen. ]

In War & Empire, one is treated to the humorous and Zen-like figurative minimalism of maverick William T. Wiley, the ominous metal and glass sculptures of Bella Feldman; which seem like the malevolent war toys of children from some militaristic alien race, and the raw and inflamed Abu Ghraib canvases of Fernando Botero; which up close possess a refined painterly quality reminiscent of Eugène Delacroix. There are many handmade prints in the show, running the gambit from Fernando Marti’s marvelous color etching, Poppies; a meditation on the linkage between the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan on the proliferation of heroin-producing poppy fields in that country - to Art Hazelwood’s devastating Fallujah, an expressionist-like woodcut that depicts massacred civilians beneath the rubble of that unfortunate war-ruined city in Iraq’s Al Anbar province.

[ War Toys - Bella Feldman. 2003 - Present. Installation with metal and glass sculptures. "Like the malevolent war toys of children from some militaristic alien race." Repeated text is incorporated into the installation, reading; "Weapons of Mass Destruction, Daisy Cutter, Water Boarding, Embedded, Neutralize, Enduring Freedom, Surgical Strike, Carpet Bombing." Photo by Mark Vallen. ]

What makes the War & Empire exhibit singularly astonishing is that it so easily encompasses a diversity of aesthetic styles from artists who would ordinarily not be exhibiting together; from those whose works embody the rarified high concepts of the "fine art" world, to those "street artists" and illustrators whose works are primarily aimed at a mass audience. The exhibition unflinchingly incorporates installation, sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, and photography to great effect, with the entire endeavor being of the highest quality and held together by a grand thematic vision - the yearning for a better world and revulsion for the way that things are. That dissimilar artists of all ages who have disparate cultural and ethnic backgrounds, working in a multiplicity of techniques and approaches, can so successfully make a collective statement regarding current political realities, indicates a new and vibrant social engagement in American art.

War & Empire opened on September 4, 2008, and runs until the evening of the U.S. presidential election - November 4, 2008.

[ Slingshot vs. Tank - Eric Drooker. Undated digital print. Photo by Ken Duffy. View Duffy’s photos of the Meridian opening on Flickr. ]

War & Empire at the Meridian Gallery

Coming this September, 2008, San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery will present War and Empire, a group exhibition that has as its theme the state of democracy in the U.S. - as well as the continuing military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. I am delighted that my own art has been included in the exhibit, since being able to show with a notable collection of artists that I fervently admire is no small thing. For the next few weeks I will abstain from posting to this web log, giving me the time to write an article on the War & Empire show for Foreign Policy in Focus.

[ Not Our Children, Not Their Children - Mark Vallen. Pencil on paper. 2003. To be displayed at the upcoming War & Empire exhibit at San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery. ]

Famed Columbian artist Fernando Botero will have two paintings from his powerful Abu Ghraib series included in the War & Empire exhibit. On loan from the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., the paintings will most assuredly be a focal point of the exhibit; but I am equally excited over a number of the other artists included in the show - Gee Vaucher, Sandow Birk, and Patrick Oliphant to name but a few.

[ Abu Ghraib #72 - Fernando Botero. Oil on canvas. 2007. To be displayed at the upcoming War & Empire exhibit at San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery. ]

Painter Guy Colwell will also be a participating artist. When Abuse, his canvas depicting the torture of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. jailers was displayed at San Francisco’s Capobianco Gallery in May, 2004, rightist thugs physically assaulted gallery owner Lori Haigh, and through a campaign of unrelenting threat and harassment forced her to permanently close her gallery. Colwell essentially went underground in order to avoid harm. Triumphantly, Colwell’s controversial painting will be shown at the Meridian Gallery exhibit along with This Is Not Torture, the artist’s latest drawing on the subject of waterboarding.

[ This Is Not Torture - Guy Colwell. Pencil on paper. 2008. To be displayed at the upcoming War & Empire exhibit at San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery. ]

War & Empire is part of the Art of Democracy project first conceptualized around two years ago by San Francisco printmaker and painter Art Hazelwood, and Stephen Fredericks of the National Arts Club of New York. Art of Democracy gelled into a nationwide coalition of artists and venues who will be mounting art shows across the country in the run-up period just prior to the 2008 election. The Meridian Gallery exhibit opens on September 4, 2008, and runs until the evening of the U.S. presidential election - November 4, 2008.

The full listing of the artists whose works will appear in the group exhibit are as follows: Scott Anderson, David Avery, Will Barnet, Jesus Barraza, Sandow Birk, Fernando Botero, Mark Bryan, Enrique Chagoya, SF Print Collective, Guy Colwell, Francisco Dominguez, Eric Drooker, Ala Ebtekar, Kevin Evans, Bella Feldman, Stephen Fredericks, Juan Fuentes, J. C. Garrett, Art Hazelwood, Frances Jetter, David Jones, Hung Liu, Roberta Loach, Mary V Marsh, Fernando Marti, Doug Minkler, Claude Moller, Malaquias Montoya, Patrick Oliphant, Ariel Parkinson, Francesca Pastine, Patrick Piazza, Phyllis Plattner, Gary-Paul Prince, Rigo, Favianna Rodriguez, Ben Sakoguchi, Jos Sances, Mark Vallen, Gee Vaucher, Mary Hull Webster, Howard Whitehouse, William Wiley, Bruce Yurgil.

The Orientalists: Then and Now

The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting, is an important exhibition running in London at the Tate Britain from June 4th, 2008 through August 31st, 2008. The exhibit provides a somewhat critical look at Orientalism, the genre commonly associated with nineteenth-century Western artists who depicted the peoples and cultures of an imagined Near and Middle East. The Tate is displaying over 120 paintings, prints and drawings created by British artists from 1780 to 1930, and given the current occupation of Iraq - the timely exhibit inadvertently calls into question the West’s modern-day accepted wisdom regarding the Islamic world.

[ James Silk Buckingham and his Wife Elizabeth in Arab Costume, Baghdad, 1825. - Henry William Pickersgill. Oil on canvas. On view at the Tate, from the collection of the Royal Geographical Society. The English born Buckingham (1786-1855) was an author and adventurer who traveled extensively in the Middle East. His lectures and travel books about the Arab world sharpened European interest in the region. ]

Until the late 1960s, Orientalist painting was purely evaluated on aesthetic terms, with little or no attention paid to the socio-political aspects of the works. Aware of the failing to take into account the legacy of colonialism, the Tate exhibit offers a reassessment of Orientalist painting. As part of that reexamination, the museum presented a June 12th symposium titled Orientalism Revisited: Art and the Politics of Representation - a day long panel discussion by distinguished professionals and intellectuals on the subject of "art, politics, and representation of the nineteenth century to today." The entire exhibition was curated with the views of scholar and writer, Edward Said (pronounced sah-EED) in mind. In the Tate’s words:

"In the 1970s the Palestinian-American academic Edward Said published his treatise on Orientalism, initiating a global debate over Western representations of the Middle East. For many, such representations now appeared to be a sequence of fictions serving the West’s desire for superiority and control over the East. The argument for and against Said’s Orientalism has continued for thirty years. Its resonance for an exhibition such as this one, however, is as strong as ever given that, by the 1920s (the end of the period covered by the exhibition), Britain was in direct control of much of the newly-abolished Ottoman Empire, including Egypt, Palestine and Iraq. As Said’s followers argued, these images cannot be viewed in isolation from their wider political and cultural context."

Representations of the "exotic Orient" have appeared in Western art from antiquity, but after General Napoleon Bonapart and his invading French army conquered Egypt in 1798, European penetration and colonization of the Near and Middle East began in earnest. There was a concomitant explosion of Orientalist painting that fed European flights of fancy regarding the entire region. Some Western artists actually traveled through the area, painting, sketching, and making field studies for works that would be created or finished in the studio - while many others never left their European homes, instead finding inspiration for their canvases from written accounts of life in the "Orient". In either case, the artists approached their subjects with presumed Western superiority.

[ T.E. Lawrence - Augustus John. Oil on canvas 1919. Collection of the Tate Gallery. Due to his knowledge of Arab culture and language, Thomas Edward Lawrence became an intelligence officer in the British army after the outbreak of World War 1. He assisted Arab forces in waging a successful guerrilla war against the Ottoman Turkish Empire - assuring the British Empire postwar control of the Middle East. ]

A long train of events brought ever more European artists and writers into the region after the French subjugated Egypt. France took possession of Algiers in 1830, and along with Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire - fought Russia for control of the Holy Land in the Crimean War of 1854-1856. The French built and opened the Egyptian Suez Canal in 1869, increasing European incursion into the region. The Ottoman Turkish Empire was itself finally dismembered at the close of World War I, with its territories of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen becoming European possessions. While a good deal of Orientalist art is magnificent, that does not mean it should or can be disassociated from the European imperialist expansion it was a part of. As Said declared in Orientalism;

"One would find this kind of procedure less objectionable as political propaganda - which is what it is, of course - were it not accompanied by sermons on the objectivity, the fairness, the impartiality of a real historian, the implication always being that Muslims and Arabs cannot be objective but that Orientalists. . .writing about Muslims are, by definition, by training, by the mere fact of their Westernness. This is the culmination of Orientalism as a dogma that not only degrades its subject matter but also blinds its practitioners."

While some Orientalist art depicted the Islamic world populated by a despotic and brutish race in need of being rescued by enlightened Europeans, not all of it was so odious. With a keen eye for observation, Orientalists created paintings and prints of nearly everything, from landscapes and cityscapes to portraits of the high ranking and the humble. If these works set Islamic peoples apart as exotic others, they also clearly expressed awe and wonderment over Near and Middle Eastern societies.

The French neo-classical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867/pronunciation) was certainly not the only artist to misrepresent and mythologize harem life, but his Orientalist themed La Grande Odalisque (1814) and The Turkish Bath (1862) helped to permanently imprint upon the Western mind the archetypical vision of lascivious Arabs. Remarkably, Ingres never traveled to the Near or Middle East - his paintings were pure conjecture and created in his Paris studio. Moreover, since the harem was a women’s quarters whose entry was forbidden to all men, save for Eunuch guards - Western depictions of harem life were largely based on sheer fantasy, hearsay, and rumor.

[ Leila - Frank Dicksee. Oil on canvas. 1892. On view at the Tate. The Orientalist fantasy of the hyper sexualized harem girl is a stereotype that is still with us today. ]

From his studio in Paris the French Academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) painted pictures of harem life based on sketches of buildings he made while traveling through Egypt and Turkey. Into these backdrops he painted gorgeous Parisian models who posed as harem girls. In point of fact, of all the Orientalists who painted harem scenes, only the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1853) actually managed to step inside of one.

Appointed to an official French delegation to Morocco in 1832, Delacroix made a four month trip to Morocco and the conquered nation of Algiers. He was infatuated by the Arab people, but no less inclined to have a distorted view of them than did his rival, Ingres. Delacroix wanted to visit a harem, but this proved impossible in Morocco because of stringent religious rules. Occupied Algiers however proved a different matter. A French harbor engineer "persuaded" a powerful Algerian to allow Delacroix a visit to his harem under a vow of secrecy. The artist spent hours sketching the women there, and said of them, "This is woman as I understand her, not thrown into the life of the world, but withdrawn at its heart as its most secret, delicious and moving fulfillment."

Back home Delacroix would paint Women of Algiers in their apartment (1834) from the sketches made in Algiers. It would be a tour de force, possibly the most influential of all harem paintings. Renoir swore he could smell incense when close to the painting and Cézanne was effusive over the color of the slippers belonging to one of the odalisques, a red that "goes into one’s eyes like a glass of wine down one’s throat."

Orientalism in art was by no means restricted to the 19th century - think of Matisse’s Odalisque in Red Trousers. Picasso ended up painting fifteen variations of Delacroix’s Women of Algiers. Orientalism in Western art, academia, and politics by no means melted away with the passage of time - it still informs our opinions and actions even today. Certainly those experts who assured us that "Liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk" were suffering from the latest virulent strain of Orientalism. As Dr. Said noted in the 2003 revised edition of Orientalism; "Without a well-organized sense that the people over there were not like 'us' and didn't appreciate 'our' values - the very core of traditional orientalist dogma - there would have been no war." Writing on the mess in the Middle East for The Independent from his home in Beirut, Lebanon, British reporter Robert Fisk said the following:

"I despair. The Tate has just sent me its magnificent book of orientalist paintings to coincide with its latest exhibition (The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting) and I am struck by the awesome beauty of this work. In the 19th century, our great painters wondered at the glories of the Orient. No more painters today. Instead, we send our photographers and they return with pictures of car bombs and body parts and blood and destroyed homes and Palestinians pleading for food and fuel and hooded gunmen on the streets of Beirut, yes, and dead Israelis too. The orientalists looked at the majesty of this place and today we look at the wasteland which we have helped to create."

Fisk’s assessment is unquestionably a bleak one, but I find it difficult to disagree with. Putting aside all criticisms of Orientalist art, the fact that the West once found inspiration and bedazzling beauty in the Near and Middle East should jar our collective memory. If Western perceptions of "the Orient" focused on the mysterious, exotic, and sensual, there was always a subtext of evil, cruelty, and depravity. However, today we are being shown only the latter, and we have largely accepted this worldview. How we arrived at this historic juncture is not hard to determine, but a thorough reading of history regarding empire and imperialist depredations in the region is required for a full understanding of present circumstances. The Tate’s exhibition can be seen as one small step in acquiring such knowledge, especially now that the United Kingdom once again militarily occupies Iraq and Afghanistan, albeit as a junior partner in U.S. plans for the region.

I am left to wonder, not about the enormous influence Orientalist art had in times past, but how contemporary artists will act in response to the crisis in the Near and Middle East. Although a small layer of artists have dealt with the ongoing catastrophe, indifference or resignation still seems to be the art world’s general attitude. Artists can not permit impassiveness and lack of concern for the incalculable misery being experienced by humanity in the Near and Middle East to become the hallmarks of 21st art. The artistic community must refute the barbarity seen all around us - without prejudice, false hopes, or creating new strains of Orientalism.

ARTISTS CALL: Left, Right and Center

Thematically centered around the state of the American political scene, The Art of Democracy is a national coalition of art exhibitions scheduled for the Fall of 2008. Twenty-eight galleries from San Francisco to New York are participating in the project, which leads up to the November 2008 national elections. Other galleries, arts organizations, and artists are encouraged to organize their own events under the umbrella of the Art of Democracy coalition; which is currently circulating eleven different Open Calls for Exhibitions where artists may submit artworks.

[ The Art of Democracy - Ian Pulia. Screenprint. 2008. One of a number of prints designed by students of Michael Goro at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Illinois. Pulia's silkscreen brilliantly depicts the costs of apathy when it comes to global warming. ]

One such Artists Call comes from my associate Patrick Merrill, who is organizing Left, Right and Center, an exhibition of political prints to be displayed at the Tustin Old Town Gallery in Tustin, California. In the past I had the great pleasure of exhibiting with Merrill, a talented Master Printer and the Director of Kellogg University Art Gallery at Cal Poly Pomona, so I would like to draw special attention to his efforts by publishing a few details from his open call for prints:

"Left, Right and Center will be an exhibition of prints from the So Cal arts community. From our standpoint what constitutes a print is still (and hopefully always will be) open to interpretation. Prints may be traditional in execution and innovative in presentation; for the wall or the floor or ceiling; sculptural or as books. We are looking for diverse voices not just the 'left' speaking to the choir. Democracy is about dialogue. Even if the current scene seems to be one set of serial monologues haranguing the other, democracy is our goal. Let’s put the pundits and talking heads aside. Let us hear from our artists. This is not a competition in the standard sense, but a means to present a collective visual voice from the Southern California region. The intention is to curate an exhibition, not jury one.

As an additional incentive we can offer you the possibility of having your work accepted into the most important political graphics collection in the nation. Carol Wells, Director of the Center for Political Graphics here in Los Angeles has agreed to come to the exhibit and select work for permanent inclusion in the Center’s collection. There are two mandatory conditions: the work must be a multiple and it must be overtly political. There is no entry fee for Left, Right and Center. Entry due date by August 15, 2008."

The Art of Democracy national coalition continues to expand, offering all types of artists the opportunity to create and exhibit works of art that speak of the current world crisis. Undoubtedly I will be writing about the coalition’s efforts in the near future, but at present I wish to urge artists across the United States to become active participants in this most exciting project.

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.

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.

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.

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 http://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).

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."

Christmas in Fallujah

"They say Osama's in the mountains deep in a cave near Pakistan. But there's a sea of blood in Baghdad, a sea of oil in the sand. Between the Tigris and Euphrates another day comes to an end. It's Christmas In Fallujah, Peace on earth goodwill to men." - Words and Music By Billy Joel. Preformed By Cass Dillon, 2007.

I’d like to offer readers best wishes for the holiday season. I’ll resume my regular writing schedule come the new year.

Two Very Different Diamond Rings

Two very different diamond rings are the focus of artworks currently being discussed in the art world and beyond - Blue Diamond, a sculpture by postmodernist Jeff Koons, and Marine Wedding, a photograph by Nina Berman. The artworks are poles apart, but each illustrates in its own way the crisis American society has fallen into. The works also exemplify the contrasting directions American art is taking in the face of that crisis.

Blue Diamond is a giant, highly polished stainless steel sculpture that’s nearly eight feet tall and more than seven feet wide. The replica jewel will be sold Nov. 13 at Christie’s auction of postwar and contemporary art, and it’s expected to sell for as high as $12 million. Christie’s described the work as "an almost comic-strip archetype, a stereotype, a cliché that has burst into monumental existence in our world, speaking of wealth and luxury and awe in an open, sincere and deliberately uncritical manner." In other words, Blue Diamond is a crass celebration of ostentatious wealth that carries the moral authority and profundity of a Hallmark greeting card.

[ Blue Diamond - Sculpture by Jeff Koons. The moral authority and profundity of a Hallmark greeting card. Photo credit: Christie’s Images Ltd. ]

In contrast to the vapid kitsch offered by Koons, photographer Nina Berman puts forward a humanist vision that is at once heartrending and busting with empathy. In her photo, Marine Wedding, a diamond wedding ring is obscured by a beautiful bridal bouquet - and an unsettling vision of America’s war in Iraq. In 2004, Marine Corps reservist Ty Ziegal was trapped in a burning truck after it came under attack by Iraqi guerillas, that he survived was a miracle, but 19 rounds of reconstructive surgery could not restore the face stolen by war. The wedding day portrait of Renee Kline, 21, and Ty Ziegal, 24, has launched an eternal discussion on the meaning of love, devotion, sacrifice and war - whereas the only conversation surrounding the Koons sculpture has to do with how much it will sell for.

[ Marine Wedding - Photograph by Nina Berman. ]

It is remarkable that Nina Berman’s photograph and Jeff Koons’ sculpture exist in the same time frame, and that they are both meant to reflect the current state of American society. Berman’s Marine Wedding does so with weighty philosophical insight, while Koons’ Blue Diamond can’t even muster enough relevance to be called inconsequential.

Berman’s photo comes from a larger body of work she calls,
Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq, which are compassionate studies of wounded Iraq war vets. Marine Wedding stands alone as a jarring image, with the great majority of images from Berman’s series being quite tame and contemplative by comparison. But Purple Hearts by no means represents the totality of Berman’s vision, and an overview of her growing body of work reveals an artist sincerely pursuing an honest examination of "the American Way of Life." By comparison, even a cursory review of Koons’ oeuvre exposes an artist with all the sophistication of a corn dog.

The "Fundamental" Art Exhibit

Fundamental is an international touring art exhibition that explores the prickly subject of fundamentalist religious intolerance at the turn of the 21st century. I’m pleased to announce that my painting, A People Under Command: USA Today, is included in the exhibit, which tours four European cities from September 2007 until June 2008.

[ A People Under Command: USA Today - Mark Vallen. 1985. Acrylic on unstretched canvas. 6 ft x 8 ft. Click here for a larger image and more details on the painting. ]

Fundamental will premiere at two venues in Manchester, England, starting September 1st, 2007 - the Zion Arts Center (running until Sept. 15th, 2007), and the Green Room (running until Sept. 22nd, 2007). The exhibit then travels to Madrid and Berlin, with a final stop in Leeds, England, where the exhibit concludes in 2008. Complete details regarding the exhibition can be found at the official Fundamental website.

Painted in 1985, A People Under Command: USA Today, was my wry comment on the rise in America of right-wing political ideology along with a resurgent, politicized Christian fundamentalism. The concept for the painting came to me while watching a born-again preacher on television performing a song about "God’s Army" and how true believers were "a people under command" lead by the ultimate general - Jesus Christ. Since I had always heard Jesus referred to as the "Prince of Peace," I found the jingoistic psalm more than a little disturbing, especially when coupled with the rightward drift in American politics as exemplified by the administration of Ronald Reagan. My painting heralded the new dark ages - but little did I realize it would take on a frightening new dimension come the events of September 11th, 2001.

[ A People Under Command - Mark Vallen. 1985. Detail. America’s new skyline. ]

The didacticism of my painting notwithstanding, it may come as a surprise to learn that my artwork was in part inspired by a Pop Art masterwork. The stilted realism and irregular perspective I employed in depicting the presumably impossible scene, coupled with the fact that each visual component of the painting was derived from observing modern American life - points directly to Pop as a stimulus. In 1956 artists Richard Hamilton and John McHale collaborated on the creation of, Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? - a small collage created with photos cut from popular American magazines of the day. It is generally considered to be the first work of Pop Art, and its skewed perspective and juxtaposition of discordant images provided an uneasy look at mass commercial culture. It was in essence, a glimpse of things to come… and the future wasn’t looking bright. Well, that future has arrived, and in creating A People Under Command, the collage of Hamilton and McHale served as a touchstone for my own vision of a culture gone haywire.

[ A People Under Command - Mark Vallen. 1985. Detail. "I’m the Boss." Through the looking glass with the Gipper. ]

I believe there are many types of fundamentalist views running riot in the world today, for example, political, economic and national viewpoints are often reduced to fundamentalist positions. However, it’s religious fundamentalism that receives the most attention at present - though I’d argue all of these "isms" are interrelated. The organizers of Fundamental are billing their exhibit as "a timely glimpse into the disturbing world of global religious extremism", and to their credit they’ve evenhandedly applied their focus on the extremists of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. It is no doubt a thorny concept to build an art exhibition around, especially in today’s climate - but the exhibit cannot in any way be characterized as a show opposed to religion.

Aside from myself, participating artists include: Debbie Hill (a photojournalist living in Israel), Frans Smeets (Dutch artist and sculptor), Parastou Forouhar (an Iranian-born artist residing in Germany), Khosrow Hassan (an Iranian artist based in Tehran), Dalila Hamdoun (a French-Algerian artist based in London), Garth Eager (an English multi-media artist based in Manchester), Andrew Stern (a photojournalist based in New York), Andreas Böhmig (German photojournalist), Joel Pelletier (US painter based in Los Angeles), and Johan Oldekop (a UK based photojournalist).

On Decorating The Blast Walls

When pondering the above photograph of an artist painting a mural, what comes to mind? That the artist is playing a constructive role in society by creating a public work meant to beautify his community? Of course there are many possible reactions to the photo, but in describing the actual circumstances in which it was made, suddenly a different set of responses come into play - as well as questions regarding the social purposes of art. A closer examination of this photo can tell us something about the art and artists in our own respective communities.

The photo was taken on July 20, 2007 by Associated Press photographer, Khalid Mohammed, and it shows an Iraqi artist painting a mural on the steel and cement blast walls erected by U.S. occupation troops in downtown Baghdad, fortifications meant to protect government buildings from car bombs. Commissioned by the U.S. backed, Shiite dominated central government, the artist’s mural is part of a government funded "beautification project", where non-controversial and colorful murals are being created and installed on bomb blast walls all across Baghdad. In painting the ramparts of a military occupation, does the Iraqi artist somehow make life better for his people? I don’t mean to say that art should not serve to ameliorate suffering and bring joy to the soul - those are, I believe, some of the main reasons why we create works of art. As Albert Camus once observed, "We have art in order not to die of life." But when we create art, who is it for, what is its purpose, and what are its ramifications?

Knowing the context of the mural puts the artwork in a whole different light, and disconcerting questions arise that are pertinent for artists everywhere. Does the creative work most artists engage in simply conceal untenable realities? Should artworks make acceptable, that which is clearly unacceptable? At what point do the escapist elements of art move from enlightened pleasantries to enablers of malevolence? The spectacle of an artist embellishing an urban battlefield so as to mask the horrors of war is indeed a powerfully unsettling one, but is the work of that Iraqi muralist really so different from that of contemporary artists around the world? Sometimes I get the feeling that the majority of today’s artists, metaphorically speaking, are merely decorating blast walls.

As if to buttress my point, the postmodernist installation art duo, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, have announced plans to construct an enormous pyramid in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. The Mastaba project is named after the pre-pyramid, bunker-like tombs of ancient Egypt that served as final resting places for Kings and Queens, though it is not yet known if today’s Royal couple of postmodernism also intend their colossal mastaba to be their final burying place.

[ Christo and partner, Jeanne-Claude, standing before a scale model of their pyramid. ]

The pyramid will stand approximately two thirds the height of the Eiffel Tower, and will be constructed of 390,500 orange-yellow oil barrels; but don’t presume a pyramid built of oil barrels in the middle of the United Arab Emirates is some type of social commentary, it is not, after all this is Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who have been quoted as saying, "We do not create messages." In the 1960’s the couple attempted to build their pyramid in Texas and then the Netherlands, however these plans didn’t work out. They finally turned to the UAE, but in 1980 the Iran-Iraq war erupted, a conflagration that took the lives of a million people and marked a deepening involvement in the region by the U.S. Needless to say, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s art project was put on hold, and it wouldn’t be revived until just two years ago.

Washington aided both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, providing arms and intelligence information to the regimes of Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini; of course that brinksmanship has only intensified, with the U.S. now occupying Iraq and threatening military action against Iran. With all this chaos as a backdrop, our postmodern dynamic duo have revived their pyramid project. The UAE "is very keen to see this project realized," according to Christo, and the cost of building the pyramid will be underwritten by the government of the oil rich Gulf state. Contrasting with previous Christo projects, the structure will not be dismantled, and Christo has stated that the pyramid, according to unnamed engineers, "could last for 5,000 years." But why is this harebrained project being embarked upon now, with the entire Middle East either on fire or about to explode? There is no ulterior motive or profound reasoning behind the return of the Mastaba project, because Christo and Jeanne-Claude, as apolitical and self-absorbed artists, are simply "decorating the blast walls."

[ British graffiti artist Banksy, painted this image on Israel’s so-called "security fence," at the West Bank crossing point from Ramallah to Jerusalem. ]

On the other hand, those artists who want their works to have a noble purpose, can fall into a trap of a different sort. In the Summer of 2005, British graffiti artist, Banksy, traveled to the West Bank to leave a series of stencil murals on Israel’s so-called "security fence" surrounding the Palestinian territories. On his website the artist wrote: "How illegal is it to vandalize a wall, if the wall itself has been deemed unlawful by the International Court of Justice? The Israeli government is building a wall which stands three times the height of the Berlin wall and will eventually run for over 700km - the distance from London to Zurich." Once Banksy began his murals, he was confronted by an old Palestinian man who said, "You’ve painted the wall and made it look beautiful." The artist replied with a "Thank you", only to be admonished by the elder, "We don't want it to be beautiful, we hate this wall. Go home!"

L.A. Artist’s Forum against the War

On Saturday, July 28th, 2007, I spoke at an artist’s forum celebrating the official Los Angeles debut of the newly published art book, Yo! What Happened to Peace? Held at the Continental Gallery in downtown L.A., the book premiere event was a lively evening of art, music and dialogue well attended by over 500 people.

[ Crowds view the prints at the Continental Gallery. Photo by Theo Jemison. ]

As regular readers of this web log may know, Yo! What Happened to Peace? is an important traveling exhibition of hand-made prints created by over 120 artists in opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Those unfamiliar with the project are encouraged to read about it in one of my previous posts. In June of 2005 when the exhibit of posters was presented in Tokyo, Japan, the Japan Times hailed the show as "The art that rocks the boat of war in Iraq."

Joining me on the speakers podium were Chicano artists Chaz Bojorquez and Favianna Rodriguez - who both share with me the distinction of being included in the Yo! What Happened to Peace? traveling exhibit and book. Activist Susan Adelman of Code Pink and Eric Estenzo of Iraq Veterans Against The War completed the list of speaker's. We provided critical dialogue regarding the current international political situation and the obligation of artists to respond to social issues. Acting as moderator for the forum was John Carr, curator of the "Yo!" exhibit.

[ "Yo!" panelists pictured left to right: Famed Chicano artist Chaz Bojorquez, Chicana print maker Favianna Rodriguez, yours truly Mark Vallen, activist Susan Adelman of Code Pink, and Eric Estenzo of Iraq Veterans Against The War. Photo by Theo Jemison. ]

Downtown LA’s own Hard Pressed Studios were on hand to create silk-screen printed peace images on demand, and the crowd loved the video performance art of VJ Michael Allen, who presented streams of projection based images on the gallery walls. Poster images from the exhibit were also projected onto the gallery’s large glass windows, providing a free light show to those on the street.

In decades to come people will look back at the "Yo!" traveling exhibition and book, and appreciate the project for its historic significance. It won’t be seen as the first such project of its kind, but that won’t lessen its importance. "Yo!" will be referred to as a vital collective response made by American artists against one of the worst debacles of the early 21st century.

Clearly L.A.’s Dominant News Farce

Corporate advertising art and design without a doubt makes up much of the modern urban environment we move through on a daily basis. It has become so omnipresent that people barely notice it - inciting major advertising corporations to dream up new schemes for attention getting in an ever escalating battle over shaping public opinion. As a result, more than a few aggressively offensive and obnoxious visual campaigns have been inflicted upon us. One that comes to mind is the current ad promotion for L.A.’s local television "news" broadcaster, CBS 2 - KCAL 9. Now blanketing Los Angeles are hundreds of illuminated bus shelters and gigantic billboards that read: "CLEARLY- L.A.’s Dominant News Force."

[ CLEARLY: L.A.'s Dominant News Force - Poster advertising CBS/KCAL television news. Illuminated bus stop shelter on the streets of Los Angeles. A picture perfect example of the Totalitarian Postmodern aesthetic. ]

That the advertising company behind this jingoistic marketing blitz decided on martial language for its promotion is bad enough, but the ruthless slogan is coupled with a militaristic image that conjures up the brutality of war. No doubt the ad execs responsible for the campaign will stand behind the subterfuge that the image simply represents the CBS/KCAL fleet of helicopters flying over the city against a backdrop of L.A.’s ubiquitous palm trees, but look again, what’s that you see - Vietnam?

[ Left: Movie poster for the film Apocalypse Now, depicting a fleet of army combat helicopters on a "search and destroy" mission over the jungles of Vietnam. Right: Theatrical poster for the musical, Miss Saigon. Someone should tell CBS/KCAL that the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam. ]

A quick glance at the official theatrical posters for the musical Miss Saigon, and the movie Apocalypse Now, tells you exactly what served as an inspiration for those ad execs behind the CBS/KCAL campaign, but honestly - someone should tell them that the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam. Or could it be that the CEO’s had the Iraq war in mind when they approved the billboard and bus shelter graphics? Perhaps they hoped that by equating the journalists of CBS/KCAL to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, some of that "support our troops" sentiment might rub off on their broadcast clients. Such an ugly and perverse display of venality coming from the commercial advertising world cannot be discounted.

[ CLEARLY: The Dominant Force? - US Army Blackhawk helicopters fly over occupied Baghdad, March 2007, in this now widely published photo taken by AFP photographer, Patrick Baz. ]

At any rate, whatever the impetus behind the CBS/KCAL ads might be, they are a picture perfect example of what I like to call, Totalitarian Postmodern, a dangerous aesthetic that threatens and undermines democratic values.

Shipping Out with Thomas Kinkade

In 2004, Thomas Kinkade published reproductions of his painting, Heading Home, a schmaltzy and manipulative piece of classic war propaganda. But the title of Kinkade’s over-sentimental artwork is unhappily far from the truth, it should properly be titled - Shipping Out. With today’s U.S. military casualties in Iraq reaching 3,441 at the time of this article, and with the Pentagon secretly launching a second troop surge that will double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year - Heading Home seems little more than a cruel fantasy.

[ Heading Home - Thomas Kinkade. Oil on canvas. 2004. ]

Nonetheless, Thomas Kinkade is not the only one suffering from delusions. Delivering a huge victory to Bush on May 24, the Democratic-controlled Congress approved $120 billion to fund Bush’s war, with Democrats abandoning their insistence on a timetable for the partial withdrawal of US troops in Iraq. This betrayal by the supposed opposition party not only guarantees that carnage in Iraq will continue for years to come, it ignores the will of the American people, who in the November 2006 congressional elections voted-in Democrats as a way of rejecting Bush’s Iraq war policies. As Keith Olbermann said on his MSNBC Countdown show, "The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans." He also asked, "Where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls." No doubt they are in their respective homes or offices admiring their Thomas Kinkade prints.

This is the one and only time you’ll find a painting by Kinkade posted on my web log, and that’s because I simply wanted to illustrate my article with an image as ill-thought-out as the dim-witted politics behind the occupation of Iraq. On AmericaSupportsYou.mil, an official U.S. Department of Defense website, Kinkade said of his work: "The world I paint, I think it's very affirming of the beliefs of people in this country and of the service people who are overseas waging a war to protect those beliefs." An interesting statement, particularly in light of the latest polls conducted by FOX News, the Associated Press, CNN, USA Today and Gallup, all showing a majority of Americans in opposition to the war in Iraq. Without a doubt, Thomas Kinkade’s paintings are to art, what George Bush’s imperial fumblings are to statecraft.

Iraq’s Museums: Four Years Later

This month, Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE), a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving cultural heritage internationally, helped to organize a worldwide candlelight vigil to draw attention to the four year anniversary of the systematic looting and destruction of Iraq’s museums.

U.S. Marines seized Baghdad in the early days of April, 2003. While U.S. troops surrounded and protected Iraq’s National Ministry of Oil immediately after capturing Baghdad, they left numerous cultural institutions in the Iraqi capital completely unprotected from looters, who rampaged through the city like a devastating whirlwind. Iraq’s National Library was burned to the ground, destroying thousands of irreplaceable books and manuscripts. The ransacking of the Iraqi National Museum of Baghdad started on April 9th, 2003, and for three days a mob stole or shattered everything in sight. Over 15,000 irreplaceable works of art, many from the dawn of civilization, were stolen. Not a single U.S. military patrol attempted to stop the pillaging. The Bush administration’s response to the looting came from Donald Rumsfeld, who infamously said, "Stuff happens."

After the devastation of the Second World War, the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict was adopted in May, 1954. States agreeing to the Convention, promised to "safeguard and respect cultural property during both international and non-international armed conflicts." As a signatory to the Convention, the U.S. failed miserably in its obligations to Iraq and world cultural heritage, and it continues to do so.

[ On Tuesday, April 10th, 2007, a crowd of brave Iraqis gathered outside the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, to hold a candlelight vigil for the museum. ]

In order to commemorate the destruction of Iraq’s museums, and to draw attention to the ongoing looting of that country’s archeological sites, SAFE called for candlelight vigils to take place internationally on April 10-12, 2007. Vigils were held in cities across the United States and the world, from Boston, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California, to London, England, and Toronto, Canada. The most moving observance however took place amidst the violence of Baghdad at the sacked National Museum, where dozens of courageous employees and art lovers braved the mayhem to make their point.

Dr. Donny George Youkhanna was the Director of the National Museum at the time of its trashing, and in large part through his work, nearly half of the stolen Mesopotamian artworks have been recovered. However, George paid a price for his efforts. The Iraqi State Board of Antiquities came under the control of a Shiite party affiliated to Moktada al-Sadr, and George’s work was continually hindered and blocked. Aside from the difficulties of working with the U.S. backed government, the final straw came when George received a death threat letter aimed at his 17-year-old son. As a high-profile government official, a Christian, and a man seen frequently in western media, George had become a target to many of Iraq’s growing armed factions. In September of 2006 George resigned his position and fled with his family to Syria. Good fortune smiled on George when in the Fall of 2006, New York’s Stony Brook University appointed him a visiting professor in the university’s distinguished Anthropology department.

On the Saving Antiquities for Everyone website, you can read more about the international candlelight vigil, listen to a 38 minute interview with Donny George, and join SAFE in its endeavor to protect world cultural heritage.

Art Book: Yo! What Happened to Peace?

Yo! What Happened to Peace?, is an exhibition of hand-made prints in opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The brainchild of L.A. based artist John Carr, the exhibit had its beginnings in 2002 during the run-up to war in Iraq. Being a printmaker, Carr wanted to put together a traveling exhibit that was not only a political expression, but a celebration of the fine art of printmaking. Instead of machine printed reproductions, the "Yo!" show consists entirely of handcrafted prints - Silkscreens, Lithographs, Linocuts, Woodcuts and Stencils. The collection is a striking example of contemporary political poster making, and I’m happy to have four of my early prints in the exhibition.

[ New World Odor - Mark Vallen. Silkscreen. 23" x 29" Printed in 1991 as a street poster in opposition to the first U.S. war with Iraq. The print was inspired by the traditional iconography of Mexico's Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations. ]

Past showings were held in Tokyo, San Francisco, New York, Milan, Rejkyavik, Washington D.C., Boston and Chicago. On April 14th, 2007, Yo! What Happened to Peace?, opened at the House of Love and Dissent in Rome, Italy. The opening was also the launch for the exceptional catalog book that documents the traveling exhibition. You can preview the Rome exhibit here, as well as view a number of prints from the exhibition and its catalog.

[ Galloping Death: Stop Mad Cowboy Disease! - Artemio Rodriguez. Silkscreen based on a linoleum block print. Born in Mexico, Rodriguez now lives and works in Los Angeles, where he founded La Mano Press, an artist-run shop dedicated to printmaking. ]

Edited by John Carr, the "Yo!" book features an introduction by punk art legend Winston Smith, a unique embossed stencil cover, and reproductions of the 220 plus handcrafted anti-war and pro-peace prints by some 120 artists that have come to define the touring poster exhibition. My own prints are included in the book, along with posters by Chaz Bojorquez, Robbie Conal, Eric Drooker, Emek, Shepard Fairey/OBEY, Poli Marichal, Favianna Rodriguez, Seth Tobocman and others too numerous to mention.

[ Blood On Our Hands - Noah Breuer. Woodblock print. Breuer is a printmaker from Berkeley, California, now living in New York City and managing Columbia University’s student print shop. ]

The Yo! What Happened to Peace? book will have its U.S. launch at the UCLA / L.A. Times Festival of Books at the Imix Books booth. The book fair takes place for two days starting April 28th, 2007 (hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) , and will provide those interested with the opportunity to meet with John Carr, and hopefully a good number of the L.A. artists whose works appear in the art book. You can always purchase the book online for $25 US plus shipping (via credit card or paypal.)

LACMA & the Spin Doctors from Hell

I’m not sure just when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art acquired the services of the high-powered public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton, Inc. (H&K), but I first noticed the PR firm’s name included as a media contact on an official LACMA press release dated Feb. 3, 2006. The announcement was for the appointment of Michael Govan as the museum’s new Director and Chief Executive Officer (see the .pdf file.) When LACMA made known on March 6, 2007, that oil giant BP had given $25 million to the museum - LACMA’s official press release again included H&K as a media contact (.pdf file.)

I have absolutely no objections to LACMA using a PR firm to effectively promote itself, nor would I criticize an individual for doing the same - but Hill and Knowlton, Inc. has a long and controversial roster of clients that I think readers of my web log should be aware of. A leading public relations corporation, H&K has 71 offices in 40 countries, with specialists in "crisis & issues management" as well as the oil and petrochemical industry. After reading some of the following, you may wonder what on earth has been going on behind closed doors at LACMA’s board of directors meetings.

Hill and Knowlton, Inc. became infamous over its dealings with the tobacco industry in the 1950s. In 2004 the U.S. Department of Justice finally sued the tobacco industry for $280 billion in damages, arguing that in 1953, the five major cigarette manufacturers met with "public relations firm Hill & Knowlton and agreed to jointly conduct a long term public relations campaign to counter the growing evidence linking smoking as a cause of serious diseases." In August of 2006, a U.S. District Judge ruled that the tobacco companies had violated civil racketeering laws by conspiring for decades to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking - however, the judge did not order the monetary penalty proposed by the government (the case is currently being appealed.)

Lord of the lies; how Hill and Knowlton's Robert Gray pulls Washington's strings, written by Susan B. Trento and published by the Washington Monthly in Sept, 1992, detailed much of the PR firm’s skullduggery under the chairmanship of Gray. Trento wrote that for 30 years, Hill and Knowlton, "set a standard - not a particularly high one for what Washington lobbying can get away with (….) Whether the client was Haiti’s 'Baby Doc' Duvalier or the Church of Scientology, the only criterion was that the client paid - and paid well." Sheila Tate, a former H&K employee and later Nancy Reagan’s press secretary, described the PR firm as a "company without a moral rudder" for its controversial client list.

The Center for Public Integrity published a 1992 report titled, The Torturers’ Lobby, describing the use of PR firms by repressive regimes (view in .pdf or html.) Hill and Knowlton, Inc. topped the list of earnings, making $14 million in one year by representing governments that abuse human rights like China, Indonesia, Egypt, Peru, and Turkey. Human Rights groups have long condemned Turkey for abusing its citizens of Kurdish origin, but the center’s report stated that H&K earned $1.2 million from Turkey between 1991-1992. H&K even took the Chinese government as a client soon after its massacre of dissidents at Tiananmen Square in 1989 (source: Human Rights in China website - .pdf.) In May of 2005, Agence France-Presse reported that H&K signed a $600,000 contract with the government of Uganda, to "improve Uganda’s stained reputation as a human rights abuser and democracy laggard."

In December of 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, leaked 40 tons of lethal gas over the city, in what was to become the world’s worst industrial disaster. Some 8,000 people died in the first few days, and approximately 20,000 are believed to have perished in the aftermath. Today over 120,000 people in Bhopal continue to suffer health problems as a result of the disaster - blindness, cancer, serious birth-defects, and other ailments. A proper clean up of the plant and its environs has never taken place, and in Nov., 2004, the BBC reported that thousands of tons of toxic chemicals are still loose on the ground or held in open containers. Hill & Knowlton, Inc. handled Union Carbide’s PR troubles during the disaster, and H&K’s Executive Vice President, Richard C. Hyde, lead the "crisis management" team that assisted Union Carbide.

Hill & Knowlton, Inc. is currently the public relations firm for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the organization that represents the nuclear power industry. In a February 6th, 2006, Wall Street Journal article titled, Nuclear Industry Plans Ad Push For New Plants (Sub req'd), the paper reported that the "nation’s nuclear-power industry is set to roll out a multiyear advertising campaign to build public support for a generation of new plants" - and the ad campaign which promotes a "nuclear renaissance" is run by H&K. In a June 2006 editorial, the Columbia Journalism Review reported that the PR firm helped the NEI form the so-called "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition," a front group that would sing the praises of nuclear energy for the corporate media. The Review wrote, "We just find it maddening that Hill & Knowlton, which has an $8 million account with the nuclear industry, should have such an easy time working the press." That multi-million dollar contract stipulates "pre-empting and offsetting criticism from opponents."

While we’re on the subject - when the Three-Mile Island nuclear plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had a partial core meltdown on March 28th, 1979, it was Hill & Knowlton, Inc. executive, Robert Dilenschneider, who was brought in to handle PR for the plant’s operators, Metropolitan Edison.

Hill & Knowlton, Inc. is probably most notorious for its work with the government of Kuwait in organizing and running the propaganda campaign aimed at getting the U.S. public to support military action against Iraq. On August 2nd, 1990, Saddam Hussein began Iraq’s invasion and 7 month-long occupation of neighboring Kuwait. Within a few days the Iraqis had completely overrun the Kuwaiti Armed Forces, and with more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and 700 tanks on Kuwait’s territory, the Kuwaiti Royal Family escaped to next door Saudi Arabia.

From exile the Kuwaiti government would employ as many as 20 PR firms in its campaign to mobilize U.S. public opinion (source: O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, Vol. 5, No. 1, Jan. 1991 - "H&K leads PR charge in behalf of Kuwaiti cause.") But the Kuwaitis would ultimately pay $10.8 million to H&K for a massive media blitz. On October 10, 1990, H&K orchestrated the appearance of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only as Nayirah, before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in Washington. The youngster wept as she told of her harrowing experience in occupied Kuwait City. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital. While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns and go into the room where babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."

After Nayirah’s emotional testimony, President George H.W. Bush quoted her many times in addresses to the American people. For instance, at a Nov. 1st., 1990 Republican rally in Massachusetts, he said of the Iraqi invaders, "They have committed outrageous acts of barbarism. In one hospital, they pulled 22 premature babies from their incubators, sent the machines back to Baghdad, and all those little ones died." At an Oct. 16th, 1990, fundraiser in Des Moines, Iowa, he said of the Iraqi occupiers, "I don't mean to be overly shocking here - but let me just mention some reports, firsthand reports. At a hospital, Iraqi soldiers unplugged the oxygen to incubators supporting 22 premature babies. They all died. And then they shot the hospital employees." A number of Senators also used Nayirah’s testimony in the same way, and the shocking story was repeated innumerable times in radio, television, and newspaper reports.

After the war, investigations found absolutely no evidence to support the incubator claims. As it turned out, Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, and her father was Kuwait’s Ambassador to the U.S., Saud Nasir Al-Sabah. The youngster never worked at the al-Addan hospital and under no circumstances had been witness to the butchery she recounted. Nayirah’s story was completely fabricated, and H&K’s vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached the teenager in false testimony.

The record of Hill and Knowlton, Inc. as a dodgy and immoral PR firm is extensive, and itemizing their misconduct and crimes is beyond the scope of this web log. The facts I’ve researched and presented here are public knowledge - one can only imagine the skeletons in the closet. If you take the time to conduct your own research, you’ll find information on many other controversies surrounding H&K. In 1983 it managed PR for the building materials manufacturers, U.S. Gypsum, aimed at downplaying the connection between asbestos and health problems. The firm took an estimated $5 million from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1990 to wage an anti-abortion PR campaign. In 2004 H&K began working with Wal-Mart in order to rehabilitate the image of the Union busting retail company. The larger question is, why did LACMA take into service a high-powered corporate PR firm so tainted with unseemliness?

Conceivably the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in employing Hill and Knowlton, Inc. merely wanted to increase its profile with the general public. Or perhaps, realizing that their relationship with a major oil company would be seen as a liability, the vaunted arts institution decided to implement damage control - my suspicions point to the latter. What LACMA might be paying H&K for its services is not public knowledge, but the PR firm does not come cheap. Likewise, while it’s not known exactly what H&K is doing for LACMA, insiders in the lobbying and public relations industry have a saying, "the best PR is invisible."

So the next time you’re exposed to a radio spot, television news segment, magazine article, or glowing press review extolling LACMA and its big oil benefactor, you might be consuming propaganda from hired guns Hill and Knowlton, Inc. When you read that Michael Govan, the director and CEO of LACMA, praised oil giant BP for "their commitment to sustainable energy," you may have the feeling he was coached by the PR firm - and you just might be right.

300: America becomes Sparta

A certain strain of contemporary art has examined, or taken inspiration from, the aesthetics and pulp visions of the American comic book - of course the Pop art movement and influential artists like Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg come to mind. Comics have also influenced American cinema, a trend I’m not terribly fond of, and the latest comic book to hit the silver screen is 300. Despite the hullabaloo over its eye-popping visual effects, 300 is indicative of nothing more than American movie making having hit rock bottom.

[ BLAM - Roy Lichtenstein, 1962. Oil on canvas, 68 x 80 inches.]

Based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the 300 Spartans who held back a million Persian soldiers at a narrow pass during the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., Director Zack Snyder’s 300 has little to do with history and everything to do with a modern disposition towards militarism now embraced by far too many Americans. As you might imagine, 300 depicts the Spartans as gallant heroes, warriors who gave their all in the defense of the world’s first democracy - obviously the audience is meant to identify with the soldiers of Sparta. But the danger in such a simplistic reading of history is that Sparta, far from being a society worthy of emulation, was above all else a militaristic state, even the term "spartan" refers to something severely utilitarian - like a military barracks.

[ Over the precipice and into the abyss. Scene from Director Zack Snyder’s, 300. ]

That the Greek press has ravaged 300 as a falsification of their nation’s history should come as no surprise (the film opened in Athens on March 9th). But why should Americans bother with what Greeks have to say about their own history, when we can learn all we need to know from a right-wing xenophobic American comic book artist born in Olney, Maryland.

Some of what Frank Miller said at San Francisco’s WonderCon comic book convention in 2006 bears repeating, as it puts the movie 300 in context. Miller revealed that his upcoming graphic novel, Holy Terror, Batman!, will feature the "Caped Crusader" fighting the al-Qaida terror network. Aside from promising that "Batman kicks al-Qaida’s ass," Miller went on to say the following about his forthcoming graphic novel: "Not to put too fine a point on it - it’s a piece of propaganda. I just think it’s silly to have Batman out chasing the Riddler when you’ve got al-Qaida out there." Miller went on to say that "I wish the entertainers of our time had the spine and the focus of the ones who faced down Hitler." Apparently Miller thinks he is just such an entertainer.

300 is a testosterone fueled war fever-dream that offers a non-stop and ferocious display of disembowelments, spraying blood, and beheadings - and some film critics have unfortunately referred to this horrific violence as choreography or stylization. The unrelenting carnage in 300 is never connected to a sense of moral burden or remorse - it is simply what "real men" do. Compared to Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood’s insightful rumination on the genuine sacrifices and brutalities of war, 300 is an undisguised war enthusiast’s wet dream. When the film’s Spartan King Leonidas leads his army into battle yelling, "For Freedom!", those words are meant to have a propagandistic effect upon its audience. Clearly, 300 is a brazen allegory for the war the U.S. is fighting in Iraq and preparing to fight in Iran.

That more than a few critics have referred to 300 as an "erotic" film is also telling. In Susan Sontag’s 1975 essay on fascist aesthetics, Fascinating Fascism, she stated that fascist art is: "both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a "spiritual" force, for the benefit of the community." Sontag went on to note that fascism: "stands for an ideal or rather ideals that are persistent today under the other banners: the ideal of life as art, the cult of beauty, the fetishism of courage, the dissolution of alienation in ecstatic feelings of community; the repudiation of the intellect; the family of man (under the parenthood of leaders.)" - all of which appear larger than life in 300.

[ Image from Frank Miller’s graphic novel, 300. The fetishism of courage, the repudiation of the intellect.]

Following George W. Bush’s 2007 State of the Union address, National Public Radio broadcast, Writers and Artists Describe the State of the Union, a show where several guests had the opportunity to offer their assessments of national affairs - Frank Miller was one of those voices. Before insisting that Iraq had actually declared war on the U.S. - an assertion not even made by President Bush - Miller launched a fanatical tirade against a nameless, faceless, "other" he would like to see vanquished by American military force:

"For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we’re up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people’s heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I’m living in a city where three thousand of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built."

"They" are our implacable enemies, but truth, justice and the American way will free the world of "these people." Now the real meaning behind the jingoistic tagline for 300 comes into sharp focus - Prepare for glory!

An Iraq War Memorial

I know that public memorials to a nation’s war dead are usually erected after a conflict, but lately I've been thinking that it's time for American artists to begin seriously contemplating what an Iraq War Memorial might look like. As of this writing, 3,154 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq.

Years ago I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., that uncomplicated wall of granite designed by artist Maya Lin. I stoically encountered the over 58,000 thousand names engraved upon the reflective walls, but when I saw two young women standing on their tip toes, trying unsuccessfully to make a rubbing of a loved one’s name that appeared just beyond their reach - I fell apart. I wordlessly strode up to the pair, took their pencil and paper, and being much taller, made the rubbing for them. Apart from the women pointing out the name of the dearly departed, the entire incident took place in silence. As the women took their sacred memento in hand and disappeared into the crowd, my entire body shook as I began to cry uncontrollably. I can’t begin to describe what I felt at that moment, all I know is that Lin’s memorial has become hallowed ground, a profound site for national remembrance that mirrors the scar in our national psyche.

A future Iraq War Memorial must convey that same intensity. But the conundrum is, how do we build a monument to the biggest foreign policy disaster in American history? As I was contemplating this and more, I received an e-mail from Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation, announcing their web project - the Iraq Veterans Memorial. They are asking family members, loved ones, veterans and significant others, to submit a one-minute video remembrance of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. On March 19th, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion, the compiled video statements will be published online. Organizers of the Iraq Veterans Memorial are hoping that thousands of people will link to this moving video statement, or commit to hosting the memorial on their own web sites and blogs. The following statement on the March 19th unveiling, comes from the organizers of the Iraq Veterans Memorial:

"Around the country people have been looking for ways to mark this tragic date. Inspired by the AIDS Quilt, the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, and the New York Times biographies of the 9/11 victims, Brave New Films and Robert Greenwald decided to create a living, online memorial to U.S. soldiers who have been killed in the past four years. The Iraq War Memorial will bear witness with 60 one-minute video remembrances of family, friends, co-workers, and military colleagues of those who have died and how much they will be missed. Non-partisan, with no pundits or commentary, the Memorial will be a tapestry of personal memories and anecdotes which will always remind us of the impact the lost soldiers had on those who loved them. The memorial will be unveiled on March 18th and 19th all across the internet. It will be easily accessible on iraqmemorial.org.

Our Brave New Foundation, in partnership with Gold Star Families Speak Out, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and numerous other anti-war groups, is in the midst of producing the videos and figuring out how the Memorial can have the biggest impact. We would love your help in getting people around the country involved in finding ways, and places to have the memorial seen. We are encouraging people to "unveil the Memorial," to view it at various public places, schools, churches, bookstores, libraries, galleries, union halls, and cafes. Some artist/activists are going to project the Memorial on the side of buildings. If you have any other ideas or people we should contact, please let us know right away. iraqmemorial.org."

Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful

Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution, opens March 4th, 2007 at the Geffen Contemporary of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and runs until July 16th, 2007. Organized by MOCA curator Connie Butler, the show features artworks created from 1965 to 1980, by 100 women focused on the status and liberation of women. In one attempt to capture the militant spirit of late 60's feminist groups, Butler named her show, Wack!, which is not itself an acronym, but alludes to the popularity of acronyms used by radical groups of the period, my favorite example being the tongue in cheek, W.I.T.C.H., or - Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell.

Wack! is being promoted as "the first comprehensive, historical exhibition of feminist art", and you could add "international" to the billing as around half of the artists are from outside the U.S. - including artists from England, Poland, Scandinavia, Germany, Algeria, India, Canada, Italy, Chile, and Brazil. Many talents - well known and unknown - are in the show, and an excellent illustrated catalog published by MOCA covers all the bases, however, in this article I’d like to focus on just one participating artist - Martha Rosler.

During the early 1970’s I discovered Rosler’s photomontage series, Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, a brilliant, multi-faceted, intrinsically feminist critique of American involvement in Vietnam. The title of Rosler’s collection was a melding of a popular 60’s antiwar slogan in the U.S. ("Bring the War Home!"), to the vapid women’s magazine of the period that promoted homemaking as the proper area of interest for women. Rosler’s compelling and influential photomontage works seem more powerful than ever - especially since we are mired in a new Vietnam. I was delighted to learn that Rosler’s works were recently included in Media Burn, an exhibition at London's Tate Modern, and even more excited to discover that she’s rekindled the Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful series - this latest edition being focused on Iraq.

[ Red Stripe Kitchen - Martha Rosler. Photomontage. 24 x 20 inches. From the series, Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful. 1962–72. For a larger view of this image, click here. ]

Red Stripe Kitchen was a photomontage from the original 1962 - 72 series. In it, Rosler combined two photos to startling effect. The first, a circa 1970 interior shot of an affluent household’s modern home kitchen, decorated in the fashionable modernist style; gleaming white from floor to ceiling, with a breakfast bar seating arrangement surrounding the stove. Adjacent doors lead to a pantry. The dazzling white is interrupted by red highlights found in dishes, appliances - and a decorative stripe painted mid-level on the pantry wall. The second photo spliced into this tranquil scene explodes the myth of domestic bliss. Two combat ready Marines are snooping around in the pantry, engaged in the same type of search performed by U.S. soldiers a million times over in Vietnamese villages suspected of aiding Viet Cong guerillas. Aside from exposing the kitchen as a battlefield, Rosler’s photomontage directly linked women’s oppression to militarism and overseas imperial adventures - but it also posed a thousand questions. Who is the enemy? Who is innocent? Who shall be absolved of guilt and responsibility in times of war?

[ Gladiators - Martha Rosler. Photomontage. 2004. From the new series, Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful. For a larger view of this image, click here. ]

In Gladiators, one of Rosler’s current works from the Iraq series, the bourgeois home has not only turned out to be invaded, its interior has become inseparable from the mayhem outside its walls. In the living room of the spacious home depicted, a framed artwork hangs; a photo of bloodied Iraqi civilians heaped in a pile, a crystal-clear indication that we are living with the war in our daily lives without really seeing it. The quiet of the affluent residence has been shattered by a police officer, who is apparently arresting a member of the household while heavily armed U.S. soldiers conduct a search and destroy mission through the dwelling. That one of the soldiers is raising his automatic weapon towards the viewer is a disquieting reminder that the war has indeed - come home.

Viewers of Gladiators may be confused by the chaotic panorama glimpsed through the abode’s huge bay windows. In part it is obviously a distressing Iraqi street scene where smoke from a detonated car bomb wafts by palm trees, but who are the odd looking men rushing the house as they brandish clubs? The photograph depicting them is not a readily identifiable image, even though it’s an Associated Press photo that was widely circulated on the internet. The image documents U.S. Marines of the 1st Division in Iraq, dressed as gladiators and - like a scene from Charlton Heston’s, Ben Hur - holding chariot races with filched Iraqi horses. The bizarre incident occurred at a Marine military base outside of the doomed city of Fallujah on November 6th, 2004, the very eve of the Marine attack that would destroy the "insurgent stronghold" of 300,000 civilians. If you find this all too hard to believe, you can see the original AP photos here, as well as read Agence France-Presse’s account of the Marine’s evangelical pre-Fallujah pep rally.

The Geffen Contemporary of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, is located in downtown Los Angeles near Little Tokyo, at 152 North Central Avenue. LA, CA. 90013. Visit them on the web, at: www.moca.org. MOCA has also constructed a special website for the exhibition, a "collaborative environment for consciousness-raising and discussion." At MOCA's WACK! site, "the general public, artists, and authors can participate in the discourse by posting responses to artworks."

More Art, Less War!

Americans for the Arts is a leading nonprofit organization that advances the arts in the United States. With offices in Washington, DC, and New York City, it has a record of more than 45 years of service. On February 5, 2007, Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert L. Lynch, responded to the Bush administration's fiscal year 2008 Arts and Culture funding recommendations by issuing the following statement:

"For the first time in three years, President Bush initiated a proposed increase in funds for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). If approved, the president’s $4 million funding increase would grow the NEA budget from $124.4 million to $128.4 million, which is a step in the right direction. However, Americans for the Arts calls on Congress to restore full funding to the NEA at its fiscal year 1992 level of $176 million, which spurred significant economic growth, artistic achievement, and accessibility to the nation’s cultural organizations across the nation. The nonprofit arts industry generates $134 billion in economic activity annually for the U.S. economy, supports 4.85 million full-time jobs, and returns $10.5 billion in income tax revenue back to the federal government.

We applaud the president for recommending another significant increase to the Institute of Museum and Library Services and a modest increase to the National Endowment for the Humanities. However, it is disappointing to see the administration propose zeroing out funding for the seventh consecutive year to the Department of Education’s arts education programs. One of the best ways to nurture creativity, a necessity to prepare for a 21st-century workforce, is to have children learn and actively participate in the arts. The administration needs to understand the role of arts education in developing an innovative and creative society. Studies show that students who participate in the arts are not only more likely to participate in a math and science fair, but also outperform their peers on the SATs by 103 points."

Let me put the issue of federal arts funding in perspective for you.

President Bush's 2008 fiscal request for the National Endowment for the Arts is $128.4 million. The President's 2008 fiscal request for defense and the "global war on terror" is $716 billion. The war and occupation in Iraq has so far cost an estimated $365 billion.

According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, "Currently, the Defense Department says it is spending about $4.5 billion a month on the conflict in Iraq, or about $100,000 per minute. Current spending in Afghanistan is about $800 million a month, or about $18,000 per minute.

$128 million for an entire year's worth of national arts funding - yeah, we're doing exceptionally well here folks.

Abu Ghraib: Botero exhibit in Berkeley

Fernando Botero’s suite of paintings and drawings depicting the torture of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of their American jailers in Abu Ghraib prison, will at last be exhibited in an American museum. An exhibit of 24 paintings and 23 drawings by the 74 year old Columbian master, will go on view at the Doe Library, located at the University of California, Berkeley.

In September of 2006, I wrote of the difficulties Mr. Botero was having in getting his Abu Ghraib series of artworks exhibited in the United States. Botero’s distinctive reputation as an artist notwithstanding, and despite the fact that his works had been shown in museums all across Europe - not a single museum in the U.S. offered to show his works. Finally the Marlborough Gallery in New York became the first American venue to showcase Botero’s Abu Ghraib series with an Oct./Nov. 2006 showing - but the Berkeley exhibit will be the very first museum exhibition in the U.S. The show is sponsored by the U.C. Berkeley Center for Latin American Studies.

The exhibit of Botero’s works will open at the U.C. Berkeley campus Doe Library, on January 29th at 6 p.m., and the show will run until March 25th, 2007. Hours for the Doe Library exhibit are from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. A map to locate the on-campus library can be found here.

[ UPDATE: Jack Rasmussen, the Director and Curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D.C., announced on his web log that Botero's paintings will be exhibited at the American University Museum from November 6th to December 30th, 2007. ]

The General’s war a work of art

Major General William Caldwell, a senior commander of U.S. forces in occupied Iraq, compared the war in that country to a work of art in progress. At a weekly briefing in Baghdad, Caldwell addressed the violence now spiraling out of control, which includes the rising U.S. casualties (2,828 dead at the time of this writing), by saying, "Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture, blobs of paint become paintings which inspire."

Major General Caldwell is certainly correct in noting that an artwork in progress differs considerably from the finished product, but I would add that sometimes an artist understands that a work in progress will not be the hoped for masterpiece - no matter how much effort is put into the work. Artists often recognize their failures early on, dropping projects to start more hopeful endeavors - that in part is what makes for a good artist. Caldwell should face the facts, the Neocon dreams for Iraq are never going to congeal into a masterwork, but will instead forever remain "blobs of paint."

While I have little confidence in today’s crop of art critics, here’s one I’d advise Caldwell to seriously consider. The Major General may be excited over the recent sale of a Jackson Pollock painting for $140 million dollars, no doubt hoping his own work will fetch such a hefty price - but so far the Iraq "work in progress" war has cost U.S. taxpayers $2 trillion dollars, which might be just a little bit out of touch in terms of pricing for a relatively unknown artist.

An Iraqi artist paints Donald Rumsfeld

The Iraqi surrealist painter, Muayad Muhsin, has painted a rather unflattering portrait of U.S. Defense Secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld. Muhsin’s surrealism is not informed by dreams and the unconsciousness mind, but by the horrors and barbarity of war. His painting titled, Picnic, portrays a combat boot wearing Rumsfeld relaxing comfortably in a chair, his raised feet resting on a destroyed relic from Iraq’s Babylonian past. In the background can be seen a giant fractured statue of a lion standing triumphantly over a vanquished man - another motif from ancient Babylon. The statue’s based is smashed open, and out of it white papers are flying up into the sky - a metaphor not only for the country’s past but for the looted libraries and art museums destroyed in the opening days of America’s blitzkrieg shock and awe bombing and invasion.

[ Picnic - Muayad Muhsin with his oil painting of Rumsfeld. AP Photo/Samir Mizban ]

Muhsin’s first exhibition of paintings in the United States ended this past May 27th, 2006. Titled Playing on Time Strings: The Paintings of Muayad Muhshi, the exhibit was held at the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center in Clarksville, Tennessee, and was comprised of 21 oil on canvas paintings and two water colors. Muhsin’s latest paintings, including the scathing attack on Rumsfeld, will be unveiled at a Baghdad gallery in an exhibition slated to open on June 12th, 2006 - but not without risks. While U.S. war hawks claim artists like Muhsin today enjoy freedoms denied them under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, artists are now threatened by fundamentalist zealots who want to ban western style art for being "un-Islamic" - forces ironically unleashed by the U.S. invasion and occupation. Under Hussein the arts were suppressed for secular political reasons, these days they are in jeopardy for religious reasons. Then of course there’s the military occupation and its so-called collateral damage - the unending numbers of people who perish in an urban nightmare battlefield environment not exactly conducive to making art or holding gallery exhibitions.

[ After the Storm - Muayad Muhsin, oil on canvas, 2003. A woman mourns the loss of her husband as a devastating storm sweeps the land, turning all to stone. The ancient tablets of wisdom are buried in the ground, and everything has been pierced by spears of destruction. The artist had to stop work on this painting as US. aircraft began to bomb Baghdad during Bush's "shock and awe" attack. After the Storm was exhibited in the U.S. at Tennessee's Customs House Museum in 2006. ]

Like many other Iraqi artists, Muayad Muhsin (41) was press ganged into Saddam’s army, and he’s a veteran of Iraq’s wars against Iran and Kuwait. He despises the former dictator for having taking "the best years of my life." While it’s true Iraqi artists feel relief at Saddam being removed from power, they also seem to have little fondness for those who’ve proclaimed themselves liberators. As Mushin says, "The Americans brought us rosy dreams but left us with nightmares, they came with a broad smile but gave us beheaded bodies and booby-trapped cars."

The wit and wisdom of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has not been lost on the Iraqi people, he certainly is a quotable fellow, and it is Rumsfeld’s drollness that in part inspired Muhsin’s painting. When America launched its shock and awe attack to supposedly disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld famously said of those WMD’s, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." The Associated Press reports that the surrealist painter has harsh words for Rumsfeld and the Americans, "They did not find weapons and instead, found the annals of an ancient civilization that turned into birds of love, peace and knowledge. Rumsfeld’s boots deliver a message from America: ‘We rule the world.’" Muhsin makes clear the intent of his painting, "It speaks of America’s total indifference to what the rest of the world thinks" and symbolizes "America’s soulless might and arrogance." As a further act of resistance, the artist signed his painting in the middle instead of the conventional bottom corner - so as to avoid having his signature under Rumsfeld’s boots.

[ A recent oil painting by Wasima Al-Agha, a female painter who teaches art at Iraq’s Fine Arts Academy. Works like this not only challenge the western perception of Moslem women, they infuriate religious fundamentalists. ]

On a related note, Muayad Muhsin is mentioned in an overview of contemporary Iraqi art, written by artist Steve Mumford for artnet.com in 2003. Mumford’s article focused on the artists associated with Baghdad’s famous Hewar Gallery just as the guerrilla war against the U.S. occupation began to expand. Mumford arrived in Iraq after American troops seized Baghdad, and he was "embedded" with the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division as a combat artist. He rode upon one of the unit’s armored personnel carriers, and by his own admission, "when the battle was going on, I stayed below in the armored personnel carrier and passed up ammunition" - which have led some to remark that Mumford was "in bed with" the U.S. occupation forces. Still, Mumford’s outline of the current art scene in Iraq is worth reading as a basic primer, and the examples of paintings by Iraqi artists that illustrate the article are particularly enlightening. However, much has changed in Iraq in three years, and if Muayad Muhsin’s latest painting is any indication - the U.S. has almost run out of friends in that country.

Fatalities: Art & The Endless War

In February of 2005, I wrote about artist Donald Shambroom and his Fatalities window installation assemblage in Boston’s Watertown area. Shambroom’s statement on the human cost of war seems more pressing today than when it was first conceptualized.

On November 19th, 2005, U.S. Marines went on a revenge killing spree in the western Iraqi city of Haditha after one of their own was killed by a guerrilla roadside bomb. In retaliation, Marines burst into civilian homes in the area of the bombing, killing up to 24 unarmed civilians in what will surely become known as Iraq’s My Lai massacre. One of those shot at close range was a 76-year old amputee in a wheelchair, other victims included little girls and boys ages 14, 10, 5, 4, 3, and 1. Time magazine obtained a video tape that was filmed immediately after the killings, a video that verified eyewitness accounts of the bloody slayings. A young Marine, sent in as part of a "clean up crew" in the aftermath of the shootings, took photographs of the victims and helped to carry their bodies out of bullet pock-marked homes. Those photos helped military investigators conclude that Marines had indeed killed women, children and elderly men. Last week the Pentagon announced that some members of the Marine unit may be charged with murder, and so the story of the massacre has finally reached the mainstream news.

On May 31st, 2006, two Iraqi women were shot and killed in their car after failing to stop at an American military check point. The U.S. military said in a statement that "repeated visual and auditory warnings" were made before shots were fired at the vehicle. After the shooting stopped, it was found that the two women were driving to a maternity hospital - one of them was pregnant and about to give birth. With mounting opposition to the war as a backdrop, Mr. Bush in his divine wisdom (God does talk to him you know), quietly gave the order for the deployment of more U.S. troops to Iraq. Some 3,500 soldiers from the 1st Armored Division stationed in Kuwait are now on their way to the killing fields of Iraq’s Anbar province.

Meanwhile Donald Shambroom has launched a new website where you can see his latest antiwar sculptures, works that continue to address the effects of America’s largest national enterprise - war. Hopefully, as the dreadful occupation of Iraq goes from bad to worse, Shambroom’s example will inspire other artists to create works of art in opposition to the folly of imperial wars and overseas colonial adventures.

Comics at War: Holy Terror, Batman!

[ Holy Terror, Batman! - "A Piece of Propaganda." Art by Frank Miller. ]

Comic books have left an indelible mark on American culture, from the Pop artists of the 1960’s to the silver screens of Hollywood. Now, American comics go to war - again. Frank Miller, who reinvented Batman in the Reagan years with his gloomy The Dark Knight Returns, is working on a new Batman adventure graphic novel. While addressing a mob of dedicated fans at the recent San Francisco WonderCon comic book convention, Miller revealed that his new Batman comic titled Holy Terror, Batman!, will pit the Dark Knight against none other than the al-Qaida terror network. Miller promised that in his new graphic novel, "Batman kicks al-Qaida’s ass," a feat the mighty Pentagon has yet been able to accomplish.

Miller said of his latest work, "Not to put too fine a point on it - it’s a piece of propaganda," and went on to mention that "I just think it’s silly to have Batman out chasing the Riddler when you’ve got al-Qaida out there." The comic book author told his audience that during World War II, "Superman punched out Hitler. So did Captain America. That’s one of the things they’re there for." Taking a swipe at opponents of Bush’s so-called war on terror, Miller added, "I wish the entertainers of our time had the spine and the focus of the ones who faced down Hitler." Since Miller takes his inspiration from "patriotic" WWII era comic books, it might be instructive to re-examine those books. The cover of one classic Superman comic from that period exhorted America’s youth to "Slap a Jap," and a quick survey of popular comics from those days reveal a venomous racism aimed at the Japanese. One must remember that while the Man of Steel was urging young Americans to "Slap a Jap," Japanese Americans were being spat upon, rounded up, deprived of their rights and properties, and thrown into "internment camps."

I suspect Holy Terror, Batman! will be filled with cruel and nasty looking "towel heads" bent on destroying Western Civilization, however, demonizing and dehumanizing Arabs in a popular comic book will do nothing to destroy the al-Qaida network - although it will do much to shore up the anti-Arab bigotry now rampant in the US. In its article on the new Batman comic, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted cartoonist Larry Gonick, who worries about Miller’s portrayal of al-Qaida, "A standard-issue treatment would show them as another crew of generic swarthy bad guys, and there will, of course have to be a ‘good Arab’ or two to prove the comic isn’t prejudiced. I’m guessing an Iraqi commando on our side. But if Miller gives them the real characteristics of al-Qaida, that is, really depicts the details of their religiosity, he could get into trouble."

In September of 2001, president Bush described his war on terror as a "crusade," angering Arabs who recall the Christian Crusaders as a conquering army in the Middle Ages. Bush received so much criticism over his choice of words that he wisely removed "crusade" from his vocabulary - though Arab resentment persists. Around the same time, Miller was outlining Jesus! , a comic book version of the life of Christ to be published by Dark Horse Maverick. Apparently sidetracked from that project, Miller has instead unleashed Batman to do battle with the evil doers, and ironically the Dark Knight is also known as - the Caped Crusader.

Peace Tower at the Whitney Biennial

[ The Peace Tower: Yesterday & Today. Left, the tower as it appeared in Los Angeles, 1966. At right, the new Peace Tower at the 2006 Whitney Biennial. ]

"The Peace Tower is a powerful statement of protest. By constructing it outside the museum’s entrance for all to see, Mark and Rirkrit remain true to the spirit of the original. The tower gives us a chorus of strong artists’ voices in a very public reminder that art is being made in a world that is, in the words of Antonin Artaud, a theatre of cruelty." So proclaimed Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne, the curators of the just opened 2006 Whitney Biennial. They were commenting on The Peace Tower - a collaborative work by Mark di Suvero, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and 180 other artists that is an updated recreation of the famous Artist’s Tower Against the War in Vietnam, constructed here in Los Angeles in 1966.

At the beginning of the year I wrote an article titled A Dark Mood In Contemporary Culture - which was a look at the then upcoming 2006 Whitney Biennial. In my piece I posed the question, "Are American artists finally addressing the current state of world affairs in their artworks?" One would have to say that at least some are, as the 2006 Whitney Biennial presents artworks full of references to Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Katrina, terrorism, and the abuses of government. The recreated Peace Tower stands just outside the Whitney Museum, setting the tone for the Biennial as it greets visitors with its antiwar message. In April of 2005, I wrote about the original Peace Tower in a newsletter commemorating the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war and the role artist’s played in the peace movement.

"In 1966 the Artists Protest Committee organized the Peace Tower, which stood at the corner of Sunset and La Cienega Boulevards. The sculpture, designed by artist Mark di Suvero and Mel Edwards, was covered with over 400 small panels submitted by artists from all around the world. Each panel was an artistic antiwar statement, and some of the artists who submitted works include Philip Evergood, Moses and Raphael Soyer, Robert Motherwell, Jim Rosenquist, Philip Pearlstein, Arnold Meshes, and Judy Chicago. At the public dedication of the short lived monument against the war (dismantled after a few controversial months), there were speeches made by art critic and author, Susan Sontag, and Donald Duncan - an ex-Green Beret who said, "I am not here today to protest our boys in Vietnam. I'm here to protest our boys being in Vietnam."

In creating a new Peace Tower at New York’s Whitney Museum, some of the original 1966 artists like James Rosenquist were asked to submit works, but a good portion of the artists who have contributed to the latest effort - artists like Nancy Spero, Hans Haacke, Yoko Ono, John Baldessari, and Joy Garnett, had no association with the LA tower. Mark di Suvero was of course one of the primary creators behind the 1966 Los Angeles tower project, and in producing a new tower that focuses on America’s latest imperial adventure - he’s helped to revitalize the activist spirit of contemporary art.

[ Update: Reuters has published an article on the Peace Tower, which quotes Chrissie Iles, co-curator of the Whitney Biennial; "The anti-war sentiment among artists has been very strong, it’s what we felt everywhere, whether we were at an artist’s studio doing abstract paintings or whatever. It’s a general sense of anger that they feel, this sense of things falling apart." Reuters also quoted Philippe Vergne, who curated the show with Iles; "We’re not going to stop the war, but maybe it’s going to force people to think a little differently and not take things for granted. If art can change the world for one person, that’s good enough for me." The March 2006 newstand edition of Artforum Magazine has a long interview with Irving Petlin, Mark di Suvero, and Rirkrit Tiravanija about the Peace Tower - first conceptualized by Petlin and di Suvero in 1966. "I hope the new tower will be as controversial as the old one was back then. Because, you know, indifference is almost worse than hostility." - Irving Petlin. For more on the Whitney Biennial 2006, read Biennial in Babylon by Jerry Saltz, art critic for the Village Voice, who wrote; "It is difficult to approach the hard issues of the world, yet if we don’t let more of the world in our work it’s likely that the world will let less of our work into it." ]

An Abstract Expression of Horror

On February 16th Australia's Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) program Dateline aired previously unpublished video and photos taken by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. The damning pictures show Iraqi prisoners - bound, naked, wounded, some covered in blood or excrement - undergoing abuse at the hands of their American jailers. Dateline executive producer Mike Carey said SBS obtained hundreds of images from Abu Ghraib, and that many of the pictures depicted "homicide, torture and sexual humiliation" too appalling to be broadcast on television. The station will not say how they acquired the images, but the Pentagon, despite trying to prevent the publication of the photos in America, verified their authenticity.

Philip Kennicott, staff writer for the Washington Post, wrote an article titled Painted in Blood: an Abstract Expression of Horror, in which he made a remarkable observation about one of the photos snapped by a U.S. soldier. The photo appears "to be a toilet floor covered with blood and litter, framed by a small glimpse of tiled walls. It suggests a bathroom turned into a holding cell, or perhaps a scene from a hospital or triage center, or a torture chamber." After acknowledging that few American media outlets have published the new photographs, Kennicott went on to describe the aforementioned snapshot;

[ Postmodern conceptual art installation at Abu Ghraib prison. - Anonymous 2003. ]

"The blood on the floor instantly suggests the splatter and drip paintings of the abstract expressionists. Newspapers have often turned to blood as a substitute for violence, showing photographs of the gore that lingers on streets long after the bodies -- too graphic to show -- have been cleared away. Here, in a photo that contains no particular information, no names, no certainty even about whether it shows what it seems to show, is the blood image in a new form. This is no substitute, no polite euphemism for what can't be shown. Blood as a substitute for death deflects horror; this blood demands answers. Comparing blood to paint, violence to art, is dangerous, even repellent. But in one sense, the blood on this floor is exactly like the paint drippings of Jackson Pollock, who captured the visible traces of action, the visual memory of gestures. In Pollock's painting, the gestures fixed on canvas were often graceful, melodic even, with paint obeying the law of gravity with a gentle quiescence. If this is blood, we can only imagine what the gestures were."

No doubt Pollock would be appalled by the new school of "Action Painting" founded at Abu Ghraib prison, and while Pollock had to suffer being called "Jack the Dripper" by a hostile press - that was the only torment he was subjected to. Today’s anonymous American "Dripper" working at the infamous Iraqi prison, left us a magnum opus installation piece composed of found objects, human body fluids and blood - materials not unfamiliar to some postmodern conceptual artists. However, this tour de force work is no mere vacuous creation devoid of meaning or social impact - no, it is a grand tribute to colonial arrogance and the denigration of the human spirit. Unfortunately the artist will most likely not want to take credit for the work… but I would urge this modern master to step forward into the limelight. Such genius cannot go unrewarded.

[ UPDATE: On Feb. 16th, Salon.com became the first U.S. media outlet to publish the new Abu Ghraib photos. According to Salon, over 1,000 photos, videos and supporting documents were made available to them by a source who "who spent time at Abu Ghraib as a uniformed member of the military and is familiar" with the Army's Criminal Investigation Command. Salon insists that "America - and the world - has the right to know what was done in our name." They also remind us that "no high-ranking officer or official has yet been charged in the abuse scandal that blackened America's reputation across the world." You can seen the Abu Ghraib files at Salon.com. ]

Lion of the Desert

As a rational human being, a humanist and an artist, I offer my heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones effected by the terror bombings in Amman, Jordan. It should go without saying that all forms of terrorism are heinous, and that the murder of innocent civilians for political reasons is still simply an act of homicide committed by political gangsters. We’ve entered another one of those seasons of madness where humanity engages itself in a dance of death, the protagonists of the bloody ballet blaming each other for the mounting piles of corpses.

The Italian state broadcaster RAI TV, has charged US occupation forces with obliterating the Iraqi city of Fallujah, incinerating untold numbers of inhabitants with white phosphorus chemical weapons. RAI TV backed up its story with a November 8th television documentary broadcast titled, Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre. The broadcast took place on the one year anniversary of the US assault on Fallujah. On the heels of that outrage comes another affront - unknown assailants maim and murder dozens at American luxury hotels in Jordan.

With more than 50 killed and at least 110 injured in the attacks, it is difficult to focus on the suffering of a single individual who survived - but since I write about art and culture on this web log, I have to mention that one of the Arab world’s most celebrated filmmakers was a victim of the bombings. Moustafa Akkad was attending a wedding party of 300 guests at the ground floor banquet room of the Radisson SAS, when one of three suicide bombers detonated himself. Akkad sustained serious injuries and his daughter was killed in the blast. Akkad is best known in the West for being behind the Halloween film series. But he also produced and directed The Message, a wildly popular film in the Arab world that presents the basic tenets of Islam. Moreover, the Syrian-born director also produced Lion of the Desert, a true story epic film about Omar Mukhtar, who led Libyans in a patriotic struggle against the Italian fascists occupying their country during the Second World War.

I saw Lion of the Desert when it came out in theatres in 1981. The great Anthony Quinn starred as the heroic Omar Mukhtar, Rod Steiger played a bombastic and arrogant Benito Mussolini, and Oliver Reed carried the role of the ruthless fascist general Rodolfo Graziani - sent by Il Duce to conquer the Libyan people for the new Roman Empire. All three gave terrific performances, but Quinn thought his contribution to be one of the best performances of his entire career. This remarkable movie not only featured Arabs as the "good guys," it recounted their historic anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle in a sympathetic way completely understandable to westerners. When Akkad’s film shows the mighty Italian occupation army bogged down in a guerrilla war against ill armed but determined Libyan tribesmen - one can’t help but think of the escalating war now raging across Iraq. Lion of the Desert is an important film that everyone should see, especially given the current state of world affairs. That its director has become a victim to the tragic violence engulfing us all only drives home this point.

[ UPDATE: Hours after writing the above article, Moustapha Akkad died of his wounds - he was 72. ]

Art: Another Casualty In Iraq

Two years after the US "liberated" Iraq, artists in that beleaguered nation are barely hanging on. Having survived the long night of Saddam and the "shock and awe" blitzkrieg of the Americans... Iraqi artists today are fighting a losing battle against occupation, terrorism, and the rising threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Back in July of 2004, I wrote an article about the artists of Iraq and how they were fairing the chaos in their occupied country. Titled, Abu Gulag Freedom Park, my piece focused on the famous Hewar Gallery in Baghdad and its owner Qassim al-Sabti. Just recently, International Relief and Development, a relief agency connected to the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), awarded Hewar Gallery $75,000. Ostensibly for the training of artists and the modernization of the gallery, the contribution is sure to anger those dedicated to driving all western influence from the country. One must admire Qasim al-Sabti’s bravery, and also fear for his life - which must be said for all the artists living in Iraq.

Not that long ago Iraq was considered the leading Arab country in the art world, with its artists exploring a wide range of modernist styles. Under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein, artists remained surprisingly free to create daring works… so long as they avoided criticizing the regime. When Saddam's government fell under the guns of the US invasion, artists hoped for a peaceful and democratic future - but their hopes did not last for long. Prior to the US occupation, wealthy Iraqi families and foreigners were the main patrons of the arts. But today, anyone with money has left the country for obvious reasons, and the only foreigners in town don’t exactly have art on their minds. Iraqi artists have been left with virtually no support. Qasim al-Sabti says that artists are now censoring themselves out of fear, avoiding creating nudes or taking on other subjects that might offend Iraq's Shiite-dominated government. "Iraqi artists took their precautions and decided no more pictures with nude women or men or drawing any erotic subjects, as they know they will be either killed or kidnapped." Al-Sabti has also said many artists today are turning to painting religious works for clerics in order to survive.

One of history’s great ironies is that George Bush, while promising liberty for Iraq, has instead delivered it into the hands of religious fundamentalists. US backed elections in Iraq swept a Shia-dominated regime to power that is closely linked to Iran, which not too long ago Mr. Bush declared a terrorist nation and a member of the "axis-of-evil." Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, visited Iran to lay a wreath at the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini - the man who branded America "the Great Satan." The new Iraqi constitution being drafted by a special working group of Iraqi leaders makes Sharia law the basis for future governance. That prospect is not exactly thrilling to Iraqi women, human rights activists, and those who embrace pluralism and democracy. Already posters of Ayatollah Khomeini are plastered all over the south of Iraq, where “religious police” publicly whip and beat women who do not wear a veil. No wonder Iraqi artists are censoring themselves. Surely American lives are not being sacrificed in Iraq in order to defend a regime of religious zealots. If that is not the mission - then please tell me exactly what is. As I write this 44 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq in just the last 10 days, bringing the total killed in action to 1,845.

With over 100,000 civilians killed in the war so far, the tone of Iraqi artworks has become cheerless and despondent. Shaddad Abdul Qahar has stopped using color in his paintings, preferring instead to paint almost exclusively with the color black. Nasir Thamer creates sculptures of eyeless heads, the mouths and ears plugged with bullets. Esam Pasha’s paintings are inward looking meditations meant as a personal safe haven from the constant horror. His Dreams in a War Zone (shown above), is indicative of the gloom swallowing up Iraqi artists. In the painting a coffin born aloft by wings of human hands takes flight into the sky… death’s release providing the only hope.

T’anks to Mr. Bush

An anti-Bush painting in a California group show is causing a firestorm of protest, but for all the wrong reasons. The California Arts Council along with California Lawyers for the Arts and State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, have sparked controversy with a show they’ve sponsored at California’s Department of Justice in the state capital of Sacramento. The exhibit, A Creative Merger: Lawyers and Artists, is an exhibit presenting over 30 original works of art created by lawyers or others in the legal field. The artworks are hung in the Side Bar Café, the restaurant at the capital’s State Department building - and while the exhibit was not funded with state money there are apparently some who don’t like what they’ve seen.

A few of the works in the exhibit take pot shots at the policies of the Bush administration, like a painting of the hooded Iraqi prisoner tormented by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison, or another painting of Bush sitting in a church bell tower mounted on a tank that’s making tracks across occupied Iraq. However, it’s T'anks to Mr. Bush, the artwork by Berkeley lawyer and rank amateur painter, Stephen Pearcy, that’s causing the uproar. Pearcy’s crude painting shows the American Flag in the shape of the United States being flushed down a toilet. A pair of real cowboy boots planted at the foot of the painting, combined with the work’s title, make it perfectly clear that Pearcy faults Mr. Bush with ruining the good ‘ol USA. Right-wingers are howling mad and several rightist blogs have been collecting signatures on a petition demanding the painting’s removal from the exhibit. Conservative Sacramento talk radio host, Eric Hogue, has made opposition to Pearcy’s painting the focus of his blog, while the State Republican Party spokeswoman Karen Hanretty exclaimed that the artwork is "blatantly offensive to people who think that America does not belong in the toilet".

There are many Americans who think George W. Bush is the worst president this country has ever had, and I count myself amongst that crowd, however - to me that is not the issue at hand. Unfortunately this affair is being turned into a battle over free speech and an artist’s right to exhibit controversial works. I regard those as sacrosanct rights, but there’s also something else I think of as sacred… that ephemeral and beauteous thing we call "art". To be honest, if I had been the curator of the Creative Merger show, Pearcy’s painting would have been on my list of rejects to be excluded from the exhibit. If he wanted to mount it on a stick and carry it around during a protest, fine, I can accept it as a coarsely drawn, vulgar, and ill-conceived protest sign. But then, I’ve seen better drawn placards at demonstrations that were created by people wise enough not to proclaim themselves artists.

I find it amusing that some people would expect me to stand up for Pearcy’s artless scrawl just because it’s a jibe against Bush. I have no intention of defending Stephen Pearcy’s painting - I’d much rather take to task those whose standards are so low that they’d include such rubbish in an art exhibit. To the liberals and conservatives who will endlessly squabble over this matter while dragging art through the mud, I say - a pox on both your houses. As for Stephen Pearcy, I’m afraid that even if I gave him private and intensive lessons in the art of painting, it would be for naught. I can only hope that he’s a better lawyer than he is an artist.

A Nightmare Hall of Mirrors

In 1970 artist Sam Wiener created an artwork that addressed the slaughter then occurring in Vietnam, but his work unfortunately still has resonance in our world today. Those Who Fail to Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat It was originally titled 45,391... and counting, with the title changing as the numbers of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam kept climbing. Wiener’s sculptural work consisted of a small open topped box lined with mirrors into which rows of small flag-draped coffins were arranged. The coffin’s reflections expanded into infinity, conveying the idea that the nation was trapped in a nightmare hall of mirrors. The artwork asked a question that no one could answer - "for how long does the war grind on and how many will be sacrificed?" Wiener also created a mass produced poster of this image that was heavily distributed in the early 1970’s - it is a poster that could just as well have been created in the present day. Since Bush’s war on Iraq began, the number of U.S. troops to have died as of this writing is 1,702. Over 12,000 have been maimed and wounded. Estimates on Iraqi civilian deaths vary, with 22,248 being the minimum. We were told that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that if we didn’t invade and disarm the country, we’d soon see a mushroom cloud rising over New York City. Not only were there no WMD’s, we now find out through the Downing Street Memo (the transcribed minutes of a meeting held by the British Prime Minister eight months before the invasion), that intelligence was being "fixed" in order to make a case for war. A Nightmare Hall of Mirrors indeed.

Ed Ruscha: Agitpop for Bush

[ The U.S. State Department has crowned Pop art legend, Ed Ruscha, as America's representative at the 2005 Venice Biennale, allowing me the perfect opportunity to bring attention to the reader the ways in which art and politics are inexorably bound together. My contention has long been that all art is political, since it is the result not just of imagination but of human labor - and what field of human endeavor is more politicized than work? But approval or disapproval from any society's powerful institutions and individuals also politicizes art, and that couldn't be any clearer than in the case of Ed Ruscha.

Ruscha (pronounced roo-SHAY) is one of the most enduring artists to have emerged from the Pop art explosion of the 1960's. The word 'Pop' was first used in 1957 by a group of English artists and their associates who congregated at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. They took their inspiration from the modern urban environment, a banal showcase of excess and overproduction. But Pop really took root in America, where cities like New York and Los Angeles provided fertile ground for those artists who wanted to transform the common place and 'low-brow' into fine art. Pop was an aesthetic born from all things commercial, distilling mass media icons with images taken directly from capitalism's consumer paradise - automobile design, advertising, product packaging, comics and the like. It was an intrinsically political genre since it dealt with mass media and America's dominant commercial culture, yet artists like Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Mel Ramos, and Tom Wesselmann were more interested in having their works mirror society than critiquing it. However, some Pop artists like Edward Kienholz, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein were less timid about making overt political statements in their works, and it was this strain of Pop that had a direct influence upon me. In fact, it was a nod to Mr. Lichtenstein's use of comic strip images as the basis for his paintings that led me to produced my 1980 silkscreen, Nuclear War?!… There Goes My Career!

Having been born and raised in Los Angeles, I've obviously been influenced by Pop sensibilities, if only by osmosis. So I was quite interested when photographer James W. Bailey sent me an e-mail concerning the U.S. State Department's approval of fellow LA artist, Ed Ruscha. Bailey wrote an article concerning Ruscha fronting for the State Department and submitted it to the Los Angeles Times and the LA Weekly (we’ll see if they publish the piece). While he regularly contributes Op-Ed pieces to DC Arts News and Thinking About Art, Bailey chose to submit his Ruscha commentary to me - because in his words, "It only seems appropriate to me that someone in LA raise some of the questions I'm asking." So here in its entirety is James W. Bailey's article, Code Red Alert: The U.S. State Department Officially Approves Artist Ed Ruscha for International Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. ]

“When upper management in the U.S. Department of State meets behind closed doors, it’s normally for the purpose of developing the spin of the day to continue to advance the war theory of weapons of mass destruction; but when the little known Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs appoints high ranking curators and museum directors to meet behind closed doors, their postmodern art job is to emerge with an American artist weapon of mass appeal (Ed Ruscha) to participate in the 2005 Venice Biennale. The State Department controlled process for deciding the participating American artist for the 2005 Venice Biennale was a screw-up that only a government agency that believes in “nation building” could conceive. A federal law, the Fulbright-Hays Act, mandates that the State Department provide oversight of American participation in a handful of prestigious international artistic and cultural events, including the Venice Biennale. Until recently, the process of selecting an artist was orchestrated by the Fund for US Artists at Overseas Exhibitions. In the past the National Endowment for the Arts would convene a panel of insider art professionals who were tasked with reviewing curatorial proposals submitted in response to an open call for submissions. The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Funds kicked in the money to support the chosen project, with a little boot offered by the State Department.

But the public/private partnership collapsed in late 2003 when the private funders, citing a realignment of funding priorities, pulled out. The State Department, once again caught off guard because of bad CIA intel, didn’t know what was happening or what to do. Thus, their undemocratic solution: Have a select group of non-controversial pro-American art priests go into a closed door session and select a non-controversial pro-American pop artist whose minimalist work is subject to open-ended conversations that will never touch on any issues regarding America’s arrogant attitude as exemplified by its foreign policy – and with specifically no references whatsoever to its “War on Terrorism”. And to further assure that the message of the artist stays comfortably within State Department approved guidelines regarding the content of curatorial messages, the selected artist, Ed Ruscha, was allowed to choose his own curator (Linda Norden, associate curator of contemporary art at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum), a Venice Biennale first for America’s official representative.

Needless to say that this whitewashed arrangement will not result in a controversial installation by Ruscha in which he digitally photographs performance actors/artists playing the role of military interrogators flushing the Koran down a toilet while others dressed as American soldiers wail on Muslim captives – no, we’ll be safely treated to innocent and non-provocative words and phrases painted on canvasses like, WHO ME? or ART = MONEY = FAME or SWEET, and other deep stuff like that that wears a bullet proof critical vest - the Minimalist postmodern art fanatics love Ruscha and naturally they’re not about to criticize his government sanctioned appearance in Venice; the worst we’ll hear and read is “he was a safe choice”.

Safe indeed. Safe is what you’ll always get when your government gets in the business of proffering art to the world; and safer still is what you must get when dangerous times compel quiet artistic acquiescence to the pro-war-on-terrorism party line. Our government’s position during this so-called “War on Terrorism” is that we all just shut up, sit down and do what we’re told to do. Our government has made it easy for us to know when to comply by issuing its daily Homeland Security Codes in Minimalist colors and words RED = SEVERE, ORANGE = HIGH, YELLOW = ELEVATED, BLUE = GUARDED and GREEN = LOW. It comes as no surprise that the U.S. Statement Department has enthusiastically endorsed a minimalist word artist like Ed Ruscha as the official American artist to represent the United States of America at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Maybe the man behind the curtain in our government will lower the national security alert lever to GREEN so as to encourage all of us compliant Americans to trip over to Italy this summer to see what profound words of encouragement that Ruscha has painted for our cultural edification and amusement. Or more likely, once again we’ll find ourselves this summer being urged to stay inside because of the mandatory Code Red Alert – and perhaps that’s not a bad thing because anytime your government issues an official imprimatur on a specific artist from a particular school of art, red flags ought to be going up everywhere. Maybe we should just comply by staying at home this summer and thinking very deeply about what those Code Red Alerts and government sanctioned artists really mean for the cultural future of our country.”

[ James W. Bailey is an experimental photographer who lives and works in Virginia. You can reach him at: jameswbailey@comcast.net ]

Faces of the Fallen: 1,502 & Counting

Today marks the 1,502 US soldier to die in Iraq since Mr. Bush launched the war in March 2003. From the time when the Commander in Chief announced “Mission Accomplished” in May of 2003, 1,364 US soldiers have lost their lives. How are these service men and women being remembered? Perhaps America is beginning to realize that it is actually mired in an overseas war where its sons and daughters are being maimed and killed on a daily basis. The shopping mall, cineplex, and workplace may look the same… but the brutality of this war is beginning to creep into American popular culture. In times such as these, artists must step forward to grapple with thorny social issues, anything less is escapism. It is a bit eerie that on the same day as the 1,502 US fatality in Iraq, Syracuse University of New York is opening an exhibition dedicated to the fallen American soldiers of that war. Commencing March 3rd and running until April 1st, To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen is an exhibit of more than 1,400 5” x 7” portrait paintings of US soldiers killed in Iraq. A little over one thousand of the paintings were first created and exhibited by the students and faculty of California’s College of Marin, who originated the project. The students and faculty of Syracuse University will now contribute an additional 350 artworks to the display. The College of Marin maintains a web page where you can see the portraits as they were put on view in the school’s gallery. It is a haunting thing to behold, especially considering that the next exhibit may require even more wall space.

It’s Fun To Shoot Some People

Back in December I wrote that Universal Pictures was going to produce, No True Glory: Battle for Fallujah, a pro-war film with Harrison Ford starring as Lt. Gen. James Mattis. Well the news just keeps getting stranger and stranger. At a recent forum Mattis publicly said, "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." Mattis made his remarks on February 1st, while speaking at a panel discussion in San Diego. The statement was recorded by NBC news and can be heard on their website. Mattis' comments were met with laughter and applause from the military audience. Not only is Mattis currently the commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, he's in charge of "developing better ways to train and equip Marines." Perfect. I wonder if Universal will be including Mattis’ remarks in Harrison Ford’s script? Come to think of it… It’s Fun To Shoot Some People would make a much better title for the film. Military officials have said Mattis will not be disciplined for his remarks.

Mesopotamia Endangered

When the US Army captured Iraq’s capital of Baghdad in April of 2003, people around the world were shocked by the whirlwind of looting that followed in the wake of “liberation”. Quick to seize and guard Iraq’s Oil Ministry, US forces left other government buildings unprotected and open to pillage by throngs of impoverished Iraqis. The country’s art and history museums were ransacked by looters, who stripped the institutions of their treasures and destroyed what could not be carried off. Innumerable cuneiform clay tablets displaying the world's first written language were reduced to dust. Precious artifacts from the dawn of civilization were smashed or carted off to be sold on the black market by professional art thieves. But the destruction of Iraq’s irreplaceable historic artifacts did not cease with the fall of Baghdad. An unfavorable report issued on January 15th, 2005, by the British Museum in London, found US-led forces responsible for widespread damage to the ancient city of Babylon, home to King Nebuchadnezzar and the Tower of Babel.

Immediately after the invasion the US built a military base for 2,000 troops on the site of the legendary metropolis, in spite of the protestations from archaeologists. Among the devastation listed by the British Museum - shattered bricks adorned with the name of Nebuchadnezzar lying in garbage heaps, the 2,600 year old brick pavement entrance to the Ishtar Gate crushed by military vehicles, tons of archaeological fragments used to fill sandbags, and tank fuel seeping into unexcavated archaeological layers. Those in the Los Angeles area who are concerned with the preservation of world heritage should attend, Mesopotamia Endangered: Witnessing the Loss of History. This special event at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles will focus on the looting and pillaging of archaeological sites in war-torn Iraq. Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, journalist and archaeologist, will speak about the issue in her talk at the Museum Lecture Hall on Tuesday, February 8th, at 7 pm. For more information: www.getty.edu