It is not just another year that passes, but an entire decade. And what can be said of the past ten years, aside from the fact that it has been an extraordinarily bleak period. A stolen election, 9/11, an “endless war on terror”; promises of “hope and change” morphing into predator drone attacks, escalating war, rising unemployment, and tax cuts…
According to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Dec. 3, 2010, the national unemployment rate in the U.S. is officially up to 9.8%. “Frugal” seems to be the most used word to describe the current Christmas season. Together with rising home foreclosures, increasing poverty, lack of healthcare, and some 14% of Americans relying on food stamps to…
In 1983 a poster appeared on walls all across Soviet occupied Afghanistan. The print featured a tough Soviet Red Army soldier kneeling in the snow, smashing his Kalashnikov automatic rifle over his knee while roaring – “The war is finished! Let’s go home!” I thought of that poster when President Obama announced on Dec. 16, 2010 that there was “significant…
Few artworks from the 20th century make the connection between war production and the impoverishment of society as clearly as the French poster from May 1968, “Light wages – heavy tanks.” Created by an anonymous artist from the Atelier Populaire collective that was active in Paris during the student/worker revolt of May ’68, the poster came to mind when I…
On October 23rd and November 6th, 2010, I will be lecturing at the following two venues concerning the Mexican muralist, David Alfaro Siqueiros. Press Release statements for the two talks are as follows: Siqueiros & the Mexican School of Social Realism As part of the José Vera Gallery’s cultural programming surrounding their Siqueiros print exhibit, Confronting Revolution: A Siqueiros Aesthetic,…
I first met Patrick Merrill when we exhibited together in a group show in 2005. Conflict: Works on Paper was the thirty-fourth annual juried competition at the Brand Gallery in Glendale California, and Patrick and I both submitted works that lived up to the theme of “conflict.” I had entered two large drawings having to do with the U.S. waging…
Back on December 1, 2009 I wrote an illustrated article titled Hey, Hey, LBJ…, an essay concerning U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson as depicted in anti-Vietnam war posters from the 1960s. I self-published my treatise on the occasion of President Obama deploying 30,000 U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan. While there are obvious differences between the Vietnam and Afghan wars, the…
Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Federal Art Project (FAP), which put thousands of artists to work during the Great Depression, the Bedford Gallery in Northern California is presenting The American Scene: New Deal Art 1935-1943. Running from October 3 through December 19, 2010, the exhibit features art from the likes of Diego Rivera,…
