On December 1, 2009, in an address to the nation delivered from the United States Military Academy at West Point, President Obama announced the sending of an additional 30,000 U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan in order to wage what he calls a “war of necessity.” To mark the occasion I have written, “Hey, Hey, LBJ…”, an illustrated essay on the…
While on a visit to my local library as a nine-year-old in 1962, I randomly pulled a dog-eared picture book about the Second World War from a shelf, retreating to an isolated table to thumb through the digest in solitude. Flipping through the book’s tattered pages I received an unexpected surprise I would never forget. I had come to a…
Brussels is not only the capital of Belgium and the administrative center of the European Union, it is also the city where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is based. In addition, Brussels becomes the latest stop for Fundamental, the group exhibition I’m participating in that explores today’s religious fundamentalist movements. My painting, A People Under Command: USA Today, is…
During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon released to American troops a wanted list of Iraqi leaders that came in the form of a deck of cards. The playing cards featured photos and information about various government henchmen, and were designed to help U.S. troops identify and capture members of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Now, four years after the…
I find an odd prescience in the “Target” paintings of Jasper Johns. While some gush madly over his works and others are simply indifferent – there is another story to relate, an untold chronicle that details the corporatization of American culture and the dumping of recent history “down the memory hole.” Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955-1965, is a…
The article When Art Becomes Inhuman was written by conservative Karl Zinsmeister for a 2002 edition of The American Enterprise magazine. Zinsmeister’s commentary was a general condemnation of modern art, with a sharp focus upon the extremes of postmodernism – which he described as a “left-wing cause.” Zinsmeister sarcastically declared, “Surely you’ve noticed that the art smarties never lay out…
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…
The censorship of two recent art exhibits in the United States points not only to widening threats against free speech, but also to a deep crisis and malaise within the art world. As reported on May 3, 2006 on “Democracy Now,” a current affairs news show on leftwing Pacifica Radio, Brandeis University in Massachusetts closed an exhibit of Palestinian art:…
