Power & Politics

WPA Posters – Selling America on Leisure Time, Health, and War

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments

Today on WNYC radio, Leonard Lopate spoke with Nick Taylor about his fascinating new book American-Made about Great Depression era Works and Progress Administration (WPA).

Listen to the segment online or download MP3 at WNYC.org

The WPA built roads, addressed public health issues, facilitated industry, spearheaded healthy recreation activities, and promoted tourism. Towards the end of its existence the WPA also played an important role in educating Americans about their place in the war effort (WWII)

It seems some fondly look back at the WPA as an all-purpose advocate for the common man, while others see it as the showcase example of wasteful government spending.

Franklin Roosevelt founded the WPA and I’ve noticed a number of historians and commentators forward to the Obama administration for a similarly efficient and wide-reaching program to pull us out of our current economic doldrums and to get Americans back to work. Perhaps this time they will build turbines and solar farms!

Nick Taylor mentioned how the WPA was officialy decommissioned during WWII. Take a look at this selection of WPA poster I found online at Library Of Congress site. Interesting how the content shifts from public service/recreation information to war propaganda.

New York Times Hoax: The YES MEN See Our Future

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 | Contemporary Art, Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, Public Art/Interventions | No Comments

Thankfully I got my hands on a hard copy of the document at the center of the elaborate hoax reported to have been staged by The Yes Men today in NYC and apparently across the county.

According to Steve Lambert -who responded to my email query addressed to the hoax website’s owner registration on the WhoIs- told me that other groups involved in planning include: the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin Publications, and Cultures of Resistance.

The Pranksters handed out thousand of fake New York Times in subway stations across the city and over 1.2 million copies nationwide.

The Yes Men is a group of performance artists that stages interventions of the mainstream media in order to expose and elucidate topics pertinent to social justice. Or in their words, the Yes Men takes pride in, “Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.”

The Yes Men’s fake NYtimes “special edition” is dated Saturday, July 4th, 2009 and features such headlines as IRAQ WAR ENDS and advertisements such as the one from Exxon Mobil that takes responsibility for the Iraq War. The issue is printed on genuine newsprint and it is remarkably detailed and well crafted.

For those who didn’t get to see the analog version of the hoax, I have scanned the whole damn thing for your viewing pleasure. There are hidden gems throughout.

View gallery by clicking below.

or

Download 14 page Hi-Res PDF (12 MB) <CLICK HERE>

also

Visit the NYtimes Hoax Website Here

&

Al Franken Senate Victory in Sight for MN Race

Saturday, November 8th, 2008 | Power & Politics | No Comments

On November 4th, 2008 nearly 3 million Minnesotan voters cast ballots in the race for Senate between Al Franken (D) and incumbent Norm Coleman (R). After all precincts reported their tallies, Coleman lead Franken by 725 votes.

By Thursday morning after districts had checked their reporting and corrected some typographical errors Coleman’s lead dwindled to a mere 438. ( one official improperly recorded Franken’s vote at his polling station effectively shorting him a full 100 votes )

Currently officials are struggling to assure that each vote cast has been counted. There are irregularities being reported in a number of districts including urban Minneapolis (heavily leaning Democratic district) Apparently stations there ran out of Minnesota’s same-day registration forms and voters ostensibly cast provisional ballot pending confirmation of their eligibility to vote.

Once these votes are counted it can reasonibly be inferred that Al Franken will overtake Coleman and emerge the victor rendering Norm Coleman a lame duck Senator.

In the face of this news, the desperate Norm Coleman is calling for Franken to concede. Franken simply prefers to let the voters decide.

SOURCE:

Star Tribune, MN

AlFranken.com

BARACK OBAMA President Elect – Webpage Roundup

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments

Check out this gallery of webpages as of last night. Al Jazeera’s arabic site is pretty interesting and also notice the advertisements on each page.

I like BBC’s (shown above) “Whiter Whites” ad for some laundry detergent (Tide? Clorox?) , a perfect partner for a lead story about America’s first black president. hee hee. Roland Barthes has some interesting thoughts about Laundry Detergents in his collection of essays Mythologies. In one essay Barthes uses psychoanalysis to break apart the methods that soap companies use to sell detergents. His writing is wonderfully dense, here is a excerp:

“Persil Whiteness,” for instance, bases its prestige on the evidence of the result; it calls into play vanity, a social concern with appearances, by offering for comparison two objects, one of which is whiter than the other. Advertisements for Omo also indicate the effect of the product (and in superlative fashion, incidentally), but they chiefly reveal its mode of action; in doing so, they involve the consumer in a kind of direct experience of the substance, make him the accomplice of a liberation rather than the mere beneficiary of a result; matter here is endowed with value-bearing states.

Anyhow, how are all you election addicts handling the withdrawl? I sat around all day tinkering with the website, drinking coffee and listening to WNYC. Amazing how quickly these news agencies shift gears. Most are focusing on Obama’s plan for transition of power. FOX NEWS on the other hand seems to be ALREADY setting up Obama for failure during his first 100 days in office. This win is the best thing to ever happen for Sean Hannnity’s career.

VOTE for OBAMA Today: Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments

Here is a sweet retro VOTE poster designed by Shepard Fairey the mastermind of OBEY.

Enter your street address to find your voting location here:

http://www.barackobama.com/splash/findvotinglocation_2.html

Also take a look at this gallery of vintage voting imagery, cartoons, and photographs I found on the Library of Congress online database. Some of these are a bit weird and some evoke in me pride to be part of our great democratic tradition.

Now get your ass to the polls and cast one for the good guy.

-Tonky

Thomas Hirschhorn: One Irrelevant Man

Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | Contemporary Art, Power & Politics | No Comments

I value and admire the work of a man from Switzerland named Thomas Hirschhorn, yet I wouldn’t be Tonky if I did not consume his presumptive statements about the divine importance of art during his lecture at Cooper Union Art School this Friday with at least a few grains of salt.

Hirschhorn’s lecture was part of Cooper Union’s programming series titled Art and Politics as Usual which culminates this week with a solo exhibition of Lene Berg called Stalin by Picasso which “reflects on political portraiture and the power of drawing.”

(October 29, 2008 | 6-9pm: Opening Reception of Lene Berg’s solo exhibition)
http://www.cooper.edu/

Thomas Hirschhorn: Art DO-er or Barbara Gladstone’s Bitch?

Hirschhorn’s lecture was titled Doing Art Politically. (see photo) as opposed to “Making Art Politically.” DOING in this context evokes a heroic notion of artistic practice, one that values political process, engagement, and action. Alternatively, MAKING evokes a baser understanding art as commodity, one in which the artist MAKES a painting or object and their dealer MAKES money by selling it to wealthy and gullible Oil Barons and Arms Dealers.

Easier said than done huh Thomas? True, there is a lot of DOING in Hirschhorn’s work and I love him for that. Nonetheless, a blue-chip gallery like Barbara Gladstone that sells Hirschhorn’s art cannot stick a 6-figure price tag on DOING. In other words, Hirschhorn MAKES work and Gladstone sells it.

More power to you homeboy, no shame in getting paid and getting laid!

Hirschhorn Wears a Hirschhorn Mask

Hirschhorn’s apparent lack of self-doubt is inspiring. When asked by an audience member whether an artist ought to ask permission to use graphic images of victims of violence, he flatly responds “no.”

I agree emphatically. A healthy democracy respects the artist’s right to explore a wide-latitude of often controversial subjects. Images belong to everybody. We the public – or “the other” as Hirschhorn identifies his audience – needs to be confronted with the true face of violence, not the sterilized versions we are fed by the mainstream media. Understanding its ugliness is the first step towards us eliminating it.

However, I encourage Hirschhorn to consider what he would say to the mother of a mutilated landmine victim or a slain U.S. Marine whose images he has appropriated. Of course his lifestyle does not confront him with such inconvenient doses of reality, but it is worth thinking about.

Thomas Hirschhorn’s Flow Charts and Diagrams:

Take a few moments to peruse Hirschhorn’s diagrams below. Of particular interest is his distinction between art world “evaluators” and his intended audience “the other.” ( I gather this is Hirschhorn’s own personal “other” and not the post-colonial other we hear so much about)

Thomas Hirschhorn: Prolific Double Thinker

I admire Hirschhorn’s ability to believe two diametrically opposing thoughts at one time. During his lecture on Friday he proclaimed that the “artist has an even greater responsibility than the social worker.” Simultaneously he refuses to take ANY responsibility for the things he does and the images he uses as an artist.

Thomas Hirschhorn: Composer Pack Rat

I mustered the courage to ask Hirschhorn whether he also considered the people whose political street art he borrows (meaning stole or appropriated) as his own personal “other.” (see pictures of street protesters with baby seal coffins and Hirschhorn’s own baby seal coffins in his project “Das Auge” (“The Eye”) at the 2008 Wiener Secession – http://www.secession.at/kunst/08_hirschhorn_e.html )

Hirschhorn corrected me by asserting that he did not borrow anything, rather the protesters with the baby seal coffins were showing “his work” and he was simply reclaiming it.

I suppose the artist here could be interpreted as a supremely arrogant colonialist (think Picasso’s use of African masks telling the whole continent that it takes a exiled Spanish misogynist to really “get” their art)
However, Hirschhorn’s art is that of a highly calculating pack rat. Sure he steals political street art, but his projects are giant 3D orchestras, collages that resonate in a sort of visual tone poem greater than the sum of its tonal parts.

Thomas Hirschhorn: Doing No Harm

To an observer who might complain that Hirschhorn is reckless in his use of violent images and delusional in his assumption that a blue-chip artist can truly reach a broader public than your standard martini sipping art-collector or sycophant art-world hipster I say: Maybe you are right, but ask yourself if he is doing us harm. I think not.

During the questions following his Friday night lecture, Hirschhorn unapologetically apologized to audience evaluators who see his work as a failure. His self-image as a humble singular artist that strives to contribute to the human race is endearing.

At best I believe Hirschhorn’s work might incrementally influence our global civilization toward a more just and sustainable mode. At worst Hirschhorn’s work will prove irrelevant. At least we will be no worse off because of him.

Visualization Prayer: President Obama in 2016

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | Power & Politics | 1 Comment

Yesterday I was making some calls for Senator Obama through MoveOn.org and spoke with “Doonie” a nice lady in Oregon who lives in a senior center filled with McCain supporters who she is trying to convert. She emailed me this Buddhist visualization prayer that sends good vibrations to our man Barack. Couldn’t hurt.