Well, this is an art exhibit, not a sound bite manipulated by
adversaries, in which the
artist was consulted–he lives in Chicago, where the exhibit
happened. The context is the exhibit–that’s fair enough,
and he’s responsible for what it says or implies
in any context in which he agrees to exhibit it.
But you know, the point remains that this is political
expression and should have been left alone.
I understand why the Secret Service was
interested, but they should have erred away.
What they’re saying, really, is:
‘If you do anything publically that could be construed
as incitement to, or advocacy of, assassinating the president,
even if it’s a political statement pretty
obviously, we will ask questions.’
In the context of being about evil perhaps this work is asking “Some of you may think this man is evil but wouldn’t blowing his brains out be more evil?”
In my grand painting ‘Screw the Constitution’
in which I’m wiping my butt with it, I’m
decrying the cheapening of our political
liberties by commercialization, which treat
our most sacred dcouments like…
toilet paper.
You know, I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of a generally-agreed-upon instance of “great art” that was government funded. Perhaps I should say “democratically funded” - there are a large number of autocrats who were major art patrons, and bought the art that they prefered. This is also excluding pieces that were later bought by the government for museums or public display.
So - can any of you name a piece of “great art” that was produced on commission for a representative government. Serious question - though I may have my biases, I’m interested in the answer rather than scoring a rhetorical point.
I can’t think of any, offhand, but that may be either my limited knowlege or personal taste (not terribly interested in many modern art trends). I’d be interested to see what counter-examples folks can bring up.
You’re right Gary. I wasn’t even paying attention and that is something that is good to remember. It’s easy to just jump to a conclusion. We have to remember that in the news we get just a bit, usually the most arousing bit, of a story and then a person can go off half-cocked. I did go look at the website you cited.
"In the wake of a stinging CIA report showing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction comes a new film prompted by the foreign policy failures of the Bush administration. AXIS OF EVIL is a feature-length documentary that deconstructs the rhetoric of the President’s catch phrase and illuminates the ways in which our government manipulates truth, language, and the media to hijack popular culture and opinion.
Evil is a reactionary, emotional frame,” wrote Axis of Evil producer Jim Swanson, in an essay in the book that inspired the film. “We must replace concepts of sin and evil with a nurturing and positive frame that recognizes harmful actions and their causes, and encourages appropriate remediations.”
It seems like this film is saying that the Bush gang used the idea of evil lurking everywhere to get our society to go for irrational, warmongering activities. I happen to feel this is true. Maybe the stamp is saying that evil-mongering just stimulates more evil-mongering and different sides will see each other as the evil ones. Oh, I don’t know. But I do think the creator of this piece sees Bush as an evil-mongerer and as evil because he is trying to manipulate our opinions.
I am still shocked to see a President portrayed this way. But that doesn’t mean I think it should be illegal or anything—it isn’t inciting people to assasinate the president. I do think that the piece is fundamentally an anti-violence piece.
The 37 is because it’s supposed to be a US first-class postage stamp, which costs 37 cents. The post office quit putting the cent sign on stamps several years ago.
Since 1992, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention to those who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that freedom of speech “cannot be limited without being lost.”
Announced on or near April 13 – the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson – the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment. Because the importance and value of free expression extend far beyond the First Amendment’s limit on government censorship, acts of private censorship are not spared consideration for the dubious honor of receiving a Muzzle.
Unfortunately, each year the finalists for the Jefferson Muzzles have emerged from an alarmingly large group of candidates. For each recipient, a dozen could have been substituted. Further, an examination of previous Jefferson Muzzle recipients reveals that the disregard of First Amendment principles is not the byproduct of a particular political outlook but rather that threats to free expression come from all over the political spectrum.
If you know of an act of censorship you believe is deserving of a Jefferson Muzzle, the Center encourages and invites your nomination.
The website here. Links to those nominated appear at the bottom of home page.
Maybe I’m cynical, but it strikes me that the Secret Service could easily have conducted their enquiries… well, secretly. It rather makes me wonder why they didn’t, and why instead they elected to make a public spectacle out of this. Interesting.
Regarding DCrom’s question, I can only think of ‘stuff’ commissioned by local government on this side of the pond (that’s if you’re including architecture and abstract sculptures as ‘art’). As for National Government on this side of the pond, I don’t think The Millennium Dome would count by anyone’s standards.
Suppose, Cynthia, that I write a novel, a cry against bigotry and
anti-semitism, in which a key character proclaims:
‘Death to the Jews!’
So I make it into a bumper sticker and put it on my car:
'Death to the Jews!'Lots of people get very upset,
the thing can cause violence against Jews.
I explain: ‘No, you’re taking this out of context.
This is a quotation from a novel that opposes violence
toward Jews. Understood properly, my bumper
sticker opposes all forms of bigotry.’
Well, obviously this shouldn’t cut it, even if my
intentions were good. I chose the present context
and in it a reasonable person might well take
me to be advocating killing people; under the
circumstances there are people who might
actually act on what they understandably take
me to be saying–even though I don’t mean it
that way. I should know better.
That’s a pretty clumsy example, but the point is this:
Whatever the artist’s intention, the painting in its PRESENT
context might well
be taken to be saying that the president ought to
be assassinated on account of the Patriot Act.
That’s our civic duty; hence the US stamp with the
flag in the background. The artist and the exhibitors
chose the present context, in it a reasonable person might
well take the painting to have the message above.
If the artist and the exhibitor don’t think it might well be taken to mean
this, they should know better, and it’s no out
that in its original context it would be much less
likely to be taken to mean this.
We are responsible for what our actions are likely to
be taken to mean in
the contexts in which we perform them; what they
meant in earlier contexts is neither here nor there.
Nor is what we really in our hearts mean
of the first importance, especially when what we may
well be taken to mean is that somebody should
be killed.
It’s art, it’s political expression, but, you know,
I think these people are certainly being provocative,
one might as well count the fact.
They’re trying to chill public expression that may
be taken to advocate the president’s assassination.
That’s why it’s public, I reckon. Sending a message.
I’m not certain that I’d cite any local-government commisioned sculpture I’ve seen as great art, but I agree I’ve seen more that I thought was good art. I’d suspect that this is the effect of a smaller group of people in more direct touch with their constituents.
But I’ve seen some really bad local government art, too - San Jose’s most egregious example probably being the Quetzalcoatl statue downtown, which has been called “a gigantic dog turd”:
I’d prefer not to include architecture in this - architecture, ostensibly, needs to serve a practical as well as an aesthetic purpose. And public architecture seems to run the gamet from very, very, good to very, very bad - the one constant seems to be “as grandiose as possible.”
They ARE free to “express” themselves as they wish (as I have done here).
They do not, however, have a right to be taxpayer funded for anything that enters their mind.
As an example of where your ideas can lead, let me as this:
Is it also acceptable to have “art” consist of children being sexually abused? And if not, why not? After all, it’s ‘freedom of expression’, as you say. Just ask the ah, “people” at NAMBLA.
I like to think of myself as a reasonable person, and I took the image to indicate that the President was being coerced at gunpoint (presumably by terrorists) into taking extraordinary measures such as the Patriot Act.
Imagery is all in the eye of the beholder. Some might think the Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile is because she understands the secret of life, death and the universe. Others might think she’s smiling because she’s just dropped a silent one.
The image has succeeded at least in making people question its meaning in ways that a bumper-sticker saying “Death to Jews” would not (which was indeed a very poor example you offered, Jim).
But then I’m British, and we don’t have a history of assassinated presidents here, so it’s not embedded in our psyche for me to jump straight to that interpretation.
Changing the text would dramatically change a person’s interpretation of the image. If the word “Kyoto” was there instead of “Patriot Act”, for example? Makes you think?
The pictures aren’t the greatest in some cases, but you may be able to find others with a search.
In this list:
The Tyler Davidson Fountain (which just has a facelift) is wonderful. Lots of great stories about it, it’s been the “centerpiece” of Cincinnati for many, many years - and to me, it’s art.
The Cincinnati Gateway is a great “explanation” of the City, from it’s riverboat days, to it’s meat processing heritage with the Flying Pigs on top of the posts.
Then we have “Law and Society”. This - ah - piece was first on display at Fountain Square (see T.D. Fountain above), but was moved to Sawyer Point about, oh, 20 years or so ago. That was probably because no one CARED if it was underwater when the Ohio flooded. It’s a block of rock, for gawd sakes! With a few scratches on one side. Luckily it WAS paid for with private funds (instead of the what I heard $10,000 cost, if our wonderful City Council had paid for it, it would have probably cost 100 times that much!). And the darn rock isn’t even from Ohio - it’s from Indianna!!!
The picture for the wall of Cincinnatus is horrible - but it’s a really great paining on the side of a building that has a truly 3D effect to it.
Anyway - that’s pretty much “our” public “treasures”.
I figure I’m reasonable too, and I took it the way I
expressed it. I agree there may be several ways to
take it, still my interpretation is hardly unreasonable.
I said that a reasonable person MIGHT WELL take
it to mean what I did-- not that a reasonable person
MUST take it that way. (I confess I find the interpretation
that the president is being coerced at gunpoint by
terrorists to endorse the Patriot Act to be a
considerable stretch; especially when one considers
the view of the Patriot Act virtually universal among
the presidents critics and of the president for supporting
it. I don’t think this exhibit or the art came from
Bush supporters.) Well you see, when a
reasonable person MIGHT WELL take an art work
to maintain that the president should be shot in
the head for passing the Patriot Act, that’s
important. After all, there are people out there
who do try to act on such messages.
My admittedly clumsy example was meant to
point out that it’s no ‘out’ to maintain
that this painting may be relatively innocuous in another
context. My whole point was that we bear some responsiblity
for what people may well take us to mean
in the PRESENT context in which we choose to speak.
On the face of things this looks like an exhibit
by people who dislike Bush and who were being
provocative. That doesn’t make the Secret Service
action right–I think it was a mistake. Still
it’s worth counting what appears to be going on,
and I don’t buy what are often the standard
disclaimers of responsibility (it’s taken out of
context, we mean it as an expression of non-violence,
etc.). What matters is what people are likely to
take you to be saying in the context in which
you speak, and it’s plain what a fair number
of people were likely to take this to be
saying in that exhibit.
I am, thereby, affirming the right to provocative
speech, more so than those who say it’s
a misunderstanding of something that
really was preaching non-violence and tolerance
toward George Bush.
I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone suggest that the image preaches non-violence or tolerance towards the President. I certainly haven’t.
I was questioning the interpretation of the image itself, which is (I think) what art and imagery is about. In it’s present context, standing alone in the opening post, it can be interpreted as we’ve seen in various ways. Doubtless it can be interpreted differently if seen in the gallery alongside other images, but we’ve not been shown it that way. Nor are we seeing in the context for which it was originally created, in which its interpretation may be different yet again.
At police training college we were shown a press photograph of what appeared to be football hooliganism during a pitch invasion by a crowd of ‘supporters’. The image showed what we all took to be a man taking a running kick at the head of another chap laying on the ground. It had been printed in a local newspaper under a banner decrying football violence. Reaction: arrest the assailant for GBH, unanimous. Then we were shown a shot of the same scene from a different camera, different angle, which clearly showed our ‘offender’ taking a running kick at the ball abandoned by the teams when they left the pitch, and the man laying on the ground was at least 10 feet away from the ‘offender’. Then of course we were permitted to see video footage, in which the guy on the ground is seen running and waving his supporter’s scarf before slipping on the muddy pitch and falling over after trying to kick the ball and missing… while his mate behind him booted the ball and then helped the other bloke up. There was no violence at all.
It’s all in the eye and mind of the beholder, and yes, the graphic design artist who produced that image doubtless knows that very well. I don’t think he should be censured though, just because some minds might well interprete the image as a sign from on high that they should promptly go out and shoot the President to prove their patriotism.
