As you might have heard, a lot has been going on since I last emailed you inviting you to attend the opening event for the Assassination exhibits.
For the first time since my last encounter with the NYPD and the Secret Service, I have written about the experience in an article that was published today in The Huffington Post, entitled ‘The Art Offends.'
I encourage you to comment and share it with those you think might find it interesting.
Also, I have listed recent media coverage of the project below.
I will make sure to keep you informed as the project continues to unfold.
The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel. Taxi
ABC NEWS:
Seeing a murder on television... can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some. Alfred Hitchcock (1899 - 1980)
CBS NEWS:
Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. Ann Landers (1918 - 2002)
AL ROJO VIVO:
Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work. Gallagher
GOOD MORNING KANSAS:
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us. Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007)
NOTICIAS UNIVISION:
Imitation is the sincerest form of television. Fred Allen (1894 - 1956)
MY 9 NEWS:
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977)
GOOD DAY NEW YORK:
I think that parents only get so offended by television because they rely on it as a babysitter and the sole educator of their kids. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Death, 1997
TELEMUNDO 47 NEWS:
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. Rod Serling (1924 - 1975)
I was struck over the past few days by the extent to which we have become a culture driven by "Gotcha" politics. I wrote recently about the flak Hillary Clinton got for her remarks on RFK's assassination in June 68. Obama has had his share of faux-pas, although his were mostly the result of his now erstwhile pastors getting a little too outspoken and provocative by the standards of middle America. The theatrical Michael Pfleger makes an easy boogeyman for the republicans, another bullet for them to swift-boat Obama into a liberal radical, piling on to the assumed reluctance of many white voters to vote for an African American.
When I looked at that clip on YouTube, over half a million people had already elected to watch it. We have gone from the dictatorship of the 24 hour news cycle to that of the recorded image that can be played and replayed online on demand. Every single misstep that an exhausted candidate can make on the stump will exist for ever, and can have an impact that it never had before. The iconic example of this new dynamic is of course George Allen's infamous Macaca comment, which helped make the democrats the Senate majority again in 2006. In a way Americans are now writing the headlines themselves rather than waiting to see what a newspaper has decided for them should be front page news. Which you could say is good for democracy. But there is a downside to this: the risk that anyone's actions will have to become entirely scripted to avoid any potential slip of the tongue.
And I'm not even talking just about politics. Dior quickly dropped ads in China featuring Sharon Stone after she gave off-the-cuff remarks to journalists at the Cannes Film Festival in which she candidly shared her musings on karma. If you watch the whole clip though, clearly you understand that her intentions are good, and that of course she was not rejoicing in the death of tens of thousands of people. Even more baffling was how conservative bloggers managed to get Dunkin Donuts last week to stop running an ad with Rachel Ray simply because she was wearing a keffiyeh, which apparently makes her a supporter of Arab terrorists. What's next? I am certainly familiar with the threat of censorship, and the pressures to remain politically correct. But you know that being intimidated is not my style. Art will not be silenced, and with your support and that of organizations such as ANAVAILABLESPACE, I will keep on fighting for the freedom of all artists to speak their mind. Yes, even using YouTube to make that happen!
Being an artist is all about putting forth in the world a vision that is yours and yours alone, a perspective that hopefully many people will find unique, challenging and rewarding. But even though my signature is the only one at the bottom corner of my paintings, part of how I work is by bringing into the development process my wonderful circle of friends, who have been rallying to my cause for years now. Be it to contribute to the pieces, to help produce them or promote them, I count myself incredibly blessed that, every time I put a call out to those who love me, I know they will be there for me, no matter how crazy my request.
And so it was last Saturday morning. Even to those who know me, the message must have sounded a little more insane than usual. I was working on the invite for the temporary "resurrection" of my installations, this Thursday in New York thanks to the folks at ANAVAILABLESPACE. So I asked: could they help me carry a giant black cock around the streets of Manhattan?
A few were baffled for a second, and then they remembered the piece from my exhibit. Surely, I wasn't talking about carrying an 18 foot long penis around? Yes, I was, and the re
sult was a trek across Downtown like we will never have again.
The question on everyone's lips that morning was - could we get arrested? Well, yes, of course. And yet somehow, not one of my friends tried to find an excuse to get out of it. Everyone donned on gloves to protect the artwork, and duly lined up carrying a section of the penis. Off we went. Where to first? I think it was too late when everyone realized that I had taken them right next to a police station. Some might have suspected me of trying to make a statement, to dare to go right where I shouldn't. And maybe I was. But before you know it, we were crossing a major street holding a giant, stiff black cock.
And on we went, from next to a police station to a very discreet location: the Southern tip of Manhattan, where tourists line up for the ferries to the Statue of Liberty. In fact, thousands of them seemed to have lined up there that morning. I wasn't to sure what to expect from the crowds. I was happy to see that so many people got a kick out of what we were doing, taking pictures from every angle, even from their apartment windows as they waved to us. I love this city.
More importantly, I love all of you who believe in me, who are always willing to lend a hand, a who cheer for me when I succeed. There is a little bit of you in every one of my pieces.
