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Photo 11 Honors Project: Politics

Introductory Statement

The exhibition begins with the curatorial statement, which goes in length with the reasoning behind the exhibition and how the artists displayed are able to show the power of politics through photography. We start off in the United States of America, with three pieces from renowned artist Alfredo Jaar. The first piece, the exhibition’s featured image, embodies the entire reasoning behind this exhibition. Jaar is known for his work and its focus on socio-political issues, and he does not disappoint with the pieces in this exhibition. His first piece only involves America, but in the second piece, he depicts culture being equivalent to capital in a multitude of different languages to show that this is not only prominent in America. The last photograph symbolizes all of the people who are fighting to create better lives. We then go back in time to 1974, where Bill Owens is featured with his photograph depicting protestors and their signs. The photograph shows people vouching for what they believe in and them using their rights to get the word out on policies that they stand by. After this, we fast forward to 2009 and the Presidential Election of the United States, with the democratic candidate Barack Obama. For a lot of people, former President Obama represented hope for a better a better country, and better lives. Being the first African American President meant a lot to our country, as it showed that times were changing for the better. With his photograph, Shepard Fairey is able to put the words into a picture. We then go back to 1968 on the day that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and the outrage that came with it. In this photograph by Joseph Louw, we see the sheer unhappiness and anger along with sadness that has come with the news of Mr. King Jr’s passing. After this, we travel to China with artist Ai Weiwei and his extremely controversial pieces that consist of dropping an urn from the legendary Han Dynasty and another simply flipping the bird in Tianmen Square, a notable location in China. Weiwei uses his photography as a way to revolt against the wrongs that he believes his country has committed in the past. Next we travel back west to the United Kingdom, and the highly controversial political-issue based artist Banksy. This artist needs no introduction, with his first piece looking like a bomb should be in place of the bouquet of flowers, it follows the adage of “make love, not war” and the second piece being centered around the issues of the CCTV in 2007 and its excessive surveillance.  Lastly we travel to both America and Vietnam with local bay area artist Binh Danh. With both chlorophyll prints and historic battles fought, Binh Danh is able to emphasize the terror and dread that come with war along with the way countries seem to center the lives of everyone to aiding in the battle that ultimately is fruitless in the end.

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Photo 11 Honors Project: Politics

Artists:

Banksy, Ai Weiwei, Shepard Fairey, Alfredo Jaar, Joseph Louw, Bill Owens, Binh Danh

Curatorial Statement

This exhibition displays different pieces from seven different contemporary artists all revolving around politics and its influence on the world. Each piece holds significant value involving politics and different events around the world. There are works from Alfredo Jaar, Binh Danh, Banksy, Ai Weiwei, Shepard Fairey, Bill Owens, and Joseph Louw. The pieces involve American, Chinese, British, and Vietnamese politics and their impact on the world. There are pieces displaying war, protests, and even capitalism. There are three pieces from renowned artist Alfredo Jaar, the first being A Logo for America, 1987, in which a famous New York building has a sign saying “This Is Not America” and a U.S Armed Forces booth right in front of it. With this piece, Jaar is directly pointing out the issue with what had currently been going on in America regarding the Iran-Iraq war that had reached a stalemate, and American soldiers were still being sent over there. Of course the military could always use more soldiers and even needed to bring more in to assist America’s allies outside of our borders. However, the whole thing ended up leaving every party involved worse than where they were prior to all of the fighting. The stock market crashed and it left America injured pretty badly. Another piece by Jaar titled Culture = Capital, 2011 is simple as it simply has the words “Culture equals Capital” in many languages. With this, Jaar points out that culture and capital are everywhere in the world, not just in places that we see them the most. The last piece by Alfredo Jaar is One Million Finnish Passports,1995, in which there is a simple photograph of a lot of passports. This holds significance as Finland has a historically stringent immigration policy, and Jaar was able to find 1 million printed Finnish passports. Then there is a piece by Bill Owens, titled Think Positively, Clean Air Good Water Uncrowded Schools No Newtown, 1974. The next artist featured in this exhibit is Shepard Fairey, with his piece, Hope, 2009, which features a portrait of former President Barack Obama. The next artist is Joseph Louw, and American photographer and his piece, On Memphis balcony after King was shot, 1968. The next artist is Ai Weiwei, a Chinese conceptual artist. The pieces from Ai Weiwei are, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, and Study of Perspective Tianmen Square, 1995. The next artist in the exhibit is Banksy, who is a British Graffiti artist and a political activist. The pieces in this exhibit by Banksy are Rage, the Flower Thrower 2005, and One Nation Under CCTV, 2007. The last artist featured in the exhibit is Binh Danh, and his work of chlorophyll prints. Danh's art focuses predominately on the Vietnam War era and he has been quoted as saying that a lot of his work is involved with the theme of death. Danh has also said that the photographs he uses "bring up and start to fabricate memories" of his life in Vietnam. His images were described as being able to "summon up revulsion over present violent conflicts in the world without direct topical reference" and a critic said that his images of war scenes "evoked wars past and present with an unforced economy almost unparalleled in political art. The pieces in this exhibit are, War and Peace, The Leaf Effect: Found Portraits from the Cambodian Killing Fields at Tuol Sleng, 2004, Drifting Souls, 2001, and Immortality: The Remnants of the Vietnam and American War. 

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A Logo for America, 1987, Alfredo Jaar, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/alfredo-jaar-a-logo-for-america-4

Culture = Capital, 2011, Alfredo Jaar, https://alfredojaar.net/projects/2011/culture-capital/

One Million Finnish Passports, 1995, Alfredo Jaar, https://art21.org/gallery/alfredo-jaar-artwork-survey-1990s/

Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born artist, architect, photographer and filmmaker who lives in New York City. He is mostly known as an installation artist, often incorporating photography and covering socio-political issues and war.

The first piece consists of a sequence of projections overlooking a U.S. army recruitment station in Times Square, including the outlined map of the U.S. with the words “This Is Not America” written across, and the word “America” superimposed over all the Americas—North, Central, and South. This piece shows a huge gap between reality and its possible representations.

In the second piece there is the same sign written in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Chinese, all saying “Culture = Capital”. While this seems very simple, the story it tells is captivating at the least. This piece sort of correlates with the other one I talked about in that it emphasizes the importance of a country’s identity, except this time it is highlighting the importance of culture being the sort of backbone of a country’s identity.

The third piece touches on Finland’s historically stringent immigration policy Where, as staunch nationalists they accept only a tiny fraction of the citizenship applications they receive, far less than any of their neighboring countries. Observing this, Jaar somehow managed to get 1 million Finnish passports printed up to represent the number of people who should have been nationalized as Finnish citizens but weren’t.  

Resources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfredo-Jaar

https://alfredojaar.net/projects/2011/culture-capital/

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Think Positively, Clean Air Good Water Uncrowded Schools No Newtown, 1974, Bill Owens, https://art.famsf.org/bill-owens/think-positively-clean-air-good-water-uncrowded-schools-no-newtown-20176652

This piece is fairly simple as it shows protestors holding up signs against “Geldertown” and “Newtown”. I think that this photograph shows the beauty and simplicity of it all. This is one of the biggest parts of politics, civilian participation and the importance of fighting for what we believe in. In any democracy, popular partisan should be present, and this piece shows this.

Resources

https://art.famsf.org/bill-owens/think-positively-clean-air-good-water-uncrowded-schools-no-newtown-20176652

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Hope, 2009, Shepard Fairey,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster

The Barack Obama "Hope" poster is an image of Barack Obama designed by artist Shepard Fairey, which was widely described as iconic and came to represent his 2008 presidential campaign. It consists of a stylized stencil portrait of Obama in solid red, beige and (light and dark) blue, with the word "progress", "hope" or "change"

The design was created in one day and printed first as a street poster. It was then more widely distributed both as a digital image and other paraphernalia, during the 2008 election season, initially independent of, but with the approval from, the official Obama campaign. By July 2008, Sticker Robot had printed over 200,000 vinyl "Hope" stickers, 75% of which had been given away to support the cause

Resources

https://medium.com/fgd1-the-archive/obama-hope-poster-by-shepard-fairey-1307a8b6c7be

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On Memphis balcony after King was shot, 1968, Joseph Louw,

https://art.famsf.org/joseph-louw/memphis-balcony-after-king-was-shot-memphis-tn-1968-2015153

This shot by Joseph Louw shows just an example of the commotion that has erupted since the news of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. Of course Mr. King Jr.’s legacy needs no introduction, and it is easy to see why the people in the photograph are upset. I think that this picture is fairly simple in that there is not too many things going on. 

On April 4, 1968, photographer Joseph Louw was on the road in Memphis with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for a public television documentary he was working on. He had ended his dinner early to catch the Huntley-Brinkley Report in his motel room, a few doors down from Dr. King’s. When he turned on the TV, Martin Luther King Jr. came on screen. It was footage from the “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech” Dr. King had delivered the night before, in which he said that he was ready to die.

Resources

https://www.thirteen.org/blog-post/mlk-assassination-the-story-behind-the-photo/

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Study of Perspective Tianmen Square, 1995, Ai Weiwei, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/ai-weiwei/artworks/#pnt_2

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, Ai Weiwei, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/ai-weiwei/artworks/#pnt_2

Ai Weiwei calls attention to human rights violations on an epic scale; as an artist, he expands the definition of art to include new forms of social engagement. In a country where free speech is not recognized as a right, the police have beaten him up, kept him under house arrest, bulldozed his newly-built studio and subjected him to surveillance. He is viewed as a threat to "harmonious society."

The first piece demonstrates his show-stopping conceptual brilliance, and desire to provoke controversy. Outside his mother's home in Beijing, he dropped and smashed a 2000-year old ceremonial urn. Not only did the artifact have considerable value (the artist paid the equivalent of several thousand US dollars for it), but symbolic and cultural worth. It was a provocative act of cultural destruction in reference to the erasure of cultural memory in Communist China, an anti-elite society that carefully monitored access to information, especially about its dynastic history. In its literal iconoclasm and spotlight on hypocrisy, this smashed vase embodies the central message Ai would continue to explore

The second piece appears to be a classic tourist snapshot, Ai sticks his middle finger up at Tiananmen Square Gate. Also known as the "Gate of Heavenly Peace", and formerly the front entrance to the Forbidden City, this was also the site of the brutal massacre in 1989 in which state soldiers shot peaceful protesters. The Beijing government still refuses to discuss it, and censors all footage of the event. Ai stated that he had meant to target "Feudalism", explaining that the gate had been built by a Ming Emperor. While Ai's interrogators could not acknowledge it, they were no doubt aware of another layer of visual symbolism. In its resemblance to "tank man", an unidentified protestor photographed in 1989 facing a line of tanks, Ai's finger, standing alone against symbols of state power at the center of this image, is a provocative stand in for a figure strictly banned in the Chinese media, and therefore truly and brilliantly provocative.

Resources

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/ai-weiwei/artworks/#pnt_2

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Image 1: Rage, the Flower Thrower 2005, Banksy, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/banksy/artworks/#pnt_6

Image 2: One Nation Under CCTV, 2007, Banksy, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/banksy/artworks/#pnt_6

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director active since the 1990s whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. He is known for making controversial art that touches on different social and structural problems of the government. 

In the first piece, we see a man throwing a bouquet as if it is a bomb. By substituting a weapon with a bunch of flowers, Banksy is advocating for peace, and he opted to install this particular message in a high-conflict area. The work also carries the message idea that peace comes with active hard work. 

For the second piece, Banksy aims to criticize the excessive surveillance (both from CCTV cameras in public spaces, as well as in other forms such as online) that has recently become a controversial issue both in the UK and abroad.

Resources

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/banksy/artworks/#pnt_6

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Photo 11 Honors Project

“War and Peace”, Binh Danh, 2009,  http://binhdanh.com/Projects/WarPeace/WarPeace.html

The Leaf Effect: Found Portraits from the Cambodian Killing Fields at Tuol Sleng, 2004 https://www.designboom.com/art/binh-danh-chlorophyll-printed-photographs/

Immortality: The Remnants of the Vietnam and American War, 2002

https://www.pinterest.se/pin/291748882116158936/

Binh Danh is a Vietnamese-born photographer and artist. He immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1979. Danh was educated at San José State University. He is known for his chlorophyll form of artwork, but displayed in this exhibition is also his work titled “War and Peace” Where he displays different headlines of newspapers regarding different monumental times in our world’s history that turned the tides of battle. Each piece presented by Binh Danh in this exhibition revolves around war and Binh’s own focus on this topic. He says,  "I thought about this collection and wondered how many more pieces I will add to this collection as we move into the future." When regarding his “War and Peace” piece because that is the sad reality of our global community, we are not always able to get along with one another. Danh puts a large focus on the aftermath of wars and how it ends up hurting every party involved, and this includes politics because prior to every war ever fought, there could have been a more peaceful negotiation between the parties involved rather than putting one another into a near recession due to seemingly useless fighting. Binh Danh writes, “In this ongoing series, I have been collecting front pages of newspapers announcing the the beginning of war and the end of war. This series started with my fascination with war. This fascination came from knowing my own family history and how we came to the United States at the end of the Vietnam War. I saved my first newspaper front page on September 11, 2001 and since then continued looking for such headlines. In March of 2003, as the United States prepared for the invasion of Iraq, I thought about this collection and wondered how many more pieces I will add to this collection as we move into the future. How many more wars will I live through? But one can only hope that another "peace" headline is within reach.”

Resources:

http://binhdanh.com/Projects/WarPeace/WarPeace.html

https://www.designboom.com/art/binh-danh-chlorophyll-printed-photographs/