Abraham Obama - One Man's Art Becomes Another's Act Of Vandalism

MayorBob.

Posted to Etcetera on Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 07:57:40 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Smallish art gallery in major city wants to promote an exhibition. They get the brilliant idea to commission one of the artists to draw a very large mural on the side of a downtown building. The openly political mural is considered by many to be a thought-provoking and intriguing piece of art.

So far so good - BUT - the artist has a bit of reputation for edginess and has a devoted following. Said following decides to take promotional posters featuring his recent magnum opus, pasting them all over the walls of buildings where they're not wanted. Irate property owners cry "vandalism" and blame the gallery. Gallery says it's none of their doing, deferring to the artist. The artist doesn't really have a problem with the so-called vandalism and would rather talk about his politics. Meanwhile, the poster-hanging fans are unavailable for comment or cleanup.

Gallery XIV is the art gallery in Boston featuring a politic, an exhibition of political art featuring works by, among others, Ron English. English is described by Gallery XIV as "a pop pervert and prankster impresario" and he's the guy the gallery commissioned to do the large mural advertising the exhibition. The piece, titled Abraham Obama is "13 feet high and nearly a block long, features multiple composite portraits of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln, their faces melded together in a rainbow of colors." The installation was meant to inspire dialogue and it has, only not in a way Gallery XIV thought it would.

Most of the dialogue which has taken place has been charges of vandalism issued from places like the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA). It seems the BCA didn't appreciate a couple of posters, signed by English, being pasted to the walls of its building. They got there through the good graces of some of English's fans, who journeyed to Boston to collect posters promoting the exhibition at a party held after the installation was complete. Before they left town, they plastered the posters at a number of locations, primarily the walls of other art galleries. English's fans seemed to be keeping true to his artistic spirit. He established a name for himself by papering over corporate billboards with his own personal messages of scorn for corporate greed and war. English's web site (could be NSFW) contains samples of the artist's previous work.

The Boston Police, who at least aren't going to DEFCON One this time, have gotten involved writing complaints of vandalism over the unwanted posters. One complaining gallery said it's obvious that Gallery XIV being the location of the exhibition on the poster is somehow ultimately responsible for this - "That didn't seem to be the brightest thing in my mind to do." And the BCA, sidestepping the issue of an art gallery complaining about public art, believes the main point "was to keep the public spaces around here clean and proper." Gallery XIV ownership said the illegal posters are not their responsibility. They know the artist is a bit of a guerrilla and all and he's got that following of his and they don't know any of their names. According to the gallery's Will Kerr the best alibi he can come up with is the truth - "I had no idea what we were getting into."