The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Obama Art
Fran:
A sand sculpture of President-elect Barack Obama, created by Sudarshan Pattnaik, is seen on the beach in Puri, India:
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: HerrKaiser on January 25, 2009, 05:58:27 pm ---not those posters; rather the one being removed off the wall in the photo from post #194
--- End quote ---
You wish. Actually, no, the poster is not being removed, it is being installed as part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Where the sign says 'New Arrivals.'
;D
http://www.npg.si.edu/
http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2009/01/now-on-view-portrait-of-barack-obama-by-shepard-fairey.html
The portrait that came to symbolize the historic campaign of President-elect Barack Obama is now on display at the National Portrait Gallery. The piece, created by Los Angeles–based graphic designer and street artist Shepard Fairey, came to the museum through the generosity of Washington, D.C., art collectors Heather and Tony Podesta, in honor of Tony Podesta’s mother, the late Mary K. Podesta. This large-scale mixed-media stenciled collage is on view in the “New Arrivals” exhibition, on the museum’s first floor.
Fairey’s Barack Obama “Hope” poster became the iconic campaign image for the first African American president of the United States. Early in 2008, Fairey produced his first Obama portrait, with a stenciled face, visionary upward glance, and the caption “Progress.” In this second version, Fairey repeated the heroic pose and patriotic color scheme, substituting the slogan “Hope.”
The artist’s intention that the image be widely reproduced and “go viral” on the Internet exceeded his greatest expectations. The campaign sold 50,000 official posters; a San Francisco streetwear company produced T-shirts; grassroots organizations disseminated hundreds of thousands of stickers; and a free downloadable version generated countless repetitions. Although the reproductions rarely convey the elegant surface patterning seen in this original collage, they forged an unprecedented and powerful icon for Obama’s historic campaign.
Shepard Fairey’s work is represented by the Irvine Contemporary gallery in Washington, D.C. His art is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2006, Gingko Press published a monograph on the artist’s career, “Obey: Supply and Demand.” A retrospective of Fairey’s work will open on February 6 at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art.
The portrait was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery on January 17; it is now on view on the museum's first floor.
Barack Obama/Shepard Fairey, 2008 / Hand-finished collage, stencil and acrylic on paper / Gift of the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection in honor of Mary K. Podesta / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / © Shepard Fairey/ObeyGiant.com
Fran:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4296808/Barack-Obama-inauguration-artist-Willard-Wigan-creates-microscopic-sculpture.html
Barack Obama inauguration: artist Willard Wigan creates microscopic sculpture
An artist has created a microscopic sculpture of Barack Obama and his family in tribute to the first black president of the United States.
Willard Wigan MBE made the artwork from a slither of cable tie, which sits in the eye of a gold needle.
The 51-year-old said that being able to witness the first black presidency was a "dream come true" and something he wanted to mark.
He said: "This is a very significant piece. Being the first black president in history, I had to make a tribute like this as something to show my gratitude.
"It was my belief that I would never see anything like this in my lifetime. It's a dream come true. Martin Luther King's dream has finally come true."
Mr Wigan, from Birmingham, said he worked nearly 18 hours a day for seven weeks in a cupboard to create the sculpture.
"It became an obsession, it almost sent me insane. I had to make it right. I had to really concentrate, you have to be a dead man walking," he added.
The artwork is so small that a powerful microscope that magnifies the object 400 times is needed to see the detail clearly. Mr Wigan worked on it in between heartbeats to avoid mistakes.
He used a small splinter of a diamond as a chisel and to paint it he used a hair of a dead fly.
Mr Wigan said: "I found a piece of old cable tie and I cut out a microscopic slither, and put it under a microscope to carve out one piece, which is smaller than a full stop in a newspaper.
"To carve out the president's family I used a broken shard of a diamond and attached it with the tiniest spec of super glue and I attached it to a broken part of a needle.
"When I first heard that Barack Obama was going to be the first black president, I wanted to do the smallest, biggest tribute in history."
Mr Wigan said he wants the president to see his work and hopes to go to America to promote his artwork.
"I would like Oprah to see it," he said. "America will be in for a surprise. I'm sure no one would have seen anything like it before. My work knocks people out, you've not seen the best of me yet."
His work is currently on display at the Friar Lane gallery in Nottingham.
Fran:
Legoland Inauguration
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JWR0BaTTRE[/youtube]
"As expected: an overwhelming turnout."
"Another overhead view."
"The dreaded inauguration Porta Potties."
More here: http://sfweekly.com/slideshow/view/222857/16
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: HerrKaiser on January 25, 2009, 05:41:47 pm ---Regarding the well circuluated "art" of Obama's image in red and blue, I think it looks more like a Chez Guevara poster or other revolutionary leader than anything Americana.
--- End quote ---
So?
(As Mr. Cheney might put it.)
Oddly, I'm, off this evening to see Steven Soderbergh's Che Part I. I want to see my half-Irish cousin (Mr. Guevara Lynch was part Irish, did you know?)--well, PART I, anyway, before I commit to PART II. ::)
If you want to see a real piece of populist polemic, take a look at this. The artist put it on the side of his house, and it's red and everything. Imagine that!
Wall mural in Bogside in Derry, Northern Ireland
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