mural mural on the wall…

Can street art murals be simply too hot to handle for the public to view? Are the public funds and corporate subsidies often used to produce it any more disreputable than the same norms that permit corporations to peddle much more insidious ideologies through an invasion of public space through the medium of billboards? The idea of politically correct, and liberty of expression seems to be a flexible and elastic concept depending on the context. And the current social and economic context, does recall the artistic current of realism and social realism of the 1930′s. Unemployment is at the same level- we just fudge the figures better- and societal divisions seem to have re-established the pertinence of a John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck. The belief in the liberal rationalist creed and its omnipotent faith in “markets” to define and objectify most aspects of out life is cause for concern…

---His art, in a fashion similar to the steles of the Maya, tells stories. The mural “En el Arsenal” (In the Arsenal) shows on the right-hand side Tina Modotti holding an ammunition belt and facing Julio Antonio Mella, in a light hat, and Vittorio Vidali behind in a black hat. However, the En el Arsenal detail shown does not include the right-hand side described nor any of the three individuals mentioned. Rivera's radical political beliefs, attacks on the church and clergy, as well as his dealings with Trotskyists and left-wing assassins made him a controversial figure even in communist circles. Leon Trotsky lived with Rivera and Kahlo for several months while exiled in Mexico.---Read More:http://reference.findtarget.com/search/Diego%20Rivera/

At a basic level politics is the struggle of an unrecognized party for equal recognition in the established order, with an equal push to guard the established order. Aesthetics is bound up in this battle, according to Jacques Ranciere , because the battle takes place over the image of society — what it is permissible to say or to show. This, is also backed up by a politics of aesthetics. On the Left, this complex intellectual equation can be simplified if one realizes that what Ranciere does is combine art history with labor history.But, politically, this way of thinking about art objects also corresponds to the bourgeoisification of the artist, his transformation into a figure with his own freedom and independence, elevated above the demands of common labor. Ultimately, then, political art is a struggle between competing elites who are identical essentially,with the forlorn “middle class” being cajoled , arm twisted and moral suasioned into following a pied piper.

---Anyway, the first thing which came into my mind when I thought about the problem of censorship was that interesting statement, street artist A1one did about political-motivated censorship of urban art in Iran: “Three months ago, I signed an agreement with the police that I never do it (street art is meant) again, because they take it political and they take it more seriously. The main reason is that 30 years ago one of the mediums they used for the revolution was walls and the spray-paints…” (A1one) The “wrong”, artistic pictured opinion in a “wrong” context is not allowed and will be destroyed (like in Blu’s case) or the artist prosecuted (like in A1one’s case). It’s quite similar to the facts we now know about the buff of the Blu mural. When critical anti-war artwork is destroyed because it’s next to a war memorial (I’m pretty sure that was one of the reasons why Blu did it that way!) you can without doubt call that censorship.---Read More:http://www.urbanartcore.eu/urban-art-censorship/

—Jeffrey Deitch, a longtime street-art evangelist, hoped to tap into with its much-anticipated upcoming “Art in the Streets” survey of graffiti greats. Now that show is likely to be stalked by controversy after the institution ordered the whitewashing of a mural by the well-known street artist Blu on the outside wall of the Geffen Contemporary building. The work had been commissioned as part of the run-up to the show’s April 17 opening. Apparently, the erasure was an effort to avoid a political uproar. Instead, it seems likely to ignite one….

---Maine Gov. Paul LePage has ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting the state's labor history from the lobby of the Department of Labor headquarters building in Augusta. In addition, the LePage administration is renaming several department conference rooms that carry the names of pro-labor icons such as Cesar Chavez. LePage spokesman Dan Demeritt says the mural and the conference room names are not in keeping with the department's pro-business goals and some business owners complained. The mural was erected in 2008. It depicts several moments in Maine labor history, including a 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston and "Rosie the Riveter" at the Bath Iron Works. The Sun Journal newspaper says some worker advocates feel the move is a "mean-spirited" provocation.---Read More:http://www.pressherald.com/news/Maine-guv-remove-labor-mural-from-labor-dept-.html

For his work on the museum’s exterior wall, Blu created a massive panorama of coffins draped in one dollar bills — a provocative image considering that the wall faces an L.A. Veterans’ Affairs Hospital, as well as the so-called Go For Broke monument, which honors Japanese-American soldiers who fought in the Pacific during World War II. The mural was whitewashed on Thursday, mere hours after the mural went up on Wednesday night. According to a statement issued by MOCA, “The museum’s director explained to Blu that in this context, where MOCA is a guest among this historic Japanese American community, the work was inappropriate.” Read More:http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/36568/whitewash-at-moca-jeffrey-deitch-censors-blus-political-street-art-mural/ aaaaa

Judy Taylor:As the artist who created the mural, people ask me how I feel about what’s happening and what I would like to see done. Like many of the people of Maine, I want to see the mural displayed publicly as it was originally intended. I want people to see it and connect to Maine’s labor history. The purpose of the mural is historical, the artistic intent to honor. It belongs to the people of Maine and needs to be accessible to them. Painting the mural is what I have trained my entire life to do. The theme of figure and context is what I set out to chronicle in my career as an artist. Read More:As the artist who created the mural, people ask me how I feel about what’s happening and what I would like to see done. Like many of the people of Maine, I want to see the mural displayed publicly as it was originally intended. I want people to see it and connect to Maine’s labor history. The purpose of the mural is historical, the artistic intent to honor. It belongs to the people of Maine and needs to be accessible to them. Painting the mural is what I have trained my entire life to do. The theme of figure and context is what I set out to chronicle in my career as an artist.

Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, has opened a new — and unlikely — front in the battle between some lawmakers and unions: a 36-foot-wide mural in the state’s Department of Labor building in Augusta…The three-year-old mural has 11 panels showing scenes of Maine workers, including colonial-era shoemaking apprentices, lumberjacks, a “Rosie the Riveter” in a shipyard and a 1986 paper mill strike. Taken together, his administration deems these scenes too one-sided in favor of unions. Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/us/24lepage.html?_r=1

Diego Rivera is considered the father of Mexican mural art as well as modern political art. He reinterpreted Mexican history from a revolutionary and nationalistic point of view. Not only did he express powerful ideas in his murals, but he also applied the tools he learned with modernist techniques. Diego Rivera’s murals express his personal ideals by unifying art with politics.

---Man, Controller of the Universe. It was created by Diego Rivera in Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1934. The full title of the mural is: Man, Controller of the Universe or Man in the Time Machine. I really liked this piece of work because to me it’s a summation of knowledge gained thus far. It is also a commentary on the state of the world in 1934. It isn’t so abstract that I can’t appreciate it, but it isn’t so basic that the point of the picture is obvious. When I initially saw it I paused and thought. T

ural is a recreation of Man at the Crossroads, which was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller for the Rockefeller Center. Rockefeller had the original destroyed when Rivera refused to remove a portrait of Lenin from the mural. In Man, Controller of the Universe, Diego Rivera presents a number of images, including those of Leon Trotsky and Lenin. All of these images represent the state of the world in the 1930s.---Read More:http://karlthewinterman.wordpress.com/

ADDENDUM:

---In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, Rivera arrived in Detroit, where, at the behest of Henry Ford, he began a paean to the American worker on the walls of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Completed in 1933, the piece depicted industrial life in the United States, concentrating on the car plant workers of Detroit. Rivera’s radical politics and independent nature had begun to draw criticism during his early years in America. Though the fresco was the focus of much controversy, Edsel Ford, Henry’s son, defended the work and it remains today Rivera’s most significant painting in America. ---Read More:http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/diego-rivera/about-the-artist/64/

Diego Rivera:“An artist is above all a human being, profoundly human to the core. If the artist can’t feel everything that humanity feels, if the artist isn’t capable of loving until he forgets himself and sacrifices himself if necessary, if he won’t put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn’t a great artist.” Read More:http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/diego-rivera/about-the-artist/64/

---Unlike ‘Portrayal’, this type of art is harder to manipulate from an opposing point of view. The politics is generally explicit and can have a positive inspirational effect. The art styles or movements of Socialist Realism and ‘Political Art’ (e.g. murals, banners, posters etc.) and Social Realism to a certain extent could fit into the category of ‘Promotion’....In this painting above the artist represents an eviction scene from inside the house as the occupants try to deal with the fire and defend themselves from the police. The 'politics of representation' may be seen here in the compositional dominance given to the defenders and the very small area given over to the intruding police. The type of view we are more familiar with is of the landlord, police and passive onlookers dominating the scene from outside the house...Read More:http://www.peopleseconomics.com/?p=2284

Zizek:One splits into two, two doesn’t merge into one’. The slogan made quite a stir in its day, combining the air of a purely mathematical axiom with a political mandate. Under the cloak of a universal truth there lies a political dagger. The formula combines under the same heading a mathematical adage, an ontological statement, and a political stance. So why does one split into two, necessarily, in mathematics, in ontology, and in politics? And why, once we arrive at Two, at a foundational split, can we never return to the supposed unity of One? Read More:http://www.berlinartlink.com/2011/03/27/zizek-in-berlin/