Posted by April 9, 2007 in Iraq, Images, Art
I hereby declare war on the banality of your anti-war art. Your decades-old, sing-songy, boring-ass copy and imagery. Yeah, I’m looking at you. There’s no reason for it. Especially when all this glorious goodness is yours for the taking.
38 Responses to “Get your anti-war on”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Go get your anti-war on indeed. And international? Even better.
Gee, I guess I can break out all my old 60s and 70s anti-war music as it’s all relevant again. Country Joe, John Prine, It’s a Beautiful Day, CSNY, Airplane and on and on.
Dear artists,
There’s no way whatever brilliantly daring image you come up with is going to be more striking than the photo of the hooded guy with the wires hooked up to his hands. If that didn’t shock the country out of its stupor, what makes you think your stripey knife-man’s gonna do it? Stop trying, the budding photographers in the US Army have got you beat before you even start coming up with biting captions.
Love,
The rest of us.
Was that mean?
Sometimes I wish they would ban tie-dye shirts at peace protests.
Some of the stuff here is great. And some of it is… well… COME ON.
defenestrated: No, that was not mean.
They should all wear the same thing at protests, like a cult or British shoegaze band.
Bake sale. We have to have a bake sale - to buy a bomber you know.
Uggh.
Okay, that over, I still someday want to find an image of a soldier who is cornered in a bombed out house and ready to be summarily executed by insurgents with the caption “Army of One”.
Yeah, and make ‘em all get haircuts too, the freaks. Where the hell do they get off expressing themselves like that? It’s inconvenient when those individuals make our demonstrations look other than the way they oughtta, which is like this:
Okay, that over, I still someday want to find an image of a soldier who is cornered in a bombed out house and ready to be summarily executed by insurgents with the caption “Army of One�.
Well, there was that video floating around of the Iraqi sniper’s “greatest hits” - supposedly of some self-taught insurgent causing havoc to US troops through careful sniping. Let’s face it - if he had been in Afghanistan in the eighties, or a Tibetan against the Chinese or something, the wingnuts would be having testosterone-fuelled orgasms over his actions.
I am fairly impressed by stripey knife-man, but defenestrated’s point is well taken.
Yes, thank you for telling us ignorant, naivé artists and designers how useless it is to do anything. We should all just sit down and shut up with our worthless gestures.
I’m a design student and have had projects to come up with anti-war/racism/what have you imagery. There are usually one or two good ideas, and the rest is derivative crap. Just be thankful you’re not sitting in 4-hour long critiques of this stuff.
Yeah, and make ‘em all get haircuts too
Tie-dye, long hair, yoga poses = uniform.
Short hair, suits, etc. = uniform
Yep! There’s no possible way of being your own person. Might as well just off ourselves now. As long as everyone else will, I mean.
</snark> (<— purloined from mds’ stash)
Anybody know of a similar site for new protest music? My graphic skills are close to nil, but I’m a decent songwright.
What I mean to say, of course, is that I wish that the diversity of anti-war protests was demonstrative of the diverse group of people who actually support the cause.
Sure, anti-war art is bad, but have you seen any pro-war art lately? The cheesy, non-scanning poems your uncle sends his entire mailing list (with 25 headers intact) are just the tip of the iceberg.
For instance, I recall one painting of GWB praying in front of an American flag with ghosts of Washington and Lincoln behind him, hands on his shoulders.
Trust me, we got the good end of this particular stick.
It’s absolutely true that there’s nothing as bad as sentimental pro-war schtick. When I view pro-war artistry, though, the suckiness is readily apparent. I get discouraged when I enthusiasticlaly investigate a thing (like an anti-war installation) and find it to be trite.
Better to entertain a thing long enough to see what its possibilities are before condemning it, certainly. I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone.
defenestrated:
No it wasn’t mean, but it was sort of shortsighted.
No question, the hooded prisoner is a powerful image, but there’s more to be said against war (this one in particular or war in general) than can be done with an single image.
So maybe you don’t much like the stuff on the anti-war graphic site, maybe you just like photography over someone’s creation (though lots of photojournalism comes under the category of creation, unlike the harrowing snapshots from Abu Gharib). But to write that nothing can have the impact of a photo means ignoring anti war art such as Goya’s or Picasso’s.
More Goya
actually - do y’all remember that “rock against bush” compilation CD that went out around ‘04? that wasn’t too bad.
i personally think it’s hard to top “Guernica”, or “The Journal of Albion Moonlight”, but i guess there’s no sense in not trying.
most artists, though, don’t bother themselves about whether the art they are doing is “good” or even “relevant”. they just do their art, and let other people make of it what they will. a healthy creative process is going to reflect some kind of human values in there somewhere, including the fact that our country is doing very bad things right now…..but i have qualms about utilitarian and/or “socially responsible” art. it’s an artificial constraint that can actually limit the real power and impact of what you’re saying. that having been said - i think you all should go out and steal some musical instruments tomorrow and start punk rock bands. go!
Hell yeah, especially when the artist/designer/etc takes it personally and the class ends up spending far more time on that one piece of derivative crap because we have to sit there and field their defensive comments and/or consoling them. It’s just hard to do decent anti-war stuff without it being completely didactic.
My bad, I meant console, not consoling. :S
I retract my whining then.
Chris Clarke, that picture was very frightening. Can you just…make ‘em stop smiling?
Tricia, in a different mood I might have just as easily said what you said as what I did say. Hell, I’m a theater person, I’m lucky to get people to believe that my art form even still exists [which is to say nothing of my friend the poet who has it much worse on that count]. But unless you’re Picasso having a really good day, I think an artist is shooting herself in the foot by setting out to make x point with a certain piece. That quickly becomes, like Bles said, didactic.
yes, Chris, who IS THAT in the creepy million-faces picture? it gives me goosebumps.
It’s the Million Markos March!
Wearing tie-dye in the Bay Area requires a stout heart. It’s a real act of bravery.
One of the favorite rhetorical devices of right wingers is to state that liberal cause X can safely be ignored because it’s of interest only to a small minority of freaks with ulterior motives. Global warming and opposition to the war are painted as minority concerns borne out of piss-antedness more than genuine opposition. We need many images, installations, blog posts, etc. to counter this nonsense and demonstrate effectively that it’s not a small number of people who care.
What’s the IMS opinion on protest music by earnest ’70s singer-songwriters? Am I allowed to play it in public, or must I listen only at home where no one can criticize my lack of hipster cred?
I think the Million Markos March could be taken a step further, if you will, through animation.
I think the Capitol should tip back and swallow them all, Monty Python style. Large burp sound after not optional.
defenestrated: I don’t think that the five lonely Quakers who protest next to the fountain near my office once-a-week are going to single-handedly change the world, but I don’t wander over and kick them in the kneecaps either. They are doing what they can.
And these designers (most of them are not fine artists, they’re advertising folks like me) are at least doing what they can.
Wearing tie-dye in the Bay Area requires a stout heart. It’s a real act of bravery.
Quiet, you.
The anti-war movement, or whatever it is, is too afraid to offend war pigs. Those of us who hate the US invasion and occupation of Iraq are being stifled by the middle aged people who are too afraid to call Americans murderers and confront the people who obey the monster president and kill in our name, the soldiers, and hold them accountable for contributing to the war effort.
Tricia, you’re welcome to think I want to knock on all anti-war protesters (not sure what purpose that serves you, but ok). However - like I already said - my comment was directed towards artists setting out with the intention of making a didactic statement. If you think artists are better off asking themselves, “Now, how do I make this canvas look like I Hate War?” than letting their views inform organically-born pieces - fine. I may not like your art, but I doubt that matters much to you (nor should it).
And anyway, it was a joke. Why don’t feminists have any sense of humor? ;D
(zomg kidding, please don’t jump on me for that too)
It’s the Million Markos March!
That’s over a billion shoes, Chris. Billion with a B. We’re gonna need the Ghost of Carl Sagan to narrate your stupid march. Let the poor man dwell in our athiest oblivion in peace, you vindictive hobbit.
I think the image of the raped, murdered, and incinerated little girl will always be my memory of the Iraq Occupation. I think it should be the image America always remembers about Bush’s war, too.
Nobody’s mentioned a perfect circle’s parodies of pro-war propaganda over at their site yet?