Obama Assassination Exhibit Takes Artistic License Too Far by Rick Kern
Thu, Jul 10, 2008 27 year old artist, Yazmany Arboleda, pushed his artistic license a little too far recently causing local police and the United States Secret Service to temporarily shut down his exhibit.
The highly controversial installation piece christened The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama drew the ire of the authorities as Arboleda was setting up the display prior to its opening. Police officers and Secret Service agents abruptly descended upon the artist’s makeshift gallery in New York City and covered the building’s windows with brown paper pending investigation.
Taken in and questioned for about two hours, Mr. Arboleda was not charged though initially prohibited from talking to the media. However, in due course he has found himself the main course of a media feeding frenzy.
According to a press release issued by the Naomi Gates Gallery, a nonexistent venue Arboleda reportedly admitted he contrived, the eclectic Obama exhibition was designed to, “show the extreme effects of a society intent on castrating anyone in power.” The artist must have meant what he said as one of the displays was a full color African-American penis mounted on at least two walls adjacent to a large black and white photograph of Obama’s children titled, Nappy Headed Hos.
While there have been other equally garish art exhibitions, rarely have they drawn the reaction from law enforcement that Arboleda’s The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama did. The hot button is obvious; “Assassination” is not exactly a benign term especially considering this year marks the 40th anniversary of the assassinations of two American icons; Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
The Clinton display, also avant-garde, does not have the force of Obama’s, which, in addition to the other shocking pieces, includes a number of nooses hanging from the ceiling. Questions of censorship, civil and First Amendment rights tried to dominate the resulting fallout. However, they quickly became nonissues when law enforcement officials refused to shut down the exhibit and emphatically stated they were just trying to be certain that the projects were nothing more than art with a political statement.
Arboleda defended his artwork on the Freedom Den Blog saying, “My goal was to create a mirror through which we might perceive the way traditional and online media continues to preach racism, sexism, ageism, and homophobia. I created The Assassinations to better understand how American society communicates and how visual codes appeal to cultural stereotypes, prejudices, desires, and fears. The result has been a maelstrom of dialogue more passionate and pervasive than I ever anticipated.”
He also created an impressive deception via his Website when he claimed the exhibitions were being shown at the Leah Keller Gallery and Naomi Gates Gallery respectively. In a June 5th story the New York Times reporter Jennifer Lee exposed the ruse. “The whole thing was fabricated,” Mr. Arboleda acknowledged in a phone interview,” Ms. Lee wrote.
And though several credible news publications bought it, in reality, Mr. Arboleda is said to have rented a storefront in Manhattan where he exhibited the controversial projects for two days. Perhaps art does mirror life after all.
To see photos of the exhibit, please copy and paste this link into your browser, but be aware that the photos are of a graphic nature and may be offensive to some
http://www.minorityreporter.net/pages/obama_assn_photos.htm |
