Theodore Gericault.  Raft of the Medusa.1818 - 19.

There are many parallels to the Raft of the Medusa and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The Captain of the Medusa was an incompetent, a nobleman who owed his appointment to the ministerial favor and not seamanship. George W. Bush is also incompetent, a rich man's son who gained the presidency through favor and deceit, rather than statesmanship. As politician and president, he is a demagogue, a leader who make use of popular prejudices, false claims and promises in order to gain and hold power. Both these men, the captain of the Medusa, Hugnes de Chaumareges and George W. Bush are murderers. The making of the Raft of the Medusa was the result of the "the Captain and many of his senior officers who, caring only for their own safety, brutally commandeered the seaworthy life boats, leaving it to the lower ranks and the soldiers to try their luck on a raft." The abandoned people left on the ship built a raft sixty five feet in length and twenty-eight feet wide out of the masts and beams, crudely lashed together before the Medusa sank.

One hundred and fifty people, including one woman, were herded into the slippery beams. So closely were the people huddled together that it was impossible to move a single step. Mutiny, murder, cannibalism and madness followed. After fifteen days, only fifteen survived.

The people on the Medusa were victims of class struggle. The people on the Raft of George Bush-his party and regime-are the victims of their own rationale, their conservative elitism, their hunger for political and social power and their unilateral military ambitions. It took a very sick group of people to dream up a phony war from the tragedy of 9/11, against a country which had nothing to do with 9/11.

In my photograph, I want to show the leaders of this regime as royalty without clothes. As the fools they really are.

The president is seen wearing a McDonalds gold paper crown. His despair is the result of a mind distorted by extremism. By the lies, torture, pain and death he has caused. He is the Lear of all inept politicians. He holds the naked body of "Condi Rice". She is his ideal black woman. His brain-dead muse. Secretary of Defense "Rummy" lies face down nearby, holding his glasses, wrapped in a flag of the nation. Former Secretary of State Powell is pictured dressed only in military epaulets holding the "proof" he presented at the United Nations for justification for the war against Iraq. The vice-president and his wife are shown as an operatic star and diva straining to proselytize their doctrines in song. Barbara Bush is tied to a mast. She holds a sun-reflector under her chin-representing her joy in basking in the sunlight of power yet always looking like "The Quaker Oats Man". Near her is a conservative minister trying to hang himself while a sailor performs fellatio on him. Finally, an African American waves the flag of his mother country as he sights the Medusa's survivors, a Chinese junk and a Space Ship.  - Joel Peter Witkin

Robert Mapplethorpe.  American Flag.  1987.
http://www.matthewlangley.com/blog/uploaded_images/artwork_images_909_179946_robert-mapplethorpe-759862.jpg

"Culture Wars" in the 1990s and their effects on the National Endowment for the Arts

NEA mission - "to enrich our Nation and its diverse cultural heritage by supporting works of artistic excellence, advancing learning in the arts, and strengthening the arts in communities throughout the country."

1990

Four artists apply for grants and are denied because their works deemed "indescent" by Congress

NEA decides to cease funding for individual artists

1991

Perfect Moment exhibition at Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center

Senator Jesse Helms rips a copy of Serrano's Piss Christ on Congressional floor

1996

Congress cuts funding of NEA by 30% to $99.5 million

Congress votes to phase out federal funding of the program in two years

House announces their plan to eliminate the Endowment

1998

Supreme Court determines that the statute mandating the Endowment to consider “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public” in awarding grants is constitutional.

"NEA Four" compensated with money equal to grant money they would have received

2008

NEA has $144.7 million budget

Identity Politics

"the personal is political"

Identity politics formed as a strategy to counter social inequity

Considers the structures by which we define ourselves

Questions the idea of "normal"

Catherine Opie.  Self-Portrait/ Pervert.  1994.
http://www.regenprojects.com/files/db15e039.jpg

Catherine Opie.  Self-Portrait Nursing. 2004.
http://www.regenprojects.com/files/bec09099.jpg

Assorted definitions of "pervert" =

to lead astray morally

to turn away from the right course

to turn to an improper use; misapply

to bring to a less excellent state; vitiate; debase

Pathology. to change to what is unnatural or abnormal

The work is "about everybody's memories, as well as their fears." - Sally Mann

"This is the stuff of which Greek dramas are made: impatience, terror, self-discovery, self-doubt, pain, vulnerability, role-playing and a sense of immortality." - Aperture Magazine