The power of images (continued)

Original Post:
In response to the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, an Iranian paper plans to run cartoons of the Holocaust.

It's amazing that the very simple cartoons could stir up such a reaction. Perhaps images have more power to the people that do not concern themselves with them (or avoid them) on a daily basis. Is Iconoclasm a way to preserve the power of images? I'm intrigued by how an image is given presence by a viewer. What must the cartoon look like to the devout and offended Muslim? Do they see a personification of evil? Irreverence? What did Chris Ofili's piece in the Sensation show look like to the devout Catholic? Is it a personal affront experienced as sarcasm or does one sense actual danger inherent to the image?

I think many artists seek that sort of attention for their images, or desire an image to have that semblance of power. What must one do to get people to look at a painting? Obviously, the people most offended by Ofili's piece or Serrano's "piss christ" were incapable of seeing the art in the piece, but the power given to the image was arguably greater in the unschooled or religious than in the experienced art viewer.

Reponse by T.K.

Hi Hobo! This subject is all we hear about in Norway these days...but not exactly your take on it...I think you're right about the image gaining in power in it's absence,- but more than anything, the cartoons ridiculed Muhammed, who sits right in the middle of the Muslim's heart. To me the reactions of the Muslim world isn't so interesting, it just is- you can't argue with it. The way I see it, if the West wants to do business with them, they have to meet them on their terms. Noone is forcing any Western country into the Muslim world, the West wants in.

About who could and couldn't see the art in "piss christ",- I think every reaction to it encompasses the "art" of the piece,- wasn't being offended a part of it?


More discussion:

Teresa,

I do think that being offended was part of the art from the standpoint of the artist or sympathetic viewer perhaps, but I doubt that the offended would accept there being any art in it. The Danish cartoons: the one with the bomb is an image that I can see one getting offended over. There is something about the medium and technique in that one that makes it look sacred. Perhaps the fact that it formally references historic pictorial conventions of the Mid East makes it a bit more pointed. The pictorial conventions of the other cartoons (newspaper comic conventions), which I saw first, surprised me that a Muslim would give them a second glance. Obviously, the content/subject is integral in all cases.

The retaliation of the Iranian paper publishing cartoons of the holocaust is interesting. How will westerners respond to it? It brings up a significant point about humor and also about images. Is one willing to appreciate humor only at the expense of someone else? Does it no longer become insightful or funny when it questions one's own sense of the sacred?

The other issue is whether something being portrayed is an endorsement by the person who makes it. Is Kurt Westergaard expressing an opinion of his own or commenting on the way something may be seen by a culture?

Perhaps an image is a mysterious place where one can try out thoughts without necessarily endorsing them. If one depicts a murder, does that mean that one is a murderer? I don't know if there is a clear cut answer. Maybe in the image one explores the part of the human psyche that is capable of murder. An actor must play diverse roles in a lifetime that may be very different from his/her natural temperament. It doesn't seem you could rightly say that the actor is the person he portrays, but then again, you can't outright exclude him from it. Images are dangerous. Long live Images.

Strange photo contest

Another pic from Joe: Lost in Translation



Suzy's pic: why am I having flashbacks to Deliverence?




Courtesy of Jake
(not your average game of twister)


Here are a few of my personal favorites. Feel free to provide captions.




How many of you are actually going to try this now?


Wakey, Wakey, Eggs, n' Bakey


This one sent in by Kelly. we seem to be making a run on food items.

this one also by JA. come on people, send photos!

Joe sent this one in-from his last visit to Shanghai. I've got a title for this one: "his eye is on the sparrow" (it's a pigeon head)

this one here, sent in by one J.A.


Have a love for strange or ridiculous photos like me? Please send your strangest photo to strangepics2hobo@yahoo.com, and I'll post them right here. The winner of the contest will receive a drawing created by Hobo himself, postage included. Winner will be anounced Feb. 11th.

Goin Blonde

the best blonde joke ever.

A Nose for Trouble

It's amazing how any action that is slightly out of the norm is seen as dangerous.



When I was in gradschool in Boston I was constantly going back and forth between Boston and New Haven. One afternoon in Boston just before I was heading back to New Haven, I got in a car accident with some Armenians. I happened to have my digital camera with me, so I immediately took some photos of the scene and the damage. I try to keep my camera with me at all times, because you never know when something absurd and fascinating will rear its head. I took down the driver's info from the accident. They later called and said they'd rather not go through the insurance and just pay for damages. We agreed on $300 and were scheduling a meeting some time later in the week.


Back in New Haven about 3 days after the phone conversation, I get a call in my studio from my girlfriend saying that she just had a private investigator at the door asking whether I was an animal rights activist, whether I had been following anyone, whether I was taking pictures on the Mass Pike recently.

"you've got to be kidding me", was my response. The investigator left his number and advised that I call him. Hearing about the photos being taken, both my girlfriend and I associated it with the accident with the Armenians. Were they up to something? Reporting me as a stalker or terrorist? I had no clue, but it was a lesson on how quick we are to put the blame on things/people that are foreign or unfamiliar to us.

I called the private investigator and he started asking me the questions:

"Have you ever been suspected of terrorist activity?"
"Do you like animals?"
"do you consider yourself an animal rights activist"
"Have you recently been taking photos on the Massachusetts Turnpike?"
I answered,
"I don't think so, I was in an accident in Boston and took some pictures"
then I ask,
"how did you find my address in New Haven?"
he replied,
"you were reported as taking pictures on the Mass Pike by an employee of a perfume company. The employee took your license number down and the company hired me to investigate."

By this time it came back to me. I was in a stand still at one of the toll booths on my way back to New Haven. The sun was going down and beaming an amazingly fiery orange light that cast bluish shadows. The light was hitting part of my face and the shadow from the top of the windshield cut across my face. It was a patch of light cutting across my mug. Captivated, I started taking pics of the light on my face viewable in the rear view mirror.

It became apparent to the private investigator and myself that the car in front of me was the employee from the perfume company who thought I was taking pictures of her. Apparently, because of the testing they do on animals, animal rights activists target members of the company.

I apologized for being an artist, and I then called the owner of the company to explain the situation. I thought, "what are the chances of something like this happening?" "Insane!".


I'm now convinced the statistics aren't as slim as I formerly thought.

Six months later, I was in New London, and that glorious orb the Sun was throwin' down rays on the bridge that connects New London to Groton. I drove underneath the bridge and started taking snapshots for the use of background props for paintings. If you know my paintings, you can make sense of the interest in bridges. You have to understand, I take pictures all the time, so It doesn't seem unusual.


Two days later, one James B. Mulcrone, special agent for the United States Naval Criminal Investigative Services knocks at the door. I was a little quicker in placing why he was there, this time. We invited him in and explained that I was an artist, I showed him some paintings, explained my process of making pictures and talked about my interest in industrial structures. He explained that it was unusual seeing someone take a picture of a bridge, and the fact that it was one near a naval submarine manufacturing plant made it equally suspicious. "You can never be to careful these days." He was generally interested and amazed that someone could make a living making pictures (I'm still not convinced of it). I showed him the pictures I took and burned a disc with the images on it for him.

James B. Mulcrone left with some new found art education and was persuaded but I doubt entirely convinced I wasn't a terrorist. "who the hell takes pictures of a bridge, after all?"

Following his departure, Joy said, "Is this something I'm going to have to get used to.... Criminal Investigators showing up every few months?!"

I replied "Most girls that are with artists already have a bad boy complex, now that I'm a terrorist, what do you think of me?"



(since then, we've had 3 children)

(all named James B. Mulcrone)

L'il Critter

Sometimes our instincts get the best of us. Cats are programmed to respond to movement. There is something in me that wants to catch a running cat. It's part amusement, part strategy, but mostly it's just a loudspeaker running through my nervous system, "GET THE CAT!"

I've been obsessed by people on disabled carts. You might know them as "critters" or "clark mobiles". I had the classic rock station on in the car one day about 2 years ago and Sammy Hagar's terrible "I can't drive 55" came on. I often jot down lyrics with a sharpie pen on stray pieces of trash that are magnatized to the inside of my buick. The epiphany on Hagar was that it would make a great title for a painting of someone on a critter. The scrawled note probably read "Can't 55 Critter Person", and it's probably still in my buick.



Since that epiphany, I have responded to every person on a critter as if they were a running cat. I've scrambled for my digital camera, reparked the car at a good angle facing the elusive felines, trying not to look suspicious after peeling out in a vacant parking lot. The photo here was taken from the passenger side of my friend's vehicle. He of course couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with me. Then again, we've been friends for a while. He wasn't that surprised.