The streets have been anticipating the arrival of the new president and vice president for a few months now. Today it took place and the U.S. has a 46th President – Joe Biden and 49th Vice President – Kamala Harris.
Looking like Fred Astaire melding tap, ballroom and ballet across the bubble tags on New York walls, here’s the next President of the United States.
Art in the streets around the world has been signaling the beginning of a new US presidential era, even as Trump continues to deny it.
Many, though not all, leaders from countries around the world have offered congratulations and words of praise and recognition to Joe Biden as the next president. In some cases artists have taken to the streets to express their support with their art – as in the case here by Barcelona-based TV Boy.
The pose recalls the poster for the movie Rocky V, which may be the number of times Biden ran for president before he finally won. We’ll have to confirm with our fact-checkers.
New Yorkers are currently literally dancing in the streets, banging on pots and pans out their windows, honking car horns, playing drums, setting off fireworks – since the word spread that the city’s least-favorite son lost the presidential re-election.
From large expressions, to this very small one on a sticker that borrows from Banksy, the voice of street artists regarding the policies and behaviors of this would-be dictator has been nearly unanimous for four years.
Today it became official. “You’re fired!”
Conceptual Street Artist General Howe will be sticking a pointy eared mask onto Obama’s photo after the presidential debate tonight – as he writes his next report for the Super Election News website.
One part HuffPost Politics, one part The Onion, and one part Halloween super hero role-playing – The site is the onscreen version of parodies General Howe started in his street work a few years ago. By subverting the election “news” that’s continually blared from the polycephalic cluster of political blogs and trustworthy news websites, Howe equates the candidates staged personas as spun by PR machines with the simplified good and evil story that is told in the Batman sagas.
Obama as Batman, Romney as Bane, Gingrich as Penguin, Sheldon Adelson as the Joker… “Presidential elections and summer blockbuster movies have become the same thing,” explains General Howe, “There is an epic battle of good vs. evil and the fate of the world is up for grabs. If we pay a little extra for the larger soda, the experience will be that much better.”
With regular postings on his online art/politics website, the General has been mulling over the implications of simplification of complex issues, the corrupting influence of blind money donations, the surreal spinning of real news, as well as parodying the more obvious manipulations he sees in his daily review of what has essentially has become a hyper-charged money-fueled media industry that commoditizes candidates for profit and ignores/deludes the citizenry.
What may frighten you more are the similarities between fact and fiction.
General Howe’s new series of characters are called “The Supers” and he has made a print comic book for the 2012 election, as well as installed some parody election signage in the perfectly mowed autumn lawns of sterile suburbia, where the effect of seeing a pro-Bane or pro-Batman and Robin sign is startlingly normal appearing in all their patriotic colors and crisp graphics. Antecedents to this campaign can be found in General Howe’s reworking of actual advertising signage during the 2008 campaign where John McCain was 2Face, Hilary Clinton had the bloody clown lips of the Joker, and Obama was again depicted as Batman.
While his art on the streets has always had a political element that is informed by American culture and history, General Howe has been having a blast with this new online art project, “This work has strong roots in street art but is completely digitally based. I’ve been thinking a lot about making accessible work and communicating a message to the masses and as much as street art does that and I think there is unexplored territory in how much of peoples lives exist in the digital world. It would be a great evolution to see digital content and websites subverted the same way our physical environment is being subverted by street art. I don’t have the skills or knowledge of a hacker so this is my attempt at transforming the digital experience.”
For more day-to-day update on The Super Election News from General Howe go to:
http://superelectionnews.wordpress.com/
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