Aristotle, in Poetics, slops the pearl that “art” is a “representation of reality.” By this definition, presentations of the creative sort contain something, if only a je ne sais quois, that can be recognized as a reflection of the human condition and the historical present. Reach back in time to The Epic of Gilgamesh, and out of the cuneiform pressed in clay comes the tale of a king’s hubris, lust for immortality, and ultimate understanding of his place in the world. Fast forward and select at random. “The Counsels of the Bird” by Rumi, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest,  Eliot’s “Quartets,” “The Short Happy Life Of Francis MacComber” by Hemingway.  Consider Andy Warhol’s body of work as a commentary on the superficiality of modern culture; look at the content of  films, popular songs and television programs, comic strips and “illustrated novels,” with their wide diversity of theme and thought.  All these arts, of varying degrees of cultural significance, may be seen to generally adhere to Aristotle’s commentary.

They represent reality.  They do not create reality; they are not a direct experience of reality; they do not encompass the fullness and mystery of reality, or of life and death.  They are not meant to serve as a replacement for reality.

Yet some may not be aware of this subtle distinction between Art and Life.  Therefore, we find a warning label sewn into the famous Superman costume admonishing those who can read that the garment does not confer upon the wearer the ability of physical flight.  Further, this type of error in understanding may be seen in other scenarios that demand a degree of discrimination in determining that which is likely fact from the absurd.  In ancient times, for example, some viewers tended to to believe the “daytime dramas” they received on black and white screens were what are now called “Reality TV” programs; others were convinced that there was actually a sport known as “championship wrestling,” as opposed to the acrobatic entertainments now designated by similar names.

Human perception being what it is, an audience may be neurologically disposed to “believe its eyes,” as legends of audience reaction surrounding the first screening of the Lumiere brothers’ “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” attest.  One might also consider that reaction– a screaming rush to the exits– as giving the lie to the idea that “perception is reality.”  Nonetheless, subsequent manipulation of media and the exploitation of its consumers for social and political purposes remains a constant.

Anti-war films portraying American efforts in a negative light may fail at the box-office, but they are viewed, and color perceptions, globally. Potty-mouth humor encourages the same.  Celebrity glamour promotes superficial ideas of beauty.  Novelty wears thin.  Longing for something more interesting to fill the existential void in everyday life, many are attracted to acting out pointless fantasies and other futile, chaotic behaviors.  Stoked with the belief that lack of responsibility equates to freedom, men remain in suspended adolescence long after they belong to a “youth culture,” and women are left to deal with it.

Parents insist perpetually that their children know the difference between such things as movies and real life, yet experience as well as education impacts character and a moral sense. One need not be a neurologist to speculate that vicarious experiences that permeate consciousness through a saturation accumulated over time have telling effects as well, if only in the ways the world is perceived.  As is often suggested, one of these effects is a “numbing” of awareness and empathy in terms of viewing genuine violence and acts of evil perpetrated against others.

That said, if such children and adults do indeed understand the differences between those things which are staged and contrived to represent reality and those which are directly recorded as actual events in progress, sans commentary and for all practical purposes impossible to manipulate, there can be no equivocation over the facts brought to light by the “underground” media coming out of the immediate crisis in Iran via internet resources.

Such communications are as close to naked truth as media technology can deliver, in a revolution that will be televised, whether it fails or succeeds, without stage blood or the kind of editing designed to evoke a predetermined emotional reaction.

This is information that demands a response to be applied in a real-life situation; the stakes are genuine, and human freedom and dignity hang in the balance.  The whole world is, as always, watching, while the response so far from the American Executive Office is most generously described as “measured.”

Train’s coming…

–SG

The people who spread the word “racist” were those in the media eager for headline grabbing attention, but the only reason it became a city-wide controversy was due to the fact the art show took place in a public building, not in a gallery. For this reason, local conservative radio also added fuel to the controversy. 

I should add that no taxpayer money funded any of this. All of the participating artists installed their own work, took it down themselves, removed it when the show ended and no work of art was bought by the city.  

I should also add that I am the artist in question, and it doesn’t get more SNL comedy sketch than this.   

Imagine two police officers filing a “hostile work environment” complaint because they had to walk past a work of art that hung, for a brief period, in the building where their station is. Forget about guns, knives and other weapons, or the physical, mental and verbal abuse they encounter daily…. No, obviously, nothing could be worse than a work of art that pointed fingers at no one in particular. You can see for yourself below: 

“FfOoRrMhUaLtAe”

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“FfOoRrMhUaLtAe” [altered to make out letters]

The piece is called “FfOoRrMhUaLtAe,” (formula for hate) which also served as a clue for deciphering it. In capital letters, the first sentence reads: “POLITICALLY ITS OK TO HATE THE WHITE MAN,” which, without punctuation, can be interpreted as a statement of fact, a question or as a provocation — the latter being what the officers claimed it to be in their complaint. 

The fact is I intended it to be what it is — a statement of fact. Ironically, while I was painting the piece, the Duke Lacrosse case was coming to an end after making headlines for a year and proved my work’s point when prosecutor Mike Nifong was reelected after promising to prosecute those “privileged” young white boys for a crime, it turns out, they did not commit. 

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“FfOoRrMhUaLtAe” [altered to make out letters]

“Formula for Hate’s” second sentence, in small case letters reads: “is it ok for me to hate if ive been a victim” [see enhanced photo above], also sans punctuation. The purpose of this sentence was for a little introspection on the part of the viewers, regardless of the kind of victimization they may have experienced in their own lives. 

The numbers on the piece began with 76, for the year 1976, our Bicentennial — to 07, for 2007, the year the piece was made. The last print ended with my initials, AA, which served as the signature. 

It went up and was on view a week before the official opening night. There was a little of the expected rumbling, but it would take a few days before all hell broke loose. When it did, for the next two weeks my work and I were in every local paper, on every local news channel and on a couple of local radio talk shows. I even heard from Fox News, but think my hesitation about going on live television blew that. Apparently, the big boys don’t like it when you hesitate, which was probably for the best, they would have eaten me alive. I was also all over conservative and liberal blogs. Apparently, I was an equal opportunity offender. 

As I see it, the real story was the one I witnessed as an artist who created a piece that got an awful lot of publicity in a city the size of and with the history and make-up of Atlanta. The kind of scrutiny someone was quoted in the press saying was not fit for “the city too busy to hate.” 

If only that were true. I can tell you that when people first started to make out the sentences on my piece, not knowing I was the artist, I overheard things. First, there were sounds about how the artist “must be black,” and then some would notice my signature and remark about my being an, “angry young Latino,” or something. The blogs were even more extreme. 

While this was going on, something was happening behind the scenes. I was embraced by some in the media who thought the work was a provocation, but the more they called and the more questions they asked, the more it became clear to them that I was not the artist they wanted to write about. 

They wanted to write about my reaction to a country that wasn’t living up to its promise of diversity and how this fueled my work. To some in the press the story was to be about a disenfranchised minority artist justified in producing work called “racist” and “hate art” by the status-quo white majority. 

The press my work received proved “POLITICALLY ITS OK TO HATE THE WHITE MAN” true. Through the use of the hatred and victimization that is still alive in this country, politicians and race baiting profiteers in the media constantly manipulate the system and the people through fear and intimidation for their own gain. 

Finally, all the uproar came to a head when, at the urging of Atlanta’s Mayor Shirley Franklin, I was asked to head a public forum and discussion panel to explain my work. The hope was that it would calm down the tension my art was creating in the city. 

The most interesting observation I made at the forum was what happened when people showed up. With the exception of Timothy Tew of Tew Galleries, the only person I asked to be on the panel (he shows my wife’s work) and Mr. Larry Walker, a well known artist/educator, not a single panelist came up to me before the forum began or after it was over.  The curator of The Contemporary and other art notables, all of them familiar with me before that day, made a point of ignoring me. 

When it was time for the forum, we all took our seats and were introduced by the host, who said a few words about why we were gathered there. Because I had asked permission to read a statement before the forum officially began, she then asked me to read it. Here’s the opening paragraph: 

I love my country! The United States of America, in my opinion, is the greatest country on earth. It is the most diverse place in the world and open to anyone willing to obey its laws. It is the most generous. When there is need anywhere in the world, the citizens of this country personally reach deep into their own pockets, and more, to provide anything that is asked of them. No questions asked and nothing expected in return. It is a place of limitless opportunities. It is still the place where you can reach for the stars. Within reason, anything is possible. It is a place where you’re given a second chance, again and again. If you’ve fallen, and you’re willing to look deep inside and make the necessary changes, this is the place where a second chance is only the beginning of the gifts offered you. I could go on and on about our qualities, but there is not enough time here for that now….

I then spoke a little about personal responsibility and how we must all learn to live together.  

The purpose of this statement was not for the sake of educating people about art or the meaning of “Formula for Hate.” The purpose was to introduce me, the artist, to those gathered, to those who had followed the coverage and would watch the coverage of the forum. I wanted people to know who this artist was — who the mainstream media had labeled a racist and promoter of hate. I wanted to let them know that what they had been told was a lie and at best a tried and true example of promotion by the media for the pure sale of time and space. My goal was not to interpret the art or change anyone’s interpretation of it. The piece speaks for itself and I was there to speak for myself. 

After I spoke, the most visible example of a possible understanding came from the officer who spoke after I did and who was there to represent the officers who had brought the complaint. Where I thought he might open his statement with an attack on me and my art, he instead mentioned how he had no personal grievance with me or the work. His grievance had to do with public funded art in a public building. When he mentioned he had no problem with me, he looked at me. It was one of those moments where two people share a, “I get it, and I’m cool with you” understanding. That was a relief.  

After he was done speaking, we took questions. The first was from a woman who offered a backhanded compliment of my statement. She said, “You’d make a good politician.” This was followed by a question about taxpayer funding of controversial art, but after that the forum took its own course away from art and towards unrelated issues. 

Even if it didn’t translate into work, sales or representation, what the forum did for me was take away the fears I’d lived with. Although I was accused of having set out to get attention, beyond the normal attention an artist wants, that just wasn’t the case. I wasn’t at all prepared to be called a racist self-promoter, but at least the forum seemed to have cleared that misperception up. It was also a huge learning experience and good for me. You can’t pay for that kind of experience or the knowledge that comes with it. 

I also learned that as much as some in the media pretended to be on my side, their interest had nothing to do with enlightening others about what the piece meant or who I was. This was a story they sought to promote for their own reasons and when it became clear that I and what “Formula for Hate” stood for wasn’t what they had thought or “hoped” for, the painting, the artist and the story itself, ceased to exist. 

The local television news and papers covered the forum, but not a single word of my statement was ever mentioned, not once. The interviews and the phone calls died that day too. As a matter of fact, the last media call I received was just before the forum from an editorial writer who had wanted to befriend me and introduce me around to his friends and connections. After the forum, I never heard from him again. 

Such is celebrity. 

I can’t say for sure, because it would be pure speculation on my part, but knowing the Atlanta art community and what is currently in vogue, I believe that had “Formula for Hate” been what people thought it was and what the media was promoting it to be, I might have been embraced and invited to be a part of the local art scene. 

Later, inspired by the controversy over my piece, there was another panel held in Atlanta to discuss the role and impact art can have on a community. 

I wasn’t invited. 

We artists need gallery representation to sell our work, and the right gallery can mean the difference between failure, barely making a living, and thriving. Finding the right gallery is the goal and I don’t know of any galleries that sell contemporary art with a conservative leaning message. So, we’re stuck having to be our own gallery, so to speak, and the time, money, packaging, delivery and everything else it takes to promote ourselves is time taken away from painting — and without paintings you have nothing to promote. Under normal circumstances — meaning, had I been a left-leaning, self loathing, anti-American, anti-conservative artist — the opportunities that could have come from the media coverage of “Formula for Hate” would have been the best case scenario for any artist, represented or not. 

I’m sorry to say that was not the case and it would have made a huge difference in our lives when we needed it most. I believe in what I’m doing and while my wife and I do what we must in order to provide for our two kids, I will continue to paint, when I can. Life is life and I’m not complaining, $&#% happens and sometimes it doesn’t. We live in the United States where anything is possible and we’re better off than most. 

If you’re an American and all you do is complain about your life not being fair, you haven’t a clue about what’s going on in the rest of the world.

You can see Alvaro’s portfolio here.

Wrong.

The city is in a country, which is on a land mass which is moving. The land mass is on a planet which is spinning. At the equator the spin is 1,038 miles per hour. At the poles it’s barely spinning at all. And the planet on which we rest is circling the sun at 67,000 miles per hour (30 kilometers a second). Our solar system is moving in our galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour or 220 kilometers per second. So what we perceive as stillness isn’t anything of the kind. If you think you are sitting still, you are deluded.

Many people are aware our planet is spinning and is moving through space, but we ignore it because we don’t see it happening. So we block it out of our minds. And then we kind of forget it.

We focus on our immediate environment. And to us, that makes up our reality. We try not to think about all the other things going around us.

How can wars half way around the world be real if we can’t see it with our own eyes? Well, we do get to see them on TV and in movies. But someone decides which footage and sound bites we get. And that can easily affect what we perceive as the “real” story of the war. The truth is often manipulated for us by the media and Hollywood. And that has colored many people’s world views.

Some reporter tells us “the news” from a safe hotel where all the NGO peeps like to hang out at the bar. They all sit around and rationalize what the story on the ground is, even though none of them really get out much. Let’s face it, a lot of people are lazy and a lot of people are cowards. And they’re the ones telling us what the “truth” is.

And look at the science reporting we get. We’re told that the earth is heating up and soon the oceans will drown the coasts when the glaciers and polar ice caps melt. Except they ignored massive amounts of ice still there. All the species are dying off. Except we keep discovering hundreds of new species all the time. But let’s face it, nature has a habit of killing off plenty of life on its own. It did that long before mankind was born.

Every decade they find some disaster that will kill us and never does. So they invent a new one. In the 50s it was nuclear war. The 60s, DDT and overpopulation. The 70s, global cooling, air pollution and we’ve run out of oil. The 80s, the ozone hole. The 90s, Y2K! Now it’s global warming.

We like to believe we understand our world, or at least that part of it that concerns us. But the truth is, we know so little. What we see is limited. What we hear is limited. What we smell is limited. Animals can smell and hear better than us. We know that, but we choose not to think about it. We focus on what we think effects us.

We choose to block out that which we don’t want to know about. We choose to ignore what doesn’t jibe with our version of the truth. We choose to see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear. It makes us feel safer, more in control. Because if we really knew all that was going on around us it might drive us mad. We’re crazy enough already.

And there are those who take advantage of this. They’ve developed a science in directing us. Manipulating us. They use it to make us march to their tune. To make us get angry on cue. Fearful on cue. They make us think their lies are our ideas. They make us think that they’re the reasonable ones, and the other guys are evil fools. Then they laugh because there really isn’t a lot that separates their party from the other party. Just some window dressing.

Look at the last 10-20 years. Do you really believe Republicans act like conservatives or Democrats act like liberals? Ok, forget the word act. Because that’s the operative word here. Did they perform the way they are “supposed to”? If you’re a Republican, I’ll bet your party upset you more than once. And if you’re a Democrat, I’ll bet the same thing.

Is that really a coincidence?

In these times, it’s really important not to run on autopilot anymore. The politicians have steered us and lead our nation to a cliff’s edge. Neither party could have done it without some consent of the other.

In spite of all their tricks and games, they really don’t know what they’re doing. Like the rest of us, they don’t see the big picture. They chose to ignore the real danger signs. They choose to shut their ears to the angry screams of the pubic. They chose to tell us what we want to hear instead. And try to bribe us with our own money in the form of “stimulus” and “benefits”. Funny, but when someone steals my wallet, I don’t consider it a benefit if they hand me a dollar back.

They want us to go with the flow. Keep our heads down. Trust in their wisdom. They want us to believe they are hope personified. That change is a good thing.

They can keep the change.

Reality is all that matters. All your opinions and theories are dust in the face of reality. Reality really doesn’t care if you think raising taxes and increasing government power is going to stimulate the economy. History says otherwise. History has shown the folly of such ways. Socialist countries only succeeded when they chucked socialism, not embraced it. China and India didn’t become economic powerhouses when they embraced Marxist principles. They succeeded when they abandoned them. America didn’t become more successful when they expanded the size of government and increased spending beyond our means. We went into decline.

Reality is a harsh teacher. Ask anyone over the age of 40. Because reality has kicked them. It starts slapping you around and pushing you like a schoolyard bully the older you get.

But politicians like to insulate themselves from reality. They like to use our money to fly in private jets while lecturing us on “carbon footprints,” to eat in fancy restaurants while lecturing us on our diets, to hire staffers so they can ignore our emails and calls. They want to tell us what reality is, but most of them are more deluded than we are. Most of us have to deal with reality, even though we’re often afraid to look it in the eye.

Frankly, we’re tired of being told what reality looks like by people who have no idea. People, like those reporters who sit in the green zone and tell us what Iraq’s “really like.” People like the screenwriters and filmmakers who preach to us their “reality” through their one-sided films and shows. People like the journalists whose political leanings have blinded their ability to see the truth.

It’s up to us to tell them. It’s up to us to remind them who pays their bills. We buy their products. We watch their shows. We got them elected.

They work for us. And we’re tired of their patronizing drivel. We’re the boss, not they.

And if they don’t get hip to reality fast, they’re going to find out what it really looks like up close and personal.

From what I hear, the view isn’t pretty.