9 Years Ago

Can Artwork Still Raise Awareness Amid Controversy Today?

I suppose I have always felt as if I was born a few decades late, but as a child I had always been captivated by the sense of power that emanated from WWII images of Rosie the Riveter, and photographs of soldiers putting their very lives at risk to aide captives of war, to the iconic images of the protesting flower children placing daisies in the muzzles of guns as a cry for peace. I am a native to St. Louis Missouri and have been shaken to the core while watching the news about the raids in Ferguson (and although I will not elaborate on my personal opinion aide from saying that I see a lot of lost souls looking for some "solid" thing that can represent an excuse to demonstrate such hatred for worldly recognition that has yet to make sense) I wonder where the art is? We as artists may or may not agree with or even care about a small town in MO that was never even heard of until a couple of months ago, but the world is up in arms...artist to artist...I ask you this: social media is both a curse and a blessing. Those that are too ADD to listen DO look...can we still make a difference if we express the greater picture for those who will not LISTEN to reason but may still SEE through art?

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Kevin OConnell

9 Years Ago

Hi Alexandria,
I agree, and applied for a war photographer job at Stars and Stripes a few time in the past. I think that emotion in art is captivating. Not taking pictures of dead people or bloody corpses, but the real live extreme emotions people have while doing something heroic or not so much. Interactions caused from bad and good situations.

Genninejj Genninejj

9 Years Ago

yes but i guess less notice or exposure. lots of other not very important thing spreads in social media like 'how this celebrity broke up with this celebrity.' if there are stil an artwork 'that make a change' the artist still needs to promote it himself.

Roy Erickson

9 Years Ago

Yes - the images from WWII in particular are "glorious" and "patriotic" - and they fail to show the real horror of war. There are few such images since - mostly because we don't really see the enemy as our enemy to destroy, a battle to win - nor are our men and women in uniform really "hero's", although some are truly hero's. But we don't win a war since WWII - we simply fight conflicts - political wars which aim is to change another culture to ours. We aren't really "proud" of our men in uniform and they don't seem to be very proud of the uniform either. Unless you live near a military base - when was the last time you saw a man or woman in their dress uniforms - unless it was a parade - and even then - often enough - they are in their 'working' cammo' uniform and they look like they could be from any other third world country.

Tamara Lee Madden

9 Years Ago

Yes it can! I just finished a series related to some recent events. One of the pieces got into a show in January and I am super excited to see the reactions. It is really important that this work is seen though it's not "pretty". I hope the other pieces will also find venues to be seen.

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