The Law of the Land, a particular view of SCOTUS

 Wikimedia / Jim Kuhm

In Light of a  number of recent rulings by the Supreme Court I felt compelled to reflect upon it in a piece of work. Not merely to focus on the rulings but also the institution itself and how it has seemingly become perhaps an idealogical bully pulpit now more than ever. Decisions, some 5-4 mind you, such as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission concerning campaign finance and determining that limits on corporate contributions to political campaigns were unconstitutional and AT&T Mobility vs. Concepcion concerning consumers rights to class action lawsuits against corporations show a somewhat scary tendency for the Roberts court to favor the rights of corporations over those of individuals. 

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins) 

Click here for the full quote

Seemingly this situation is not new except now one could say that the Supreme Court is complicit... 

 The Law of the Land, Steel, bone, 107cm x 55cm x 8cm, 2011

For those that insist on blanketing themselves in the constitution like any good fundamentalist I have this gem from one of the founding fathers himself, the venerable Benjamin Franklin.

"Mr. President: I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them; for having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others..."
  "...In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other...." 

  Benjamin Franklin, Reflections on the constitution written to the president in 1787. The situation we currently find ourselves in begs for reflection on the situation we currently find ourselves in. The full letter here

A bit of the enlightenment that Lincoln and Franklin brought to their discourse would also help.

For My peoples in Brazil: Voxel Edição Especial Zupi

The good folks at the publishers Zupi/Voxel in São Paulo have seen fit to include me in a special edition that they've published. Others involved in the magazine are Muti Randolph, Lagranja, Jestico +Whiles, STUDIO O+A, Rick Joy, and Haroshi. You can visit their web here Voxel. Focus is on Architecture, design, scenography, interior, product and furniture design...

Text Message

Text Message, Steel, Various Dimensions, 2009

Text Message (detail), Steel, Various Dimensions, 2009

Remember we used to write things?? :). Remember grammar? Remember penmanship? Naaaah forget penmanship it was never my thing. Regardless it seems today that most of the writing that get's done is electronic and I feel emoticonned. A couple years ago I did a text based piece for some friends and have been wanting to return to investigate it more since then. I have and this is the result... Text Message #1, a small note that you might leave or find on the kitchen counter, a pillow, etc... The possibilities are limitless.

detail

on the floor in the studio

And it's flexible!!! Here it is in the three line version in Diagonal!!!

A new text Piece

LOST Property: Granny walking through the Hood, Nick Waving his Hanky and other things you might catch in the neighborhood

Nick waving that hanky

Skepticism

New series, Kinda speaks for itself....

Taking it to the Banks revisiting Goya

"When They Come Looking For Their Money (They won't care if your Vasque, Catalan, Andalusian or Gallegan)", Steel, 287cm x120cm, 2007

Banks are a necessary evil. Banks provide individuals with opportunity's to finance projects that would otherwise be impossible. The new house, the new car, business development etc... In my opinion they almost always have some very unsavory business practices, business being the key word. After all it is a business and hence required to make money to survive. Regardless from my current situation in Spain not only in the banking industry (pieces on other Industries to come) I've found a number of practices that as I said before seem to me foul. I won't go into a litany of my grievances I'll let you use your own personal experiences to fill in the blanks.

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, 3rd of May 1808 in Madrid: The Executions on Prince Pio Mountain, 268 cm x 347 cm, Oil on Canvas, 1814

Goya's "3rd of May 1808" was my point of departure. It is a seminal work dealing with the execution of Spanish rebels outside of Madrid by Napoleanic forces that were occupying Spain at the time. And for me the work is very inspiring. Drama in lights and darks, composition and content. Goya is considered a national hero and this work a testament to Spanish courage in the face of adversity. I wanted to work with some of the same material but give it a contemporary slant.

Detail of the Executioners

In this particular instance the culprits are the banks and the victims the Spanish public. I'm certain banks are more or less the same the world over I just happen to live in Spain at the moment.

Sequestrados/ Hostages

Hostages, Series of 6, Steel, Mixed Media, 55cm x 20cm (each), 2007

This series has two objectives, the first was to capture in my language the desperation and the degradation that people who are sequestered are subjected to. This train of thought began from an image i saw as part of an article in the New Yorker. The article "Betrayed" by George Packer (New Yorker, 3/26/2007), is about the treatment of Iraqi's who have been playing support roles for the american army during the war there and how the american army or certain elements of it have come to make life impossible and excedingly dangerous for these people. In the article appears an absolutely gruesome and appalling image (above) of an unidentified man's body that has been left discarded on a roadside trash heap. This image haunted me and made me think about the liberties that we so often take for granted without having to fear that someone was going to drag us out of the house in the middle of the night off to the local garbage dump for a bullet in the back of the head.

photo by Christoph Bangert

The image ingrained itself into my head almost to the point of obsession, one thing was obvious I wanted to work with the image. I scanned the image and did a drawing and at the moment it's still in progress but you can see it in it's current state below. I like it's current representation beacause it's not immediately evident what it is and hence the viewer has to work a bit to determine the material.

work in progress, steel, jute

From this point of departure I continued to develop my line of thinking but limit it to people being sequestered not assassinated. It's all to often that when the news roles around we are confronted by some journalist, public figure, or just some innocent bystander bound and gagged with some armed revolutionary guards standing heavily armed close by. Mind you this is not a practice that is solely exercised in the middle east nor is it my intention to focus on any given region. My ambition is simply to introduce the brutality of these images into another arena in hopes of giving the viewer an opportunity to digest and reflect on these situations in a different manner. It is in no way my meaning to trivialize these occurences. The following images were taken from photos that I made of people in my studio and any resemblance to other images of a similar nature is coincidental and due to the subject matter.

Hostage #3, Steel, Jute, Plastic bag, 55cm x 22cm, 2007

Consumer advocacy or the lack there of

Hostage #1 The Stupid Consumer (El Consumidor Estupido) , Steel, Jute, Fabric, 55cm x 22cm, 2007

Hostage #1 brings me to the second agenda i have while developing these series. Hostage #1 is a piece that developed when i reflected on how everyday citizens are often, through misinformation, clever marketing, half truths, simple oversight, under education and sometimes just sheer stupidity are duped into situations where they are legally bound to something that is not in their best interest. In a sense held hostage. My specific focus now is in Spain because that is my current experience. Here I feel there is no tradition of safeguarding consumer rights and it is well documented that Spain lags behind in opening up certain markets to 'real' competition. This maintains a sort of government approved monopoly where the consumer is held hostage to the whatever power happens to be in control in that particular industry and whatever price they value there product at. Recently the european union overstepped the spanish telecommunications regulatory commission and fined Telefonica, the local 'Grande' in telcom, over 150 million euros for what it saw as unfair market practices concerning the the provision of Bandwith to it's customers. That leaves alot to the imagination as to the links between Telefonica and the local regulatory commission in charge of monitoring it's practices.
Recently in the region of Catalunya, whose capital is Barcelona, after a fire in an electric substation vast areas of the city were left without light for days on end. It has come to light that the whole system is dangerously inadequate for the demands that are placed upon it and that the local power company could almost be considered criminally negligent in allowing the situation to degrade to such an extent. Hospitals, public transport, traffic signaling systems, etc. were all left without power and a series of flatbed generators had to be placed in strategic points across the city to serve as a makeshift solution. generators that emit more noise than legally allowed in public spaces as well as compromising the air quality as they are all diesel generators. One would think if they don't give you choice they should at least provide stability. Thousands of people and businesses were compromised to the point where the government had to step in and oblige compensation for those affected. On one side one could argue that perhaps prices need to be raised to maintain the upkeep of the system, on the other side one could argue for more transperency and truly effective regulatory commissions that provide the security and confidence that paying customers deserve. This work is by no means meant to devalue the experience of people who are forcibly and violently held beyond their will worldwide. It is meant to draw a strong parallel between such actions with those of organizations that have an obligation to provide basic necessities but through the application of what could be considered sinister business practices are responsible for the degradation of millions of peoples lives.