'Bush Monkeys' painting transforms young artist

[No Mandate Here.]

<http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04355/429620.stm>





Two weeks ago, Chris Savido, who grew up in the Pittsburgh suburbs, was just another young artist in New York City trying to get by, working a day job at a jewelry store and painting in his free time.

One painting changed all that.

"Bush Monkeys," a portrait of the president made up of dozens of primates swimming in a marsh, enraged the manager of a upscale market with gallery space in lower Manhattan, pushing him to shut down the entire 60-piece show last weekend. Savido, 23, became a one-man First Amendment cause overnight.

Digital images of the painting have been distributed on the Internet by media outlets across the world, from Reuters to the New York Times to Al Jazeera to an Australian radio station.

<lots more>

Do you get the impression that, if this had not been censored, it would have not made any news? Hopefully the first in a long series of actions that will reach up and bite the fundies in the rear end.

[pnutchuck]

1. Love it!!

I'm an artist living and working in Paris, France. Unfortunately, there is a large anti-Bush sentiment here so I doubt any of my left-wing paintings will get the same attention. I love it when artists receive this kind of attention, it brings our work to the spotlight. Good for him, and I hope he sells it for millions!!!

[Skittles]

2. conservatives always bring attention to the stuff they want to censor

stupid f***ing assholes

[clydefrand]

3. I hope he gets rich!

[MarianJack]

5. I Hope That He Gets SOOOO Rich...

...that president moron gives him a tax cut!

[Lorien]

9. It was up for $3,500, but now he'll auction it:

(snip)

Savido has decided to auction the painting, and he is thinking about giving some of the money to a free speech organization. But, not willing to back down from controversy, he's also considering using the money to buy bulletproof vests for soldiers in Iraq.

(snip)

[itzamirakul]

4. The Chelsea Market is just an old warehouse

that has been "gentrified" i.e., floors polyurethaned, brick walls dusted down, but everything that makes it a warehouse has been left in place. This is the kind of place that the newly rich come to spend their money on overpriced muffins and coffee. I used to go to the warehouse when it held surplus items that were free to arts organizations and was still dirty. But now it is clean, trendy and EXPENSIVE. The "gallery" is just a room tto which a front window has been added. Inside, the old brick walls, old pipes and beams and old wooden floors, now highly polished. Thousands of workers labored in these buildings for little money at one time or another. But now, it is the place to be. Seems to me that some of the "new" stars who flock there could speak out about this situation.

Come on, P.Diddy, Paris Hilton, J. LO and the rest of you who sport million dollar watches and diamond-encrusted telephones - why not speak up in favor of a fellow artist and refuse to visit the Chelsea Market if the manager does not change his policy?

I for one will write to the Chelsea Market and tell them that I will not shop there anymore (even though I usually just walk through it on my way to the bus stop).

[s-cubed]

6. So put your minds around this idea: what kind of quirky thing

would get media attention? If we can't get attention to a legitimate story of election fraud, is there some aspect of the story that we are not pushing? For example, Katrina's car was run off the road, and last I heard 2 people were misssing: are they really missing? If so, this begins to look like the Silkwood case. Missing people is hard evidence of something not being right, which might give the media the excuse they need to start publishing.

I hate to be so cynical about good people who have been scared to death, but maybe we have to think like the media? Can anyone think of a good angle? We're the "reality-based community" fighting the "if you say if often enough and with enough conviction" it becomes the reality.

I'm serious about this: any ideas?

[nashville_brook]

7. i'm going to my studio to work on my Piss Bush!

[prodigal_green]

8. Staff at the Brooklyn Museum

were really sad when Giuliani left--during the British show that featured, among many far more controversial works, a piece by Chris Ofili of the Virgin Mary, whose breasts were made from elephant dung, the fascist's protestations brought out the largest crowds the museum had ever seen.

Pretty much any time you can piss off the right, the arts community will ultimately win.

One of the best art shows I ever saw was the Degenerate Art exhibition in Chicago back in the 1990s. It was a recreation of the show that the Nazi government paraded around Germany during the 1930s to show how evil Jewish and Communist artists were. Fantastic works that outlived the 1000 year reich.