Never Mind the Card–Say It With a Stamp
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Artist provocateur Michael Hernandez de Luna has been creating his own faux stamps for years. In the fall of 2003, he writes in a wall label, he invited 47 artists from 11 countries to “reveal to us what they see as Evil.” The 127 stamp sheets in the exhibit target Hitler, suicide bombers, pedophile priests, and Pol Pot, among other subjects. Even a stamp that’s unambiguous on the surface can be misunderstood. Markus Greiner’s Citizen John Ashcroft has been described by the Sun-Times and the New York Times as showing the former attorney general’s face fashioned from “images of naked bodies at Abu Ghraib.” But the artist created his fleshy assemblage before the scandal broke, partly from a photo of Ashcroft’s face and partly from pictures of body fragments found on the Internet. Annoyed at this misinterpretation of his work, Greiner says using Rumsfeld would have been more appropriate if he’d wanted to comment on the torture at Abu Ghraib.
The most moving piece here, also by Brandtner, Collateral Damage serves as a reminder that 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, at least according to one estimate. Pointedly designed in the style of U.S. commemorative stamps with multiple images of a celebrated event on a single sheet, this antiheroic commentary includes six depictions of badly injured civilians.
Jackie Tileston
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Fred Camper.
