Obamartmania

There's an orgy of art shows about Obama going on across the nation and I am a little overwhelmed by the huge number of galleries and venues which have all come up with the same idea of doing an art exhibition with BO as the subject.

In fact I'm even participating in one here in Philly myself; more on that later. I am in the process of creating my own Obama piece for that show.

The Man from Illinois, by Scott Seidman - At Manifest Hope DC
Around the DC region, from what I can gather from emails, buzz and talking to people, the Manifest Hope DC and the one at Heineman-Myers Contemporary Art seem to be the ones that people are talking about.

These kind of love-in art shows present a tremendous opportunity for artists looking for the cheap element of shock to help them gather their 15 minutes of fame. This is where an opportunist shockmeister can produce some really offensive artwork and exhibit it in the name of dissent. In this case, you don't even need an offensive work, just something against the huge pro Obama art tide.

Because we live in a free nation, and because people are people, and because the mainstream media only pays attention to art and artists when there's shock involved, someone exhibiting some anti-Obama artwork would make worldwide news in a sea of pro Obama artwork.

Artwork about Bush, at least what I saw in the last 8 years was 100% negative, and anti-Bush from the very beginning of his Presidency. I can't think of a single pro-Bush artist or work of art, and because logic tells me that not every artist in the world was anti Bush, I (perhaps with flawed logic) then deduce that no artist had the cojones to show his pro-Bush sentiment.

Artwork about Clinton always included a healthy mix of pro and con pieces.

But I seriously doubt that someone will have the cojones to create and exhibit any anti Obama work of art (at least not now). And because of that, they will miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to offend and be propelled to worldwide fame. Look what it did for Andres Serrano and Chris Offili! On the other side, no matter what those guys ever create, they will always be known for "Piss Christ" and "Virgin Mary."

We know you're out there.

Update: I forgot about Bailey.