Cf.
"Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984,"National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, Ed. Joyce Battle, February 25, 2003:<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/>.
***** Polish Artist Krzysztof Wodiczko creates art by projecting images upon the monumental architecture found in large cities. His ephemeral projection pieces last only a night or two, but they reclaim the city streets as places for discussion and heated debate. In the image directly above <http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Krzysztof/krzy.htm>, the Artist projected a photograph upon the domed Centro Cultural Theatre of Tijuana. The domed theater is where a documentary tracing the history of Mexican civilization is screened daily. The projection's theme was the undocumented Mexican workers who risk their lives to cross into the United States in search of jobs. The image used in the projection shows a Mexican Worker with his hands clasped behind his head, as if being arrested by La Migra (the INS).
The Artist spent half his life behind "the Iron Curtain" and the other half in Canada and the United States, so he has a well developed critique of power and it's abuses. The Artist's early projection pieces utilized regular slide projectors placed on the ground, but with time more powerful projectors were used from flatbed trucks or scaffolds. Wodiczko's Art is profoundly democratic. It forces the viewer to reexamine the function of architecture and to reconsider the political nature of the steel and concrete caverns of commerce that make up large cities.
In 1987 the Artist projected a controversial image onto the Martin Luther Church in Kassel Germany, one of the few buildings to have survived the allied bombings of World War II. It was a great irony that in 1987 the city of Kassel experienced an "evacuation alert" due to the threat of industrial pollution from nearby factories. Some months after that alert, the Artist projected upon the Church the image shown at right. The artwork is of a person praying in a hazardous materials protective suite. Deeply influenced by the German Photomontage Artist, John Heartfield, Surrealism, and the French Situationists of the late 1950's, Wodiczko said this about his projections. "The attack must be unexpected, frontal, and must come with the night when the building, undisturbed by its daily function, is asleep and when it's body dreams of itself. This will be a symbol-attack, a public, psychoanalytical seance, unmasking and revealing the unconscious of the building, it's body, the medium of power."
The Artist's projection on a Church in Germany: <http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Krzysztof/krzy.htm>
The Artist's Gulf War projection in Spain: <http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Krzysztof/krzy.htm>
The projection at left <http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Krzysztof/krzy.htm> was made in Madrid Spain just days after the outbreak of the first Gulf War, in January 1991. The images were beamed onto the triumphal arch celebrating the victory of Fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Wodiczko projected a pair of death hands... one grasping an M-16 machine gun, the other a gas pump nozzle. At the top of the arch the question ¿Cuantos? (How much?), was projected. In a 1988 interview, Krzysztof Wodiczko said this of his projections. "My work reveals the contradiction of the environment and the events actually taking place there. It is to do with politics of space and the ideology of architecture. City centers are political Art Galleries."
<http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Krzysztof/krzy.htm> *****
Krzysztof Wodiczko: <http://architecture.mit.edu/people/profiles/prwodicz.html>
***** Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projections Transforming Façades of Buildings into Political, Public Art
The image of a homeless person materializes on a Boston war monument. A swastika suddenly appears on the South African Embassy in London. A city watches skeletal hands play a tuneless dirge on a war museum in Pittsburgh. These are just some of the controversial `projections' created by Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko, who transforms buildings and structures into political, public art. This documentary intercuts scenes of Wodiczko preparing a public projection in Jerusalem in 1991 with other projections in Europe and North America. Each reflects the artist's involvement in a broad range of political issues: a blistering attack in Edinburgh on Margaret Thatcher's economic policies; a reflection on American-Canadian free trade at a Toronto water filtration plant; a street-level protest against the problem of homelessness in New York through a controversial prototype mobile shelter. Interestingly, the only site where Wodiczko is denied permission for a projection is Montreal, at the Promenades de la Cathédrale, despite his participation in the city's Cent Jours d'Art Contemporain. This innovative film reflects the personal and political aspects of Wodiczko's art.
Krzysztof Wodiczko The Border Projection, Part Two, at Centro Cultural Tijuana
Download clip Download (MPEG1 - 10.44 M) Clips available for various connection speeds: Low modem speed (164 K): <http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/section/36/666.htm> Medium modem speed (235 K): <http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/real/666_28.ram> Higher speed connections (709 K): <http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/real/666_90.ram>
View entire film (High speed only. 48.66 M): <http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/preview/666.ram> . . . .
Credits Director/Scenario Derek May National Film Board of Canada
55 minutes Color Recommended audience age range 14-adult
<http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/section/36/666.htm> ***** -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>