Dear MoveOn member,
....
Barack Obama's historic candidacy has sparked an unprecedented artistic outpouring. Now, in partnership with Shepard Fairey and his Obey Giant collective, we're offering a new way for artists—anyone with a pen and paper qualifies—to share their talents and help elect Barack Obama at the same time.
It's called Manifest Hope, and it's a new Obama art contest for 2D and 3D art, from painting to photography to sculpture. The winners will be shown at the Manifest Hope Gallery online and in Denver during the Democratic convention alongside works from dozens of established and influential artists.
If you think you might want to enter, or want updates on the contest, please let us know here:
http://pol.moveon.org/mh/signup/?id=13385-6955748-P9AQxMx&t=3
If not, can you pass this on to friends of yours who might be interested?
Anyone can enter. You don't have to be Picasso, you just need to be inspired by Barack Obama and willing to donate your creativity and time to the cause.
But you need to get started soon. The final submissions deadline is August 18th at 11:59 a.m. ET. That's not much time to conceive and create a piece of art, so get started today.
All submissions will be judged by a distinguished panel of judges—artists from Obey Giant, contemporary art curators, and multi-talented musicians. Finalists will be asked to auction off their pieces, and donate the proceeds to progressive organizations.
Denver will be buzzing during the convention, but this gallery is going to be one of the coolest places to visit there. Plus, the gallery's going to have an amazing party with live performances by Death Cab For Cutie, Moby, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
We're not going to send any more emails to the full MoveOn list before the submission deadline. So if there's any chance you might be interested, you have to sign up for contest updates now:
http://pol.moveon.org/mh/signup/?id=13385-6955748-P9AQxMx&t=4
Thanks for all you do.
–Peter, Karin, Laura, Ilyse and the rest of the team
P.S. It's okay to enter a piece of art you've already created, as long as you're willing to offer it up for auction if it becomes a finalist. If you're ready to enter right now, you can upload your entry here:
http://pol.moveon.org/mh/enter/?id=13385-6955748-P9AQxMx&t=5
Counterlight, calling Counterlight! Please answer your page, Counterlight!
Am I a terrible old cynic for finding this amusing? Perhaps I'm jealous because I have no talent for art.
I will certainly vote for Obama. This is part of MoveOn's mighty effort to drum up excitement about the presidential race and get out the vote. It's vital that folks go out to vote and get others to vote, so that we don't make our third terrible mistake in a national election and end up with John McWorse as our president.
By all means, if any of you out there have talent and want to submit artwork, use these links. Even though I find the email amusing, I'm publishing this as a public service for those of you who do not get MoveOn's emails.
Note: The hyperlinks went bad, so I removed them and pasted in the web addresses.
I think the Obama campaign is smart enough not to commission pictures from me. This is why the guys in ad firms get paid the big salaries to make already hip Obama look hipper, but not too hip so that he doesn't threaten or alienate the squares. It's a very fine line to walk.
ReplyDeleteI predict that most of the entries will look like rehashed Warhol or Chuck Close. The really hip will do rehashed Gerhard Richter.
What they'd get from me and my space-cadet brand of classicism might look like all the campaign pictures made for this guy. I don't think that will help them.
I'll just vote for him, and if the great snooty and cheap goddess Academia is good to me this fall, I'll send him a little money.
I don't think Obama would appreciate being portrayed as Our Great Comrade, The Father of All Progressive Ideas.
ReplyDeleteI once worked for a big national painting and restoration firm here in New York in the early 90s shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. All the commercial painting companies were snapping up these ex-Soviet artists flooding into New York. We had a bunch of them at the place where I worked, including one who was a big Hero of Socialist Realism back in the former Soviet Republic of Moldavia, and was now a nobody over
here. I remember we got a big job to do a series of murals for some big restaurant for the political classes in Washington DC. I sometimes think it must have been the dining room of the Heritage Foundation because it was for a series of really old style propaganda pictures complete with gushy patriotic reflections on Just How Great America Really Is. They were written all over images of baseball players, family picnics, soldiers raising the Flag, etc. The job got farmed out to that group of former Soviet painters who all exclaimed how easy the job was, and how it was just like what they used to do in Russia. Only now, instead of painting Lenin, Brezhnev, collective farmers, and factory workers, they would be painting Washington, Reagan, family farmers, and autoplant workers in exactly the same style. How's that for a Post Modern experience! It says a whole lot about the true nature of The Cold War if you ask me.
Counterlight, you should check out where those murals are. I wouldn't mind seeing them myself - or pictures of them.
ReplyDeleteRe Obama, I think you could do it, but would you want your name on it afterward?
The propaganda posters from WWII are the ones that stand out in my memory.
Obama wants you!
I didn't work on those murals. I was put to work on something else at the time, and I don't remember what that was/
ReplyDeleteOh, well OK.
ReplyDelete