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Re: Big ugly Helms posters
Although I haven't seen these posters, based on what I've read in the
press they appear to be the work of "guerilla artist" Robbie Conal (the
guy from LA who did the "Artificial Art Official" posters last time Helms
ran).
Ross wrote:
> Of course, one silver lining to this would be if we all discovered that
> the guy who did the posters had received NEA money at some point. tee
> hee hee hee. That would, you know, rule and stuff.
According to http://users.aol.com/claywalk/pnb1.html (which is a
transcription of a documentary film about the guy), he specifically says
he never received NEA bucks (he claims to do this out of his own pocket).
Yet, the documentary about him (which seemed to uncritically slobber over
his art and guerilla tactics), received funding from the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting.
Richard wrote:
> Moral of the story: posters, no matter how attention-getting
> and overloaded with symbolic significance, are usually an ineffective way
> of passing along useful political information, but they make the people
> who *make them* feel really good, which is why they always keep extra
> copies to hang on the walls of their own houses to show off to their
> friends.
In the documentary Conal denies that his work has any political efficacy
whatsoever and, yeah, if you read between the lines of a lot of his
comments, he mostly does it to feel good and to show off.
jr