What is “Abraham Obama” ?
“Abraham Obama” is an artwork by Ron English. It is a image that blends the face of the presumptive unofficial Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with the icon, bearded visage of Abraham Lincoln. The effect is subtle. At first glance, the image appears to simply be a portrait of Abraham Linclon. Then the viewer registers an oddity within the image, an imperfection which is a substitution. The eyes and facial structure of Obama seems to grow out of the icon of Lincoln.
“Abraham Obama” was commissioned by William Kerr, owner of Gallery XIV in Boston, Massachusetts for a show entitled “A Politic.” The original work, a small black white portrait, was enlarged and reproduced 11 times at a height of 12 feet. It was simultaneously treated with a Warholesque color scheme with foreground and background colors changing at the rate of a parabola.
The enlargements were mounted on sold wood staging located across Thayer Street from Gallery XIV.
Additionally, individuals posted smaller reproductions of “Abraham Obama” around Boston’s South End.
What “Abraham Obama” is is an open question. What composes the image is not the same as what the image represents. To that effect, we at abrahamobama.com challenge you, our digital visitor to tell us what you think the image means.
That dialog, between art, politics, and individuals, is what artist Ron English has said the work is really all about.
Comments
Pingback from Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí » Obama, el icono
Time: August 7, 2008, 10:22 am
[...] ver en la exposición “Abraham Obama 2008″ de la Gallery XIV de Boston. Una obra de Ron English que que combina los ojos y la estructura facial de Obama con el icono del presidente Lincoln, cuyo [...]
Comment from W
Time: November 6, 2008, 3:57 pm
Cheap trick to get everyone talking, which pretty much sums up art in general. Works most of the time, whether the art is good or bad. The pieces or works that truly stand out, not only get people talking, but thinking too. There’s much that is remarkable about Barak’s ascendency and indeed, election to the White house. Because the demands of the Oval office are pretty much the same, if not greater today than in Lincoln’s days, it is natural and to some obvious, that one would juxtapose the potrait of the future president over the old. History as they say, turning full circle, and underlining the old adage, “The more things change the more they seem the same.” But going back to the image, I think only one adage that springs to mind is “The more it appears radical, the more it feels contrived.”
Now that Obama’s been elected, the novelty will soon wear off, and the image will lose a lot of it’s resonance and in time the importance of it all eclipsed by some future event we’ve all seen in the past.
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