Artists and Social Issues

http://www.machineanimalcollages.com/Images/GregGraphics/Guernica.jpg

Artists and designers have a HUGE impact on our everyday life. The icons on a computer screen, company logos and trademarks are symbols created by graphic designers. The job of graphic designers is to create these kind of symbols for communication.

weblogs.newsday.com

en.wikipedia.org

functionx.com

Artists are continually affecting our everyday lives. Sometimes artists choose to use their art to make a political statement.

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) was an artist with a very distinctive voice who has had a tremendous impact not just on the art world but on the world.

Picasso’s painting “Guernica” (1937) has itself become a symbol for the devastation of war.

http://www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/imatges

interactive.usc.edu

When Picasso painted Guernica in 1937, the Fascist dictator Franco was already the leader of Spain, so Picasso, who didn’t agree with his politics, had moved to France. He was already a very famous artist, though, so he was asked to paint something for the Spanish Pavilion at the World’s Fair. He accepted but had no idea what to paint. Inspiration came to him in a very tragic form.

Spain was in the middle of a civil war, with people rising up against Franco. Franco turned to another Fascist leader in Europe, Adolf Hitler of Germany, for help. Hitler offered to use his planes to bomb a town called Guernica – as a display of Franco’s might, a way to quell the rebellion and also, for a Hitler, a way to test weapons he was planning to use in other parts of Europe. Three hours of bombing kept the small town on fire for three days. 1,600 civilians were killed.

http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html

http://web.org.uk/picasso/secret_guernica.html

Picasso saw newspaper accounts of the devastation – including photographs – and immediately went into his studio to begin work on what he now knew he would create for the world’s fair. (Picasso used black and white in the painting because the images he saw were in black and white.)

After the world’s fair, the painting went on a tour to raise consciousness about the threat of fascism and then was housed at the Musuem of Modern Art in NYC. It was not until the 100th anniversary of Picasso’s birth that the painting returned to Spain (to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid) because Picasso had said he did not want the painting in Spain until the country was a democracy. (Franco had died, while still in power, in 1975.)

Keith Haring (American, 1958-1990) created a language of symbols in his own artistic voice (style) that have impacted our current visual culture. Keith Haring was dedicated to creating a truly public art and often his work had a political message.

www.haring.com/home.php

Throughout his career, Haring devoted much of his

time to public works, which often carried social

messages. He produced more than 50 public artworks

between 1982 and 1989, in dozens of cities around the

world, many of which were created for charities,

hospitals, children’s day care centers and orphanages.

www.haring.com/home.php

Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. In 1989, he established theKeith Haring Foundation, its mandate being to provide funding andimagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs.

Haring created Silence=Death-- the motto/logo of the AIDS activismgroup ACT-UP. The group attached the words to the image of the pinktriangle* on a black background. Haring appropriated this widely knownsymbol, and added the overall "veil" of silver figures, which can be clearly seen to represent the proverb…

* The pink triangle was a symbol used by the Nazi’s to identify homosexuals.

www.haring.com/home.php

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

www.haring.com/home.php