I’m not much of an opera fan, but because friend Rachel was singing in the chorus I managed to take in the final performance of this year’s  Lowell House production: Otello.

The  Verdi opera itself doesn’t have much of a story (Rachel says it cuts back on the complexity of the Shakespearean drama to the point where it’s just the villain Iago planting the lovely Desdemona’s handkerchief in the home of his rival Cassio’s home in order to provoke her husband’s Otello’s jealousy-so I found myself thinking that,  if it weren’t for the music, there wouldn’t be  much there.

But the music was spectacular. Even before the opera started,  the tuning up phase brought palpable energy and anticipation to  the audience. And throughout, the orchestra, a mix of student and professional musicians  conducted by  Channing Yu (who,  in his other life, an attending physician at a Boston teaching  hospital) played dramatical clashes and soothing lows that provided a vibrant backdrop for wonderful singing by both professional  musicians and students.

I was particularly entranced  by Andrew Young, who played the villain Iago so well that he was  booed, during his graceful bow, at the end). I felt that his powerful performance upstaged Brian Landry’s  Otello, who, along with Malynda Davis, gave excellent performances–as did a slightly weaker Andre De Mesquita, playing Cassio. The principals, who also included Ana Ugarte as Emilia, John Erban, as Lodvico, an James Liu, as Montano, and DJ Robinson, as Roderego,  were backed up by an enthusiastic (if slightly hard-to hear) chorus–including the soprano Rachel who appeared to be dressed as a boy.

I never thought I was in Venice or at the Met, but the vibrancy and professionalism of the production and the performers far surpassed what I’d expected to hear–especially  in a college dining hall.

I was happy to join  a well-deserved standing ovation offered by the sold-out crowd.

Obama-hope poster

Yesterday, I returned  to the Shepard Fairey Exhibit at the ICA–this time, with visitors from out of town.

We were impressed with how prolific Fairey has been, with the precision and beauty of his images, and  with his complex, ironic juxtaposition of past and present. (His backgrounds include a lot of old newspaper clippings and many references to art forms of the past).

In one work, Fairey selectively uses and amplifies portions of the American dollar bill–included an eye, which I’d never noticed until Jessie pointed it out; a man carrying a briefcase of money in one hand and flowers in the otherm and a woman, probably his wife, carrying a small missile in her arms.  A caption reads: “No cents.”

This time, I studied the controversial Obama “Hope” poster, which, from across a large room DOES look like a colorized version of the copyrighted Associated Press photograph on which it was based.

But on closer inspection, in this version,  it becomes  clear  that Fairey has greatly transformed the photo, which he uses in a provocative interchange with the colors, images, slogans, stencils,  newspaper clippings and other elements  typical of  (and original to) his work.

Black “brushstrokes” highlighting Obama’s facial features serve as a frame for those elements, which in turn, provide the color, shading and chiseled shaping of Obama’s head.

As a result,  the poster becomes a figure-ground study portraying many past events, conflicts and dilemmas that brought the US to the crises with which Obama is grappling, today.

The poster’s  intertwining of past and present with the Obama image bring a definite irony to the slogan “Hope.” (One of the newspaper headlines in the background reads:”Congress Blames Hoover for Having No Sense of Humor).

Donna  pointed out that  the portrait  is yet another example of  Fairey’s overriding message: how the slogans, art and icons of advertising are used  to move us to obey–whether the order be “buy”, “peace”,  “shoot” or “hope.”

Fairey employs the same techniques for his portraits of Martin Luther King and other political leaders, musicians, artists and even one of a Campbell’s soup can–  referencing and repeating the work of Andy Warhol, whose photography-based work, like Fairey’s,  used  advertising’s methods  to comment on and exhibit the medium’s power.

Regarding Fairey’s recent arrest for illegally postering public property: Nancy (who happens to be a judge) and I wondered what controversy would arise if  his work were posted as paid-for advertising–to sell what some might view as subversive, anti-establishment or  propagandist ideas.

She later commented “Fairey seeks to reframe the constitutional debate so that artistic expression/speech is favored over commercial speech/intellectual property”.

Doree questioned whether Fairey’s work is political commentary  or art.   I’d have to say: it’s both.

Comments welcome!

AMH

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA.

Shepard Fairey and poster

Kudos to Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art for mounting a spectacular 20-year restrospective of Shepard Fairey’s work–which opened for members on Feb. 4, 2009.

Entitled  “Supply and Demand,”  the show, which runs through August 16, 2009,  includes some 200 stickers, posters, portraits, and murals, including the now iconic Barack Obama “Hope” poster which has found its way all over the world.

The show  traces Fairy’s work  to the 1980s when, as a teenager in Charleston, South Carolina, he was attracted to counter-cultures like skateboarding and punk rock–and their stickers–and began making his own.

As a student at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1988,  Fairey instructed a friend in making a paper cut stencil using an image of Andre the Giant, who a popular figure in the World Wrestling Federation, am  ICA handout explains.  The two then paired the face with the phrase “Andre the Giant has a posse,”  and over the next six years, produced more than a million hand-printed and cut stickers, which Fairey sent to friends who posted them all over the US.

(On a huge campaign billboard, he also used one to cover the face of then-Providence mayor Buddy Cianci, who says sheepishly in an accompanying video that this disturbed him because it was defacing property. It’s all the funnier in hindsight, knowing that Cianci was later jailed on corruption charges).

Toward the end of the 1990s,  Fairey started to challenge what the ICA calls the “corporate advertising machine…He asks  us to consider whether the so-called ‘public space’ is really public.

“Most advertising takes an ‘in your face’ approach to sell or influence consumers. Fairey’s Obey giant campaign–which features the word “obey” and other slogans [on a variety of images ]sells nothing but its mysterious imagery, ambiguity and underground appeal  has made passers-by worldwide question the visual noise that crowds our streets”–as well as the insidious advertising messages used to command us.

One large room features portraits–some of which  incorporate the “obey” command.  One print portrays George W. Bush as a vampire, with blood running out of his mouth.  Other portraits feature musicians, guerilla leaders, gang members,  Muslim women, and additional political leaders.

A highlight is  Fairey’s iconic “Hope” portrait of Barack Obama, which “has spread like a virus on TV, in print and online, on t-shirts and buttons, and guerilla-style on streets all over the globe.”

The poster seems particularly poignant with Obama, now in his third week as President,   facing not only a terrible economic situation and two wars, but also the disintegration of a seemingly promising leadership team whose members betrayed him and us for personal greed.

The exhibit, co-curated by guest curator Pedro Alonzo and Emily Moore Bouillet, former assistant curator at the ICA, and sponsored by Levi-Strauss culminates with a set of four stunning, intricately designed,  murals.

Commissioned by the ICA, the murals, along with  the other components and the exhibit as a whole  are inspirational.

Not only do they each  convey provocative messages about individuals’ relationship to power and commerce,  but they  embody and communicate  an individual’s ability to  follow his creative instincts and passion to achieve artistic and, ironically,  commercial success.

*

Having arrived on time for the opening, I didn’t have to wait in line–but in a lovely wine reception on the second floor, was told that people who  got there early had to stand outside in the cold until the official opening time. in leaving, at around 8 PM, I had to cut around long, winding lines of people in the lobby who were waiting to sign in.

My only beef  was the lack of beef…the wine was fine, but my companion, Mark H. and I would have appreciated a few chips to go along with it.  Next time, I’ll definitely arrive on time–and eat before I go.

AMH

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA.