Linda Vallejo, “Death of the Bush Era: What Next? Ask the Chinese..”
2008, Mixed Media Recycled Newspaper Collage, 21” x 25”

The SPARC Gallery has invited multi-media artists, from around the corner and around the world, to exhibit film, paintings, graphics, or sound works for SPARC’s exhibit “Death of the Bush Era: What Next?”  SPARC has once again summoned the power of art to inspire people to collectively mobilize towards social change. For over 30 years, SPARC’s progressive programs have stimulated dialogue and encouraged social and political inquiry. In keeping with SPARC’s philosophy, the exhibition seeks to foster awareness, exploration, and reflection on the times in which we live.  This multifaceted exhibition will examine the global transformation prompted by the eight-year George W. Bush administration, the upcoming election, economic recession, illegal immigration, and the Iraq war.

Artist Statement
Reading the newspaper and watching television are daily, mundane events, with images appearing in an incongruous mixture of toxic photographs, deadly headlines, frivolous advertisements and commercials, sexualized sales pitches, and mixed political messages.   The dichotomy of these unending images and curiously opposing thoughts creates a mixture of humor, disbelief, guilt, and horror, in part creating the postmodern psychological condition and conundrum and begging the question: “What next?”  Censored - The Death of the Bush Era:  What Next?...Ask the Chinese provides the humor needed to consider and grapple with these complex and confusing political and economic times.

SPARC
Social and Public Art Resource Center
685 Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
310-822-9560
www.sparcmurals.org/