At a certain point, you kind of have to wonder what the end goal is. What did Maine governor Paul LePage stand to benefit from taking down a painting in the state’s Labor Department building that glorifies the history of American workers?
For the record, here’s a piece of what Mainers aren’t going to get to see anymore when they’re getting their Labor Department errands done (you can click the image below to see the whole 36-foot piece):
LePage’s press secretary said that the governor feels that the 11 panel piece, which was painted by artist Judy Taylor in 2007 to represent the history of labor, is too sympathetic with labor. Also this, from HuffPo:
LePage’s office originally said that the governor made his decision after complaints from businesses owners, eventually pointing to a single anonymous letter, in which the author said that when looking at the mural, he or she felt like it was something from “communist North Korea.”
Sigh. Apparently, he’s looking to achieve a little visual parity in the building with the “side” of business, which apparently is not fairly done by works that honor the history of people working in them. That’s also why he called to rename the Labor Department’s conference rooms, which are labeled with the names of famous union leaders like Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers and — gasp! — Frances Perkins, the first woman to be appointed secretary in the U.S. cabinet who was Secretary of Labor in the 1930s-’40s.
The issue has its historical precedent, of course (and I’m not making the totalitarian jump that some are quick to launch into).
Artist Ben Wood, whose plan to recreate a centuries-old Ohlone mural on the Mission Market we covered in the paper a few weeks ago, made a short film on the Rockefeller Center Diego Rivera mural that was ordered removed because Rivera had snuck a portrait of Lenin into the fresco’s depicted multitudes.
Goes to show you how much we’ve progressed – now, you don’t even have to show Communist Party leaders, the reality and triumphs of working class people are enough to be considered unpalatable (and unfair?) by business leaders.
And don’t get me started on Italian street artist Blu’s dollar bill-draped coffins, whitewashed from a wall the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles a day after he painted the thing. Dead soldiers = not on our walls. Not mention a poorly-executed gambit by Vancouver, Canada to remove an anti-Olympic art installation on a gallery’s storefront.
“Man at the Crossroads” (here, a partial view of the mural) was not a big hit with the business set either
The removal of Blu’s MOCA piece incited artist protests
SF muralists, which side are you on? How does it make you feel to see this kind of thing happen to art?