Rockwell Re-enlisted for a Nation’s Darker Mood

[groovedaddy]

AVENTURA, Fla. — Elliott Earls’s reinterpretation of Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” practically screams. A little girl seems to be crying, her eye bruised, with an American flag in the background and two words framing her figure: “Liberty Weeps.” The color scheme is red, white and blue, but patriotic pride has been supplanted by sadness.

“She is begging us with her eyes to take responsibility for our actions as a nation,” Mr. Earls said of his creation in an e-mail message. “And to live up to the greatness embedded in our social fabric by the brilliance of our founding fathers.”

Clearly, Rockwell’s America this is not. It is Sunday afternoon at the Aventura Mall in South Florida, and I’ve come to gauge the impact of a handful of images displayed in 14-foot-high posters near Nordstrom. Culled from a surprising new exhibition at the Wolfsonian museum at Florida International University titled “Thoughts on Democracy,” they are all artists’ responses to Rockwell’s wartime “Four Freedoms” series.

Sixty artists contributed to the show. But their creations bear little resemblance to the Rockwell paintings, which helped raise $133 million for the war effort in 1943 after the government turned them into posters. There is no folksy man standing up to speak his opinion (exemplifying “Freedom of Speech”), no devout group praying (“Freedom of Worship”) no wholesome family sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal (“Freedom From Want”).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/arts/design/09rock.html?th&emc=th

[Ian David]

1. Some of the posters apparently come from freepers. n/t