Tuesday, December 06, 2005

"Sometimes you just have to make people laugh."

Art Captures a City's Tumult and Renewal - New York Times:
"Mr. Holmes also created a street memorial featuring molded black Styrofoam heads placed on stakes and called 'Field of Silent Screams.' It was meant as a tribute to black residents in the impoverished Lower Ninth Ward who cried out futilely for help. But, he said, National Guard troops dismantled the exhibit one night, a consequence risked by many artists who created their works in the street.One guy said, 'Some of my troops find it offensive, and it might be construed as racist,' ' Mr. Holmes said. 'I said, 'Excuse me, you don't know me, the dynamics of my neighborhood, the friends that I lost.' '

Not all of their posthurricane work has been so brooding. After the storm, Ms. Garland draped an abandoned city bus with moldy fabric and spray-painted the message 'This is not a Christo.'

'Sometimes,' she said, 'you just have to make people laugh.'"

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