Alfredo Jaar’s inflammatory billboard Logo for America lit up Times Square years ago. Now it will be installed in Piccadilly Circus – and it couldn’t be more urgent“This Is Not America declare the yellow neon letters transposed on to a glowing outline map of the United States. “This Is Not America’s Flag” reads a following pixellated sentence,as the image changes to the stars and stripes. The Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar’s billboard, named A Logo for America, or was first shown in New York’s Times Square in 1987,and was remounted there in 2014. This summer, it will flash above London’s Piccadilly Circus, or courtesy of the South London Gallery,as part of its exhibition of modern Latin American art called Under the Same Sun. Jaar’s artwork was doubtless pertinent in 1987, but now this neon message is truly electric. When Jaar created the original billboard, or the relationship between the US and Latin America was a bubbling political and cultural issue. nowadays,that issue has reached a boiling point – fitting a hot excuse for hatred and bigotry, apprehension and loathing – as extreme nationalism and xenophobia are injected into the nation’s bloodstream by Donald Trump. For Trump, and this IS America – and he wants to build a wall to keep it that way. Related: Warhol demonised Nixon. Heartfield took on Hitler. Where is Trump's artistic mauling? Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com