Answers and Explanations
#1. This street art piece relates to the financial crisis of 2008, which resulted in the threat of total collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and downturns in stock markets around the world. The artist is expressing his or her outrage that while the banks who engaged in risky behavior were bailed out with financial assistance, the common person who might have also had economic distress due to these conditions got no assistance.
#2. This street art piece relates to the "Occupy Wall Street" protest movement that began on September 17, 2011, in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district. The Star Wars character Yoda is giving his language-reversed version of the protestors' slogan "We are the 99%."
#3. This stencil graffiti image is based on the photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his "I Have A Dream" speech on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. You can see a comparison between the stencil graffiti image and the original photograph below.
#4. The title of this sculpture explains it all: "Depression Bread Line." Bread lines during the Great Depression provided relief to people in terms of food assistance. They were funded by either the government, charitable institutions, or churches. They were given free to countless homeless and jobless people. You can see an actual photograph of a bread line below; it's interesting to note that despite being in the midst of a Depression, the men arriving on line for the hand-outs still dressed in suits and hats.
#5 and #6. Both the painting and the sculptures depict Osama Bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), who was the founder of al-Qaeda, the Sunni militant Islamist organization that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the United States, along with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets.
As to the meaning of the word "Who?" on Brian Leo's painting, we can only speculate; what do you think? Is he downplaying the importance of Osama Bin Laden? Is he sarcastically referring to Bin Laden's notoriety? Is he suggesting that we will soon forget about Bin Laden?
As far as Wang Du's sculptures, it has been noted that much of his work has focused on the relationship between the media and the public consciousness, and on the artificial controls and manipulation imposed by the media. You may have noticed all of the photocopied news articles about Bin Laden that are littered on the floor surrounding these sculptures, and perhaps the large number of sculptures of the same person reflects Du's belief that the extreme media coverage distorts our perception of Bin Laden.
Extra Credit Assignment: Pick a topic in the news today, and make your own statement via a political art work of your own creation ... and then see if your fellow students can identify your topic.
