Holy names and master races, the art of Richard Prairie Posner

By Jason Pitzl-Waters and Jacqueline Enstrom-Waters

In ancient civilizations, public art consisted of larger than life statues of gods, heroes of war – the titans of their culture and times. Plazas, the hubs of these past great cities, were littered with stone carvings of the men that had shaped history and held great power over the populous. In our modern times, public art is more commonly abstract, studies in shapes and angles, interesting yet inoffensive to all who pass by. In comparison, UIUC visiting artist Richard Posner might have to be called a classicist. His works portray the symbols of our modern ‘titans,’ governments and corporations, as well as some of our ‘gods’, in the midst of our public spaces with unique twists that challenge us to look at our relationships with these monolithic powers.

Posner, a Fullbright scholar and NEA fellow, is known throughout America and Europe for his bold and often controversial art. As a public artist, he has a history of examining the role of institutions and the way they interact with the public.

One of the American institutions Posner has put under his artistic microscope is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Two giant black and white barcodes line the asphalt between the parking lot and main facility at the FDA Headquarters in Bothell, Washington. Hundreds of government workers and visitors walk over these black and white images every day with the words “buyer beware” and “hands off” written under them in Latin. Also imprinted under these images are the date Congress passed the original Pure Food and Drugs Act and the date of the building’s dedication. The images are evocative and unavoidable. The interpretation is left up to the viewer; is the image meant to honor the serious work done by this powerful government organization or to ridicule the corporatization of the drug industry?

At the Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Center Posner tackles another of the powerful forces or, ‘gods,’ of our time, War. Posner designed the lobby of the medical center entirely from textured glass blocks. Centered in one of these walls of glass is a hearth filled with a “fire” made from mirrored slats that reflect to the viewer a static linoleum-cut image of crackling logs and flame. In place of the traditional large landscape painting or portrait found above the family fireplace there is an image, created by more mirrored slats, of a man pushing a plow through the earth and a woman walking behind sowing seed as you enter the center. Yet, when you leave the center, the image above the hearth is suddenly very different; a man, sword drawn, marches off to war and another man and woman in uniform stand at attention as he passes. The myth of Cinncinnatus, a Roman soldier who chose to return to farming when offered the position of general, is portrayed in these flip flopping images. Yet, behind the telling of this myth are questions; does the piece imply our government institutions welcoming soldiers home to more fulfilling lives or our government institutions eagerly sending our men and women off to war?

In the early nineties, Posner came to the attention of the American media with his “Hope Diamond,” a 150 ft. x 375 ft. softball field shaped like a ring embedded with a giant diamond, located in Los Angeles. Posner created the work shortly after the Los Angeles riots when he noticed that dozens of helicopters were flying overhead taking photos and videos of the resulting fires and looting. He was inspired to create the diamond on an abandoned field to attract the attention of those flying overhead and give them something to focus their cameras on other than the destruction. Winking at us from behind the image of a humorously large diamond is possibly a gently jab at our fascination with display and our tendency to find more value in possessions (such as expensive diamonds) than in public places (such as public softball fields) where we can build community.

Most recently, Posner gained international notoriety in 2000 with his Berlin installation “Der Wider-Haken-Kräuter-Garten” (The Live Not on Evil Garden.) From above, angular plots of broken glass and healing plants formed two swastikas in what Posner called a “work of transformation” from “waste material into living things”. The swastika with its arms spinning clockwise is a symbol found in ancient temples and religious places all over the world. To our forefathers the image signified the sun, its ability to sustain life and make fertile. The second swastika, its arms spinning counter-clockwise, is the Nazi Hakenkreuz, a symbol of prejudice taken to its ultimate and horrifying conclusion. Posner created the glass symbols with the intent that they would be temporary. After a short time of being tread upon by the public, the two swastikas melted away and all that was left was the new growth, the vines and flowers of healing.

A visiting member of the UIUC faculty since the fall semester of 2001, Posner has taken the opportunity, in the annual Faculty Art Exhibition at the Krannert Art Museum, to use his work to engage Urbana-Champaign in a discussion about our local myths and heroes as well as powerful forces at work in our nation as a whole.

Two installations, currently on display in the faculty show, “Anthrax as the Seven Forbidden Names for God” and "In Final Heil, O Thou Will Geek! Cherio" are his artistic responses to the recent war in Afghanistan, the Anthrax scares and the local issue of the Chief Illiniwek mascot.

On the walls of the decretive arts gallery in the lower level of the Krannert museum, “Anthrax as the Seven Forbidden Names for God,” is a series of larger than life letters illuminated onto the walls from small, carved glass letters placed on overhead projectors. The letters, spelling out “Anthrax,” each feature one of the forbidden names for the Abrahamic god written within it.

“This piece grew out of reading the newspaper…I kept seeing so many references to ‘Anthrax letters’.” Posner explains, “I was doodling one day and I realized that there were seven letters in the word Anthrax and then thinking about that, I started free associating …and realized that in the old testament there are seven forbidden names for God. This installation, the seven-glass stain slides, attempt to address the unspeakable, the invisible, the sacred and the profane. Anthrax is invisible, and the forbidden names for God are unspeakable.”

“Antharax as the Seven Forbidden Names of God,” while evocative, may stand just a bit in the shadow of Posner’s second piece, "In Final Heil, O Thou Will Geek! Cherio" (An anagram for ‘Honor the Chief Illiniwek dialogue’) due to it’s clear reference to a debate that rages passionately in our community. At first glance, the work’s reference to the Chief may not be clear to the viewer. The installation is dominated by a giant stylized credit card emblazoned with the epithet “Masterace.” Upon closer observation, the view finds a small standing figure, diminutive against the faux credit card, with a television for a head. The television broadcasts an endless loop of a dancing Chief Illiniwek and footage of Native Americans dying of small pox. The figure’s body is dressed in a toddler-sized orange and blue Illini jumper. The chief logo once featured on the jumper has been changed to a photo of a Native American child stricken with small pox.

Posner calls the piece “a Rorschach image that for me is a speculation about power, its sources, its uses, its abuses”.

Posner sees all of his works as an invitation to question and dialogue. Far from shrinking from public opinion, Posner explains, “both of these works are viewer activated, in that they really come alive when people become engaged with them or against them.” He encourages the local community to view these pieces, develop opinions on them and give him feedback.

One local community member who all ready has a clear opinion on Posner’s work is U of I biology professor Stephan Kaufman. “Posner's work is poignant, powerful and timely,” Kaufman comments. “Given current concerns about bioterrorism, his focus on how the US government decimated the American Indian population by giving them smallpox infested blankets brings home a powerful irony.” Kaufman continues, “the enormous "MasteraceCard" is prescient of the arrogance and avarice currently displayed by Enron and the all too many other corporations that dominate politics and subvert development of an egalitarian and humane world order. “

It is easy to see, despite Kaufman’s interpretation of and support for Posner’s work, that many community members are likely to be far less at ease with Posner’s C-U inspired installation. Posner encourages people with diverse viewpoints on the issues tackled in his most recent pieces to share their opinions with him Sunday, March 3^rd at 1p.m. at a reception at the Krannert Art Museum. Posner hopes to talk to the public about their responses to his work and answer any questions they may have for him. “The words, ‘public art,’ are two equal sides of the same equation,” says Posner,”. . .it involves the public and art every time. . .that’s what keeps me honest, doing work that has currency in the art world and in the larger world. One informs the other, they are not mutually exclusive.”