Artist Oscar Murillo’s installation now on view at Kranzberg Arts Foundation evokes a very strange political protest, one in which no single cause is apparent but it’s clear that passions run high.
More than 150 protest placards crowd the space — some plainly visible, some stacked upside down or otherwise obscured. Their surfaces are crowded with paint, magazine clippings, plaster sculptures and even a wig or two.
The installation is part of a 15-artist exhibition called “Cry of Victory and Short Walks to Freedom,” curated by Modou Dieng. The other 14 pieces are on view at projects + gallery in the Central West End, but Murillo’s piece (“Over you/you”) requires its own room.
The exhibition is part of “For Freedoms,” a 50-state initiative promoting politically aware art in the runup to the November elections.
For this episode of Cut & Paste, we spoke with both Dieng and Murillo about “Over you/you” and about the very nature of political art. When you combine politics and art, does one element get in the way of the other? And what exactly counts as political art, anyway?
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