Art most subversive
“Fear Culture”, by Michelle Pred
I like to write about how useless and wrong the TSA is, but oftentimes the strongest expressions are visual, not rhetorical. Picasso’s Guernica was surely more effective than anything Hemingway ever wrote, and that’s not knocking Hemingway.
Yesterday we went to ArtMRKT in the city, to see what’s new, and were greeted at the door of the Concourse venue with this collage by Michelle Pred–she has contracted with the TSA to purchase items which were stolen (OK, confiscated) from basically honest citizens in the putative name of “safety”.
Pred then makes these items into her own, particularly subversive, art. This flag is composed of 234 separate items forcibly removed from us. Notice the tiny tiny embroidery scissors. The screwdrivers. The little wrenches–what were the dreaded Islamofascist terrorists supposed to do, unbolt the airplane from the inside?
Can anyone really say they feel more secure knowing that nobody on the airplane is embroidering? That no 9 year old kids are playing Tetris on takeoff? Just how much does all this foolishness contribute to our society?
Totally Unauthorized 
