Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Concentration of wealth a central issue (November 28th)

Frances Fox Piven the 78 year old US sociologist and political scientist has published an article on Aljazeera supportive of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Piven states “… (OWS) movement has already made the concentration of wealth at the top of this society a central issue in US politics … By making Wall Street its symbolic target and branding itself as a movement of the 99 per cent, OWS has redirected public attention to the issue of extreme inequality, which it has recast as, essentially, a moral problem … Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection … was shrouded in clouds of propaganda  … Now, in what seems like no time at all, the fog has lifted and the topic on the table everywhere seems to be the morality of contemporary financial capitalism.

Inspired by Frances Fox Piven http://ow.ly/7zk0v image source moonbattery http://ow.ly/7zk5U

Demand true accountability on Wall Street (November 20th)

Eliot Laurence Spitzer the 52 year old US former Governor of New York has put forward a series of suggestions to the Occupy Wall Street movement for consideration from an organizing perspective. “Harness the energy and passion of college students … ask some well-known musicians who might be sympathetic to the cause to participate … Schedule OWS rallies and events at the various State of the State addresses delivered by governors …  Recognize that there is insufficient diversity on the ranks of OWS … Call for a full rollback of the Bush tax cuts for all those above $1 million in annual income …  Demand true accountability on Wall Street … Demand that a financial service transaction fee be imposed … Demand that the New York Fed have “public” board members who truly represent the public”.

Inspired by Slate http://ow.ly/7kfBt image source http://ow.ly/7kfGX

Ryan Kavanaugh the 36 year old US film producer of more than 30 movies, founder and CEO of Relativity Media, and Hollywood rising star has been the subject of an article researched and written by Matthew Garrahan for Slate. Garrahan states that Kavanaugh who had raised via Wall Street firms billions of dollars to fix the broken entertainment industry, had invested into 100 plus movies released via Sony and Universal Pictures, and managed to make many enemies in the industry as a result. Kavanaugh had undertaken a high stake legal battle with Citibank over their attempt to change the terms of a contract with Sony Pictures that Relativity had negotiated. The fallout from the legal suit was damaging to Kavanaugh as many banks would no longer do business with him.

Inspired by Matthew Garrahan http://ow.ly/5ZACy image source deadline http://ow.ly/5ZBtZ

Zefrey Throwell the New York based intervention artist has shocked Wall Street traders and visitors with his performance piece titled ‘Ocularpation’ where 50 performers stripped naked and mimed various Wall Street related professions. The objective of the performance where the naked participants acted out roles of janitors, businessmen, secretaries etc was to draw attention to the plight of those who had lost their savings as a result of the economic crash from this very mysterious American street. The work was inspired from Throwell’s personal experience with his mother having lost her retirement savings from the stock crash, and was force to return to the work force. Cheated of her golden years, she was depressed then furious that the system that Wall Street represented was still intact and thriving.

Inspired by Karen Zraick http://ow.ly/5ZzvC image source artnet http://ow.ly/5ZzuX

I collect art because I love it (December 31st)

Roy Rothschild Neuberger the 107 year old financier, art patron and leading modern art collector has died. Orphaned at 12, he painted and studied art until 1928, then in a career move took on Wall Street just prior to the 1929 stock market crash that he anticipated and survived. Neuberger began his art collection in the 1930s to help support living artists. Neuberger collected works including those from Jackson Pollock, Ben Shahn, Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, and especially Milton Avery a favorite. Neuberger also donated art works to various institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art along with many college and university museums. The Neuberger Museum of Art was opened in New York during 1974 with a donation of 108 of his collected works.

Inspired by Edward Wyatt @NYTimes http://ow.ly/3uDAP

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com