Abomination!

Last Thursday, my Orientation to Art and Design class took a trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. We students were to choose at least three works of art that we could manipulate and combine, in the style of conceptual artist Fred Wilson, to convey our own message or concept. Of the works at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I chose the following: The Buddha Amoghasiddhi (sculpture), a volcanic stone sculpture of Ganesha, Hiram Powers' marble bust of George Washington, and Georges Rouault's The Crucifixion (painting) which depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. My idea is to set the bust of George Washington on a pedestal. The sculptures of Buddha and Ganesha would rest on pedestals that stand at least one foot lower than the pedestal that holds the bust of George Washington, on the left and the right sides of the bust. Both Buddha and Ganesha would be angled toward Washington. Rouault's painting of the crucified Christ would rest against the pedestal that holds the bust of George Washington. By positioning the works in this fashion, I would hope to achieve the notion that Washington embodies more power or importance than the religious figures that surround him. The concept I am trying to depict is not that Washington is just as important as any given religious icon, but that our world leaders are sometimes treated as if they possess holy, otherworldly, or divine powers. People often rest their lives in the hands of governmental heads, looking to them to answer their prayers. People are naive and uneducated and see a man, or...rarely...a woman, of power as a scapegoat JUST BECAUSE they have fallen into power.

It is likely that

your president, ambassador, governor, mayor, teacher, or boss will not clean up the messes you have made or fulfill your every wish so don't expect them to. In manipulating these works of art, I do not wish to remind people to keep the faith, but to take their lives into their own hands.