2008 Woodie Awards
Boston buttons up art
Damon Griffin
Issue date: 10/9/08 Section: The Inside
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For the art installation Campaign Buttons 2008: Artists Speak Out!, 50 local artists were given complete artistic freedom to render their own vision of what a campaign button should look like. Their buttons will be on display until Oct. 11 at the Miller Block Gallery, located at 38 Newbury St.
The gallery is owned and directed by Ellen Miller, who also commissioned the project, purchased the buttons and distributed them among the artists, 30 of which were from Boston, who were each to design their version of a campaign pin. The only restriction was that the image had to fit inside a button that was three inches in diameter.
Miller described the buttons as a framework for the artists to work within.
"Anytime you give anybody a dialogue to talk about something meaningful, it's great," she said.
The content of the artwork varies. Some of the pieces are satirical, some are simple, but most are just pieces of artwork within a button without any obvious relation to politics.
Some of the buttons make their statements particularly clear. One button, by Richard Raiselis, who is an associate professor of art at Boston University, portrays an oil well with "McCain" written on it sticking out of the ocean, as the sun sets behind it.
Others are more experimental. A series of buttons, by Boston College studio arts faculty member Karl Baden, show an eye of each of the presidents from the past five elections. The year they were elected or re-elected is written below the eye.
One of the buttons is a picture of the Mona Lisa, with a tiny snapshot of Barack Obama pinned onto her left shoulder.
"Even the Mona Lisa can be political," Miller said.
This sentiment was echoed by Ann Steuernagel, an assistant professor in the Department of Art + Design, who said she has yet to see the show.
"The personal is political," she said. "[Everything from] what kind of coffee you choose to drink to what car you drive."
Eric Fensterheim, a junior graphic design major, said he isn't surprised that politics seeps into artwork.
"Art is expression, and I feel like an artist has the right to express whatever they want," he said.
The political art in the gallery extends beyond just the buttons: There is also a short video about vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin called "God's Pit-Bull Lipstick" by Doug Bolin, which loops on an iPod set up in a back corner.
Despite the diversity of artistic styles on the buttons, most appeared to support presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Sophomore physical therapy major Kelly Silvester said that bias in art is not a problem, nor is the idea of making art politicized.
"It's art, it's expressing yourself," she said. '"You have a choice whether to go see it or not."
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