Artist Displays "Who Killed Barack Obama?"

By Marcus Gilmer in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 15, 2008 9:05PM

Polish artist Peter Fuss has raised quite a, er, fuss with his piece, "Who Killed Barack Obama?" recently on display in Poland. The piece, which depicts a wounded Obama, is part of the city scape aspect of the "Out of Sth" project. The website describes the project as presenting "the art of 20 leading European and Polish artists whose art derives from broadly understood urban art...Classical or political graffiti was a significant point for the development of each invited guest."

The Obama Art Report contacted Fuss to get his explanation of the controversial piece. His response:

This is not a piece of work against Obama, as much as it is not an act of support for McCain. Neither is this work about less or more probable Obama's assassination. This piece of art is about global thought of Obama's unavoidable death. About the fact that so many people in the entire world share one opinion: Barack Obama is to follow the same story as Kennedy, Lincoln, M.L.King or Malcolm X previously did. And this is due to various reasons: cause he is young, alike Kennedy, cause his black, because he is ready for the radical change. Politicians fall into the same stereotype of thinking. Even Hillary Clinton expressed the same view.

It is interesting, that on the one hand, people take pride in democracy, they believe that through taking part in elections they have an real impact on the shape of politics and they determine the future of countries and societies. On the other hand, the same people do realise, that politics is a dirty cynical game and that an individual, like Obama, indentified with hope and progress, the change of the current status quo, those individuals are, sooner or later, to loose, to be condemned to death. Unless they became a part of the current status quo.

Okay, sure. But still. What the hell?