V-J Day in Times Square re-imagined. Brooklyn, New York City.
We live in times where other eras are referenced and re-appropriated rapidly and with wild abandon. One could potentially craft dozens upon dozens of essays critiquing our post-post-modern times (and many great critiques already exist).
I came across this rapidly decaying piece of street art last year in Brooklyn. It barely stood out since it was on a store gate that was almost entirely enveloped in shadows. This image is of the famous V-J Day in Times Square photo taken initially by Alfred Eisenstadt on on August 14, 1945. V-J Day was a day in 1945 when the surrender of Japan occurred resulting (loosely) in the end of World War II. It was one of the first times that Japan’s Emperor Hirohito broadcast anything publicly to the Japanese people over the radio and it was to announce the surrender. I am currently taking a class called Asian American Memoirs where we have been covering this time period in a rather intense fashion from the point of view of Japanese Americans. It’s a sobering experience and it makes my heart swell with sadness.
This enduring image has come to represent elation, victory, romance, abandon and joy. However the context is important because when you peel back the layers you realize that history isn’t so tidy and that there are many sides to the story that unfolds with this kiss and subsequent image. One could argue that over time this eternal image of a kiss between a sailor and a nurse has come to develop its own meaning detached from what the subjects were celebrating.
It seems fitting that this image was re-appropriated as a paste-up decaying rapidly yet captured by the same snap of a camera much like the original image was captured.
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Little did they know, Alfred liked to play dress-ups while the boys were out.
Watch Sculptures by Dominic Wilcox
Dominic produced these tiny miniatures stories which are told on the ever-ticking second hand of a watch, forever frozen in an encased world. See more pictures at Dominic’s flickr.
Giant Bunny!
Stor Gul Kanin
Örebro (SE) 2011
13 x 16 x 16 meters
Concrete, metal, wood and takspån.
The Big Yellow Rabbit is a temporary 13 meter high sculpture. It’s a enlarged cuddle toy made out of swedish products thrown against the statue of Engelbrekt.
The work can be seen this summer during the OpenArt biennale
weapons of mass distraction (by Hunter Langston)
