Friendly Fire
A Sweatshop of Vested Interests
What: A Public Art Project with three components:
1. A package containing a faux brass bullet and brochure mailed to the 3800 delegates to the Republican National Convention and 500 members of the press.
2. A sweatshop/showroom featuring 14 styles of mock bulletproof vests. Each vest sports a silk-screened target and stenciled title on the back. The 14 targets demonstrate the broad range of people and programs under attack by the current political agenda.
The 14 vests are a tapestry of interconnected issues that effect most Americans, a fashion statement woven into a political reality.
3. An exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as part of Focus Series.
Why: When politics is spectacle, when crucial issues are only theatrical devices for re-election, then democracy is merely make-believe.
The faux bullets and brochures were sent to the Republican delegates to let them know just how real and deadly their Friendly Fire is. If the Democratic Convention were in San Diego we would have sent the packets to them because the war on the American people is bipartisan.
Friendly Fire offers a new art model for the millenniumEntrepreneurial Art. Itıs an absurd model, but the only viable one in a market-driven economy where all art is supposed to pay for itself and the corporate citizen is privileged over the individual.
This is tough art for tough love politics.
Friendly Fire mock bulletproof attire invites those with a penchant for democracy the opportunity to be recognized as a political player.
Either you wear a vest or you don't. The issue is survival.
Where: The Friendly Fire sweatshop/showroom is located at 519 Island Avenue near the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter in America's Finest City.
When: During San Diego's "Star-Spangled Summer," the Friendly Fire sweatshop/showroom will be open for business August 3-28 from 10a.m. to 10p.m.
The MOCA exhibition will run August 25-November 3.
Who: San Diego public artists Deborah Small, Elizabeth Sisco, Scott Kessler, and Louis Hock, with Cheryl Lindley.
Production seamstress: Lynn Dewart.
Contact: 619-696-FIRE
http://www.FriendlyFire.com
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