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| Vik Muniz, Toy Soldier |
Visually speaking, I didn't want to repeat exactly what Muniz did. USFP is different on three main things:
1) It's a three dimensional piece, instead Muniz which is a photo of the composition, the soldiers on Muniz piece don't seem to be glued in the white surface, so we only get to see it from one point of view.
2) Instead of using a blank background, I collected newspaper articles related to war, politics and violence.
3) The soldiers are placed on strategic places that serve as another narrative element, for example from the top to pass the middle we see a huge army backed with tanks and bazookas, attacking the rebels that are at the bottom by the trenches.
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| USFP - Detail |
The idea behind USFP is to do a visual portrait of something that is abstract, the ideology of the US foreign policy that center around war and profiting around war. The battleground looked from the distance forms Obama's face, when the viewer takes a closer look, he can see the action that goes on, and beyond that the newspaper clipping give you direct information related to global conflict.
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| USFP - Detail |
It took a very long time to accomplish this piece. First there was the idea of doing Obama's face with newspaper clippings, so I collected clippings for about five months. Inspired by Vik Muniz documentary Wasteland, and seeing a classmate use a little toy to use as a mechanic painting brush, I decided to buy six bags of toy soldiers, and I ended up using every single one. The whole process, since I started conceptualizing the piece, and the time I placed the last soldier must have taken about six months
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| USFP - Detail |
At first, I placed the soldiers on random positions, just trying to form Obama's face, but I gradually started to choose strategic places for each kind of soldier, like the ones with binoculars at the eyes, and the ones with phones at the ears, and then separating them into two bands: US big army Vs. The Rebels.
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| USFP - Detail |
Sometimes people misunderstand this piece as an anti-Obama piece of artwork, but the truth is that I would have done this piece with Bush's face, or McCain if he was in office, it just happens to be Obama in office at the time, and the US Foreign Policy remains the same as it has been for many years. It's in protest against a system, not a person.
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| USFP - Detail |
I enjoyed making this piece, especially the first day I brought all the toy soldiers to class, and a bunch of my classmates were down on the floor playing with them. I like that strange relation people have with toy soldiers, in one hand they put a smile on people faces as they remind them of their childhood and the innocence of playing with toys, in the other hand, the idea behind what they represent: war, politics, violence.
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| USFP - Detail |
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| US Foreign Policy - 3 x 4 feet, toy soldiers on wood panel |
