Suzanne Opton’s Soldier Billboard project was to be presented by Forecast Public Art during the RNC as part of the UnConvention.

According to the New York Times today,

“Ms. Opton’s photographs, part of a series called the Soldier Billboard Project, have been displayed on billboards in Syracuse, and one was on a billboard in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. But the company that owns the Minneapolis-St. Paul billboards, CBS Outdoor, part of the larger media conglomerate, canceled her contract last week, having decided that the pictures sent a confusing and inappropriate message.”

The article also discusses the denial of a permit for True North to have a video billboard during the RNC.

via Susan Saulny, Battles Over Billboard Space Precede G.O.P. Gathering
NYT, Published: August 29, 2008.

Posted on the New Yorker website yesterday:

Purple Prose

Yesterday afternoon in downtown Denver, about a hundred gay, lesbian, and transgendered volunteers recited, in unison, a ten-minute speech titled “Revolutionary Love, Part I: I Am Your Worst Fear,” written by the New York performance artist Sharon Hayes. An equal-opportunity artist, Hayes will stage a sequel near the Minnesota State Capitol building in St. Paul next week, titled “Revolutionary Love II: I Am Your Best Fantasy.” The text itself was unavailable at press time, but according to a statement issued by Creative Time and the Walker Art Center, which co-produced the events:

Hayes’s performances are designed to mirror the spectacular nature of the national conventions. Reacting against the tendency of groups to polarize feelings about homosexuality for political gain, she describes these performances as personal addresses to the power structure, or a group of people speaking their hearts as one.

via Andrea Scott, The New Yorker

Sharon Hayes’ Revolutionary Love 2: I Am Your Best Fantasy is presented by Creative Time with the Walker Art Center and the UnConvention. Revolutionary Love 2: I Am Your Best Fantasy is a part of Democracy in America, a national public art initiative organized by Creative Time.

“Does art have a role to play in the upcoming Democratic and Republican political conventions? Considering the anemic state of political art in general, and with the conventions themselves widely viewed as empty spectacles with limited real news value, it should come as no surprise that the high-profile art activities attached to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Aug. 25-28, 2008, and the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Sept. 1-4, 2008, are what an International Herald-Tribune headline writer referred to as ‘gentle.”’

via artnet news