La vita è un caos con poche oasi e qualche momento comico. W.A.

Barack Obama is the super star of the moment. And contemporary art took note of it transforming his image into subject matter (both as image and as a issue toward which reflect on the present time) for today’s production.
Few hours ago CNN published this article online on the intervention by the Cuban-born American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada in Madrid. The artist claims that “The size of the piece is intrinsic to its value.” And in his dossier about the work – titled “Expectatio” – he broaden the discourse: “Obama’s personality — his youth, personal history and message of a new politics — has fused with the historical moment to create someone larger than life.” Furthermore, he states that the huge size alludes also “to the global impact of this election”.
In a changing world, now that – in this 2008 American election – we can expect to have a huge flow as never before, are going to vote; that for the first time there is a black man candidate for the US presidency, and a white woman as vice president (Sara Palin for the Republican Party) politics has returned to be a creative issue. And it is expressed in the shape of this year’s Democratic candidate. His silhouette, then, becomes an evocative message to be displayed in great dimension either covering down a building facade or, as in Rodriguez-Gerada as a huge portrait (139.28 meters long by 82.67 wide) to be desplayed just the day before the elections. Almost as to say: we need an icon, in which to trust, recognisable from its outline .
Easily, memories of other famouse shilouettes of the past come to mind…(Mao in Warhol portraits, just to mention one)