Two digital videos address global repercussions. Stan Woodard’s Sovereign Authority features an eerily altered image of Bush’s face overlaid with blasting bombs and a soundtrack pieced together from excerpts of Bush speeches, revealing a sinister subtext intermittently interrupted by choruses of “Shock & Awe.” Woodard explains his method and motivations: On March 19, 2003 at approximately 02:30 GMT U.S. led forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom with military strikes on Iraq. Soon after that President Bush appeared on live TV to announce to the American people the beginning of the war in Iraq. I recorded the speech and manipulated the recorded voice to state some truths that were not addressed by the President. It is my contention that the altered transcript more accurately portrays the U.S. position than does any communiqué that might come from the Administration.… Although this work was completed more than three years ago it remains relevant; the real reasons for the U.S.'s invasion and occupation of Iraq are still clouded by questions. Simone Paterson’s Oh Abu uses dogs as the animated perpetrators in her reinterpretation of a familiar Abu Ghraib prison scene. In discussing her motivations for creating the piece, she quotes Former Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan: Americans want to be proud of each and everything that our servicemen and women do in Iraq. We wanna be proud. We know they're working hard. None of us, now, later, before or during this conflict, should wanna let incidents like this just pass. If we don't tell this story, these kinds of things will continue. And we'll end up getting paid back 100 or 1,000 times over. Cecelia Kane amply demonstrates her dedication to engaging audiences aesthetically in order to raise their political consciousness with her remarkable Hand to Hand installation: Since the beginning of the Iraq War in March 2003, I have been painting a news story almost daily on stuffed white gloves. These gloves depict the newspaper headline, the date the story appeared and my interpretation of the relentless violence, daily killings and occasional human-interest story. Each glove is a "rosary bead" in this on-going meditation of war witnessing. The gloves displayed here are one full year of headlines from 2005. I use gloves because fingers count, and this is a counting, time-based installation piece of unfolding, chronological events. Hands also act for good or evil, construction or destruction, help or hurt. Tim Klimowicz’ statistically alarming Iraq War Coalition Fatalities Project similarly awakens an awareness of the ongoing destruction, in this case via an elegantly designed interactive flash animation map of Iraq. A graphic designer by trade who has always been fascinated with data, his project charts: the U.S. and coalition military fatalities that have occurred…in Iraq from the onset, mapped across the dimensions of time and space. It runs at 10 frames per second—one frame for each day—a single black dot indicates the geographic location a coalition military fatality occurred. Accompanying the visual representation is a soft 'tic' sound, the volume of which increases relative to the number of fatalities that occurred that day. It was my hope…to create …an emotional response despite the rigid simplicity—something I feel is wholly lacking in the daily tally of soldiers and civilians killed and injured in the conflict, often reduced to just a single abstract number which is hard for the mind to grasp. (It is updated regularly on the web, and will continue to be for as long as the conflict continues.) Armymansoldierboy, George Kennedy’s nightmarish vision of a dissolving corpse composed of over a thousand toy soldiers, each one of which was individually welded in place using a butane torch, confronts us with the grim toll more viscerally. Kennedy’s piece is informed by his childhood memories of playing war games, and later memories of his former playmates being lost to the Vietnam War. He created his sculpture as a reminder that: Great distances and large numbers diffuse a person’s propensity for empathic response. Disasters which happen thousands of miles away to people who “don’t look like us” do not generate emotions of the same intensity or duration as those which occur closer to our physical and emotional home. Our country’s pre-emptive war in Iraq has led to over two thousand of our troops being killed. Thousands more are maimed or scarred for life. Images of returning American war dead are censored and our government chooses to not even count the civilian casualties of the people we are supposedly liberating. Screaming Wheel is New Mexican Margi Weir’s southwest-inspired reaction to the ongoing state of war. Six feet in diameter, it is composed of a radiating pattern of cut vinyl black silhouettes adhered directly to the wall. Insurgents, big boy and little boy bombs surround See-No-Evil, Hear-No-Evil, and Speak-No-Evil Monkeys, which circle around a central baby face. The mouth emits an expressive wail when the viewer passes by, which Weir conceives of as “the only response available in a situation of great danger and increasing impotence.” Her smaller Homeland Study uses a familiar Mexican blanket motif to graphically represent the nation’s collective psyche, with the capitol building central, and the populace literally forming fringe at the edges. In both works, pairs of fingers point at each other, succinctly summarizing the stalemate that occurs in a highly polarized 2-party system. The repetition implicit in the patterns implies a sickening sense of endless repetition ahead. Emerging sculptor Dietrich Wegner’s formidably scaled Playground — a 17’ tall mushroom cloud made of poly-fil evocative of smoke, with a rope ladder leading up and out — impresses upon us the dire need for peaceful international relations as the frightening specter of new fights with nuclear-capable tyrants looms in the news. Patrick Grenier’s Democratic Decrees, also playful, takes a conceptual approach to exposing the alarmingly imperial style of the executive branch. He will collect audience members’ personal “decrees” in a Plexiglas box over the course of the exhibition, and then perform those in the style and costume of a medieval town Crier during the Closing Day events. His motivations for the piece are at once tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious: At a time when government officials have dictated the direction of official policies affecting the fate of a nation, more and more citizens feel a loss of control and perceive those elected into office as acting in their own self interest and not that of the greater good of the people. Many would characterize the current US administration as false as a result of evidence fabricated to determine actions ranging from the appointment of judges to declarations of war that are affecting millions in adverse ways. In this climate of dictatorial government it would be just a rational to turn over major policy decisions to randomly selected people on the street who could enjoy, momentarily, behavior that empowers few, but with a personal level satisfaction. To live in your own world, if only for a brief period, to escape the one being subjected to, will offer a way to play with the symbolic powers of government officials and temporarily empower us. HOMELAND INSECURITIES Other works target changes on the home front, often employing dark humor aimed at President Bush and his staff and policies. Brandon Jones’ photograph, Self Politic, No.20, captures delicious details of two theatrical protestors in Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day. In it King Bush guzzles oil while Vice President Cheney literally pulls the puppet strings in the background. Pip Brant reconfigured her participatory Bush “W”oodoo Parlor to be presented at ATHICA as a large dangling a barrel of monkeys. Her witty stuffed and screen printed fabric dolls of the President: are posed in the cowboy stance favored by its model. At the crotch is a tiny brain silk screened in pink ink. This is to indicate how “W” thinks. He shoots from the hip or from his crotch. The cowboy boots have Jesus’ face carved into the leather pattern. On the back of the dolls, is a quote by the winning candidate announcing: "I’ve earned capital in this election, and I’m going to spend it." The audience is invited to use the pieces as voodoo dolls, sticking “curses” or “blessings” to the dolls with pencils, pins and Post-Its™, so that the “viewer can feel more empowered by writing and applying their thoughts, fantasies or opinions and making them visible.” Santeria rituals that take place in the artist’s hometown of Hollywood, Florida, inspired the piece, ceremonies Brant finds “cleansing, cathartic and most importantly empowering for the practitioner.” Isabella Natale is a supreme satirist whose submission to an ATHICA Season Call several years ago inspired this exhibit. Formerly a lawyer, the self-taught New York City artist turned to painting in the late 90’s, shortly after her fortieth birthday. Using her razor-sharp wit, she combines a starkly graphic style with altered corporate logos, advertising and other imagery drawn from popular culture to pack a critical punch. Two examples are the ‘Overreach’ brand of dental floss featured in Bush-Waxed, and the Pez Dispenser™ figurine of President Bush in The Prez Dispenser, who exudes True and False candies with his fingers crossed. Natale states that the “concept of presidential spin and the president’s deception in declaring war on Iraq served as inspiration” for these images. In The Roving Reporter Rove gets the Pez treatment as well, an image she explains was created “in response to reports of Karl Rove’s involvement in the ‘outing’ of a covert CIA agent following her husband’s publication in the New York Times of his findings that discredited the government’s contentions concerning Niger’s sale to Iraq of enriched uranium.” Her King George Bible was created in response to President Bush’s declaration that he was told by the Lord to run for office. This work is part of a recent series of paintings that address the right wing movement’s attempts to impose their own religiosity on the public at large, at the expense of certain civil rights and liberties such as same-sex marriage, reproductive freedom and stem-cell research. Also adding levity is the 2004 music CD Propaganda, the perfect score for the exhibit. Davey Wrathgabars’ coy lyrics, deadpan delivery and the head-banging rhythms of his band, The Visitations, help us laugh at these serious issues. A member of the renown Athens Elephant 6 Collective, he writes songs — such as “Osama & Your SUV,” “Questionable Intelligence” and “Talkin” Hate Radio Blues” — that take on current politics with a vengeance. The Athens-based band began in 2003 and also includes Jason NeSmith and Derek Almstead. Wrathgabar travels frequently to Washington, DC where his family resides, which has obviously influenced his music. Jersey Beat had this to say about Propaganda: Behind the CDs red white and blue sleeve and subtly innocent-sounding acoustic pop/punk, lies one of the most cogent, focused, and entertaining attacks on the Bush Administration to come out of the Indie underground. Wrathgabar’s song Burn a Flag inspired this exhibitions’ announcement card image (designed by the US DAT’s Daniel Busey), as the first verse reveals: I checked the Boy Scout Handbook despite their hateful ways. I had to learn to burn a flag in the proper way. I found to my delight, you can flame it if you please; just be sure the flag has been soiled thoroughly. It's been soiled thoroughly. So burn a flag for freedom, burn a flag it's your right, burn a flag for freedom. Every day and the fourth of July, Every day and 4 July. Also on display are letters exchanged between the band and local Democratic congressional representative John Barrow, who voted for the flag burning amendment, and a statement "Why burn a flag?". The liner note art by Eric Hernandez and Mike Turner shares a tongue-in-cheek street style, with red white and blue décor framing the cartoony images such as a bomb with a peace sign on it and Osama on roller skates. Clark Whittington, best known for his wildly successful Art-o-Mat ™ vending machine project, is another artist whose well-honed humor aims squarely at the Bush Administration’s second term. His Mandate Cameras — miniaturized faux cameras that swivel to aim at the viewer when motion-activated — heighten our awareness of the increased surveillance in our culture. Four of them are dispersed around the ATHICA Space, including the bathroom. They are adorned with a modified Amoco Oil Company logo with “mandate” replacing the company moniker. Mandate: A Post-Mortem Analysis is a series of corporate presentation style flow charts, installed especially for this exhibit in an ATHICA bathroom for an optimal reading environment. The graphics’ hysterical pseudo-logic and fatalism are designed to amuse and inform. THE GO @#$?! YOURSELF FLOW CHART starts with Vice President Cheney and ends with a stylized icon of a displaced Katrina victim on a roof. Other headings are REPACKAGED TRICKLE DOWN and the FLIP-FLOP TIME LINE DEFINED BY POP CULTURE, NECESSITY AND +/- PUBLIC PERCEPTION. Whittington’s elaborate King Spoil Board Game: Special PNAC edition, places the viewer literally in the hot seat, a bright red folding chair in front of a full fledged board game in progress: a faux cigarette burns, a can of PBR and a bag of pork rinds accompany the modified vintage game, along with its chemical agent testing pads, nitrogen filled cylinders. The box cover features Cheney in a hard hat in front of a field of Oil Rigs. The words “Another GOP Boondoggle,” “All Ages Affected” and “Use Fear and Anxiety to Sell the Public on an ill-conceived preemptive foreign policy doctrine” are printed on the front. The board’s game—a weird maze of targets and tanks surrounded by red molten plastic—is a modified version of “King Oil,” an actual 1974 board game by Milton Bradley which the artist had as a child, whose goal was to push all your opponents into bankruptcy! Released during the Texas oil boom time of "Dallas," it disappeared during the 70's oil crisis brought on by OPEC. The artist realized “that with a slight name change and refacing...[I could] easily highlight the archaic pro-oil energy policy of our administration.” PNAC stands for “Project for the New American Century” which according to Wikipedia is “an American political think tank, established in early 1997 in Washington, DC, which critics allege proposes military and economic, space, cyberspace, and global domination by the United States, so as to establish — or maintain — American dominance in world affairs.” Akin to Wegner’s Playground, the piece uses a game analogy to highlight the frightening distance from the reality of real-world repercussions that high-stakes decision-making breeds. INCIVILITIES More serious in tone, Jason Brown’s Fifth Column powerfully addresses the issue of the loss of civil rights in the time of war. Composed of a tall tower of bright orange emergency cones, stacked end to end atop a copy of The Patriot Act, it is immediately recognizable as an allusion to Constantin Brancusi’s famous modernist Endless Column. It was designed in response to the USA Patriot Act and increasing governmental limitations on free expression. Named after the Fifth Column, a revolutionary group who fought against Franco’s dictatorship in the Spanish Civil War, it is intended as a cautionary symbol. [According to wikipedia] today “the expression “Fifth Column” is used to refer to a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group to which they are expected to be loyal, such as a nation, or its ruling elite.” Brown is the co-founder of the social interventionist group SURVIVAL DESIGN, who create collaborative public art projects. Tatana Kellner’s new large works on paper also give voice to citizens’ frustrations over the illegality of their country’s recent activities. Poetically rendered, her collage and charcoal drawings stare you down with guilty intensity. In Illegal Acts, a gavel floats perilously above a man in prisoner garb, speaking to the discomfort Americans have in relation to the treatment and legal status of detainees’ in the ‘war against terrorism,’ and the violation of international laws the administration has perpetrated in the name of it. In Off His Pedestal, words pour out of a mouth in paper streams, expressing the outrage many Americans feel at this year’s wire-tapping revelations: He was caught eavesdropping on huge number of American citizens and he has brazenly declared that he has the unilateral right without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses. Kellner notes that: As a daughter of Holocaust survivors, my work often pays homage to the loss incurred by history.… I have long been interested in the disjunction of information presented by the media/government and reality. The current political landscape, with the erosion of civil liberties, the deterioration of public dialog and the attempt at suppressing any dissenting voices, has occupied my thinking and guided my work. Kellner, an internationally recognized artist whose work is in numerous museum collections and who has had over a dozen solo exhibitions, received a prestigious Pollock-Krasner grant in 2005, which allowed her to produce the body of work from which these images are drawn. Marcia Bernstein’s Fortress America ceramic and mixed media sculpture series refers to similar issues, in particular the erosion of freedoms as America becomes an increasingly militarized state, with growing prison populations at home and abroad. Richard Lou’s multi-media installation, Undocumented Migrant on the Cross Adored by Donors, made especially for this exhibit, addresses the intermingling of politics and economics in recent immigration laws in Georgia and nationally. Lou, a Chicano Artist who “has explored the subjugation of his community by the Dominant Culture” for several decades in international and national venues, is the Chair of the Art Department at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville. In his sardonic low-art homage to El Greco’s painting Christ on the Cross Adored by Donors (1585-90), Lou employs piñata portrait busts to represent the “four individuals that have the most to gain as we enter the final stretch of the midterm elections: President G.W. Bush, Pundit Lou Dobbs, Gov. Sonny Perdue, and Rep. Chip Rogers,” commenting on current social and political issues surrounding the so-called ‘Illegal Alien Crisis’: Conservative elements in the United States are working furiously to mobilize the bigot vote by raising the volume on the very reliable standby of immigrant bashing. Due to the long, for my purposes abbreviated, list of conservative fiascos that would include the invasion of Iraq, the inability to capture bin Laden, the threat of nuclear weapons in Iran and North Korea, Abu Gharib and Guantanamo torture cases, domestic spying, the demise of Social Security reform, skyrocketing gas prices, Hurricane Katrina and as Kanye West stated on national television “Bush hates Black people,” the conservatives have searched for something “positive” to offer their reeling constituency. The sacrificial victim and target of current right-wing heated rhetoric is represented by a full-sized, paper-mache undocumented migrant crucified (central figure, suspended) in a “piñata” form. Krysia Haag’s colorful and masterfully-crafted mosaic warning, Hurricane Season is Here Again (Radar: Hurricane Katrina Strikes the U.S. Gulf Coast, 8/29/05), addresses the political repercussions of Hurricane Katrina, just as we experience the one-year-after news cycle. In a passionate statement on Hurricane Katrina, Athens’ resident Haag notes that: This climactic event showed the world the U.S. government’s woeful state of preparedness for the destruction of a major metropolitan area, despite a steady stream of Homeland Security rhetoric, and its lack of concern for lower-income American citizenry. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the weakness of the United States in the face of powerful natural forces, which have caused more damage than any human act of terror on U.S. soil. …Hurricane Katrina was caused by natural weather systems, but its power was greatly intensified by unusually warm sea temperatures caused by global warming, proven beyond scientific doubt to be the result of human industrial activities.. …A recent study found the first six months of 2006 to be the hottest and driest on record. After Katrina, one could expect that this continuing trend might finally put national priorities on “red alert” status for catastrophic climate change. However, as the world enters the post-peak phase of dwindling fossil fuels, our nation’s priorities are stubbornly focused on “protecting our national security” (resource-intensive way of life) by aggressively obtaining and maintaining control of remaining petroleum reserves, thus keeping the engines of industrial-consumerist civilization running at full capacity. Oil is essentially the water of modern life, and both the thirst for it and the side effects from its consumption will continue to define the 21st century. Lisa Link began her Balance of Power Series of photomontages “the day after reading the Republican Talking Points Memo on Social Security.” By combining historic photographs from the Library of Congress with graphically altered text, video stills and other images from her large archive, she creates pithy images that highlight disturbing changes in American life. She collects images in order to “respond to the shifting power structures and the erosion of representational democracy at the national level,” hoping to “engage people in conversations and actions on issues that affect the ability to control personal destiny.” She places a quote from Tom Stoppard’s 1972 play Jumpers “its not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting” over an archival image from the same period of an African American woman casting her ballot, reminding us of how fragile our democracy is, and of the recent Diebold scandals. Bush’s remarks quoted in If This was a Dictatorship and Forever Free from 2000 and 2005 underscore citizens’ uneasiness with the executive branch’s recent power grabs. Norma Fried also combines text and image, overlaying Marilyn Monroe’s face with an excerpt from the John Irving novel A Prayer for Owen Meany that compares America’s woes to the starlet’s troubled life. In homage to Irving’s prescience, the piece elucidates aspects of our current political trials with a lovely sense of irony. Fried’s passionate statement on the development of her work speaks for many: She Was Just Like Our Whole Country began to germinate early, during the 2000 presidential election when I naively wondered with dismay how the National Republican Committee could put forth such an inept candidate as George W. Bush. I was, and continue to be, angry and sad at such a callous move that blatantly mocks and seriously undermines the fragile “experiment in democracy” –– flawed as it always has been –– upon which our country rests. Five years later, after Bush’s reelection, after the effects of “compassionate conservatism,” after the follies of foreign policy, after the secrecy, intimidation and lies, I read the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I was stunned by Irving’s passage, spoken by the main character, as it leapt from the page and gave voice to my disquiet. Written in 1979, about the Vietnam era, the words seem ever more relevant today and raise some troubling historical questions, namely the repeated manipulation of our society of its leaders, reinforced by the media, and the complicity of the society in that manipulation. In Blaine Whisenhunt’s digital prints larger-than-life-scale heads, menacingly covered, confront us forcefully. In I See No Atrocities, a US flag is tightly zip-tied around a person’s neck, literally wrapping the individual with the flag. Wearable Life-Support System, with its gas mask attached to a Mobile Oil Can, recalls in sickening green the role of the oil industry and its duel relation to the Middle East tensions and the problems of global warming. Both are from his Born in the USA Series, which “seeks to illuminate the ‘guilt by association’ shared by citizens of a nation, regardless of their individual beliefs.” Jonathan Jacquet’s oil-on-panel diptych offers a wry commentary on the changing concept of who is a “Great American.” It contrasts Abraham Lincoln and Sean Hannity, the syndicated conservative talk show host and executive producer of Fox News Channel's program Hannity and Colmes. The title, Great Americans, is a dual nod to the tag line the media celebrity uses on the call-in portion of his show and to the distinguished history of one of our greatest Presidents. Jacquet, one of Athens’ most unique painters, brings a slightly ominous sensibility to the treatment of the figures’ faces in particular. Painted in the style of 19th century neoclassical portraiture favored in courthouses across the nation, glazed to perfection, completed with gilt frame and furling flags, it is an ironic triumph. THE US DAT’S SOUTHERN CRUSADE Nearly half the gallery is devoted to site-specific installations by the US Department of Art & Technology (US DAT), a Washington D.C. based “virtual government agency” headed up by ‘Secretary-at-Large’ Randall M. Packer and his team for this project, John Anderson, Daniel Busey, Graham Childs, Bill Fisher, Charles Lane, and Carrie Mallory. Packer, Assistant Professor of Multimedia at American University in Washington, DC, has shown internationally and is recognized as a pioneering artist, composer, educator, and scholar in the field of multimedia. He moved to DC in 2000, founding the US DAT shortly after in 2001. Mallory earned her M.F.A. at American University where Anderson currently instructs as an adjunct professor, as he also does at Corcoran College of Art and Design. The US DAT project has emerged as a hybrid of media forms and genres and has yielded numerous published articles and manifestos, live performances, media installations, and video works presented at festivals, museums, and universities around the world. In their short history, their projects have been reviewed in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Art in America and The Village Voice, among others. Their refined sense of proper governmental agency etiquette is evident in everything they do, from their logo to the disclaimer that appears at the end of all their press releases: Warning: You are entering a virtual United States Government System, which may be used only for artistic and socially motivated purposes. The Government may monitor and critique usage of this system, and all persons are hereby notified that use of this system constitutes consent to such monitoring and critical analysis. Unauthorized attempts to upload information and/or appropriate information on these web sites are encouraged and are subject to review under the Computer Art and Aesthetics Act of 1986 and Title 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001 and 1030. Their motivation to create new works for Athens, Georgia was spurred by a keen interest in the role the southern region plays in national politics, specifically in relation to this fall’s midterm elections. Their ambitious “artistic mobilization,” a large and complex series of site specific installations focuses on “the dangerous collapse of the separation of church and state,” which Packer believes is: leading us steadily down the path to Armageddon.…The frightening, apocalyptic conditions we see today are expected to worsen as the Far Right Christian Fundamentalists carry out a desperate last ditch effort this fall to save the crumbling, scandal-ridden, fear-mongering, bible-toting, born-again wing of the Republican National Party — the biblical prophecy fulfilled. The one piece they are re-mounting is America’s Grave, which Packer created in collaboration with John Anderson and first exhibited at the University Art Museum at American University in January 2006 when it was “unveiled upon the 1st anniversary of the death of the nation.” A “symbolic burial site for the nation,” the piece employs half a ton of dirt and numerous embedded video monitors with news excerpts and other imagery supporting this contention. At the grave’s foot will be a fifteen-foot high wall of information called the Cosmology of Hell, also a Packer–Anderson collaboration. Inspired by the Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy, it is an epic tapestry made up of video remains exhumed from America's Grave. Says Packer: If religion is a vehicle to acknowledge one's sins, then the Cosmology of Hell acknowledges the consequences of man's actions as they play out in the “theater of politics and media,” or in the words of Jean Cocteau, “here are men's memories and the ruins of their beliefs.” The Situational Tour of the USA Bible Belt, a collaboration of, Anderson, Mallory and Packer, will include weekly video dispatches from the Secretary-at-Large, reporting on and documenting “extremist religious activity and cultural divisiveness to track the nation’s descent into perilous days that lie ahead as the current election season heats up.” After passing through the American Baptismal System - a Childs-Packer collaboration - a security gate detector that monitors artistic faith, visitors will be encouraged to pay their respects to the nation at America's Grave. Over the course of the exhibit, grass will grow atop the video remains. A eulogy to the nation will be performed at the gravesite on opening night. Music of the Inferno, a 4-channel sonic portrait of contemporary America composed by Packer, will surround the grave and suffuse the gallery with: disturbing, ambient music mixed with patriotic American songs, political speeches, military marches, religious hymns, call to prayers, news pundits, political demonstrations, spirituals and gospel music, religious sermons, television advertisements, forming a sonic portrait of the nation's nightmarish, nostalgic descent into political chaos and turmoil. A large poster of Orf, produced in collaboration with Daniel Busey, featuring tenor Charles Lane, will be displayed alongside the grave. Orf, derived from Orpheus, the musician of Greek mythology who descended to the underworld, is the protagonist of A Season in Hell, a video opera by Packer. The third segment of five multi-site, site-specific multimedia performances, Religion of the Lie [Orf's Baptism], will take place at the nearby historic African-American Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery on Halloween Eve. The piece reflects “turbulent times in post-apocalyptic America,” and asks “How is religion corrupted by politics?” and “How can the Bible be used to justify atrocities such as slavery?” (Parts one and two were performed in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, respectively. The production in Athens is taking place with contributions by a class being given by the UGA Department of Theatre and Film Studies and with the cooperation of the East Athens Development Corp.) ATHICA is honored to have been chosen by the US DAT as a collaborator. CONCLUSION As curators we have been deeply moved by the depth of passion and commitment in the artists who have contributed their time and resources to bringing their works to Athens. Mounted in advance of the Fall midterm elections, it is our hope that lively democratic discourse will be sparked by the fervor and imaginative approaches of so many fine artists passionately devoted to preserving Americans’ freedom of expression. We know that many Northeast Georgia citizens will be grateful for a space in which open dissent is still valued, and where discussion of these vital and pressing issues is encouraged. We are grateful to the local businesses and many individuals who are supporting this bold venture anonymously. Lizzie Zucker Saltz, Curator and ATHICA Director with editorial assistance by Katy Logue Thompson, Assistant Curator and David Zucker Saltz Thank you!: Jean Anderson, Caroline & Kris Barratt, Liz DeMarco, Bill Fisher, David Floyd, Krysia Haag, Brandon Jones, Gwynn Kennedy, Donald Keyes, Jason Matherly, Maureen O’Brien, David Zucker Saltz, Katy Logue Thompson, Mark Watkins

Checklist for America on the Brink MARCIA BERNSTEIN Fortress America Series: #18 & # 20 (2005) Ceramic, mixed-media PIP BRANT Bush “W”oodoo Parlor (2004-2006) Cotton, silk screen, poly-fil, edition of 70

JASON BROWN Aluminum, rubber, USA Patriot Act Fifth Column (2006)

BILL FISHERBussama Series (2006) from Seritypes: A Genetic Screening Project Series of 23 serigraphs

BILL FISHER & RICHARD LOU Colonial Tower (2006) Mixed-media, digital prints, wood, mechanics NORMA FRIED She Was Just Like Our Whole Country (2006) Giclee

PATRICK GRENIER Democratic Decrees (2006) Print Ink, paper, Plexiglas

KRYSIA HAAG Hurricane Season is Here Again (Radar: Hurricane Katrina Strikes the U.S. Gulf Coast, 8/29/05) Mosaic on vitreous glass, stained glass, iridescent glass, and mirror glass.

JONATHAN JACQUET Great Americans (2006) Oil paint on panel, gold leaf frame

BRANDON JONES Self Politic Series, No.20 (2006) C-print

CECELIA KANE Hand to Hand (2003 - ): The 2005 Headlines Installation, acrylic and marker on polyester filled white cotton gloves

TATANA KELLNER Off His Pedestal (2006) Cliche verre, graphite, charcoal and collage on paper Illegal (2006) Cliche verre, charcoal, acrylic, collage

GEORGE KENNEDY
Armymansoldierboy (2005)
Heat welded toy soldiers, sand

TIM KLIMOWICZ Iraq War Coalition Fatalities Project (2003 - ) Interactive Flash file

LISA LINK
Balance of Power Series (2005): It’s Not the Voting, Forever Free If This was a Dictatorship Inkjet print on Epson premium luster paper RICHARD LOU Undocumented Migrant on the Cross Adored by Donors (2006) Piñatas, barbed wire, mixed-media

ISABELLA NATALE King George Bible (2005) Bush-Waxed (2003) The Roving Reporter (2005) The Prez Dispenser (2003) acrylic paint on canvas

SIMONE PATERSON Oh Abu (2005) DVD, 30 seconds

BILLY RENKL Pax Americana (2003) Vintage Turkoman/Afghan textiles: girl’s dress, embroidered cotton dress front, yurt amulets

US DAT America’s Grave (2005-2006) The Cosmology of Hell (2006) American Baptismal System (2006) Music of the Inferno (2006) The Situational Tours: USA Bible Belt (2006) The Blog-Chronicles of the Secretary-at-Large (2005-2006) New Media & Mixed media Installations Religion of the Lie [Orf's Baptism] Poster Digital Print

THE VISITATIONS Propaganda (2004) Music CD

DIETRICH WEGNER Playground (2005) Steel, poly-fil, rope ladder, wood

MARGI WEIR Screaming Wheel (2006) Vinyl on wall, wood, and sheet metal with motion-activated electronic recording of a scream Electronics by Don Speirs & Will Patterson Homeland Study (2005) Digital ink print on rag paper

BLAINE WHISENHUNT From the series Born In the U.S.A.: I See No Atrocities (2006) Wearable Life-Support System (2006) Digital print

CLARK WHITTINGTON Mandate: A Post-Mortem Analysis (2005-2006) Laminated laser prints Mandate Cameras (2005-2006) Motion activated faux cameras & ink jet labels King Spoil Board Game: Special PNAC edition (2003) Modified vintage game, cartridges, faux cigarette, souvenir and chemical agent testing pads

STAN WOODWARD Sovereign Authority (2003) DVD, 2 minutes

AFFILIATED EVENTS OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. Including an incendiary musical ritual led by Davey Wrathgabar of The Visitations and a Eulogy for the Nation by US DAT Secretary-at-Large Randall M. Packer THE LADIES OF THE FIRST CHURCH OF THE REVOLUTION SUNDAY, OCT. 1, 3:00 P.M. Come eat free cupcakes & discuss their explosive recipes, which will be available in cookbook format. A performance event by James Kubie and Camille Henry WAVE BOOKS POETRY BUS TOUR COMES TO ATHENS ON ITS 50 CITY NATIONAL CIRCUIT! SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8, 7:00 - 8:30 P.M. Featuring Readings by Joshua Beckman, Vic Chesnutt, Carrie St. James Comer, Bob Hicok, Sabrina Orah Mark and more. Organized locally by VOX, UGA’s Creative Writing Graduate Reading Series CLOSING WEEK EVENTS: NOVEMBER 1 - 5 • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 8:00 P.M. Screening of the brand new video: Religion of the Lie [Orf's Baptism] by Randall M. Packer & Charles Lane of the US DAT. The third segment of a larger work-in-progress, A Season in Hell, a video opera, created in collaboration with the UGA Department of Theatre & Film, filmed at the Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery, an African-American historic site in Athens. Screening to be followed by a panel discussion. Note: Screening to be held in Room 53 of the Fine Arts Building, at the corner of Lumpkin & Baldwin Streets Please click for the UGA PR for more information on the performers and this event. • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 7:30 P.M. Meet ‘Secretary-at-Large’ Randall M. Packer of the US DAT at ATHICA Gallery. Informal gallery tour of US DAT installations with artist Q&A. • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 12:20 P.M. Colloquium on Multimedia Performance in Public Spaces by Randall M. Packer of the US DAT Note: To be held at the UGA Department of Theatre & Film • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2:00 - 3:30 P.M. Panel Discussion: American Artists on American Politics Exhibit artists such as Richard Lou, George Kennedy, Jason Brown, Patrick Grenier and Cecelia Kane will discuss being an artist dealing with political content in today's political climate. 3:30 - 4:30 P.M. Performances: Democratic Decrees: A performance by Patrick Grenier Grenier's piece will be based on Decrees gallery attendees submitted during this exhibit's run. Note: Patrick Grenier's performance is sponsored in part by Hill & Beasley, LLP, Attorneys specializing in Civil & Employment Rights Red Dresses and Blue Trousers: A humorous spoken word performance by Cecelia Kane, accompanied by drummer Amazing Lizardo on snare and base drum. 4:30 - 5:00 P.M. Gallery Viewing & Munchies provided by Daily Groceries & Co-op 5:00 - 6:00 P.M. Music by the Folk Yous Acoustic Covers of 80's power ballads by Athens' duo, Courtnie Wolfgang & Julie Dyles on guitar and ukulele All Events Free - Suggested Donation .90 cents - $9.00