Lots of debate in academia.
The Bad Cover
Are they really this stupid? I’m talking about the editors who decided on Barry Blitt’s cover for this week’s The New Yorker — the one depicting Barack Obama in a turban, his wife Michelle done up as terrorist with an Afro, the two of them gleefully standing in the Oval Office while an American flag burns in the fireplace.
It’s too bad that The New Yorker editors apparently know so little about how images work — in general, within art, but more particularly, as objects to be manipulated in the age of the Internet. More than words, images, once released into the public sphere, take on a powerful life of their own. Unlike paintings (which are special kinds of images that invite lingering and ruminating), images like The New Yorker cover hit the viewer quickly, decisively, and all at once. The first response is always and without exception the strongest one, and it’s very difficult for it to be fully erased later on. |
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