An Obama poster showing the president of the United States as a joker (Heath Ledger-style) with the word ‘Socialism’ at the bottom of the poster is popping up in some place in Los Angeles. No one knows who is putting up these posters or what their real motive is. There are no signs or names on the back end of the poster.
This is what the Bedlam magazine has to say about these Obama joker posters:
This clearly appears to be a political statement (albeit a confused one) — a sort of negative version of artist Ron English’s Lincoln/Obama poster. But is it serious? We’d like to know who the artist is and whether this is the sort of provocative guerilla public art that is intended to encourage people to think (although about what, we’re not sure).
We suspect not. The Joker white-face imposed on Obama’s visage has a sort of malicious, racist, Jim Crow quailty to it that prompts us to ask, as Stepehen Colbert puts it, “vomit, come on up.”
Here is an image of the Obama Joker Poster:
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The original Joker/Obama image was apparently created by Firas Khateeb, a student living in Chicago who created it in Photoshop using an old Time Magazine cover and posted the results on his flickr site (www.flickr.com/photos/khateeb88/). However, whoever lifted it from there and adapted it as a poster and added the legend, “socialism,” is still a mystery. Check out http://www.bedlammagazine.com for more images and the full story.
It’s amazing how an attempt to help the masses could receive such a negative response.