Don't forget to mention the war

The growing disent with the US war on the world is spawning interesting opposition against the Bush administration within the American art community. Harrel Fletcher’s show The American War features documentation on what westerners commonly refer to as The Vietnam War. Din Q Lee uses a less direct approach with his Father and Son, with shots of Martin and Charlie Sheen interwoven with Vietnam villagers.

But the angriest American artist of them all is probably Clinton Fein who seems to be his own anarchist crusade against everyone who ever voted Republican. Though it’s easy to sympatize with his rage against the state of the world, it soon becomes rather tiresome. That being said I still think that Like Apple Fucking Pie is brilliant.

Searching the web for war related American exhibition it strikes me how deep the national trauma of The Vietnam War is for that country. Even though there is another war going on right now, very real for millions of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and soon to be also in Iran, most American artists seem preoccupied with a war that ended 30 years ago.