It’s
been four days since more than two dozen buildings and public spaces
across Boston, Cambridge, and beyond got smacked with posters of Mitt
Romney and Barack Obama flashing cash like Biggie at a strip club.
The life-size black-and-white images are hard to miss; from a lot
near Malden High School to Jamaica Plain, both candidates appear to
be laughing at the voting masses as a caricature lobbyist cracks a
suitcase full of Benjamins.
The
Phoenix touched base with the artist troupe behind these
wheat-pasted marvels – collectively known, according to the
posters, as the Blank Administration – for some background on their
not-so-legal project. The premise and inspiration were rather obvious
– both Republicans and Democrats are shameless whores with coffers
full of ill-gotten gains. But we wanted to hear their spin on the
story.
“This
is our first piece,” says a member of the Blank Administration who
maintains anonymity. Their debut murals are untitled, they say, but
the group generically refers to the work as “Obamney.” “We’re
speaking out against the two-party system. If you look at either
individual, they are treating the economy in ways that are completely
inappropriate. Even if we liked these candidates, which we don’t,
they have blatant conflicts of interest.”
On
their Tumblr and within the art itself, Blank Administration
officials cite examples that speak to bipartisan depravity – news
articles detailing Wall Street’s control over the major parties, as
well as reports of Romney and Obama’s questionable ties to nefarious
business interests. “When we look at both of these candidates,”
says the Blank Administration spokesperson, “we say, ‘Is this the best
that they have?’”
Some
posters have already been removed, including ones at the Novartis
construction site outside of Kendall Square, and on Winter Street
near Davis Square. To glimpse what’s left, people can still check
outside the Starlite Lounge in Somerville, on Micro Center in Cambridge,
and by St. Mary’s Court near Boston University. There’s also one
still stuck on an overpass near English High in Jamaica Plain, and
another near the old Milky Way, though the latter’s been defaced by
partisan locals.
“It
was really interesting to see how people peeled off Obama and left
just Romney standing there,” says the Blank Administration flack, who says there will be more campaigns in the near future.
“This is disappointing – we see represented in this situation the
same problem that we see in electoral politics. Some people want to
ignore inconvenient facts about Obama and work to get him reelected.
We say that with that false dichotomy, where we’re actually faced
with two choices that are equally bad, the American public cannot
win.”
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