Contra Diction
Artist
Robbie Conal
Date1988
MediumOffset Lithograph
Dimensions31 1/2 x 24 in. (80 x 61 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Clay Walker
Object numberPH.7352
DescriptionRobbie Conal describes himself as ""the godfather of guerilla street art,"" and this poster, showing a grotesque portrait of Ronald Reagan, its woodcut style designed to emphasize his wrinkles, and the pun in its slogan, is characteristic of his work. Conal typically skewers public figures and institutions in this sort of way, among them President George H. W. Bush, the Supreme Court, and the disgraced TV evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. But the Reagan administration seems to have been a special target. In 1986, for example, he made a series of four oil paintings titled Men with No Lips, showing Reagan and three members of his cabinet. The pun in this poster refers to the Iran-Contra Scandal of the 1980s involving the Reagan administration’s illegal transfer of arms to Iran in exchange for money and the release of seven American hostages held by Iranian-backed members of Hezbollah in Lebanon; the money was then used to support anti-Communist Contra rebels fighting the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.On View
Not on view
