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Andrew Maloney
March 6, 2009
Acknowledgements
The Faculty of the Art Department that I have studied under for the past four years,
because if it were not for your teachings, I would not be the artist I am today. I want to
especially call to attention my advisor, Bridget Milligan, who played an important part in
the formation of my project.
My close friends Michael Zappitello, Samuel Taylor and Bryn Tulip for listening to me
and helping me solidify my project, and to the many other acquaintances I have spoken
with that have all directly or indirectly contributed to my project.
Henry J. Copeland Fund for allowing me to have the opportunity to present an art exhibit
I really put myself into.
The College of Wooster for allowing me the opportunity to go abroad and see other parts
of the world, as those experiences have an important impact on my view of the world as
an artist.
And most importantly my family, for being supportive of my artistic endeavors and
everything else I have engaged in.
3
Illustrations
It was not until four years ago that I had a revelation about my life and the choices
I had been making, or not making. In the middle of my senior year of high school, on
die. His health deteriorated because of a multitude of factors: the cancer itself, the
radiation treatment from the bone marrow transplant he was undergoing, and old age.
Because the death happened in such a rapid manner, I was emotionally taken aback.
Going through my father’s death put me in a dissatisfied mental state. After the funeral
events settled down, I became increasingly interested in how for such a long time I had
been content with how I was previously living my life. That is to say, I realized that I had
essentially been coasting on cultural and religious autopilot. It was as if I never knew
there were other options out there. I did not know that I could stop attending church and
entertain other spiritual options. I also that there was increasing unrest and criticism about
the ‘suburban’ lifestyle my family and millions of other families had been living in the
The post-war idea of the so-called “American Dream” is a template for a lifestyle
that is defunct and obsolete for numerous reasons. We have passed the point in the
a lifestyle that produces exorbitant amount of waste and is spiritually defeating. The
effort to better one’s self is a fashion fleeting away. Traditions die hard in the United
and subsequent election of the first African-American president in our nations history.
5
But the earth we live on, and the society we live in are suffering because of these very
refuting Christianity, honestly. I was ‘baptized’ when I was born, ‘confirmed’ when I was
old enough, completed ‘mission trips’ where I ‘spread the word’ and helped out
feeding) and essentially went to church every Sunday in between until a few weeks after
my father’s death. Obviously, when a young male’s father dies, he is going to be upset.
Not only was I upset, but also I was confused. I was brought up to believe that “God had
a plan for everything, and even though this was a horrible thing to happen, something
good will come of it.” I have to realize that I truly feel as though I was taught some
fantastic moral lessons, but enabling young people to fully rely on God and not think for
ignorance is coupled by my disbelief that there are probably so many other people just
like me. Examples of morality are to be taught as examples and not necessarily should be
imposed as the truth from the start. I would have loved for my father to have not died, but
Because the exploration of religiosity is such an immense pursuit that tends not to
leave many answers, I needed to focus on something more concrete. When I heard James
Howard Kunstler talk about the “tragedy of suburbia”1, I was extremely intrigued. The
investigation of my childhood in suburban living is far more fruitful to engage in. There
1
“The Tragedy of Suburbia”. James Howard Kunstler. Accessed January 22, 2009
online at
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html.
6
is a growing discourse about the flaws of this type of living situation. Given the current
state of our earth, the precious, colossal entity that gives us life and the pursuit of
Author, social critic, and public speaker, James Howard Kunstler maintains that
suburbia is the “greatest misallocation of resources in the world”. He describes the spaces
we live in as the “physical manifestation” of the common good and that we define
ourselves by these such places. The spaces we dwell in tell people about who we really
are (or at least how perceive ourselves), and the sprawl we are experiencing is saying
very negative things. He goes even as far as saying that certain parts of America beg the
question, “Is this a place worth caring about?” or even “Is this a place worth defending?”
Such a statement does not leave many feathers unruffled. There exists an educated man
and many others like him, saying that our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters are spilling
blood overseas only to come back to Walmarts, Targets, and lifeless suburbia—and that
What was lost in the post-war boom of private single-family housing was the
blurring of definitions between the rural country home and the city apartment or condo.
There used to exist a distinct difference between the rural and the urban, and that is what
was the novelty of it all. The two need to exist independent of one another in order for
foolish “cartoons” trying to incorporate both the urban and the rural, an obnoxious
combination. They are labeled as “cookie-cutter” houses, each one probably exactly or at
least extremely structurally similar to the rest. Sometimes they do not even have windows
on the sides of houses and have miniature, unusable ‘cartoon’ porches. The double-car
7
garage is essential to these tiresome units as owning and operating a car is essential to
having a normal, functioning ‘American’ life. The residents of these communities need to
Was it normal for me to live in a neighborhood where every house looked the
same, where no one who lived in the neighborhood could barely ever be seen out of their
homes (the transition from the house to the car was usually made in the cover of the
garage), where the automobile was so heavily relied on, and where conspicuous
consumption and unconscious adaptation to societal norms took place? I do not think so.
Perhaps it was ‘normal’ for the past 50 years, but times need to change. How have we
veered so off course? There are a few important points in the past couple decades that
have put Americans in a position I do not think they should be in any longer.
After World War II, a number of federal policies that were passed, when
combined together, strongly encouraged the American people to move away from urban
centers. The Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration helped
inexpensive single-home units become more affordable, and even provided mortgages for
over eleven million homes2. Unfortunately, the emphasis was put on building more
homes, not fixing up old ones. Thus, the inner urban centers deteriorated while the
created, and mass transit in turn was neglected3. Again, elements of the previous, rich
urban environment become dilapidated and urban exodus was further encouraged.
2
Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of
Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. 2000. 7.
3
Ibid., 8
8
Because these new areas of growth were only focused on homebuilding, there was
no room put aside for ‘corner stores’ or any semi-commercial unit where one could shop.
Therefore, shopping centers were constructed elsewhere along roads. Roads at this point
were the most logical place to put goods and services since everyone drove cars. And
because the shopping centers were placed along roads, they needed a place for a parking
lot, so the store was moved away from the road. Signs were erected and endless stretches
of parking lots lay4 putting thousands upon thousands acres of indigenous nature under
At some point in our country’s history, country planners became convinced that
segregating all different aspects necessary for life was a good idea, and zoning became a
major issue. Communities tended to contain a majority of some class or ethnicity within.
But for the most part, diversely populated subdivisions were and still are rare. All land-
use zones had to be split up and segregated. F.J. Popper makes the point that:
One might be able to deduce that perhaps the reason why our communities are in turmoil
is because their advent was influenced by racism5. There was a massive migration known
as the “White Flight” that occurred in the 1960s after an influx of poor, southern African-
Americans reached northern cities. These cities experience high crime rates, racial
tensions, high unemployment, and rising taxes. The white people that had previously
4
Ibid., 9.
5
Ibid., 10.
9
inhabited the city fled to the suburbs out of the city6. It is true that there is an increasing
number of blacks entering the suburbs, however there is still a significant separation from
As the troops returned home from World War II in Europe, they also brought with
them a new ability to efficiently manage complex, large-scale tasks. Since we were
successful, and luckily the war seemingly went our way, these skills were brought back
over to America and were applied to every other aspect of life. In doing so, the “out with
the old” sentiment swept across America and the old way of town planning based on
history, aesthetics and culture itself became obsolete. Managing land became a project
based on numbers. The methods of classifying and counting that were so successful when
building munitions and positioning and allocating troops were then applied to the facets
of planning. The art of constructing successful cities was then replaced by a simpler
version8.
functioning life, one needs a car. Cars are crucial for transport to any number of an
American’s life’s priorities. But as we’ve learned in the past few decades, the more cars
we have, and the more those cars use oil as means of fuel, the more pollutants enter our
atmosphere and kill our planet. It is a fundamental truth that the more cars we have using
oil and emitting pollutants into the atmosphere, the more we endanger the health of the
6
Baldassare, Mark. Suburban Communities. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 18, 1992.
480.
7
Ibid., 482.
8
Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of
Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. 2000. 11.
10
Until the middle of the century, traditional, small-scale neighborhoods were the
type of living situations that were most common in the world. They came from European
settlements, and contained varied populations and a variety of uses. These settlements
that were brought from the New World explorers of the past allowed people to settle on
the continent without depleting the country’s financial resources or destroying vast
Suburban ‘sprawl’ as some put it, is now the most widely used system of growth
in North America. Even when the population density is low in these areas, the sprawl
does not pay for itself financially. In these areas traffic problems are produced, as well as
societal problems such as inequality and social isolation10. The horizontal expansion of
sprawl is literally like an explosion—the most active growth of the whole situation occurs
at the outside edge, expanding outward, while the middle settles into a hapless void. In
sprawl, there usually contains housing subdivisions, shopping centers, office parks, civic
institutions, and an extensive maze of roadways11. Because of the 1970s and the 1980s
and their respective federal handling of economic restructuring, the increasingly common
replacement of domestic products by foreign goods and the subsequent loss of jobs, the
Suburbia and the neglect of alternate, culturally successful ways of life is not just
the fault of town planners, military tactics, or a few federal policies passed, but also the
fault of some of our past leaders to focus on other important matters. After all, the person
9
Ibid., 4.
10
Ibid., 4.
11
Ibid., 7.
12
Baldassare, Mark. Suburban Communities. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 18,
1992. 481.
11
leading our country needs to be aware of these matters as it not only affects us, but the
rest of the world. It is notable that middle-class America has not been socially or
is as if those that live in these subdivisions do not want change. Republicans make up
48% of the voters in these eras, and wield an advantage when voting on city policy13.
It seems like we have known for quite some time about the peril of the “Rustbelt”
in America, a prime example of where suburban sprawl has continued and how the
current state of affairs is detrimental to our economy and quality of life. In 1968 when
Richard Nixon ran for president, a campaign contributor named Kevin Phillips wrote a
document stating that Nixon could win the election if they gathered the votes of the
Sunbelt or the Old Confederacy, the Southwest, and the West Coast, then they could
almost guarantee a republican win without carrying any industrial state in the Northeast
or Midwest. So thus it is obvious that Carter and Clinton were able to win in 1976 ad
When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, it was the first time in the history of
our country that money was redistributed from the poor to the rich, from minorities to
whites and from financial suffering cities to the cities of the Sunbelt and the west. Reagan
had a lot to deal with coming out of the 70’s, where neglect for the consequences of
unrelenting pillaging of natural resources and overall neglect of the environment and
13
Ibid., 478.
14
Phillips, Kevin. “Reagan’s America: A Capital Offense,” as appeared in A History of
Our Time: Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University
Press. 1995. 447.
12
workers health15 left Jimmy Carter reeling and positioned Reagan in a place similar to
Within the suburbs, there is a widening gap between the rich and the poor, as
local governments within these segregated communities can vote and channel their taxes
towards improving localities, and attracting more affluence to the area. And in doing this
they attract industries, increasing the economic deprivation of the less affluent areas of
the metropolitan area. With the politicians trying to win the support of the affluent in the
states excluding the rust belt, it is no wonder why concern for proper urban development
In the 1980s, the rich were getting richer, with decamillionaires, centimillionaries,
half-billionaires, and billionaires all increasing in quantity. The net worth of the richest
Americans according to Forbes 400 tripled between 1981 and 1989. As CEO’s got richer,
the corporations moved out of the city towards the suburbs, more specifically, towards
the CEO’s house.16 And as the corporations moved out, they moved into Business Parks,
sprawling asphalt deserts with enormous corporate cubes laid on top, with their
For the past few decades, there has been a significant decline in America’s path
towards economic success and grasp on the environmental push. After Reagan, George
Bush Sr. promised early on that he would be the environmental president, and signed the
15
Lekachman, Robert. Greed Is Not Enough. New York: Pantheon Books. 1982. 44.
16 16
Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of
Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. 2000. 9.
13
Clean Air Act of 199017. However, when the economy started to stutter, and the EPA
wanted to prosecute the big corporate polluters, he allowed the Justice Department to
overrule them18. Bush Sr. also created the Council on Competitiveness, a continuation of
a Reagan policy, which allowed corporations to slide beneath emissions and pollutant
control because they “impeded economic growth and cost jobs”19. Then in 1992, Bush Sr.
was the only leader of a nation not to sign a treaty to conserve millions of plant and
animal species20. In his 1994 State of the Union Address, Bill Clinton stated that from
1989 to 1992, the national debt quadrupled, and the nation experience the slowest growth
rate in half a century, and for the past twenty years the status of working families was
stagnant or had been declining21. And thanks to the continuation of our current paths of
wastefulness, a child born in the United States will have thirty times more of a wasteful
impact on the earth during its lifetime than a child born in India.
So obviously there is a lot that needs to change. This is an enormous case, and
change can only be put into place one step at a time. Certain cities in the United States
have instituted growth borders, and in doing so negotiate a stopping point to which the
sprawl from an urban area will reach. In doing this, whatever exists within the confines of
17
Gore, Jr., Albert, “The Global Environment,” as appeared in A History of Our Time:
Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
1995. 497.
18
Ibid., 497.
19
Ibid., 497.
20
Ibid., 497.
21
Jefferson Clinton, William. “The State of the Union” as appeared in A History of Our
Time: Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University
Press. 1995. 507.
14
Narrower streets and more difficult intersections generate places that are pleasant
and safe to walk along. Subdivisions tend to have long, bending corners that although
may be easier for senior drivers, encourage speeding. Having difficult intersections is
important to communicate to drivers that they cannot afford to be apathetic and careless.
Drivers need to know the feeling that they are essentially “borrowing” the street from the
people that live there. This same kind of driving cannot be used when intersections are at
Creating mixed-use neighborhoods enhance the quality of life and bring needed
other place in the world uses as much space as the typical American does. And the
second residents of these suburbs leave their respective space they experience a stressful
environment in the public realm. It is true that one does not necessarily need a sociology
degree to determine that these cultures are perpetuating these blighted ideas and it is the
people that live in these uniform communities that are voting on the taxes and public
Eight out of every ten new urban projects are gated25. However this is also an American
thing. No one objected to the walled towns in Europe and Asia, but that is because within
those walls there were not just the affluent elite, but also many diverse groups of people.
Because there is an absence of places where one can walk, the opportunity to meet other
22
Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of
Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. 2000. 39.
23
Ibid., 16.
24
Ibid., 42.
25
Ibid., 45.
15
people and socialize is dwindling. Driving in cars has enabled us to become desensitized
to the amount of danger we are in when we are driving, whether it is weather, road
neighborhoods that are exemplified by old European standards, and pre-World War
America are what are needed to bring back culturally significant establishments. America
needs places worth caring about. In order to reach our greatest potential as humans we
need the help of our government to do this. The first step is to gain awareness to this
issue.
posters have been valuable tools used by governments and certain peoples to gain
attention to issues and to encourage action. They’ve been used for both altruistic and
mischievous causes, but nonetheless they have been effective. They were first used in the
First World War by the government as an advertising technique27. During the First World
War in Britain, Charles Higham said that these posters, “improved lives by informing the
public of new products, modes of behavior and even appearance.” In 1925 the Bishop of
Durham said in a sermon given in the Westminster Abbey that the “posters were
26
Ibid., 59.
27
Aulich, James. War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication. New York: Thames &
Hudson. 2007. 8.
16
persuasive and positive educational forces that provided social and aesthetic frameworks,
The success of the poster depends on its appeal to the masses. Psychologists
warned in the early 20th century that populations were susceptible to contagious and
irrational suggestion through the subconscious and by the affirmation and repetition of
appealing statements. The poster is considered the one of the most modern types of media
because it is integral to the urban environment. These posters can be put virtually
anywhere in the city where there is a surface, and where a multitude of eyes can see them
e.g. venues, railway lines, streets, in commercial hearts, industrial centers, public squares
and transport hubs. According to a 2002 report for the Advertising Standards Authority in
the UK, the public ranked posters second only to television advertising in terms of
impact29. Using the poster is a double-edged sword, however, as the pervasiveness of the
An effective poster is one that does not necessarily need to offer descriptive
including a picture of a bomb in a poster can readily send a message about war without
28
Ibid., 11.
29
Ibid., 12.
30
Ibid., 13.
31
Ibid., 15.
17
prison in 2004. These photos were recognized all over the world and when shown
increased during wartime as the governments of these respective nations tried to rally
men and women together to accomplish various tasks. American corporations have often
used such posters to energize their workers and to solidify their patriotism33. Traditional
American posters shroud the confidence in American military might by stressing the
“positive” nature of American life such as the pervasiveness of consumerism and the
virtues of having a middle class home in a free enterprise economy35. The joys of being
American are many and splendid, but the posters I wish to create discount the
consumerist elements of the past. The posters of the past have also taken a more blatant
and aggressive tone, as in the Vietnam era of graffiti spit phrases like, “Fighting for peace
is like fucking for virginity.”36 The dissenting tone associated with a lot of these posters
is something that is special, as activist Susan Sontag said in a speech in 2003 at a human
“We are all conscripts in one sense or another. For all of us, it is
hard to break ranks; to incur the disapproval, the censure, the violence of
an offended majority with a different idea of loyalty. We shelter under
banner-words like justice, peace, reconciliation, that enroll us in new, if
much smaller and relatively powerless communities of the like-minded;
32
Ibid., 15.
33
Ibid., 51.
34
Ibid., 162.
35
Ibid., 169.
36
Ibid., 220.
18
that mobilize us for the demonstration, the protest, the public performance
acts of civil disobedience not for the parade ground and the battlefield.”
So the need for propaganda posters is still imminent, even though social spaces exist like
the Internet, where information can be processed extremely fast. But the Internet only
reaches a select group of individuals. There exists the rest of the population that walks
stylistically. The former street-art guru and now mainstream artist Shepard Fairey has
transcended notions of graffiti and has constructed images increasingly viewer friendly,
as his poster for President Barack Obama (Figure 1) became the most widely used image
of him during his campaign. The way he crafts his propaganda posters is what influenced
me to have multiple layers on my work. Often his artwork yields a look to patterns or
posters that lay underneath the readily apparent images. At the same time, those readily
apparent images are thought provoking and visually striking (Figure 2).
Figure 1 Figure 2
Shepard Fairey, Untitled. 2008. Shepard Fairey. Untitled. 2008.
Poster Poster collage
Size unknown. Size unknown.
19
The layers that make up my posters are intended to give the illusion that the
background of the present piece is something that has existed for an extended period of
time under an extended amount of use. The many worn-away layers are meant to
advertising and the like. The idea of diverse, multiple layers, also exists in tandem with
the need for diversity in the narrowing scope of American life. Just as using one solid
color for the background would make the piece seem boring and homogenous, so does
The work of Ralph Steadman, made famous as the illustrator who used to work
Thompson concerned trying to “find the American Dream” at one moment when the two
visited Las Vegas together. Steadman’s art plays a perfect companion for Hunter’s
propaganda posters, but his style demonstrates the ability to create massively moving and
organic images in a whirl of ink and color. His images are sometimes borderline
Figure 3
Ralph Steadman
Lizard Lounge, 1997.
Nine color silkscreen
38” x 50”
20
Similar in style, Derek Hess creates multimedia works, often for bands or flyers
for musical shows. His style uses very gesture-oriented strokes of the pen, coupled with
emotional splotches of ink or paint to create stunning compositions (Figures 4 and 5).
Especially relevant for my project is the work of Mimmo Rotella (Figure 6), who merely
uses the element of ripping posters on top of layers of other posters to create interesting
compositions. The advantage of seeing multiple layers of posters gives the viewer
something unique.
Figure 4 Figure 5
Derek Hess, Intervention, 2007 Derek Hess, obama, 2008.
Pen, ink, acrylic Mixed Media
14.5” x 8.75” 28” x 11”
21
Figure 6
Mimmo Rotella
Chisum, 2004
Color screen print and collage
40” x 27.6”
The propaganda posters I have created are masonite boards with several layers of
multiple types of media on them. The result is an amalgamation of media that hopefully
portrays a definitive message, but at the same time begets more questions. There are
several layers of gesso that were laid and sanded, then base layers of paint were laid on
top of that. Then after producing three digitally rendered ‘posters’, I printed and laid them
on top of the paint. The posters I have made were laid like bonds, pasted to the walls of
buildings. After they dry, I proceeded to sand them down with an electric sander and rip
them just as bonds and posters are ripped from various urban sites. Before I started
22
Figure 7
Andrew Maloney, Untitled, 2009
Mixed Media
4’ x 5’
the status a building wall might have at an urban site, with posters peeling, revealing
layers underneath (Figure 8 and 9), all emitting the same weathered, emotional
undertone. Just as posters usually vary in size, as do mine, creating different feelings as
the relationship between content and space varies. The content, or paintings and drawings
laid on top of the illustrious environment behind were produced with acrylic paint,
protective enamel, and various types of markers and pens. Using all types of media
Figure 8 Figure 9
Andrew Maloney, detail, 2009 Andrew Maloney, detail, 2009
Mixed media Mixed media
elements from the different artists that influence me. The posters are glimpses of urban
competing concepts. It at first almost does not make sense for these posters to be hanging
in an art gallery, as they might be better off in a city setting. But as far as my intention for
people to see these, this is perfect. Hanging the posters in a gallery space focuses
attention on them, and hopefully on the important matters the posters contain. The
scattered and various elements within the poster will hopefully draw the viewer closer in
for a better look, and in essence better establish my ideas and concepts for better urban
Bibliography
Aulich, James. War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication. New York: Thames &
Hudson. 2007.
Baldassare, Mark. Suburban Communities. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 18, 1992.
Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of
Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press.
2000.
Gore, Jr., Albert, “The Global Environment,” as appeared in A History of Our Time:
Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Howard Kunster, James. “The Tragedy of Suburbia” James Howard Kunstler. Accessed
January 22, 2009 online at
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.ht
ml.
Jefferson Clinton, William. “The State of the Union” as appeared in A History of Our
Time: Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford
University Press. 1995.
Lekachman, Robert. Greed Is Not Enough. New York: Pantheon Books. 1982.