Posted on 02/08/2005 1:35:58 PM PST by got_moab?
Now on display at Alperts in Seekonk with other high school art, the student's work is causing some controversy.
Jeffrey Eden devised his award-winning project less than 30 minutes after his high school art teacher asked him to express a thought or two in a three-dimensional way.
The award-winning artwork by high school student Jeffrey Eden compares President Bush's war policies with Adolf Hitler's pillage of Europe. So, in the wake of last year's polarizing election and the war in Iraq, the 17-year-old built an abstract scene comparing President Bush's war policies with Adolf Hitler's pillage of Europe.
The student's diorama-like assemblage juxtaposes Hitler quotes with statements by Mr. Bush, Nazi swastikas with American flags, desert-colored toy soldiers with olive plastic figures. And so on.
Eden said he's trying to point out certain similarities between the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the German blitzkrieg -- without actually equating Hitler to President Bush.
In this, the success of his project is debatable.
Nonetheless, it has earned the Charlestown student a silver key at the Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards.
It has also tested the contest's commitment to an overriding principle: that students should be encouraged to express their own thoughts through art.
The piece, titled "Bush/Hitler and How History Repeats Itself," triggered a complaint soon after it was displayed with other award-winning entries at Alperts Furniture Showplace in Seekonk last week.
"It's offensive to me," said Paul Lewis, a 34-year-old North Providence man.
Lewis asked Alperts to remove Eden's piece and phoned area newspapers as well as Channel 10 and Channel 6.
He said he sees zero relationship between the policies of President Bush and Hitler.
"It's a stretch," he said.
Lewis said the piece poorly conveys what Eden told The Journal he was trying to convey because it leaves too much to interpretation. Someone might think the artist believes the president is as evil as Hitler, he said.
"I believe he should have been a lot more clear in putting those two things together," Lewis said.
Alperts refused to remove the exhibit, but the store did attach a disclaimer.
The views of the artist do not represent the store, it said.
"We don't censor art," said the store's owner, Hershel Alpert. "We're not in the business of censoring art."
Eden hopes to study art after he graduates from Chariho Regional High School next year.
Eden said that although he supports U.S. soldiers, he believes the invasion of Iraq was unjustified.
The recent election in Iraq has not changed his views.
"At the time we invaded we did not have the justification nor the intelligence to take him [Saddam Hussein] out the way we did," he said.
Figures of President Bush and Hitler, drawn on Popsicle sticks, are at the focal point of Eden's work. Each is addressing his own army of plastic soldiers.
On a backdrop, Eden has pasted statements of Hitler. He has penned a few of his own sentiments, too.
He hopes people will read them.
"Hitler's own justification was his own hatred," said one slogan.
"Treatment of the prisoners was unspeakable [concentration camps]," said another.
To the right of President Bush, Eden's handwriting said "No justification" and "Saddam had no affiliation with the Taliban and there are no weapons of mass destruction."
Eden said the written messages are as important as the visual ones.
He thinks they show that the work is comparing Hitler and President Bush -- not equating them.
"I felt I was clear about what I was trying to get across," he said. "I believe those who misconstrued the artwork didn't take the time to really read into it."
His teacher, Lynn Norton, believed he got his point across. She gave him an A.
Wow, who saw that coming! I remember pulling off more compelling diaramas when I was in the third grade. Not only is this kids work lacking in artistic merit it's also cheesy and unoriginal. Gotta love the ass-clown store owner who sees this as a free speech issue. I know where I won't be buying furniture from in the future. Go to the Projo website for a photo of this kids "art" and a picture of his lame hippy ass.
The kid may have gotten an "A" from his art teacher, but he deserves an "F" in history.
The piece, titled "Bush/Hitler and How History Repeats Itself,"
It seems he failed.
I've always wondered who would be the bogeyman if Hitler had never existed. This kind of nonsense betrays a complete lack of understanding in regards to Hitler, and pretty much everything else.
Fits right in with the Hollywood group he will likely aspire to. Rewards flow to those who best toe the party line, not to those with any talent or artistic merit.
The student's diorama-like assemblage displays two naked GI Joe dolls in sexual positions, another two in Arab garb with one about to behead the other with a two sword, with terrorist slogans and images juxtaposed next to pictures and quotes of Hollywood Liberals and leading Democrat politicians.
The student was not allowed to display his work and was given an F for hate-filled work, being intolerant, and promoting sexual "bigotry."
Jeffrey Eden could himself be contrasted favorably with Ernst Rohm.
I'm sure one day the kid will appreciate the irony in his Goebbels-legacy work of propaganda.
Yea, I “felt” my last bowel movement pretty much described its clarity and sophistication. I also believe that “those who misconstrued my artwork didn’t take the time to really read into it.”, but my feelings don’t make it so.
BTW Did this teacher (AKA as indoctrinator) attend Colorado with an Ethnic Studies Major?
I don't know, why don't you ask her??
Lynn.Norton@Chariho.K12.ri.us
Wasn't there a series of postings on FR recently about the removal of spelling bees in one Rhode Island school distict because they violated the No Child Left Behind Act and because it created elitist groups of literate students?
The spelling bees were reinstated by the Dist. Supt.
Email sent to Indoctrination Coordinator of Secular Humanist Institution 224C, Rhode Island:
"Thank you for the sheer idiocy. Please continue your indoctrination programs as planned. I just hope that the rational majority of Americans don't see this or we'll never get elected!"
On a humorous side note, the student who sits next to Jeffrey Eden in art class recieved an F on his artistic impression diarama entitled, "Jeffey Eden is a douchebag!"
You're exactly right. I wouldn't expect Stalin or Mao to be the one if Hitler hadn't existed. Their crimes are well-known (except perhaps by knuckleheads like the young artist in the article) but they've been muted by the "romance" surrounding communism and by the apologists for communism who still exist and operate in the West. Anyone should be as viscerally repulsed by Stalin or Mao (or Castro or Ho or Che) as they are by Hitler, yet I have a friend who walks around NYC in a peasants cap with red star and hammer and sickle on it, and he gets very little negative reaction. The wealthy, well-fed, pampered young "communists" on our college campuses can put up a poster of Mao, and who minds? My guess is that, if someone did an art project comparing GWB to Mao, some people would object that it gives Bush an undeserved compliment!
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