All posts tagged: Delacroix

50% Off Everything at MET Museum! Nelson Saiers Commercializes the View

50% Off Everything at MET Museum! Nelson Saiers Commercializes the View

November 28, 2018

Not to say that folks punching each other over a flatscreen are philistines, but you have to wonder if they’d be better off gazing upon the ravishing and lucid Delacroix exhibition instead of unreality TV.

If you want mystery or to trace the lines of power, corruption, and examine who’s pulling the strings behind so-called “Western democracies”, you might want to skip up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy exhibition.

” . . . as much a reckoning with our past as a road map of our current era . . . “ — Surface

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Alas, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, artist Nelson Saiers wondered why there weren’t many people hanging out in the museum’s gracious galleries to gaze upon masterpieces of the world – and thought he would install SALE signs that might draw crowds away from Best Buy.

“If you went to the Met as it opened on Friday many of the galleries were essentially empty, so you could spend some quality one on one time with some of the greatest works of art ever created,” says Saiers, who has been experimenting with “statement” Street Art installations like putting a large inflateable “Bitcoin Rat” on Wall Street in front of the Federal Reserve building last month.

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Whether many people saw the “Black Friday Special 50% Off” signs he placed around the museum or not (he estimated they each lasted about a half hour) he is still glad to have his critique on societal priorities.

“It was meant to be a bit of a satirical commentary on the non-stop commercialism we experience daily,” says the Hedge Fund manager turned artist, posing wittily or scurrying in some of the photos in the empty galleries with romantic artists like Ernest Meissonier, Paul Cezanne and his wife.

“Would you prefer to spend time with some of the most significant culture ever produced or shop?” Saier asks. “In the end, it was meant to be a humorous commentary, and hopefully, it was entertaining for the few who did see it.”

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

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Culture Jamming Street Artist COMBO Stages Topless Spectacle in Paris

July 18, 2013

A Femen Revolution with French Street Artist COMBO

In the face of 21st Century misogyny and a general discomfort with public nipples of the female variety, a male street artist named COMBO just staged a high profile half naked protest with wheat-paste, brushes, and breasts in Paris on July 14.  Reinterpreting the painter Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People that commemorated the July Revolution of 1830, COMBO brought the famous topless symbol of Liberty into the streets of 2013 by way of tribute to a brash new feminist movement that is appearing more often across Europe.

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to feminism)”. Detail. Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

“By hijacking such an iconic piece of art,” says the twenty something art director cum Street Artist, “I want to denunciate the discrimination and other misogynistic behavior that women still suffer too often and to pay a tribute to the activists’ fight.” The activists in this case are people like Inna Shevshenko, the Gen Y leader of Femen, a theatrical and warrior-like group of women who advocate in public displays of power and bare chests to address issues like sexism, misogyny, homophobia, religious hypocrisy, and sex trafficking.

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to street feminism)” Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

Sure, breasts of young women are naturally attention grabbers and they’ve been accused of cheap manipulation to sell an idea but they contend it is on par with the same objectification that is used to sell shampoo or cars and this time women are the decision makers regarding message.

“A woman’s naked body has always been the instrument of the patriarchy,” Shevshenko is quoted as saying in The Guardian, “they use it in the sex industry, the fashion industry, advertising, always in men’s hands.” Rather than presenting the allegorical goddess-figure of 19th century painters, these women are not striking a pleasant, pleasing and pliant pose, but rather one of power in their efforts to champion rights for women and girls.

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to street feminism)” Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

It’s traditional for the President of France to unveil a new version of the heralded Marianne on July 15 to be used on an official stamp, and COMBO may have intended to upstage the unveiling by a day.  And in a matter of uncanny timing, this little bit of wheat-pasting presaged the news that the actual inspiration for this years model was none other than Inna Shevshenko.

According to Reuters “A postage stamp depicting France’s cultural symbol Marianne has touched off a flurry of controversy after one of its creators revealed it was inspired by a topless feminist activist who hacked down a Christian cross in Kiev last year with a chainsaw.”

Which leads us back to the Street Art installation and photo op – COMBO tells us that his new piece stayed complete for only one day until it was smothered by graffiti.

Well, not the top half.

COMBO poses with members of Femen before their just completed installation in Paris.  (photo © and courtesy the artist)

La Liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty Leading the People) by Eugène Delacroix, 1830

COMBO. “Femen Leading The  People (or the street’s tribute to feminism)” Paris, France. July 2013. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

COMBO’s installation today as graffiti takes over the lower portion. (photo © and courtesy the artist)

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