Too Cozy?

Love Armor

Shirley Klinghoffer guides the Humvee into CCA on September 12; volunteers cover it with the cozy










Early in his career, Picasso didn’t believe in mixing politics with art. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, appalled by Franco’s actions, he became a passionate supporter of the Republic. But when asked to create an anti-war mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair, Picasso was reluctant. And then a small Basque village in Northern Spain was bombed for over three hours, killing sixteen hundred people. Picasso, outraged, immediately began sketches for “Guernica”, the seminal anti-war artwork of the century. Picasso’s art did not stop any war, but it did stir people up, and some of those stirred actually got busy.

Art and politics can be uncomfortable bedfellows for many viewers, and difficult works for dealers to sell. According to Susan Landauer, chief curator at the San Jose Museum of Art in text written for the 2005 exhibition Visual Politics, The Art of Engagement, “... there has often been a deep ambivalence about mixing art and politics, even in periods of tremendous turmoil. This was at no time more evident than in the 1960s, when New York's market-driven avant-garde responded to the Vietnam War with Pop Art, Minimalism, and hard-edge abstraction, which cultural critic Susan Sontag characterized as the ‘aesthetics of silence.’”

We see those silent aesthetics now, especially in Santa Fe, where Southwestern landscapes, Modernist abstraction, cool Conceptualism and Minimalism are, even during seven years of war and economic decline, the most popular and lucrative art in its galleries. “Love Armor”, on view at the Center for Contemporary Arts through October 5, is a welcome reminder of where our attention, as artists and art viewers, has been lax.

Under the direction of Santa Fe artists Shirley Klinghoffer and Sarah Hewitt, over sixty women from all over the country knitted and croqueted a life-size “cozy” for a military Humvee M1026. According to Klinghoffer on the project’s website, “my vision is to take an icon of this war…and swaddle it in comfort and quiet…Knitting takes time, concentration, and may be considered a meditation. Today we sit down and knit meditatively thinking about the trauma occurring in the Middle East.”

It is that very process—people from disparate walks of life and locations around the country coming together to create a non-partisan symbol of compassion--that is the most successful part of the “Love Armor” project.

On September 2, local military officers drove the Humvee into the Munoz/Waxman gallery at CCA and tenderly covered the vehicle with the cozy. The action was deeply moving. On September 11, military officers returned, moving the cozy to a Humvee-shaped metal frame in the gallery, and driving the vehicle away. Both actions were witnessed by fewer than twenty people each time. Why weren’t more people present for the drive-in and the drive-out? Perhaps it was scheduling (both events occurred on weekdays when most people are at work and most children in school). Perhaps it was a general feeling of ho-hum, Humvee; ho-hum, politics. It is hard to know.

Although the project is deeply sincere in its intention, several of Hewitt and Klinghoffer’s choices weaken the cozy itself as an art object. The cozy is knitted of white cotton rope, and the result looks like late-1960s macramé. That reference links the project to Vietnam and the craft-based art of the same era instead of to contemporary America or Iraq. Referencing Vietnam might serve as a powerful reminder of how swiftly history repeats itself, but mostly it softens the project’s emotional kick. The viewer gets lost in sentimentality. Complicating this further, Klinghoffer and Hewitt chose to “draw” the details of the Humvee-its windows, doors, license plate—with variations in the pattern of the knit. The cozy becomes a sweet, cartoon-ish
illustration of a Humvee instead of its own, separate, symbol of compassion. Both of these
points are reinforced by the (way too cute) knitted license plate, which reads “LUVARMR”.

As a point of comparison, “My Humvee (inversion therapy)”, a work created by Peter Hennessey, was featured at the Melbourne Art Fair just last month, and is now in the permanent collection of the University of Queensland Art Museum. Hennessey built a life-size replica of a Humvee, using black painted wood, and stood the vehicle vertically it on its nose. That simple action makes Hennessey’s Humvee simultaneously menacing and impotent. Hennessey encourages the viewer to connect many dots: the work references war, domination, power, wastefulness, architecture, and consumption. It takes your breath away.

“The cozy does obliterate the image of the Humvee,” explains Klinghoffer. “It looks innocent. It is the work of many hands who came together to open a dialog. It is giving voice to the fact that there are good people there for us, fighting—so it gives voice to the fact that we do have compassion for our troops. The interactive area of the exhibition is a venue for that understanding and sharing. If someone comes in and asks what this is about—that is something.”

Some viewers will subconsciously believe that visiting “Love Armor” and applauding Klinghoffer and Hewitt’s efforts is protest enough. Instead, political artists hope to light the fire of passionate action. Klinghoffer plans to tour “Love Armor” around the country. Perhaps “Love Armor” will help launch a broad community-based effort, the kind of effort that will pressure our politicians to bring our troops home.

Love Armor
Center for Contemporary Arts, Munoz/Waxman Gallery
1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe
505-982-1338
www.lovearmorproject.com
Through October 5


This review was originally published in the September 19, 2008 issue of the Journal Santa Fe, in the column Object Lessons.