Elon Musk mercilessly mocked in D.C. street art

Can art change life? Joseph Beuys, a key art theorist in the 20th century, believed that art and life are one and was also convinced that art could change life.

It looks like street artist Winston Tseng has the same conviction with his “Anti-Elon Musk” posters spotted on sidewalks throughout Washington, D.C.

He may not be changing life (yet), but his satirical posters about Musk dismantling U.S. Agencies, seem at least to have moved Republican Senator Thom Tillis to react to the posters:

“The president is asking serious questions about where taxpayer dollars are going, and whether or not it’s the best and highest use.”

Yes, but Trump is not just asking questions, he’s taking action before the questions have been answered.

Another unanswered question: Why aren’t more artists taking to the streets with parodies like Winston Tseng? In the words of Social Realist Jack Levine in 1955, “You can’t disregard the whole world for some silly paint spots.”

Levine said that when Abstract Expressionists were all the rage. Watching today’s Republicans exult in their re-written tax code favoring the well-off brings to mind Levine’s etching “Feast of Reason” showing government officials puffed up with self-importance.

Levine’s plainly mocking title was taken from James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” The eyes of the figures are notably closed, as if their opinion is fixed and there’s no point in trying to change it.

But it also is an unwitting proxy for how the GOP rammed the tax legislation through last week without a public hearing, expert testimony or a single Dem vote.

Levine wanted more painters to take on current events, famously saying that the world needed more artists who make relevant art, as well as Ted Williams could hit – a clear dig at the Abstract Expressionists.

“Before anything,” Levine said, “ I have to find out the valid thing to do as an artist...therefore I shall always have to repudiate certain contemporary concepts because I’ve got a job that has to be done.”

Given the tribal politics in the Trump era, the scathing imagery by Levine, who died in 2010, serves as if it were made this morning.

Of course, he’s not the only painter who turned to satire to make art. In the 19th century, Honore Daumier pilloried the French king Louis Philippe by likening him to a gargantuan eating his people alive.

The same goes for painter Francisco Goya toward the end of the 18th century who pictured abusive rulers as monsters.

It should be noted that painters who put their brushes aside to draw political satire did not escape punishment. But they did anyway.

When Daumier pilloried King Philippe, he was jailed for six months and prevented from doing it again. Goya was called before the Inquisition, although friends in high places kept him out of jail.

And Levine was subpoenaed by The House Un-American Activities Committee; although by then, the purge was losing ground and that was that.

But the way things are going in the Trump era, who knows if artists who fault him will escape punishment. The very real concern about punishment makes Winston’s parodies about Elon Musk a profile in courage.

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