The Contract With America is “an instrument to help repair a fundamental disconnection between citizens and their elected officials,” according to its Republican drafters. The 367 candidates who signed on last September thought their legislative agenda was in sync with the thinking of average citizens.
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But Chicago artist Mary Ellen Croteau wants to let them know otherwise. “They make it sound like the American public is in total agreement with it,” she says, “when in fact most people are not, if they even know what it is.” So Croteau queried artists nationwide to contribute to an exhibit on current political topics addressed in the contract ranging from welfare reform and orphanages to abortion and gay rights. The result is “Contract on America,” a nonjuried show of 40 pieces–16 by Chicago artists–at Artemisia Gallery through April 1. Some works directly attack the contract’s ten-point plan to jump-start America’s moral and fiscal consciousness, but most of the show is an indictment of right-wing beliefs and in some cases blatant character assassinations of the right’s leaders.
Bonnie Peterson Tucker is even more literal. Transferring photocopied images onto pieces of fabric, she sewed a quilt out of press clippings about Gingrich and talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. Tucker also wrote her own topical triggers, like “Newt’s 4.5 million,” referring to his botched book contract. The work is called Freudian Slip, and one of Tucker’s favorites is a quote by Gingrich that she found in the New York Times: “If combat means being in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections and they don’t have upper-body strength. Men are basically little piglets. If you drop them in a ditch they roll around in it.”
