The Hairy Times. Handmade paper from the New York Times & Los Angeles Times, human hair, letterpress text, 2005For her Hairy Times installation Diane Jacobs chooses “hair to explore the contradictions and controversies inherent in our current political climate.” The installation ranges from the two items featured here to pieces featuring an oil drum, bubble gum machine and coffee grinder.
The Hairy Times which was created from shredded New York Times and Los Angeles Times papers, “manifests the media’s failure to ask the hard questions and hold the government accountable. The ramifications of this neglect and deceit are made evident in our apathetic and disenfranchised populace.”
For her piece Family Values, Jacobs takes an older copy of the Bible and “boldly drills the pride symbol for gays and lesbians through the text block” transforming the book by “exposing elements of discrimination and magnifying the irony of religious might resulting in violence and destruction.”
Family Values. Old bible, 12″ x 10″ x 3 3/4“, 2005Diane Jacobs work is saturated with the healthy resistance to the status quo that is necessary to produce compelling art and sustain our democracy.
As Caroline Levine reminds us in her powerful book Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts:
“In the most repressive moments for democratic states…, when free speech was threatened and calls to unanimity and a common culture seemed to triumph over marginal and minority voices, art continued to stand for a crucial and long standing democratic value: the importance of minority voices and the benefits of pluralism.”