R.G. Powers: More Meaning

2:01pm | R.G. Powers is a published author and artist who recently exhibited work at Sipology Gallerie located on Linden Avenue and Broadway. His work explores the ubiquitous and, thus, nearly subliminal world of corporate branding, playing with meaning in amusing and, occasionally, arresting ways. His work is collected online at TheWrongContext.com, where he sheds light on his subtle, and sometimes painfully obvious, creations.

Sander: What does ‘recontextualizing’ mean to you?

R.G.: It’s the idea of taking something meaningless and turning it into something meaningful. Perhaps not something completely meaningless; it has to first have some value before I “re-value” it, or give it more value than I believe it had before. It has to have some social context for me to take it and give it, I believe, a more relevant value.

Sander: Can you give me a specific example?

R.G.: I turned the 7-11 logo into 9-11 because I felt it had more value, socially, than a convenience store. The slogan is “Thank heaven for 711.” And so I titled the art piece, “Thank Heaven For 9-11.” The subversive element in it is that consumerism is terrorism. The word “terror” is so overused that, whenever someone wants to manipulate public opinion, it ceases to have any cache anymore. It ceases to have charge. In a consumerist society we are terrorized every day by marketing and the invalidation of the idea that not possessing something makes us less than whole.  

A father and his son who was about 3 or 4 years old walked by that particular piece one night and the father said “What is that?” The boy said, “7-11, daddy.” The father replied, “See, they changed it.” It was all as matter-of-fact as that. I thought it was funny. He didn’t ask the boy what he felt about it. He just showed him the alternative.  

Sander: Does your work have more value when the change is observed, or when people see it as they think it should be?

R.G.: [laughs] I think both are just as relevant. For the subversive artist, it would clearly be the latter, as if the change worth having isn’t a change worth noticing until it’s too late. It would be like a marketing bomb inside someone where, one day, they’d say, “Why do I think this crap is so good?”

The other idea is for people who are aware of their world, or becoming aware of their world where, instead of reading every fifth word in a sentence to get to the meaning, they’re reading every word in a sentence; they’re looking at every line in an image to see what they can get out of it. Branding, to me, isn’t about branding a product. It’s about branding a person to a product that previously had no personality of its own, no soul.  

But to sum it up, I think being aware is always more important than being oblivious, because the change is conscious. For those who want to remain in “the Matrix” as it were, they will eventually emerge, but not with as much information.

Marketing uses unconsciousnesses most of the time as a means to its own end. I put art on T-shirts as perhaps a signpost of a shift in the dynamic of everyday life, a shift in consciousness. Some people notice, some people don’t. It’s half the fun.  

Sander: Artists are often thought of as craftsmen, using tools to create something that has an intrinsic uniqueness and provenance. How does your work fit into this paradigm?

R.G.: Perhaps I see it as “the beginning of the end of the beginning.” Being shown something is only the beginning, not the end. People think that getting an answer ends the query. I believe that to get an answer only begs another question. It’s how I develop myself.

You’re shown an advertisement, you’re shown an image. As humans, we are inspired by images to seek out more meaning from them. The goal of all major paradigms of “information” on this planet of dichotomies, whether it be government, religion or marketing, seeks to do the opposite. My response? I’d suggest amusement when you encounter these paradigms. When they pretend to have your answers in order to achieve your submission, money or your basic acquiescence, they won’t be laughing. And it’s not all that serious — in fact, it’s not serious at all, which makes it all such a fun game in the end. 

To answer your question succinctly, however, I don’t know if it fits into any kind of ‘art’ paradigm. It may be that my work reveals that the paradigm doesn’t exist. It’s certainly not nihilistic. It’s a validation that someone’s programming worked.

Sander: How did you come to sell T-shirts at Sipology?

At first I had decided just to sell T-shirts with images from the show. Then I thought, “Why limit myself?” So everything on the site is for sale there now. They have plans to sell shirts with images by other artists, also.  

Sander: You’ve created new work for Pride Week. How did this come to pass?

R.G.: One day I thought, “Gay Bomb? WTF?”

Sander: For those who don’t know, the ‘gay bomb’ is either an urban legend, partially fact-based, or entirely true. The story goes that the U.S. military was developing a chemical weapon that, when detonated over enemy troops, would cause them to stop whatever they were doing and immediately start having sex with each other, thus neutralizing their military efficacy.

R.G.: That has to be one of the wost ideas I’ve ever heard! Totally ignoring the offensiveness of it, that being gay stops you from being able to fulfill simple military duties; or, for that matter, your sexuality is so pliable that someone can impose their information on something that is so deeply ingrained in you. Absurd. So I reclaimed it for the gay community. “Gay Bomb” is right! Let the party begin!

Sander: You’ve also established a relationship with The Center.

R.G.: I have, yes. I think it’s important for people to be in communication about things. I thought it would be a good idea to donate some Gay Bomb shirts to the Harvey Milk Day art exhibition at Exhibit [A] because young people need to know that who they are is important, independent of what anyone else thinks.

I’ve realized that everyone has their own damage, independent of me, and that I am my own guide for who I am. I’m not afraid to be me. Young people need to know that there’s no reason for them to be afraid of who they are, either. They certainly know it far more than when I was growing up. And good for them!

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