"Politics" by Peter Saul

At the Apple Pie Exhibit at MMOCA, one of the paintings that caught my eye was "Politics" by Peter Saul. The painting is of former President Ronald Reagan. He's holding the globe in his hands, but it is all squished and deformed. There is also a saw going through his head, as well as a missile coming through the other side of his head. All over on his body are little tags saying different things. Some of them say "power" "money" "Cuba" "hot line" and "art."

What I think the painting was trying to illustrate was the turmoil and the problems that were occurring during the time of Reagan's presidency. I'm not entirely sure whether or not this was supposed to be a dig at Reagan as a president or not, it easily could have been I suppose. The way he was holding the deformed, squished "world" in his hands said to me that that was what the world had become during his presidency: deformed. Also, the missile going through his head was probably due to the tensions surrounding nuclear weapons at the time as well.

Relating this to Morrison and Playing In The Dark, it is rather ironic that the person that has the most power and essentially "holds the world in his hands" in our country was white. If you look at that painting through the eyes of a black person, what would you think? Would you be bitter or would you not really care, because that's the way it's been all along? It's an interesting question to ponder. In addition, Morrison talked in the last chapter about how Africanists were part of the reason that white people got so much power, which would also make sense with this painting.