Back once again
Gee Vaucher created Oh America for experimental hip-hop group Tackhead. Recently, though, this gouache has enjoyed fresh celebrity, pinging around social media in the wake of Trump’s election, and even gracing the cover of the Daily Mirror.
No __more heroes
Vaucher isn’t an obvious people’s favourite. The artist-activist is a purist cult figure, whose achievements include founding a radical open-door commune in Essex with creative partner Penny Rimbaud and being a member of punk band Crass.
Life through a lens
A political illustrator for the New York Times and New York magazine in the 1970s, Vaucher’s paintings often take a photo-montage approach: artwork for a Rolling Stone review recast the Bee Gees in Sgt Pepper’s style but with their faces peeling off to reveal a grey nothing, while the decaying street from Crass’s The Feeding Of The 5000 layered housewives, children and soldiers plucked from news and adverts.
Last laugh?
In its recent context, it would seem to be an unequivocal thumbs down on the state of the States. Yet, ever sensitive to her images’ mutability, Vaucher has pointed out that it’s not impossible to imagine another context where the statue might be having a giggle behind her hands.
Gee Vaucher: Introspective, Firstsite, Colchester, to Sunday 19 Feb
- This article was corrected on 16 January 2017. Vaucher worked for the New York magazine, not the New Yorker, in the 1970s.