The New Art Anarchists?

And their immense canvas

May 17, 2002

by Tom Adkins

Richard Ankrom is poised at the cutting edge of the nether regions yet explored by the wacky, brooding tortured souls that staff the art world in modern America. From coast to coast, Ankrom is being hailed a genius for thumbing his nose at the status quo. Did he insult the Pope? No. Did he gather the Beautiful People for a rally to save oppressed gay whales? Hardly. Make a ten story mural of a giant phallus and drape it on an office building in Manhattan? Not exactly.

In a fit of artistic rage, Ankrom righted a bureaucratic oversight by creating and stealthily installing a functioning freeway sign that actually gave California drivers good directions, thereby creating a new art form: the "Guerilla Public Service Artist."

Take that, Establishment!!!

Ankron’s bold strike was launched against a perfect symbol of the uncaring, slovenly bureaucracy of the modern federalist American empire: the California Department of Transportation, AKA "Caltrans." By secretly installing a much needed direction sign that Caltrans never got around to doing themselves, Ankron singlehandedly dragged the cutting edge of art back from half a century of worthless self-indulgent pop drivel, and dramatically towards function, conformity and common sense. Will the art world ever recover?

Over human history, artists were rewarded according to their majesty. Michaelangelo defined sculpting. DaVinci married art and science. Monet, Renoire and Cezanne created the impressionist era. The Dutch Masters mastered portraiture. Great art was…well, it was art.

But after a million portraits, a zillion landscapes and countless fruit bowls were painstakingly rendered, the twisted dark side of art burst from the cellar in the twentieth century. Art was hijacked by popular culture and carted off by the anarchist left. Wyeth’s subtle Pennsylvania water colors and Rockwell’s prolific Americana illustrations did their best to uphold noble artistic progression, but were trumped by Picasso’s geometric misunderstandings and van Gogh’s post mortem insanity. America suffered a deep slide into the sick cultural toilet. Just follow-the dots. From Buddy Holly to Motley Crue and Slim Shady. From Will Rogers to Lenny Bruce. From Mary Poppins to Linda Lovelace. South Park’s greatest art critic, Eric Cartman, succinctly summed up underwhelming contemporary art films as "gay cowboys eating pudding."

And pointless "Modern Art" slid into inane Andy Warhol soup cans, which eventually gave us vulgar Piss Christ, HIV blood-tossing and the Cow-dung Virgin Mary. Today, insulting anything good, moral or Christian automatically results in a swishy "Faaaaaa-bulous!!!" exhortation from the self-anointed art divas. There isn’t an icon unsoiled, a reason left unreasoned, and a virtue left unraped.

Then…where to next? Well, when you’ve invaded every territory, conquered every acre, laid waste to every building and slain every moving thing, there is only one place left…you go home.

And that is precisely where the probably unsuspecting Ankrom has trudged. By intent or by accident, Ankrom has actually brought good purpose back into art. And he’s getting overwhelming attention. Instead of another NEA-funded dung-tossing foray in some dank Soho gallery, Ankrom’s art gets 150,000 cheering fans every day, drivers who seethe at the government dolts who rarely move their well-entrenched butts from their chairs to check if their beloved bureaucracies are actually working. Into this void, Ankrom did the All-American thing. He saw a problem, ignored those bureaucratic bunglers and fixed it himself. Just like they did in the old days.

And now, Ankrom is a hero.

Who knows if Ankrom is aware the artistic irony he’s created? Where we once hailed tempermental misfits, Ankrom’s Guerilla Public Service Art has blazed a new trail, leaving the annoying performance artists scratching their heads, naked in a pile of Jell-o. If artists start vying for sharpshooter status in the public-service guerilla army, maybe America will make that long awaited change from a culture of "getting-away-with-it" back to the "do the right thing" mentality that once dominated American life. Today, a road sign. Tomorrow, who knows? Maybe Berkeley students will riot for more calculus.

It’s hard to tell if culture follows art, or vice versa. But if Richard Ankrom and a guerilla public service army continue attacking America’s bureaucratic bungles, he may become elevated to American icon, inspiring a new genre of artists dedicated to circumventing the stupidity of bloated governmental bureaucracies. They certainly have a big audience. And an endless supply of canvas.