Israeli Soldiers Playing Cards, 1997 © Collier Schorr

Exhibition on view:
December 22–June 30, 2012

The Jewish Museum
1109 5th Ave at 92nd St
New York, NY
(212) 423-3200

The politics of desire, in public and private, and the search for national, ethnic, and sexual identities are investigated throughout Composed, a permanent exhibition at The Jewish Museum. The show features seven photo-based contemporary artists. Using conventional forms of photography including, portraiture, photojournalism, and online profile pictures, the artists illuminate the complex identities of a wide range of characters, emphasizing stereotypes, in order to obscure individual differences.

Artists featured: Marc Adelman, Gloria Bornstein, AA Bronson, Debbie Grossman, Adi Nes, Collier Schorr, and Rona Yefman.

Collier Schorr appeared in Aperture issue 202 and The New York Times Magazine Photographs.

David Levi Strauss, Aperture magazine contributing editor, noted writer, and current Chair of MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department, School of Visual Arts, shares his unique perspective on the current political landscape.

Everett and Jones Barbeque, Oakland, California. Site of a large
presidential debate party. 09/26/08. Photo by Jon Winet

No one got hurt in this first debate, and under the circumstances, I think that’s bad for Obama. John McCain limped into this thing after two days of wildly erratic behavior, suspending his campaign and announcing that he wouldn’t show up in Mississippi for the debate, because he had to rush to Washington to solve the financial crisis. After demanding a meeting at the White House with President Bush, Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke, and the Congressional leadership, McCain was ambushed by House Republicans, who decided to oppose Bush’s bailout. After that, McCain reportedly sat off to the side mumbling while Obama asked tough questions of the Treasury secretary and others. When Obama announced that he was going to appear at Old Miss with or without him, McCain decided he could spare the hour and a half to be there, too, after all.

The debate proceeded as if none of this had happened. Jim Lehrer orchestrated an elegant, measured discussion of the issues, with each candidate politely remaining within his time limits. There were no outbursts, gaffes, or zingers, to speak of. The problem with this, for Obama, is that it made McCain look like a perfectly reasonable, august statesman and executive, rather than the reckless, arrogant grandstander he’d been just hours before. McCain looked great tonight, much better than he ever looks when giving a speech. Obama always looks good, so there’s no relative gain.

Even though Obama will always prevail over McCain in any public, refereed debate on the issues, McCain still managed to get his broad, old-fashioned strokes in, painting Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal who will raise business taxes and drive jobs overseas, as a cut-and-runner who will lose the war in Iraq and dishonor the deaths of over 4000 service men and women, and as an inexperienced, naïve upstart who won’t be able to stand up to America’s enemies. Obama is impatient with such broad strokes and doesn’t reciprocate, preferring to draw more precise and subtler connections to make more specific points.

The only real advantage to Obama last night arose from body language and speech tone. From the beginning, Obama often looked at and spoke directly to McCain, while McCain spoke only to Lehrer, ignoring Obama and refusing to look at him. The effect of this was cumulative and significant. As the debate wore on, McCain seemed more evasive and equivocal, refusing to face his opponent head-on. He always referred to his opponent as “Senator Obama,” while Obama called him “John,” and came right at him, honestly and without guile. On a number of occasions, McCain’s tone veered into the sarcastic and even contemptuous, and attentive viewers glimpsed two very different approaches to political discourse.

Filed on Friday, Sept. 26, 2008, after the first Presidential debate at the University of Mississippi’s Oxford campus.