Richard Serra, Abu Ghraib, 2004

Narrator: Richard Serra used this image as the basis of a poster that he produced for the 2004 presidential election. It’s an interpretation of the most famous photograph to emerge from Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison where members of the American military were found to be torturing prisoners of war. In the poster that relates to this drawing, the text read “STOP BUSH.” 

Richard Serra: The Stop Bush image was made as a political poster that anyone could download. And I went on to distribute it—we made a couple hundred thousand for both the conventions and for marches and rallies. And then I went on, actually, to make a signboard on 10th Avenue. 

If you look at the original image, the original image is in color, the person is balanced on a box, he has a dahiki on, and it’s very, very colorful. The image is easy to almost consume as an advertisement, and I think that’s how it has been consumed. 

I think with all appropriation you can’t add to an image, that only devalues the image.  You have to subtract from the image and try to find what its sign and symbolic value is, to turn the image in—transfigure it or mutate it. And that was my concern. My concern wasn’t aesthetic at all. My concern was completely political.