We are very happy to add this beautiful poster to our open edition collection. The outpouring of support for this work has been awesome. These prints have been made for all the people who want to support Saber’s message…
Artist: Saber Title: Tarnish, 2009 Size: 18″ x 24″ Description: This is the open edition offset poster of Saber’s painting, “Tarnish”. Printed on heavyweight 110lb. recycled card stock
NOTE: Due to high demand, please allow 1 week for shipping confirmation.
In case you missed this one….Saber talks about his battle with Epilepsy and Insurance Companies, being a finalist in Organizing For America’s “Health Care Reform Video Challenge” and the conservative reaction, the Release of his “Flag 2010″ Print Edition, and what the American Flag symbolizes to him.
I just want to thank everyone for their interest in this edition. I appreciate the support and I look forwards to creating more work. I have been receiving some touching emails, specifically from those who are affected by Epilepsy. I will to continue to shed some light on our predicament on the state of health care in this country through my art. As long as I live I will be a representative of the graffiti art culture and I hope to push further into the veins of Art History with the help of my Friends, Family and people like you who believe in what we do.
A few months ago a video that Saber created was chosen as a finalist in Organizing for America’s Health Care Video Challenge. You can see the original video entry over on Arrested Motion (as well as some great production shots of the new Flag print which you can buy here). Needless to say, the video had a few critics (see the full Fox News response), but I doubt any of them understood what is means when an American graffiti artist turns his talent toward such a powerful (and art historically significant) symbol.
When I saw the first flag he painted last year, I was surprised. It was overtly political in a way that had been uncharacteristic of Saber’s art thus far. Compelling in its raw emotion, the dingy gray of the white stripes was created by words like oil, Katrina and Blackwater. Scratched into the textured surface, those words seem to further stain the flag with the dripping of red American blood. And in the square, he wrote the names of people, a real source of American power. This Tarnished Flag spoke to me of the anger, sorrow and silent shame of things done in the name of all Americans in the first decade of the 21st century.
With the impasto technique Saber was using, I could not help thinking about Jasper Johns (born in 1930), one of most significant and influential American painters of the twentieth century. In the mid- to late 1950s, Johns became known for painting, as he put it, “things the mind already knows,” familiar icons like the American flag. The detail below of Flag illustrates an early technique of his, painting with thick, dripping encaustic over a collage made from found materials such as newspaper. Yet, even though it is literally made up of the news of the day, Johns’ America of 1955 still retains it’s tidy rows of red and white stripes and pattern of stars.
I wondered last year if the symbol of the flag would be as strong a draw on Saber as it was on Johns, now I feel certain of it. In Saber’s recently released Flag 2010, the tidy order of mid-century America has been shattered. The states represented by stars in 1955 are now gone, replaced by the words: “We the people.” Like much of our civil discourse, few barriers are respected and paint drips and juts aggressively over the lines. In this series of prints, the “white stripes” seem to recede back, forming a wall on which the issues of our time are being hotly debated.
If the life and movement of the color print speaks of a vibrant (if aggressive) civic debate, then the black version of the Flag 2010 shows the country drained of meaning. The layering of the words look even more tangled and muddied in this version, a stark reminder that difficult issues can imprison minds that only think in terms of black and white.
You can see the same ambiguity of meaning in Jasper John’s work on paper, Flag, from 1958. While still clearly legible as the flag, the active pencil scribbles and gray graphite wash that form the symbol appear to dissolve much of its meaning and power.
That ambiguity vanishes in Saber’s gold leafed version of Flag 2010. In this print, solid gold bars with heavy outlines form the barrier between the rich and the rest of us. This is the symbol of a “greed is good” America, a place where money buys political power and the growing income inequality of last 30 years has resulted in a second Gilded Age.
Saber’s Mini Flaglinoleum print is only the size of a credit card. As we enter 2010, bailed-out out banks are giving out millions in bonuses while raising fees on their customers. I don’t know about you, but I believe that a symbol of America that is within reach of “we the people” is better than any cheap plastic promise.
Never one to shy away from controversy, Saber has been up to some very interesting things lately… Watch the video and see what he’s been producing; in and out of the studio…
We’re very excited to announce the release of the highly anticipated (thanks to Arrested Motion), “Flag 2010″ limited edition serigraph by Saber.
Here are the details:
Artist: Saber Title: “Flag 2010″ Size: 21″ x 30″ (54cm x 77cm) Edition: 11 color Serigraph on hand-made Nepalese Cannabina Fiber. All separations hand-painted in studio by Saber. Hand-Pulled by the master printers at Modern Multiples. This edition was created in 3 color-ways; 60 Prints in Red/White/Blue, 15 Prints in Black/White, and a hand-laid Gold Leaf edition of 3.
Red, White, and Blue- Edition of 60- Price:$180
Black and White- Edition of 15- Price:$280
Hand-Laid 23k Gold Leaf- Edition of 3- Price:$1200
Saber recently participated in Organizing For America’s Health Care Reform Video Challenge, a contest to create a 30 second video ad in support of reforming America’s health care system. His entry depicted him painting an interpretation of the American flag being overwhelmed by the language of his personal struggle with our country’s system of medical care. “Basically the video is a visual metaphor of my battle with epilepsy.”
Saber’s entry, subsequently featured as one of the top 20 finalists, attracted a lot of negative attention by right-wing conservative media for what they called its defacing of the American flag. According to Saber “It was never my intention to insult or disrespect anyone. The decision to paint the flag was to show it as a living, breathing, changing organism, that represents me as an American trying to manage this lifelong disease without heath care”
Fox “opin-u-tainment” Network aired portions of the video, even reediting it so that it appears the video ends with the flag being painted all black, which was indeed not the case, for in Saber’s version the flag comes back to life.
We call Fox “opin-u-tainment” for several reasons. First because we think it was disingenuous to reedit the video (come on guys, it’s was only 30 seconds long!). And secondly because we were under the impression that a “fair and balanced” news network would not have devoted that much time, money, and energy to any news story without contacting the individual in question for their statement. The conservative media’s coverage of Saber’s video entry would lead people to believe Sabers intentions were ego and/or politically driven, instead of the truth, that they are grounded in the frustration, pain, and fear of having no access to a Dr. or hospital.
For the record, Saber is a registered Independent and not part of the Democratic Party. He isn’t even on the OFA’s mailing list. It was his fiancée who is on that list and was contacted when the contest was announced. The bottom line for Saber’s decision to become involved is simple: “Like many of my fellow Americans I don’t want to have to declare bankruptcy on the back of my medical debt, and more importantly I don’t want to die young because I have no care. I don’t understand why as it stands, this country is only concerned about the state of your health if you are under18 or over 65. What about the rest of us? And why isn’t every citizen 65 or older fighting for us all to be able to share in that security?”
*On Nov 17 2009 the winner, “I Deserve Health Care” was announced. We would like to send our congratulations to the producer of that clip.
-SABERONE.COM
“The American flag is a very powerful symbol of unity. It’s time to come together and fight for those of us who are too sick to fight for themselves.” –Saber
“The American flag is a very powerful symbol of unity. It’s time to come together and fight for those of us who are too sick to fight for themselves.” –Saber
