The first stencils in this series, (Formerly) - to the places unknown, unheard, but rarely seen... (Existence of that later),
engage with the ideas in Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience by inserting Moreno's family members and friends as representations
of resistance. The original posters were distributed at protest marches or posted throughout the city. In gallery presentations, viewers encounter
only the layered stencils rather than the full image, emphasizing how language and image become abstracted and malleable when removed from their original
context. Photographs in the series include a friend holding a megaphone and Moreno's two-year-old nephew. This work was shown at the Orange County Center for
Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA, in the group exhibition How Does A Patriot Act? (2008).
Early inspirations include Jenny Holzer's wheat-pasting series Truisms (1977–79) and Inflammatory Essays (1977–82). Like Holzer, Moreno
focused on public discourse and the dissemination of political imagery, creating conflicts between ideology and context when images are removed from their
original environment.
Subsequent stencils in the series were text-based, incorporating presidential quotes about "Operation Iraqi Freedom." By removing the context, the language
exposes and destabilizes its rhetorical authority. These works were presented alongside posters for audience members to take freely as part of the traveling
group exhibition Audacity of Desperation (2008) in Los Angeles and Illinois.
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Date: 2004-2008, Los Angeles, CA & Urbana-Champaign IMC, IL
Medium: Mixed-Media | Performative | Drawing |
30in x 40in