Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo unveiled his latest political art on July 13 during a news briefing in Manhattan — an image intended to depict how the state of New York has handled the covid-19 pandemic. The work has gained the country’s attention and reactions are mostly unfavorable. At the center of the “New York Tough” poster is a mountain with the uphill face labeled, “Pulling Down the Curve Together,” and the downhill face, peopled with essential workers, labeled, “The Power of ‘We.’” At the top is a rainbow with a “Love Wins” banner and a quote from Cuomo: “Wake Up America! Forget the Politics, Get Smart!”
Within this treasure map of captions, the mountain is bordered by “the Sea of Division” and spans “111 Days of Hell.”Attempting to explain the meanings behind his poster, Cuomo said at a recent briefing that New York went up the mountain, then “we curved the mountain” and “we came down the other side.” The art’s big upward arrow labeled “Projection Models,” Cuomo added, represents “the economic models,” including accounting for beds and ventilators. The arrow crosses the downward line of “Economy Falls.” Explained Cuomo: “Get it, Economy Falls? … Like Niagara Falls.”
Rich Azzopardi, senior adviser to Cuomo, says some of the most significant signs on the poster include the mask at the top of the mountain — meant to signify just how crucial the facial coverings have been to New York’s response — and the “caution” sign in the lower right corner.
Artists have weighed in. “I’m sorry to give it a bad review,” says Steve Brodner, the acclaimed artist and political caricaturist who teaches illustration at New York’s School of Visual Arts. “It suffers from a lack of focus as a story,” Brodner says. “It ignores the rules of composition. There’s no sense of design. It’s a complete waste of space.”
The frequent New Yorker magazine cover artist who won the Pulitzer Prize this year for cartooning, Barry Blitt says that the poster “seems to be a satire of an infographic.”
“As a parody, I think it’s very successful indeed with all the disparate images labeled in minuscule lettering and the chaotic placement of the items. It appears the work was designed by a committee or perhaps a committee made up of several smaller committees.”
Finally, the New Yorker’s Françoise Mouly says, “This is a good example of a work in which there was no art director mediating between the client — Cuomo — and the poor artist. “The only way it could be saved,” she says, “is by firing the client.”
