Click Picture for Studio Visit

Bob Hagan

Location: 202 17th St (btw 4th & 5th Aves) 

Website: robert-hagan.squarespace.com 

I grew up during the cold war, studied political science, and interviewed with the National Security Agency. The interviewer asked about my hobbies and when I replied, "art," he suggested I go back to school to "get it out of my system".
The NSA made me I realize that art was powerful and potentially "subversive". Went to art school, but worked as a systems oriented family therapist. There I learned that what people just "knew to be true" was often problematic, and that relabeling “truths” could open new choices. My art looks at systems across the natural and cultural world. In culture I examine "memes," encoded transmissible ideas of what MUST be true and false, and tries to reframe them in ways similar to what I did in my therapy work.
So who is the dude with the afro? Beethoven? Block out the hair… Now it’s Thomas Jefferson: Founder, author of “all men are created equal”, slave owner, rapist. Superimposed over Daveed Diggs who plays him in the musical Hamilton. Is the whole image Jeffer’s son? What we “know” isn’t always reality. Then there is “King Trump”. The only reality his. How to deal with that?
The images below show creation, evolution to consciousness, competition, and cooperation to the end of the world. Teilhard’s Universe is my framework for hoping we can get along through cooperation. Does cooperation win? Trump gone: Evolution in Action, I hope. Click the images for more work on my website.