Jacksonville (installation & poster, 2003)
For the exhibition "radical; vaguely", a Montreal/Bulgaria exchange exhibition initiated by Rossitza Daskalova, National Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria, September 2003. A work about the 'private-sector' American diplomat, Bruce Jackson. An installation in the gallery and a poster put up in the streets.
GALLERY INSTALLATION :
title: "President of the US committee on NATO, Bruce Jackson is leaving Lockheed
Martin in August 2002 to devote himself full-time to the cause of promoting
democracy in a united europe" (a portrait of Bruce Jackson, 1.5m
x 2m, ink jet)
audio:
CD
player with a recording of Nina Simone singing "I love You Porgy"
POSTER:
The same image of Bruce Jackson with the addition of his name (in Cyrillic
transliteration) and the addresses of three web-sites which represent Mr.
Jackson's projects:
www.projecttransitionaldemocracy.org
www.expandnato.org
(offline)
Jackson
Stares at Filtchev From the Wall
(in "Capital" weekly, Sofia, 6 -12 September, 2003
translated from Bulgarian by Svilen Stefanov)
Mysterious posters with the image of the person responsible for the American Committee for the Expansion of NATO, Bruce Jackson were pasted up in the streets of Sofia on monday. It is not clear from the posters either who disseminated them nor what this anonymous person might have aimed to do. They only say "BRUCE JACKSON!!!". At this anonymous initiative even the Bulgarian Atlantic club was surprised.
Generally, there are two possible explanations for the posters. They might have aimed to make the American politician popular. The Atlantic Club, however, made it clear that Jackson was not about to visit Bulgaria and wouldn't participate in the conference for the 100 years of Bulgaria-US relations, which is to take place this week. So, only one other explanation remains : somebody is telling Bruce Jackson to be careful.
Jackson himself explained that he has no idea who might be behind the story and these posters which makes it look as if he is going to participate in the elections for mayor of the capital. The American lobbyist however quickly offered the thesis that the posters must have something to do with the Bulgarian prosecutor's office. At the beginning of this year Jackson said that there was no doubt that the Bulgarian chief prosecutor was dealing with illegal activity. The prosecutor, however, replied that he didn't know the person "JACK BRUXEN". Jackson's comment on the phone was that in Bulgaria completely unexplainable things often happen--which only enhances the ex-soviet researchers' thesis that this country is unpredictable just the same. However, he believes that, though slowly, Bulgaria is progressing in the right direction and would soon be a member of NATO and the European Community.
The most probable hypothesis, at least from the logic's point of view, is that some of Filtchev's (the chief-prosecutor) opponents must have disseminated the posters with the pure purpose of frightening him. Some suitable threat on Jackson's part might surely move ahead the reforms in the prosecutor's office.