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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

The Yes Men

Dec 9, 2021 – Mar 27, 2022
277 Grand St, New York, NY 10002, United States

Ahead of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos bought the domain gwbush.com. They turned it into a faux pro-George Bush Web site: posts included “Yo! Check tha New Slim Cheney Dance” and parody radio ads. It upset Bush so much that in a May 1999 press conference, when a reporter asked the soon-to-be president about the site, he said, “There ought to be limits to freedom.” Servin and Vamos turned the prank into a career, forming The Yes Men, a “culture jamming activist duo.” With stunts such as a 2004 fake Dow Chemical Web site, a “corrected” World Trade Organization Web site, and the crashing of a 2006 ExxonMobil conference, the group draws attention to political and social issues. An exhibition of its work—from video of Servin landing a BBC interview by pretending to be a Dow representative to framed printouts of gwbush.com—is on view at Carriage Trade. —Jensen Davis

Photo: Nicholas Knight.