"FlushRush" A visual contraception

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Blister pack of tiny pills with the visage of Rush Limbaugh on each one. 

Maria Driscoll McMahon

for BACKLASH / on women's rights

at the SOHO Gallery, Chelsea, NYC

Title: Flushrush: The World's First Visual Contraception 

Date: May 2012, 

Medium: paper, graphite, cardboard stock, paint, ballpoint pen, playdoh, blister packaging, aluminum foil; 5 1/2" by 6" size of box, (approximately 6"x9" with contents spilling out of box), 

Price: $250.00

Probably best displayed on a table or pedestal with contents (blister packaging containing multicolored "pills" as reminders for patients similar to oral contraceptives) "text contraception" and product information spilling out of box.  There are also directions on the back of the box,  so perhaps viewers could use gloves to turn the box over and to read the contents. They would have to be very careful,  though. 

Statement: 

Flushrush is an intentionally polemical piece created specifically for "Backlash."  Although a departure from my other work in many ways,  gender issues have frequently been themes of mine throughout my life.   

In many ways, I am glad Rush Limbaugh said what he said to Sandra Fluke because it provoked a sufficient level of leftist and (most happily) feminist outrage - long overdue - to cause Limbaugh's sponsors to cease funding Limbaugh's hate. (The question is why they ever sponsored the show to begin with - and why did it take feminists so long to protest?). 

To simply ignore without comment the rants of Limbaugh and the politicians he influences, endorses and promotes, has not proven to be good strategy for the past couple decades.  We can't afford to underestimate the influence - or the caveman intelligence - of hate mongers. Those 15 million "dittoheads" out there (RL's listeners alone) are not phantoms and neither are their voting cards. 

Flushrush is using my freedom of speech to counter the vitriol spewed by Rush Limbaugh, the politicians he influences (including certain presidential candidates - past and present) and his self-professed ditto-heads.