Norman Rockwell’s Boy Scouts re-imagined for the modern age

What happens when you take classic images by painter Norman Rockwell, put them in the hands of 20 contemporary artists, and ask those artists to re-cast them for the modern era?

You can see the results of that assignment at Good Intentions: Re-imagining Rockwell’s Boy Scouts, which just opened at Subliminal Projects in Echo Park.

Andrew Pogany and Ben Lee Ritchie Handler co-curated the show. It all began when Pogany bought a set of prints of prints of Rockwell images eight years ago at a yard sale. He found them beautiful but outdated — a combination of “guilty nostalgia” and “poisonous,” he said. The idea for the exhibit was ignited during the much-publicized headlines about whether to admit openly gay Boy Scouts — and scout leaders.

Both Pogany and Handler, who earned his Eagle Scout badge as a kid in Orange County, say they believe Rockwell had good intentions with his years of artistic depictions of the Boy Scouts, but that the time was ripe to frame the Scouts as a more inclusive community.

At Subliminal Projects on Sunset Blvd at Elysian Park, through July 20th. Some of the images are below. Proceeds go to support FreeArts.org

Stay Alive, by Kime Buzzelli-Hosford