Saturday, July 17, 2004

Back From Cincinnati After the week long panegyric to Ronald Reagan, I felt a bit like a decent german in the late 1930s who sat through a Leni Riefenstahl documentary: were all of my instincts and memories of this man wrong? Is it possible that he was really decent, sharp-witted and good, that he left the world a better place? Fortunately, I had the great good luck to see Crimes and Misdemeanors: Politics in U.S. Art of the 1980s, at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. Honestly, I had forgotten just how bad the 80s really were. This exhibit chronicles the censorship, the indifference to AIDs and callousness of that decade. It is angry, gloriously over the top in places (I'm thinking of the "Breast Ballet"), and sometimes embittering. The exhibit included a few works from the Guerilla Girls (really, follow this link)(I don't know how, but I had forgotten all about them and it was a wonderful thrill seeing a few of their original works), Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and Tim Rollins. Given the fact that the 1980s in the U.S. saw a virtually unprecedented representation of political sentiment in the visual arts, it is worth revisiting the decade in order to offer a carefully constructed social-critical account of artistic production in the period and to explain the relationship of the key representational strategies listed above to the evolution of more politicized artistic practices. This exhibition is organized around the exploration of four sub-themes: Having/Not, Identity/Constructs, Institutional/Critiques, and Sex/Kills. Each will allow the juxtaposition of now iconic works of art with important but largely non-canonical works that critique or undermine the dominant ideological expressions they represent. If you are anywhere near Cincinnati before Nov 24, this exhibit is worth a diversion from your plans. Also at the museum is a retrospective of the works of Paul Kos, Everything Matters. The Unmuseum, a space that had Gabe nearly catatonic from too much joy. A space for playing with art, it is meant for children 5 to 12, but my two-year old and several adults without question found it enthralling. A robotic tree, a conduct-it-yourself performance of Stravinsky's Firebird finale, and large hands-on area make this part of the museum nearly impossible to over-praise. 3:02:09 PM    comment []trackback []

Liberal? The Media aren't Even Human When I read about Seymour Hersh's comments to the ACLU meeting about video tapes made in Abu Graihb showing showing young boys being sodomized, I honestly didn't believe it. That such a thing could happen without a twitch from anyone-- the media, a leaker, or the administration-- seemed impossible. According to Ed Cone, NBC News was told that it did happen. Oh my God. U.S. military officials tell NBC News, the unreleased images, show American soldiers severely beating one Iraqi prisoner to near death; apparently, raping an Iraqi female prisoner; acting inappropriately with a dead body; and Iraqi guards apparently videotaped by U.S. soldiers raping young boys.  This isn't about left or right, or Bush vs. Kerry. This is about one military unit that is out of control and doing great evil, and civilian leaders who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Aren't the questions journalists must--and I mean must-- ask starkly obvious? Is the military justice system moving swiftly to identify and then to exonerate or punish those who may have been responsible? If the claims are true, has every officer above the personnel in question resigned? If not, why? Has the Secretary of Defense offered to resign? Has the President asked for his resignation? If the answer to both is no, why not? And, since these questions haven't yet been asked, I think it's time for the rest of us to start demanding some answers, and some resignations, from the Washington press corps. 1:24:08 PM    comment []trackback []