Tableaux Vivants

Worth seeing and listening to for the music.

Things that "outrage" and things that don't

Bud Norman

Such strangely differing standards of what should be met with indifference and what should be met with offense are by no means confined to the academy, or to those corners of the world only culture vultures still take an interest in, but also define the broader public’s approach to politics.

Thus The New York Times is outraged by the four traffic tickets that Republican presidential contender Sen. Marco Rubio has received over the past 20 years, but seemingly indifferent to the four brave Americans who were killed in an American consulate in Libya that failed to receive requested security from Democratic presidential contender and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton following her ill-fated war against Libya.

Thus the civil rights establishment is aroused to hash-tagging “black lives matter” and rioting in the streets when a black man is killed by police in even the most justifiable circumstances, yet indifferent to the vastly greater number of black men killed by other black men, and further indifferent when that horrible number inevitably increases after the hash-tagging and rioting inevitably hamper law enforcement efforts in poor black neighborhoods.

Thus it is that polite opinion holds the insane profligacy of the Greek government is not only to be tolerated but forever to be subsidized, while a corporation that prefers not to pay its minimum wage employees any more than they produce is considered outrageously greedy.

Thus it is that the mass executions of homosexuals in the Islamic world is met with sincere attempts to understand context and generally with indifference, while some Baptist confectioner’s reluctance to bake a gay wedding cake is met with widespread outrage.

Sabo Art

H/T Bud Norman who writes:

Sabo’s latest news-making work is of the conceptual variety, and involves those flashing traffic-signaling signs that the more high-brow critics will note are a poignant symbol of our carbon-emitting automotive society and societal retreat into the stifling hell of suburbia, but he and his co-conspirators have been placing them along the home-to-the-suburb routes inconvenienced by the royal motorcades attendant to the fund-raising of President Barack Obama and presumptive president Hillary Clinton, with such messages as “Democrats Begging 4 Money” and “Hillary Back Begging.” He’d previously attracted Los Angeles’ attention with the more visually polemic works he had ironically and post-modernly mass-produced and then transgressively stuck on bus benches and other public spaces around the city, such as his depiction of one of those scary flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz” carrying a Hillary 2016 sign, and failed Texas gubernatorial candidate and left-wing darling Wendy Davis depicted as a pro-abortion Barbie doll, and his pictures of beloved liberals rendered in an obvious allusion to the style of that Shepard Fairey poster of Barack Obama that was so ubiquitous back in ’08, only with the painted word “Drone” rather than “Hope” at the bottom.

 

Are women without genitalia the result of Republican budget cuts or the Koch brothers?

This is not a hoax.

It appears that Mount Holyoke College - in impeccably Liberal Massachusetts - cancelled a planned performance of “The Vagina Monologues” because the women's college deemed the play “exclusionary” toward the “transgendered community,” possibly offending women without vaginas. 

There are any number of reasons not to stage one of the most over-rated pieces of sexual propaganda foisted on the public in the name of "art." But we are inured to the absurdities of the "art" world since reading Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word," seeing Piss Christ exhibited as art - along with a urinal - and the excretable framed crap collected by Paine Webber's chairman Don Marron.

So it appears that feminism has now progressed to a point that it's now removing it's founders, much as Stalin removed the founding Communists.  Eve Ensler?  Never heard of her.

Nikolai Yezhov, walking with Stalin in the left photo from the 1930s, was killed in 1940.
Following his execution, Yezhov was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors/

A mere few weeks ago "The Vagina Monologues" was the high point of feminist art. Today, it's relegated to the dustbin of history, an example of the exclusionary nature of the less enlightened strains of feminism, oppressing women without vaginas.   Next we can expect an investigation to see if the Koch brothers, in league with perfidious Republicans are responsible for this outrage.

Secret Service Agents Pay a Visit to Anti-Obama Artist Sabo — and the Entire Exchange Is Seemingly Captured on Video

One of the tweets involved bringing back Harvey Lee Oswald as a zombie.

This explains a lot: "Modern art was CIA 'weapon' "

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

I wonder how this crap ever managed to convince people that they are looking at "art."  Now I know.  It was done with my tax money, and yours.

The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

Once it became fashionable, shown in top galleries and museums it was not possible to actually say it was crap if you wanted to maintain your membership in the church of what's happening now. It explains urinals and toilets on display in museums. It explains why rich plutocrats, like the people running Paine Webber, would have "art" made up of pieces of burlap scattered haphazardly over a piece of canvas displayed on the walls of their headquarters in New York City (something I saw and found hard to believe I was actually seeing).  To collect and pay for this sort of garbage requires a willing suspension of disbelief, the ability to fool yourself into thinking that something ugly is actually beautiful. 

CULTURAL DEGENERATION

Glenn Reynolds comments on the desire for the curator of the 9/11 Memorial Museum — because it was “rah-rah” American, according to a new book says.

It’s a problem when the people who are supposed to be the curators of your culture fundamentally don’t like it.

Too "rah-rah" American?

It IS a problem, and it's increasingly robbing Americans of their country when academia, the arts, museums and other collectors of cultural artifacts essentially agree with Jeremiah Wright that on 9/11 "America's chickens came home to roost."

Someone actually designed these shoes.

Scary Beautiful (Leanie van der Vyver) from Lyall Coburn on Vimeo.

Behold “front heels,” clothespin-looking shoes that are probably equally as enjoyable (read: painful) to wear. A creation by artist Leanie van der Vyver and Dutch designer René van den Berg, the “Scary Beautiful” shoes require the wearer to bend the knees forward and walk rather ungracefully, like a foal or Forrest Gump before he ran off his leg braces.

 

This is a real war on women.

Why Beauty Matters

H/T Vanderleun

Liberals don't really think that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism"

Jon McNaughton, a controversial artist who often mixes religion and politics in his work, has released a new painting.

In ‘One Nation Under Socialism’ President Obama holds the U.S. Constitution as it burns.

While McNaughton previously depicted Obama stepping on the nation’s founding document, ‘One Nation Under Socialism’ glowers directly as if challenging the viewer. His right hand is holding The Constitution and his left hand is pointing to the flames.

Jerry Saltz, an art critic for New York Magazine is not amused:

When asked for an opinion Saltz said that the painting contained “Bad academic derivative realism; typical propaganda art; drop-dead obvious in message; visually dead as a doornail.”

The idea that artists are supposed to be controversial is stopped dead when the controversy does not advance the Liberal cause.

UPDATE: Is McNaughton Painting Propaganda? Read his response to a teacher.

Sistine Chapel

The "Arts" and "Academia" are Drawn to Fascism.

Check out "Nazi Family Values"

“Many Nazi officials came from the educated middle class of German society, and in his comments on the trial of Einsatzgruppen members in Nuremberg after the war, the British historian Gerald Reitlinger (author of The SS, Alibi of a Nation, a superb study of the SS) observed of the defendants that ‘the only common denominator was that nearly all had been to a university and the majority had achieved the doctorate so dear to the German middle class.’ The idea of Nazi intellectuals may be troubling to some, but as has long been known, intellectuals rose to power in the systems of both fascism (meaning both Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy) and the Leninist-Stalinist version of communism. Hitler and Stalin required the talents of writers, organizers, and, yes, artists to accomplish their ends.”

Nazism needed a state religion.

3 Reasons Not to Fund Art with Taxes (& Yes, There’s a Weiner Connection!)

Intolerance of the Avant Garde

We see what happens when the ruling class is frustrated.  See Wisconsin.  And now we see how they react in the art world when the art isn't conformist Leftist.

The View from Alexandria:

Art should challenge the status quo, the staid complacencies of the bourgeoisie; it should even shock. So goes a standard Leftist line. But when art actually DOES that, they do their best to suppress it. That helps to explain why the ideas of the avant garde have been the same for more than a century, and why, today, avant garde means defending the statist status quo.

I never agreed with the Leftist line on art. By that definition, fecal matter is art; so is pornography. In fact, both of these are regularly passed off as art in the art houses of the world, and like bad money, drive good art away.

Via the New Criterion:

As a senior in the school[Pratt], Mr. DeQuattro has been working on this art in preparation for a group show for Pratt’s graduating students, which is scheduled to open on April 23. While his faculty advisor has been supporting him, his peers have not. Mr. DeQuattro says they recently wrote a letter to his professors, calling his work “offensive” and complaining about exhibiting alongside him. Last week, the chair of the fine arts department stepped in to prevent Mr. DeQuattro’s participation alongside the other students in the group show--an unprecedented move in the history of the department, says Mr. DeQuattro, despite the fact that none of his work is pornographic, libelous, or in violation of the laws of free speech. Mr. DeQuattro's advisor did not return a request for comment.

Now that the Right has found a voice in politics, the media and the arts, the intolerance of the Left is exploding, sometimes in shunning ... often in violence.

What's the reaction from the defenders of the new status quo?  Here's the high priest of the temple of modern art, the Whitney: 

"What movement?!" demands David Ross, director of the Whitney, when asked about the Realists in a telephone interview. "There's no such thing!" When reminded that at least 200 Realist artists demonstrated outside the Whitney less than 18 months earlier, he backtracks. "I've always had respect for the artist's plight," he says of the protest. "We even gave them an electric outlet for their equipment."

Ross expresses great skepticism of the contemporary Realists. "That sort of hackneyed academic painting takes an enormous amount of talent and work," he says. "But to go back to copying Leonardo is not art."

He continues: "I admire them just like I admire people that can sing beautifully. It's a real gift. But that alone doesn't make you a great artist." His voice rises, sounding increasingly agitated. "They're old-fashioned, totally out of touch with the issues of the day. I'm interested in art that's wrestling with the history of ideas, and they fail to deal with it! We've had two major world wars, the worst genocides in world history, and many other events that they ignore."

Ross says he has not seen any of Steven Assael's work, but he tells a reporter in her early 20s, "I used to be just like you when I was your age. I had the same questions about art that you do. Listen, you shouldn't be interested in these people. They're just a bunch of crypto-Nazi conservative bullshitters. They're feeding you a line of bullshit! We just had a great conference with Asian-American artists who were concerned with issues of representation at the Whitney. Do a story on that."

When asked to respond to the contention of many contemporary Realists that the Whitney's brand of avant-garde art lacks spirituality, Ross becomes enraged. "I'm sick of hearing these Realists say their work is `affirming'! It's not affirming, it's sappy! Art isn't about making pretty pictures to put in people's homes," he says. "They're rebelling against the age of cynicism? Well, it's not cynicism! It's smartness! It's lack of naivete!" By this point, Ross's voice is shaking with anger. "They think they're special? Well, they are special. If they get a show of their own, great. I'm eager to see what it is, and then we can have a real dialogue," Ross says. "Let them put on their own show. Then I'll accept that there's a movement."

If that's not a fierce defender of the status quo, there isn't one.

Today I Am A Muslim, Too (From Small Dead Animals)

Come celebrate by joining in the 24 Hour Clitoridectomy.

Mark Steyn: 

A mob of nearly four thousand Muslims has attacked Coptic homes this evening in the village of Soul, Atfif in Helwan Governorate, 30 kilometers from Cairo, and torched the Church of St. Mina and St. George…

This incident was triggered by a relationship between 40-year-old Copt Ashraf Iskander and a Muslim woman. Yesterday a “reconciliation” meeting was arranged between the relevant Coptic and Muslim families and together with the Muslim elders it was decided that Ashraf Iskander would have to leave the village because Muslims torched his house.

The father of the Muslim woman was killed by his cousin because he did not kill his daughter to preserve the family’s honor, which led the woman’s brother to avenge the death of his father by killing the cousin. The village Muslims blamed the Christians.

The Muslim mob attacked the church, exploding 5-6 gas cylinders inside the church, pulled down the cross and the domes and burnt everything inside…Witnesses said the mob chanted “Allahu Akbar” and vowed to conduct their morning prayers on the church plot after razing it.

You too can become a Muslim for a day and show your solidarity with Russell Simmons and Kim Kardashian.... and Ashraf Iskander

Screenwriter Says Hollywood Conservatives ‘Have to Meet in Secret’ and ‘Talk in Whispers’

Hollywood and the "morally correct position."

Dennis Prager commenting on the Roman Polanski affair and the Hollywood defenders of the man who raped and sodomized a 13 year-old girl:

But the greatest benefit of the Polanski affair may be that the next time you see the Hollywood elite come out on behalf of or against some public issue, you can most likely assume the opposite is the morally correct position.

Read the whole thing.

The Artist Formerly Known as Dissident

It's time for the art community to return to its historical role in political affairs, which means speaking to power, not on behalf of it. Which leads me to the second case where art enters politics on a mass scale. The power of art, in combination with the suppression of free speech or a free press, has been used as a tool by authoritarian governments to control their citizens. From Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il, art has been used to deify leaders while preserving the position of the ruling class. Most artists would not want to be referred to as tools of the state, but in the case of Obama's administration, that's exactly what they've been so far.

Night of the living dead

Via Belmont Club on Michael Jackson:

The NY Post says the autopsy found Michael Jackson had nothing in stomach but half-dissolved pills. His emaciated body was a network of needlemarks and scars weighing barely 112 pounds on a 5′ 10″ frame; and the whole skeletal assembly was surmounted by a head bald but for a scant covering of peach fuzz, a fact artfully disguised by wigs worn on all his public appearances. The Post writes:

“He was skin and bone, his hair had fallen out, and he had been eating nothing but pills when he died,” a source close to the singer’s entourage told the paper. “Injection marks all over his body and the disfigurement caused by years of plastic surgery show he’d been in terminal decline for some years.”

There were four fresh injections around his heart, presumably from attempts to pump adrenaline into it to jumpstart it, the paper said. Three of them had penetrated and damaged his heart wall, while a fourth struck his ribs, the paper reported. He also sustained several broken ribs while authorities administered CPR during his final moments Thursday.

If any man in Guantanamo Bay prison had been found in this condition there would be cries for a war crimes prosecution. But since Jackson succumbed to that most socially acceptable and lucrative of ends, death by celebrity, the real question is whether anyone — anyone at all, bar some fall guy — will be found guilty of anything.

Why did no one know?

This guy lived and died in the middle of a big city; he was among the most watched human beings on the planet and yet everything that was publicly known about him was either a lie or so shaded a truth as to be virtually indistinguishable. How any investor could be induced to bet hundreds of millions of dollars on a series of Farewell Concerts featuring a man in the condition of a Holocaust concentration camp victim is something that could never have happened without some major league disinformation going down.

These information lockdown artists were geniuses. Where were these masters of deception over the decades when US codes, missile designs and nuclear installation data were falling down behind copiers, suddenly appearing in China or being accidentally published in open source?

The backstory of Jackson and the Nation of Islam:

But for the circle of handlers who surrounded Jackson during his final years, their golden goose could not be allowed to run dry. Bankruptcy was not an option.
These, after all, were not the handlers who had seen him through the aftermath of the Arvizo trial and who had been protecting his fragile emotional health to the best of their ability. They were gone, and a new set of advisers was in place.
The clearout had apparently been engineered by his children’s nanny, Grace Rwaramba, who was gaining considerable influence over Jackson and his affairs and has been described as the ‘queen bee’ by those around Jackson.

Rwaramba had ties to the black militant organisation, the Nation of Islam, and its controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan, whom she enlisted for help in running Jackson’s affairs.

Before long, the Nation was supplying Jackson’s security detail and Farrakhan’s son-in-law, Leonard Muhammad, was appointed as Jackson’s business manager, though his role has lessened significantly in recent years.
In late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s ‘official spokesman’.

Read the rest.

I really don't care about Jackson, not for him, not for his music ... not my taste. But the unreality of his existence in the last decade is the most repellent thing I have read about this person. He may well have been a prisoner of his handlers. A slave in plain sight.

An Interview With Roger Simon About His New Book, "Blacklisting Myself."

Excerpt:

In the seventies and eighties, when you were a hard core leftist, you visited China, Cuba, and the USSR. Can you tell us a little about what stuck with you about those countries?

Well, there are several chapters in the book about this and I would refer readers to that because it's hard to sum up in a paragraph. Also, the national characters come into play, mixing with the hideous communist ideology some once thought idealistic and egalitarian. In one sense I think I was quite lucky to have had as much experience of communist countries as I did, because today I am not easily seduced by the nostalgia some are having for them. There were giant jails and I got to see them from the inside. The sections of Blacklisting Myself in which I describe my visits may be the most useful parts of the book in the long term and are among the chapters I am most proud of. In the case of Red China, I was among the first Westerners allowed in when nearly everyone was still wearing Mao suits. One thing is for sure: my work won't be confused with Lincoln Steffens or John Reed.