July 27, 2004
July 11, 2004
Richard Serra's Moral Cowardice
Whoever they're coming for, they're coming for you.
by Jerome du Bois
I've been checking out some blogosphere reactions to Richard Serra's July 5th back page ad for the Nation -- Bush Cannibal Goya -- and I've noticed, blogging around to six or seven sites, a familiar, deliberate blind spot on the political far left: they leave out the middle part.
Who did I visit? Here:
Tyler Green, who alerted me to What's in Scott's Head, Archy, Petrelis Files, and Blogumentary, none of which I had heard of; not unheard of in the blogosphere.
Then I checked out Free Republic, including the comments and images by Ichenumon (scroll down, it's eye-opening), Michelle Malkin (who was on the story on June 30th), and the inimitable Steve H. of Little Tiny Lies / Hog on Ice.
All the sites point out that Serra's piece derives from Goya's Saturn, but only what you might call the "conservative" blogs mention the fact that Serra may also be riffing on Dan Brown's anti-Semitic political cartoon -- a celebration of the blood libel -- which won Britain's highest prize for cartooning in 2003, long before Serra's ad. (The sun of reason is definitely setting on the British Empire.) The "liberal" ones leave it out, even though it's the most recent relevant example of parody of this Goya painting that I've been able to find.
And Tyler Green's typically lightweight note points to two sites' postings with only a glance at the issue (Paul Begala and Robert Novak yelling past each other on CNN?), and the other two, as the first two, leave out any reference to Brown's cartoon. [You know something's happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Green?]
Back to Serra: Evil Dick or Stupid Dick? Maybe (bang bang) Matthew's silver hammer came down on his head too hard in Cremaster 3? No, I think it's just more of the moral bankruptcy and cowardice of the far left, hiding behind the fact that they're in bed with the Jew-haters.
[Background reading: Part Six of the new book Those Who Forget The Past, edited by Ron Rosenbaum; the seven essays by Melanie Phillips, Dr. Laurie Zoloth, Todd Gitlin, Eli Muller, Mark Strauss, Barry Oringer, and Fiamma Nirenstein.]
J'accuse: I think Serra is pointing to Dan Brown's cartoon without having the balls to point to it. Why did he pick that image? Everybody's horrified, but you can find or create hundreds of worse images. Go look at some of the sites, which I won't link -- they're easy to find -- for a Photoshopping, head-swapping rodeo. (Watch Kerry and Edwards do the dirty hula!) Right after 9/11, Artforum ran an ad showing the Statue of Liberty with OBL's grim visage grafted on, holding up the severed head of President Bush, replete with pendant tendons. Really, Dick, what's the matter with you? These days? Think severed heads! But no; and what does the world-class artist come up with for his next ad? Take a look.
Impressed? Yawn city. You're going to have to do better than that, Katrina Dick. Since you're on a Goya kick, dig into Los Caprichos: humiliation and impalement! Dunce caps and cannibalism! Oh, the possible range of the depredation of Jews spreads wide, red, and bloody . . .
The blood. Blood on hands, bloody mouth. It's a familiar antisemitic trope you can find on many Egyptian, Saudi Arabian, and Palestinian websites. MEMRI regularly carries them. Just today on CNN I watched as Palestinians burned a six-foot paper Star of David with Ariel Sharon's head at the center, his open mouth pouring red gore.
I very much doubt that the ultra-politically-sensitive Richard Serra is an ignorant man. I think he is surreptitiously attacking Jews, and anyone who supports them, with a stupidity/paranoia index which approaches Protocols-of-the-Elders-of-Zion levels, which have rarely been exceeded. This is cowardice of the blackest sort as well.
Not long after 9/11, Christopher Hitchens, a man who, like me, had to readjust his political compass after the murderous terror, noted somewhere that some people would rather stand anywhere than in the same corner as their own government. (He didn't say "Bush," he said "government.")
Richard Serra's out there, far from our embattled corner. What a stunted man. He should donate every ounce of steel of every piece he has on the drawing boards to armor our men and women for a war against people who have nothing but contempt for his monolithic creations. If his Jew-hating fellow travellers have their way, his head will roll, too.
July 10, 2004
America the Beautiful: American Woman
by Catherine King
[Originally published as part of this piece.
Before, the idea of the exhibition was just kind of a joke to me. But after seeing the cheap and negative entries, my subconcious, it seems, wanted to provide the balance that the organizers claimed they were seeking. I hadn't expected to get involved in the exhibition this way, but there I was, busy designing and building America the Beautiful in my sleep. America the Beautiful -- that was the name of my installation for "Democracy in America." It would be a diorama inside of a room-sized tableau.
Lying there in the blackness I could see it:
You look into a studio apartment with one wall removed for viewing. On the wall facing you, the tiny apartment has a window onto the surrounding city. This is the diorama -- a three-dimensional street scene behind the window glass.
The street has the look and feel of a funky neighborhood in a Southwestern city. On the opposite side of the street is a graceless stripmall. There are storefronts for a charter high school, with an inspirational mural across the front, a mom-and-pop computer repair shop, a little mail store/copy shop, and a Sally's Beauty Supply.
The figures of the people walking past the window, or lingering on the sidewalk, will be about the size of those that Jon Haddock and his friends made for 98-107, but modelled far better. Also on the sidewalk are newspaper dispensers for New Times, PennySaver, and Auto Trader. A Mexican immigrant wheels by with his shiny white ice cream cart. In the street, Fed Ex and UPS trucks rush by each other in passing lanes.
Seated cross-legged on the floor of the studio-sized tableau room, a life-size woman works from the light of the window. She is American Woman and she is bright red -- on account of her blood, her passion. It has nothing to do with skin color.
American Woman is in the middle of working on some complex, Do-It-Yourself project. Spread around her on the floor are a cell phone, note pads, city maps, phone books and Idiots-Guides-To-Many-Things. One can see that this woman is truly connected to the world outside her humble abode.
The tiny apartment is uniquely, but cheaply decorated. It's fascinating, really. American Woman has created a beautiful environment from readily available materials. She would never save and wait forever to spend a lot of money on fancy digs. Life is to be grasped right now. Today is what matters.
American Woman is a freelance artist, stylist, designer. She sits there designing her business card. Let's see . . . Graphic Artist, no, Graphic Designer, no, Graphic Stylist, no, Style Consultant, no, Design Consultant, yes, that's it! This American Woman is preparing to take her talent outside and drum up some work while she improves the environment. When she looks out her window, she can imagine her handiwork all over her neighborhood -- posters, logos, signs, newspaper covers. Signs of dynamic, ongoing progress. America the Beautiful -- she helps make it so.
I was so excited, it was all I could do to keep from waking up Jerome to describe it. Instead, I stumbled in the dark to the computer and began inputting my vision . . .
The installation represents my personal view of what Democracy can mean to an American Woman. First of all, if the red-blooded American Woman ever took anything about her United States citizenship for granted, she corrected her attitude abruptly on the morning of September 11th, 2001. She knows and appreciates that this is the place for a man or woman to invent, or reinvent, themselves, as she is doing.
This is the place to be your own boss, as she is doing. This is the place to become a self-proclaimed Stylist and set up your tent. This is the land of the Self-Made, Self-Taught, Do-It-Yourselfer. Why, look at the businesses out on the street -- some of them were nonexistent several years ago, but they grew out of the need and vitality of an open society.
It particularly pisses American Woman off to hear smug college professors, from their cushy perches, bitch and moan about how tough things are here in the U. S. A.
And those whiney punks who made the crappy art for "Democracy in America" don't have to tell her how things aren't perfect or fair out there. Why do you think she lives in a cheap studio apartment? Yes, women still make 60 to 70 cents on the dollar to men right here right now, depending on their color.
The red-blooded American Woman knows that nobody on our side is really the enemy. The terrorists want to kill all of us non-Muslims, from the most innocent baby to the biggest asshole out there. American Woman loves every moment of her self-styled freedom, and even if plenty of her fellow Americans are hard to love, she never mistakes the assholes for the principles.
"Democracy in America" At ASU: Here's Your Balance / Another FairStory (Part Two)
by Catherine King
It was still dark when I woke up on July 1. Instantly rushing, I knew with conviction that it was a red letter day -- the day the vision came to me of my farthest-reaching work yet! Somehow, while I'd been sleeping, my subconscious got carried away with the inspirational subject of "Democracy in America."
Before, the idea of the exhibition was just kind of a joke to me. But after seeing the cheap and negative entries, my subconcious, it seems, wanted to provide the balance that the organizers claimed they were seeking. I hadn't expected to get involved in the exhibition this way, but there I was, busy designing and building America the Beautiful in my sleep. America the Beautiful -- that was the name of my installation for "Democracy in America." It would be a diorama inside of a room-sized tableau.
Lying there in the blackness I could see it:
You look into a studio apartment with one wall removed for viewing. On the wall facing you, the tiny apartment has a window onto the surrounding city. This is the diorama -- a three-dimensional street scene behind the window glass.
The street has the look and feel of a funky neighborhood in a Southwestern city. On the opposite side of the street is a graceless stripmall. There are storefronts for a charter high school, with an inspirational mural across the front, a mom-and-pop computer repair shop, a little mail store/copy shop, and a Sally's Beauty Supply.
The figures of the people walking past the window, or lingering on the sidewalk, will be about the size of those that Jon Haddock and his friends made for 98-107, but modelled far better. Also on the sidewalk are newspaper dispensers for New Times, PennySaver, and Auto Trader. A Mexican immigrant wheels by with his shiny white ice cream cart. In the street, Fed Ex and UPS trucks rush by each other in passing lanes.
Seated cross-legged on the floor of the studio-sized tableau room, a life-size woman works from the light of the window. She is American Woman and she is bright red -- on account of her blood, her passion. It has nothing to do with skin color.
American Woman is in the middle of working on some complex, Do-It-Yourself project. Spread around her on the floor are a cell phone, note pads, city maps, phone books and Idiots-Guides-To-Many-Things. One can see that this woman is truly connected to the world outside her humble abode.
The tiny apartment is uniquely, but cheaply decorated. It's fascinating, really. American Woman has created a beautiful environment from readily available materials. She would never save and wait forever to spend a lot of money on fancy digs. Life is to be grasped right now. Today is what matters.
American Woman is a freelance artist, stylist, designer. She sits there designing her business card. Let's see . . . Graphic Artist, no, Graphic Designer, no, Graphic Stylist, no, Style Consultant, no, Design Consultant, yes, that's it! This American Woman is preparing to take her talent outside and drum up some work while she improves the environment. When she looks out her window, she can imagine her handiwork all over her neighborhood -- posters, logos, signs, newspaper covers. Signs of dynamic, ongoing progress. America the Beautiful -- she helps make it so.
I was so excited, it was all I could do to keep from waking up Jerome to describe it. Instead, I stumbled in the dark to the computer and began inputting my vision . . .
The installation represents my personal view of what Democracy can mean to an American Woman. First of all, if the red-blooded American Woman ever took anything about her United States citizenship for granted, she corrected her attitude abruptly on the morning of September 11th, 2001. She knows and appreciates that this is the place for a man or woman to invent, or reinvent, themselves, as she is doing.
This is the place to be your own boss, as she is doing. This is the place to become a self-proclaimed Stylist and set up your tent. This is the land of the Self-Made, Self-Taught, Do-It-Yourselfer. Why, look at the businesses out on the street -- some of them were nonexistent several years ago, but they grew out of the need and vitality of an open society.
It particularly pisses American Woman off to hear smug college professors, from their cushy perches, bitch and moan about how tough things are here in the U. S. A.
And those whiney punks who made the crappy art for "Democracy in America" don't have to tell her how things aren't perfect or fair out there. Why do you think she lives in a cheap studio apartment? Yes, women still make 60 to 70 cents on the dollar to men right here right now, depending on their color.
The red-blooded American Woman knows that nobody on our side is really the enemy. The terrorists want to kill all of us non-Muslims, from the most innocent baby to the biggest asshole out there. American Woman loves every moment of her self-styled freedom, and even if plenty of her fellow Americans are hard to love, she never mistakes the assholes for the principles.
On July 1, by the time the sun had risen and Jerome woke up, I was completely transfixed by my New Idea. I came down a little when he explained to me that the subject of the exhibition was actually, or was supposed to be, the democratic process in America. Then we talked for a long time about how the show was really ill-defined and ill-conceived. Its premise was disingenuous because it was actually being set up as an anti-Bush exhibition, nothing else.
But maybe the organizers would be expanding the approach of the show, to provide more balance. From the article (page 29):
Zeitlin . . . insists the alternative voices are out there and says she's on the hunt for them personally. She's been looking for pro-Bush or anti-Kerry art in New York and Chicago (although she admits that she's yet to find any). Other ASU curators, she says, are still searching as well.
There was hope that Spiak would accept my proposal for the installation! He knew I could make a world-class tableau, because he saw our domestic-violence store-window piece, The Last Time. I was soaring again. All morning long, running around town, I kept building America the Beautiful in my mind.
By this time, America the Beautiful was so real to me. I was proud of it, but also humbled, feeling like the piece might be bigger than me, and it would be inspiring to people and provide much-needed optimism and balance. My enthusiasm, and the shimmering clarity of America the Beautiful, seemed to grow with the sun that day as it rose higher and higher.
Back at home that afternoon, I went on and on to Jerome about America the Beautiful and American Woman as if they were real. They wanted to be born so badly. But after a while, I had to admit I was kidding myself if I thought there was any way the installation would ever be made.
There would never be time, for one thing. When the other artists, whose work now needs balancing, were notified and invited -- King and du Bois weren't. Why weren't we?
Spiak has known about our pro-American politics since our posting about Mark Rubin-Toles and Jon Haddock over a year ago. (Not pro-Bush; pro-American.) Actually, the connection with Haddock goes back further, to our visit to his show-in-a-condo, when he had to come up on us to explain Haddock's 9-11 / jumping / suicide piece. (He probably thought we were collectors, not critics.)
And he certainly knew how we felt when we stood up and silently walked out of Haddock's slide lecture when he showed an image of cartoon people at the smoking WTC windows, waiting to jump. We went home and wrote about it on the blog, and started a series of comments -- from John Spiak, not Haddock! It's a long story you can read here, but the point is that Spiak has known our political feelings for a long time. (The other point is that Spiak has been plugging Haddock since day one. No pun intended.)
It felt so bitterly Undemocratic! We were definitely excluded because of our political differences and now they dishonestly claim that they so want balance! Why, Marilyn Zeitlin's running all over the U. S. A. looking for it, when I think she knows goddamn well she can find plenty of it right here in her own backyard.
By the time the sun sank that day, my spirit had come crashing down outside the shitty stable of incestuous legitimization that is contemporary art in this valley. They can't find balance? Well, that's what happens when you only invite people who agree with you.
I'll never get to make America the Beautiful. But I can write about it. For balance.
July 06, 2004
"Democracy in America" at ASU: Here's Your Balance / Another FairStory
[This is the first part of an exactly two-part article.]
by Catherine King
The second half of 2004 began for me with a powerful rush of artistic inspiration.
The night before, June 30, Jerome and I had been going over Joe Watson's "Heil to the Chief" article, which is the cover story of the July 1-7 Phoenix New Times. It provides reproductions of six wall works and one sculpture that have already been accepted for ASU's fall art exhibition, "Democracy in America."
On the cover of the newspaper there was the big closeup of Jon Haddock's hokey Patriot Act sculpture, 98-107. "Kathleen Thomas and all his friends who helped him at their famous papier-maché party didn't do such a good job," I remarked cattily to Jerome. This piece is nevertheless very popular, because people love mediocrity best.
Basically I was ranting to Jerome about the amateurish quality of the work shown in the article. I am both professionally and academically qualified to judge. Three of the six wall works, Read My Apocalips by Robbie Conal, Let's Play Amageddon by somebody with a fake name I won't use, a piece by Shepard Fairey with George Bush cradling a bomb -- all looked like middle- or high-school poster design projects (of which I've seen more than my share). The figures were clumsily rendered and the copy was treated with the least possible imagination -- headlines across the top and bottom in plain block letters. A fourth, Richie Bush by Peter Kuper, replicates a comic book cover -- derivative, mundane and juvenile.
A fifth illustration, of Not a Pipe by Peter Kuper, is simply a nine-panel comic strip with three rows of simplistic scenes of a decadent, dangerous and doomed America. And again, many, many schoolkids could have designed far more awesome and professional-looking comic strips. With a weary gesture, Jerome passed an open hand over the tragedy-laden cartoon and said, "There's sure nothing here about America the beautiful."
The painting called Bushwacked that ASU Art Museum director Marilyn Zeitlin solicited from a university art professor, Alfred Quiroz, really made me mad. The bursting montage features George Bush surrounded by poorly painted cliches. "Quiroz' work reminds me of painting that Prairie Prince was doing in art school 35 years ago," I told Jerome, "only Prairie's subject matter was so much more innovative, with unidentifed flying objects and psychedelic aliens. And his draftsmanship, even as a student, was way better than this guy's."
You see, yesterday's art student created work that is conceptually and technically superior to the university professor of today. It must be said. What's happened in the meantime? What are they doing over there at Herberger? What has happened to standards -- of originality, of technical skill, of artistic judgment? I have been unimpressed by the art faculty at ASU for some time now, and as I said before, I am both academically and professionally qualified to judge. (I'll tell you a little secret -- in academia, it's not about quality, it's about kissing ass, and finding the right asses to kiss -- which is why I'm not there.)
But far more importantly, the "art" that had already been accepted for the show just struck me as being unjustifiably self-satisfied with the least effort and the smallest notion and the handiest propaganda. It was immediately obvious that night as Jerome and I looked over the work that had been solicited for the "Democracy in America" exhibit by John Spiak, Marilyn Zeitlin, Heather Lineberry, and Peter Held, that none of the "artists" had put any heart, much less soul, into their work. The crafting was shoddy, the subject matter was filled with clichés, their treatment was unimaginative. And all depressingly one-note: Anti-Bush. "If someone had asked me to contribute something to the show, I would have been so honored and excited," I admitted to Jerome. "Believe me, I sure wouldn't have submitted anything like this cheap shlock."
I felt mad, but not surprised, that university curators had actually gone out and solicited this art that I considered unworthy of any kind of serious, major exhibition. Not surprised, because I've become disillusioned with curators and museum directors, right along with art teachers, professors, gallerists and "professional" artists around this town. It wasn't so long ago, though, that I thought it meant something to curate an art exhibition. . .
Jerome and I had envisioned and described a funny, fake alternate "Democracy in America" exhibition in a previous post. The purpose of the post was just to poke some fun at the predictable local artists and see if we could second-guess the type of art they would submit to depict "Democracy in America." Now that New Times was showing some of the actual art that the curators were soliciting for the real exhibit -- well, the so-called "art" wasn't funny but simultaneously vicious, spoiled, infantile, myopic and jaded.
People can be so disappointing. The curators are going around soliciting crappy art and none of the artists had a positive image of Democracy in America. This was how I was feeling about the exhibit when I called it a day on the night of June 30.
That night, the year 2004 was in perfect balance -- 183 days down, 183 more to go. What would tomorrow bring?
Part Two is here.
July 01, 2004
"Democracy in America" at ASU Should Be Renamed "Nobody Here But Us Chickens"
by Jerome du Bois
Two months ago, on April 20 (what a day), we posted a satirical, fictional "preview" of an upcoming political exhibition at ASU Art Museum which was to carry the title "Democracy in America."
Two days ago, the Phoenix New Times published an update on this exhibition, which, though shepherded by four of the museum's curators, is unfinished, unbalanced, and the subject of some controversy, since the third Presidential Debate will take place "hundreds of feet away" from the exhibition. I suggest readers compare the two articles. For one thing, we get the Bush-bashing right, which seemed obvious to us but now has university officials' knickers in a twist. It's funny and pathetic seeing these so-called pros scrambling to hide from such weak-ass art. Even our farcical suggestions are better than this crap.
I was in the middle of a long exposition of this whole embarrassment, but I believe it can be summarized by the behavior of curator John Spiak, the submarine behind this disingenuous bait-and-switch. And I have better, more fun things to write about. So let me compress myself:
Just after 9/11, Spiak put on a show called "Nooks and Crannies," which included a piece by Jon Haddock. Here's how Kathleen Vanesian described the situation for NT in October of 2001:
Not all of the show's offerings provide comic relief or witty ironic musings. Like everything else, "Nooks and Crannies" fell unwitting prey to fallout from September 11's tragic terrorist bombings. Jon Haddock's oversize action figures in a stairwell vignette re-creating one of the final scenes in The Godfather became instantly controversial the day after the attacks. The sculptural installation, for which no explanatory text had been put up at the time, depicts several figures lying in pools of resin-made blood, with a nearby gangster dressed as a police officer pointing a gun at another victim fleeing up the stairs.
"There was heavy reaction to [Haddock's work] the day after the bombings because we didn't have any information about it up," the show's curator says. "It caught me off guard. We took the piece out of the gallery for a bit so we could think about it. It made my stomach churn all day thinking about pulling Haddock's work."
The museum quickly came to the conclusion that "if we pulled it, we were censoring it, and the bombing was all about people opposed to our democratic way of life, including freedom of expression." The piece stayed in, Spiak reports. "And I grew as a curator that day."
And in this latest NT piece, written by Joe Watson, he shows how he grew, and how much:
Unlike some ASU Art Museum officials, including Spiak, who stopped returning calls several days ago, many of the artists contacted provided details of the soliciting process, the work they've submitted to the museum's curators, and electronic versions of those pieces, and who frankly acknowledged their disdain for Bush, his policies, and the war in Iraq.
O brave new world, VJ Johnny D, which has such stand-up step-up steel backbone mofos like you in it.
No, they're all cowards: John Spiak, Marilyn Zeitlin, Heather Lineberry, and Peter Held, the first two of whom whine that they can't find pro-Bush or anti-Kerry art. Four curators with dozens of years of contacts can't find art that disagrees with them. Idiots. Well, as we have warned since we started this blog, this is what incestuous legimization gets you: one-side, sophomoric political cartoons.
Read Watson's piece to see nobody except ASU executive director of public events Colleen Jennings-Roggensack stand up for America. Everybody else is worryin and scurryin, jukin and jivin. Funny but pathetic.