From the Center For Artistic Activism, a great argument for political art and how to approach it…
“An open letter to critics writing about political art…”
Tag Archives: art
Speaking of Racist Advertising…
Over at Artspace.com there’s a great interview with the artist Hank Willis Thomas on racism, advertising, politics, slavery, artistic production, the role of the artist in the 21st century and a great many other things. Thomas works with video, photography, interviews, iPad apps, and other formats. He collaborates and does solo work. The interview finds him in the process of moving into the sphere of ‘Post-Black’ art.
Post-Black is an interesting term. I’d encountered it years ago, but hadn’t put any thought into it until about 2007 (pretty late; I know). That year I was at a Seattle museum for a public conversation between a couple of New York’s ad-hoc curators on post-diaspora black art.
They had a lot of imagery from many black artists and things were going along smoothly in their talk until the Q&A. At that point, a white guy in the audience announced that Kara Walker was the most important artist of the evening because her work was about the most relevant issue: slavery. That didn’t go down so well and I’m proud to say that my evening’s companion ripped the guy a new one.
She caustically explained black artists didn’t need anyone, black, white, or other, pigeon-holing them into particular dialogues. Black people can discuss what they want and he, as a white male and former Boston-based gallery owner, needed to get the fuck back as he was part of the problem. The problem of holding black people down.
I couldn’t have been more delighted that day.
Hank Willis Thomas discusses the role of the artist at the end of the interview and I’m going to throw a quote from him here, ” part of the role of the artist in the 20th and 21st century is to actually do the things that don’t make sense. So it’s okay for somebody to say, “I just mess around with chairs,” or “I just look at the color blue because it’s really interesting to me.” It opens doors to our minds that are less tapped, less used, because we’re not robots. And societies where art is repressed wind up in (sic) fascist societies, and they don’t last as we saw with communism. If you suppress those voices, people freak out and it collapses.”
Beautiful. Just beautiful. And wait ’til you read what he has to say about Obama.
His website. His Wikipedia entry.
Curation Situation
I’m guest curator for the Degenerate Art Ensemble’s Art Stream for the next two weeks.
I’m tasked with posting daily snapshots of artists and institutions that the world needs to know about. My first shot’s fired and it’s dedicated to Unnur Andrea, an Icelandic performer who makes music and videos. I’ve focused on her video work as it’s more interesting to me.
Here’s the link: Unnur Andrea – Food & The Body Becoming One
From day 3…
City Arts Fest 2011, Fred Wildlife Refuge
Free Sheep Foundation are curating a show for the City Arts Festival at Fred Wildlife Refuge. Here’s a pre-show look at NTG’s latest wheatpaste commentary. The fellows on the wall are Officer Ian Burke and Christopher Monfort. Look them up if you’re the curious type.
Here’s the flyer for the show. Drop in if you have time. There’s some lovely stuff up by a number of wonderful people.
Guilty, A Public Passion
Last weekend I was part of a ritualized public reading of Bataille’s ‘Guilty‘ out at the Smoke Farm complex. Photographer Dan Hawkins made a time-lapse video of our 7 hour adventure…
Guilty is the edited diary of George Bataille written during World War 2. Bataille explores the guilt and anger he experiences at not being able to join the war effort due to illness. It is at times funny, philosophical, pornographic, yet always high-minded even in the midst of literary excess.
There were four of us and we each took turns reading from the text. When one of us finished their section they’d fill our glasses with wine. Taking our glasses, we’d all rise and toast one another. Then we’d sit and some of us would light cigarettes. The next person would start reading where the last left off.
By the end of the reading we were shivering and drunk having consumed 7 bottles of pink wine. We stripped naked in the dark and folded our clothes leaving them sitting on our chairs. Each of us lay down in the frigid river. I screamed when I did so as the chill of the water was too much to bear. Then I ran to the shore and dried myself; put on my street clothes. Returned home to our camp having only thrown up twice during the entire evening.