Friday, September 20, 2013

SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

I sent a note to my Congressional Representative, Elizabeth Esty (D, CT-5).  While I agree with her vote on the recent food assistance bill, I am disgusted at the result of the House vote.  Here  is an article about the bill and House vote. 

And here is what I had to say in response:

Exactly what happens in Congress? Here's a thing -- let's cut the defense budget since even DOD said they don't need the allotment. Let's get rid of oil subsidies. Eliminate loopholes on corporate taxes. How are those of us who make the choice to stop paying student loans so we can eat the cause of the problem?

And as far as the farm subsidies go: I want regional agriculture with a greatly reduced reliance on food being grown and transported at 3000 miles to market. If we're going to cut back in our personal lives, tell people they just can't have strawberries all year long. Limit the amount of food that is imported, make reasonable exceptions for items that can't be grown in smaller growing regions.

Stop subsidies to companies who grow crops primarily for packaged and modified food manufacturers and give better protections to farmers who grow food for direct consumption.

And here's a crazy thought: start creating jobs, raise the minimum wage, and create standards that guarantee adults full time hours at full pay with overtime -- then maybe we can buy our food for ourselves. Or pay our loans.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

It's All I've Got

In light of the Zimmerman ruling, a friend of mine who is black asked his circle what he should tell his son.  Dude, I don't know what you should tell your son.  But what can I say about it?

Injustice exists.  Not just where you are but everywhere.  Sometimes people are treated unfairly, are hurt, are damaged, are killed.  When that happens as a result of human actions against others, it is wrong.  Always.  Not just when the victim looks like you or lives like you or eats like you or believes like you or has sex like you...  It is wrong, period.  Always. 

Much of what happens is a result of what some people assume or believe about other people.  Many of the ideas we have about one another are sometimes right and often wrong.  That is true about a single individual whom you judge on gossip rather than personal interaction, and it is true about groups of people whom you judge by stereotype rather than personal interaction or fact checking. 

So it's a cliche but it's true that you should be part of the solution.  This means you should treat people with the same courtesy you would expect for yourself.  And it is also true that this is not the answer or the real solution to the real problem.  But you have to have a premise and an expectation on which to judge people by their actions. 

Be angry.  Which is not to say you should be mad at others all the time.  But be angry that injustice and inequality persist.  Accept every struggle as your own.  Because it is.  When your son is at an age where he can hear this there will be other examples but these serve as noteworthy:  Recently, the NAACP took a stand for gay rights, Occupy has organized for civil rights on multiple fronts.  In the 1960s, labor and black civil rights activists sometimes partnered.  Everyone's struggle is your struggle even when it isn't because it is.  You cannot expect others to see us as "in it together" if we are not. 

Know how to use that anger.  It is the reaction that tells you something is wrong and it is the motivator to do what is right.  But it is not the form your response should take.  You can be angry about injustice and make that known without engaging in harmful behavior.  Hold others accountable to that standard.  Make anyone who wants to engage with you -- or the appropriate social agencies -- engage from the intellect, not the emotion.  Because one cannot respond until one stops reacting.  Know the difference between reactive and responsive.

Do not believe in invisible forces like "them" or "society" or "the system" for why things happen.  Do not expect invisible forces like them or the system or even a god to fix it or explain it or make it right in the end.  None of those invisible forces ever will -- YOU will, people will.  When we make people or causes invisible we have no way to find them, confront them, change them.  Identify who, what, and how.  Demand to know why.  And then demand a solution.  Or get with others and look for one.

Expect that life is unfair and people will judge you unfairly.  Black men are dangerous, women are incompetent, Latinos are lazy.  You may not be able to win the debate or overcome the obstacle each time you find it.  But take it to a new forum.  Be engaged in some way.  

Acknowledge that prosecution influences persecution.  Go after the penal system, or agencies within it, for perpetuating unfair law enforcement.  Demand we do better there.  Understand how the way that part of our society works influences how different people are percieved differently, how that reinforces stereotype generally and discrimination more broadly. 

Do not run from confrontation when someone challenges your ideas and views about life.  Do not expect to always agree on these but embrace the opportunity to be questioned on your views -- and to examine them yourself.  Those who reject this kind of confrontation only exacerbate misunderstanding and perpetuate the social conditions that give us discrimination and persecution. 

Cooperate and collaborate with those who are not like you, do not think like you whenever possible.  Do not surround yourself with these people as your friends, however.  If they do not believe you or "your kind" have the same rights as everyone else, they are not your friends.   

None of this is new.  This may not be particularly insightful.  It may not protect you from real harm.  But none of us is truly protected from real harm.  There is risk.   That's life.  That sucks; it's deflating.  Maybe you tell your son to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.  Eric Holder just gave a speech about this very idea in having to talk to his son.   Some of us care.  About people in general.  About people specifically.  About white America and black America and religious America and atheist America and male America and female America and straight America and gay America.....  And some of us care about humans beyond even those tags and beyond our borders.  You could tell your son that I care about him and want his experience to be better than what it might have been in the past.  And that maybe he can want the same for everyone.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Get Over It

See how the internet works? Say this: "As a woman, I am tired of women who dress like sluts then cry sexism when people salivate for their visible bodies" and everyone in the thread will read into it implications that aren't there. How do I know? I said it. Yeah, that's right.
 
You wouldn't expect this from someone who thinks it's perfectly legit that women should be allowed to go topless in public as a measure of equality. But laws are one thing. Personal behavior is another. I didn't flinch when I saw the topless woman last summer in NYC. Just like I don't flinch at topless men. But if you are dressing in a manner meant to accentuate for the purpose of garnering attention for your physical sexual parts then don't complain that anyone wants to stare at your parts.  Just like you can't be topless at work, you probably shouldn't be showing us your tits leaping out of your intentionally low scoop tee during the course of a shift.  While I do think much of our cultural dysfunction regarding sexuality comes, conversely, from trying to refine sex and sexuality, I also think there's a time and place.  And I think sometimes what you put out will come back to you.

As to the rest of it -- men cat calling to women out for a run or whatever... It's stupid and unnecessary. But it's also harmless. And it's sort of human nature. The laugh is we think we are born more refined than we really are.   So women don't do it as much to men -- that means nothing.  Maybe we should. 
 
 
 

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Armory Show Notes, Unedited and Without Reflection

Daniel Ratcliff Unt (rent app superimp)

Brenna Youngblood

Marc Francis -- Trojan
(photo)   ?  delinitation
                   music
                   points
                   location

WHEN WILL TONY OURSLER DO SOMETHING ELSE?

Tom Thayer "paint + puppet strings"
                 stage set
Alyson Shotz "weaving"
             pinheads and white thread

By-passing Hirst -- fuck that prick

Any time I see a painting on the floor, I want to kick it.

John Baldessari
         Missing Examples 1-6
           board overlaid on
B/W photos -- movie sets?
             Gaps in crowd
                     -- missing info
                          -- people or things?
                          -- action?
                          -- is missing the
                              focus of crowd?

               -- misinformation?
               -- known v. unknown?
               -- Relative importance?

               -- dichotomies/dualities?

(1) left + rt flanks face
middle (removed)
          smiling, waving
                      -- parade?
WHERE? (Hotel de la Bourse
                   1930s? 40s?)

K Johnson

     tracing imperial decay over
     BA wait room

             (Julie Mehretu?)

line drawing
                              -- coded?
                              -- historical
                              -- alpha/num systems
                                         -- traceable history?

                    -- mapping
                    -- architectural remnants?
                               -- allusion

B/A logo representational
   -- symbology
   -- allusion/illusion

           -- types of economies
                     -- monetary
                     -- emotional
                     -- political

white on black -- ghostly or overlay
of history onto "nothing"
       -- suggests failure erasure/collapse
       -- deconstruction/renew cycle

3d vanish pt -- disapp to rt
               -- signify to RIGHT?

               -- off center?
               -- symmetry vs. balance?
                             -- literal?
                             -- pictorial
                             -- figurative
                             -- literary?

email Suzanne re: drawing
_____________________________________________________________

Abigail Reynolds
           cut + folded vintage book plates

Daffodil field cut away to
              unemployment protest (80s?)

Torquay beach cut away to
                  floral pool?
Riverbank + 3d cut out
           Rows of hay bails
           + theater stage?

_____________________________
Marlborough Gallery Chelsea              

John Komer
   Helle, Cherie, Jasmine 2011
_________________________________________________

Max Wigram Gallery (603)
             -- book covers + title pages

Jose Disilva
    A  Brief History of Sculpture
            photos of sculpture on site
            are cut out of photo
____________________________________________________

IRRITATING CONVERSATIONS
FROM BITCHY PRIMA DONNAS EVERYWHERE

-- self indulgent
-- self absorbed

OMG! I'M AN ART MAJOR!

Jose Disilva
      Untitled
      cardboard boxes
      recut + hung as Judd's

             [____]

             [____]

             [____]

             [____]

             [____]

sport brand names
         Depends, Karo, Bimbo
         Pinol, Roma, Coraflex, Mattel
         Ajax, Great Value

-- permanence vs. decay of
            materials?
same statement possible?
           -- not minimalism?

           -- to compare to Judd

                   Quality of material?

                         ?  size, scale
                                 exactness?

innocuous becomes obvious

elevation
of material?
of form?
attack on past?

Tobias Burnstrup
           Hope

           Urban Decay

                    -- which "Hope"?

___________________________________________________________

Ward Shelley
              -- timelines

    Fluxus --
          makes you think:
                Powhida, what an asshole


(Darmstadt Circle
for Concrete Poetry)
____________________________________________________________

Edward Burtynsky
           Pivot Irrigation # 19


Rachel Lee Hounanian
   Dinner for Two: Wedding Cake
             -- projected images
                 across dinner table
                 messaging and playing
                         games --
                               see only their faces

-- smell sugar of cake
-- mouse "eating" cake

formailty of setting
               juxtaposed by poor social skills
                             -- lack of engagement

                             (lack of) engagement
                                       -- relevant?
                                                    -- wedding?
_________________________________________________________

Greasy curators never disappear

Michael Wolf -- Architecture
                       of Destiny

Garlak Gallery
        (purple solar system)
_______________________________________________________________

"ours is a rare form of
emotional contagion, fiercely
guarding the lost
tongues  of old souls"
______________________________________

AFRO EINSTEIN
______________________________________

"Whoever said less is
more figured it out
 a lot faster than I did"

I need all day to read
the Fluxus history

Leandro Erlich
         Captive Reflection 2013

                        -- Adam's Okno?

window > imagery

Sunday, December 2, 2012

I Wish

That I had been more daring in my twenties.
That I stayed in London.
That I attended Candace's wedding and the Graduate Show 2008.
That I shipped my chair home.
That I had been more fun as a big sister.
That I remained a voracious reader.
That I pursued writing.
That I had space and opportunity to pursue research.
That I could talk with Martin more.
That the perfect job would fall into my lap.
That visa laws were more flexible.
That nations of the world considered all of us global citizens.
That I had worn more sunscreen.
That I liked wearing my glasses.
That I could motivate to walk more often.
That I liked to work out.
That it was easy to write a cover letter or self appraisal.
That I had local friends.
That I was more creative.
That I could stop trying.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

I Decline to Participate

I was in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum today where the main exhibition is United States.  The theme of national identity is only one theme employed by artists' work here and the broader concepts of united and states are what underlie this exhibition.  While I was looking around I could occasionally hear bits of a recording of children reciting the US Pledge of Allegiance and it got me thinking just how much I hate those phrases.  Let me tell you why.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands; one nation under God, indvisible with liberty and justice for all.

I pledge allegiance to the flag...
To the flag?  What about to the people, the citizens?  Nowhere in this pledge is there a vow to commit to the people of the nation.  We will pledge to a piece of cloth.  Less abstractly, to the Republic for which it stands.  I mean get the fuck out.  A republic is a governmental construct through which the people are represented and which acts as the forum for addressing the people's problems and institutes good policy to improve their lives and protect their rights.  Or should, anyway.  That's all nice and good but again that is not about making a commitment as a citizen to honor and respect the rights and lives of all citizens -- of all peoples who comprise the population.  This phrase is about generic loyalty to a government construct as if  the government is the purpose of the people when in reality, the people are the purpose behind good governance. 

one nation under God...
Now this is plain false.  Since the point has been made frequently enough, I will refrain from the details about the addition of this phrase coming in the 1950s.  Let's just review for one quick minute here, however, that this is not a nation under any god.  How do I know?  I've read the Constitution.  And while I am no scholar on the matter, I have read a little into some history about the views of the founders and their desire that matters of religion and faith be separate from public life, government activity, and not used as a measure for civic engagement.  Yeah, there was some disagreement on this but the fact remains this is not a nation founded on any belief in any god.

Further, to use this belief as a measure of one's civic engagement is improper.  If I go to work, pay my bills, respect the law, respect my neighbors none of that counts because I don't believe in a god?   So much for that commitment to the people of the nation.  Oh, right.

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Unless you lived under a rock for the last four years you should know this simply isn't true.  Look at the political rhetoric against anyone who isn't white, against women, against Muslims and atheists, et cetera ad nauseum, and there's no way you can think there isn't a popular desire to divide and conquer.  Private, local militias are growing, domestic terror continues, hate groups gain popularity, racism has increased even among young persons, bullying, the "religious" using their dictates to persecute gays and immigrants, blah blah blah.  Indivisible.  Ha! 

Liberty and justice are a laugh.  To use just one example, let's look at the recent year of voter obstruction as practiced by the Republican party.  Members, pundits, elected officials have actually gotten on television and said out loud, to a national audience that they essentially want to reisnstate Jim Crow.  "Yes" is the answer when multiple party officials are asked if voter ID laws would have helped Romney get elected.  Some have even stated the party wasn't aggressive enough on this and that is why the reds lost the election.  And for all their misinformation about socialism and the rise of fascism under Democrats, suppressing the right to vote is a fascist tactic.  So, by the way, is factless propaganda.  It's not all Republicans who want to keep certain people from voting and it's not only Republicans who want it.  Plenty of home grown "revolutionaries" want the same thing -- and worse, they want to remove "undesirables" from society entirely.

How about an economic system that unfairly disenfranchises black and hispanic citizens?  How about a prison system that works in tandem with this economic structure to ensure that these people are targeted and incarcerated at disproportionately higher rates than white citizens?  Liberty and justice certainly cannot be the driving force behind an educational system that enables children in families of means and leaves behind the poor.  But it works better for the private prison system that there always be an underclass who is more vulnerable to committing crime than getting a good job and being fully engaged in our social life economically, academically, culturally.  Better, too, if they are pigmented so as to be more easily targeted as criminals. 

This pledge offends me.  It is offensive.  It is a petty utterance that does not encourage dedication to one another and makes our current reality seem only more outrageous.  I make no public utterance of it for any reason. 

Monday, October 15, 2012

New Dialogs in Art of the Contemporary

Post modern.  Post modern.  Post modern.  Post modern.  Post Modern.  Post Modern.  Post.  Modern.  Post modern.  Post modern, post modern, post modern, post modern.  Post-modern.  Post modern.  Revisionism.  Post Post Post Post Post Post.  Modern, post.  Ipso, modern.  Post facto.  Post modern.

Post modern, post post post.  Modernist, modernity, modernism.  Past.  Past post.  Post.  Post Modern.  A posteriori.  Posterior.  Behind.  Post modern.  Modern post.  Modernism, concept.  Duchamp.  Cranial posterior situational relativism.  Post post post.  Post post.  Post.

Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.
Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.
Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.
Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern.  Warhol.  Post modern. Warhol.

Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.  Warhol.

Painterly post painterly post.  Post painterly.  Painted post, modern, post modern.  Post post.  Neo new.  Modernist post modernism.  Post post post modern modern modern.  Post modern.  Post.

Post modern.  Deconstruction.  Post modern.  Fluxus.  Post modern.  Contemporary.  Post modern.  Conceptual.  Post modern.  Relational.  Post modern.  Dialectic.  Post modern.  Mininalism.  Post modern.  Installation.  Post modern.  Performance.  Post modern. 

Post modern.  Post.  Modern.  Post modern.  Post modern post modern post modern post modern.  Post modern.