The Hood
@ the 1993 Exhibit at the New Museum.
“demarcates a site of police hostility and racial profiling that targets “suspicious” youths …. the ghost-like absence of a body in Hammon’s piece recalls lynching and the memory of its victims. In light of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policies, the intensely controversial themes presented in The Hood remain equally relevant today as they were in 1993″.
…”equally relevant” is unfortunately sad and true. the NYPD has carried out somewhere near 5 MILLION stop-and-frisks (!?). in the current class-action suit over this policy, “New York State Senator Eric Adams said on the record that he heard Commissioner Kelly tell then-Governor David Paterson and a room of other lawmakers that stop and frisk targets minorities because “he wanted to instill fear in them that any time they leave their homes they could be targeted by police.” [gawker]
the LA riots were in 1992. 1993 was 20 years ago – how far have we come on this issue? with the 5 million+ who have been profiled in NYC alone, injunctions in Oakland, the deaths of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and so many uncounted others who did nothing but “look suspicious”, and the speed of proliferation of other institutionalized forms of racism, this simple piece of a hood hanging on the wall almost made me cry in anger and shame.
/hoodies up/
there were a lot of other really political and emotional pieces in the show, including one that was just a square painted on a wall – about which you might ask “how the hell is that art?” - and maybe it isn’t – but the color of the square painted on the wall was the memory of the color of the skintone of someone loved who had died of AIDS. so simple. so wrenching.
def see the exhibit if you can make it there.
Filed in art, politics and news | Tagged with #occupyart, NYC | Comment (0)
finding your art of protest (occupy post #16)
i don’t have a lot to add to the post-#mayday commentary about what happened (or didn’t). some people are still really into #occupy. some people are over it. some people can take it or leave it.
(and if you are still wondering what exactly HAS #occupy accomplished? visit http://occupydidwhat.tumblr.com/ - you might be surprised.)
i’m with those who think it is probably more important as a cultural movement than a political movement. i hope #occupy is changing how people -Americans in the Land of the Free in particular – interact with their world – what they expect, what they want, what they see as possible.
for me personally, even though I have not been that directly involved, #occupy has proven a lot of what i assumed i knew about social movements, but it has taught me more about what i don’t know, and where i am weak in that regard – in really understanding and not just assuming things about the current dynamics of law, justice and politics, and then that intersection with my world of art and the creation of meaningful experiences (not just entertainment, catering to artificial mass taste). so much of how the world works now is unnatural, nonintuitive, not what it seems – we get sold values and the definitions of what things are or should be just as readily as you are sold a can of Coca Cola. the way things are framed, how they are defined and by whom (especially the by whom) create our perception and experience of the world.
we all know this – it’s part of becoming an adult, realizing that almost everyone is trying to sell you something, and not just person-to-person. that capitalism has produced a systemic, institutionalized, government-sponsored snake oil culture industry, influencing everything from what you eat and where you shop to who you vote for and how you feel about all of it.
but what is harder is figuring out what to do about it – and that is where i have really struggled with #occupy on a personal level. how to join and fight in a way that feels right, that uses our talents and desires and makes us feel empowered and engaged and excited and productive in our own way. not all of us want to take to the streets and fight the riot police. not all of us want to work tediously in committee meetings or court rooms. some of us just want to #occupyart:
“The marches are very powerful and motivating for anyone who begins in the march,” said 27-year-old librarian Jeremy Bold. “For passersby, they see people who are very vocal and angry.”
…
“Personally, I don’t like labels,” said 25-year-old musician Dotan Negrin. “So I don’t consider myself part of Occupy Wall Street. I’m not a protester.” Negrin has been travelling the country with a musical project called Pianos Across America. He has driven and dragged his upright piano as far as LA, Seattle and Chicago to play in open spaces and welcome people into the the performances. For the past few months, he’s been playing in Union Square Park, which has become something of a second home for the occupiers.
“I always play Union Square, so I figured I might join them,” said Negrin.
His goal in life, he said, is to “try to do something really extraordinary while trying to make the world a better place.”
“That’s my sort of protest,” he added.
.::.
YES to that. yes.
and i do know that Occupy has space for this. that if you build your own movement, it will be supported. it’s one of the great things about decentralized models. everyone can play. i think that is what makes it strong. but i have still struggled to find my voice here, through no fault but my own.
.::.
i still support #occupy 100%, and believe that we all do need to fight what is going on in the U.S. — that complacency and entitlement are social evils and killing us. i might not be in the streets, but i have put a lot of energy into this and i need to let myself stop feeling guilty – and peer pressured – to participate in #occupy in ways that don’t feel comfortable for me. i wish the same for everyone else out there who is interested and supportive of the movement, and that we all find a way to fight the good fight in our own ways.
.::.
(use the #ows tag to see all previous posts)
Filed in art, culture and random linkage | Tagged with #occupyart, #occupywallstreet, #ows, capitalism | Comment (0)QOTD: Jodorowsky on being creators
on the memetic/mimetic art theme, the current issue of Interview Mag (the one with a totally unrecognizable Katy Perry as the cover) has an interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Chilean surrealist filmmaker who made the infamous art film “Holy Mountain” in 1973. it’s really too bad it’s not online to share the whole thing because he is such an inspiration for right now. choice quote (emphasis added):
“I think in life there are very few creators. There are a million imitators, but what is a person who imitates? It’s just a superficial reproduction of things. I am seeing today a multiplication of superficial work. Photos, photos, photos, myself, myself, myself…. but a lack of humanity now. You have all the communication, but what will you say? I have Twitter, but I never say what I do or what I eat. I am transpersonal. I think art needs to be transpersonal. It needs to break from our individual limits. It needs to go outside our common, collective humanity. We are in MoMA right now, which is paradise. We are wit the spirits of art. But outside, you have reality, which is very dangerous. It’s in pain. Nobody’s happy. Not just economically, but also emotionally and creatively. They have lost the meaning of politics, of religion, of health. Today, medicine is an industry. Everything’s industrial. But I say the night makes the day. After a night, it is the day, and not the reversal. Not after the day is the night. It is a positive message. Everything that happens in your life is for the good. I don’t believe in political revolution. I believe in poetical revolution. That’s what I believe. So where do we put the power? In the consciousness. Everything we do should be to open the mind of a person.”
i love this because it is the same mix of perceptions that i have, that while it contains what are superficially pessimistic realist statements (“Nobody’s happy”), this recognition of the darkness of the world feeds the belief that if we tune ourselves properly it will lead to light.
+obviously a screening of Holy Mountain is in our near future if anyone wants in.
Filed in art, philosophical ramblings, QOTD, tv, books and movies | Tagged with #occupyart, memetic, mimetic | Comment (1)revolution for sale
not sure how i feel about these. for sale. for $700.
http://obeygiant.com/headlines/jamie-reid-x-shepard-fairey-print-collaboration#more-19350
QOTD: horizontalism
this was really beautiful to read, whether you take it for your personal life or political life or occupation:
My personal perspective has to do with the idea of freedom, this idea of discovering that we have collective knowledge that brings us together, gives us strength, starts the process of discovery. This is beyond revolutionary theories, theories that we all know and have heard so often, theories that are all too often converted into tools of oppression and submission. Constructing freedom is a learning process that can only happen in practice. For me, horizontalism, autonomy, freedom, creativity, and happiness are all concepts that go together, and they’re all things that have to both be practiced, and learned in practice.
I think back to previous activist experiences, and remember a powerful feeling of submission. This includes even my own behavior, which was often excessively rigid. It was difficult for me to enjoy myself, and enjoyment is something sane that strengthens you. Under capitalism, we were giving up the possibility of enjoying ourselves and being happy. We need to constantly break with this idea. We have life, and the life we have should be lived today. We shouldn’t wait to take power, so that we can begin to enjoy ourselves in the future. We should take it now. We begin by believing in what’s possible and then we push aside all of those things that don’t allow us to create this possibility.
— neka, a member of an unemployed workers’ movement
also awesome from issue #100:
Filed in culture and random linkage, QOTD, things you can do | Tagged with #occupyart, #ows, adbusters | Comment (0)Because history doesn’t move in straight lines but surges like water, sometimes swirling, sometimes dripping, flowing, flooding–always unknowable, unexpected, uncertain. Because the key to insurgency is brilliant improvisation, not perfect blueprints.
#occupyfashion (post #15)
i ♥ that this happened: http://www.cynicaltimes.org/articles/occupy-brings-working-class-outrage-to-fashion-week/
“The whole Occupation thing is important because it’s about people going out and talking about the things that are messed up in our own society and the fashion industry is one of them,” said Mediavilla. “New York City used to be popping with jobs for people making clothes and then the industry outsourced many of those (apparel) jobs so they could pay people pennies on the hour in other countries instead of a decent wage.
“Meanwhile, they’re spending $500,000 on a single magazine cover photo that gets photo-shopped all to hell and is often very unrealistic. Young people see these fake images and think they have to look like that.”
Employment in the U.S. apparel industry has fallen by 82% since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect Jan. 1, 1994, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U.S. had 149,700 apparel workers last month, compared with 834,900 in January 1994.
The median pay for the 64,100 sewing machine operators left in the U.S. was $19,180 in 2010.
…”Most of my friends that work in the fashion industry are only part timers and they’re given less than 30 hours of work each week so they don’t qualify for benefits, but they still make too much to qualify for food stamps,” Stone-Diaz said, pausing briefly as a passing fashionista called the protesters “assholes.”
He smiled, shook his head and continued.
“We have all these fashion shows on television right now – like Project Runway – that romanticize the industry and hold it up as part of the American Dream,” Stone-Diaz said, “but it’s built on 1% structures just like the American Dream.”
One of those structures is grossly underpaying workers in order to lavishly overpay investors and top executives, models and designers.
i think some people think my work in fashion shows is counter to all of the other socio-political stuff i do/write about and wonder how i could be dong this “really superficial’ thing one day and then writing about poverty and justice the next. first of all, it irks me that some people think that fashion is only trivial and superficial and belittle its importance in human culture, especially as compared to the other arts, but that is another topic in itself and so i digress. my point here is that in fact, i ONLY, and i mean ONLY, work with designers who are dedicated to responsible clothing, who source their goods as responsibly as they can, and to keeping their lines ethical from beginning to end.
i do these fashion shows because i love fashion as a form of self-expression, but also because i think supporting my friends who do local fashion IS IMPORTANT – as noted above, the U.S. fashion industry is not only cruel in its treatment of women as objects, but the treatment of workers here and abroad is horrid.
Filed in art, fashion | Tagged with #occupyart, #occupyeverything, #occupywallstreet, #ows, capitalism, consumerism | Comment (0)
youwillhavetolearntolookattheskyagain (post #14)
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-city-is-wilder-and-kinder-than-you-think (2/9/12):
The poems on Old Street are set in capital white letters on a brushed black background, in a sort of mangled Futura; it’s a type treatment that should send his words running and screaming through the streets but somehow does not. Instead, the words lean calmly against the wall and arouse a kind of subtle and unnoticed reflection. People pass by on their way to or from here or there. They do double-takes and slow down. Intrigue wraps their faces. They stop, read, think, and eventually move on, carrying something with them that maybe wasn’t there before. Something that came free, silent and unexpected, set in capital white letters on a brushed black background.
Filed in art, oracles | Tagged with #occupyart, #occupywallstreet, #ows, capitalism, consumerism, marxisms | Comment (0)“I’m an acolyte of Situationist ideas,” Montgomery says, referring to Situationist International, a group of 20th-century European revolutionaries who used public art installations to capture people’s attention, ask questions, and express ideas. “Their influence on me is far reaching. But the key introductory idea is perhaps Guy Debord’s idea of the spectacle, by which he means loosely the coalition of capitalism and the media.”
Debord, a French social theorist, writer and filmmaker, helped to form the SI in 1957. In his influential book, The Society of the Spectacle, he suggests that the combination of capitalism and the mass media will lead to a society dominated by false images, and that these images will act as a spectacle isolating people from reality. Debord eventually shot himself through the heart in 1994 in a small village in Auvergne, France.
“What Debord and the SI really get into,” Montgomery says, “and what sets them apart from much other post-Marxist thought, is questions of what capitalism does to us on the inside; in the inner sphere of life, to our hearts and minds, almost to our karmic sphere. I think those questions have never been more pertinent, especially in this historical moment when it is inarguably clear that capitalism in its current extreme form is not only immoral, but technically flawed.”
…
Montgomery’s poems hang near the vacant Old Street Magistrate’s Court, where, until recently, a group of Occupy London protesters had been squatting. “If you look at what Occupy are doing,” he says, “I think we’re finally seeing a positive international forum for positive change to the global financial system. That’s if we listen to them and don’t marginalize their voice.”
Emma is a 42-year-old Occupy camper and writer. She says she thinks it’s important to see artwork like Montgomery’s in the public realm. “Reclaiming public space is vital,” she says. “Art, music, poetry, performance, debate, conversation—these are the things that bring us together, that lead us out of our isolation, that allow us—the 99%—to connect, to share, and eventually, to mobilize. Every attempt to stimulate conversation regarding how we live now and how we could do it better is valuable.”
Beyond Aesthetics: Occupy Art (post #12)
following up on my last #occupy post……
the Muppets have taught us so many things since 1976. and this week, they’ve taught us just how well popular Art can be used to call bullshit:
Watch: The Muppets Diss Fox News:
Miss Piggy was more combative and political; the puppet added that the charge was “almost as laughable as accusing Fox News of being news.”
(this is a response to this)
have the Muppets always been so intense?
anyway, i love it, and this is a great segue for me to post some of that which i recently wrote for my art school application on the subject of the current state and intersection of art vs. politics in America. this is definitively the longest post i’ve ever published, but if you’re interested, read on….
Filed in art, culture and random linkage, personal favorites | Tagged with #occupyart, #occupywallstreet, #ows, adbusters, banksy, capitalism, huxley, marxisms, memetic, mimetic, shepard fairey, TED | Comment (0)philip glass and OWS (post #10)
“When righteousness withers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take visible shape, and move, a man among men, for the protection of good, thrusting back evil and setting virtue on her seat again.”
i admit i am getting more cynical by the day about the tactics of the Occupy movement, so i was almost relieved when this almost brought me to tears (the first few minutes are of protesters encouraging the opera goers to disobey the police and come down the steps; you can jump to the 2:45 mark for the Philip Glass appearance).
“The protest, which was directed not at the opera itself but at a certain disparity between its lofty moral message and the machinery of corporate arts funding, got under way during the third act…When the Satyagraha listeners emerged from the Met, police directed them to leave via side exits, but protesters began encouraging them to disregard the police, walk down the steps, and listen to Glass speak. Hesitantly at first, then in a wave, they did so. The composer proceeded to recite the closing lines of Satyagraha, which come from the Bhagavad Gita (after 3:00 in the video above):
“When righteousness withers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take visible shape, and move, a man among men, for the protection of good, thrusting back evil and setting virtue on her seat again.”
In accustomed style, he said it several times, with the “human microphone” repeating after him.”
–http://www.therestisnoise.com/2011/12/the-satyagraha-protest.html
sigh.
lots more about it is worth reading at http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/at-satyagraha-and-occupy-lincoln-center
Filed in culture and random linkage | Tagged with #occupyart, #occupywallstreet, #ows, capitalism | Comment (0)