I really liked Adrian Piper's article, not only because I think the topic is interesting and one does not usually think about "being black", but also how she confronts the reader with that issue. How she draws him in.
Then I found this of Adrian Pipers works (the picture above and the text go together). To me, her work is very heavy. Almost like talking politics in Europe! ;) I enjoy how she condenses the subjective perceptions of a somewhat black person and we know her points aren't too far fetched. At least I could imagine that people actually feel that way. I like the second text where we can observe a very stereotypical and dull reaction, trying to talk it down, but at the same time creating an even bigger conflict/drama.
Both texts are well exaggerated and generate a reaction in the reader. I must say the first text almost made me feel sick, it just feels horrible. But I hope that the second text also lightened you up. It just seems like that is how a lot of people would act when facing some harshly revealed feelings..

SKINNED ALIVE, that last protective skein of illusion
ripped off.
No insulation against acid reality,
flayed meat exposed to searchlight glares,
burning harsh to panic madness.
No respite, no solace, no refuge anywhere
on my grilled raw surfaces.
Only the corrosive cooking smell, the sickening realization that
there is no self-duplicity in your predation,
not even the inner pretension to virtuous disposition.

No idealistic aspirations here;
draw a breath and nothing, no one rushes in to aerate the blood.
There is no one home to come home to, no one home to avoid, no one home to pay homage to,
no home at all,
just emptiness that suffocates my attempts to fertilize it with stubborn hopes.
No one home, only the wheels turning,
the lips moving
to emit sounds that assemble into
perfunctory rationalizations for our benefit.

The abuse of power makes an honest man of you
the addictive thrill of unconcealed contempt
the exhilarating buzz of sadistic anger
the obsessive fascination with victims there to receive your cruelty,
all these throw your profile into sharp relief
and gain your entry to the universal brotherhood.
The travesty would be to pretend among the company you keep
to believe in the appearances you keep up,
the casual appearance of earnest good intentions.


IT'S FINE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN. I DIDN'T NOTICE ANYTHING WRONG. IT SEEMS FINE TO ME. I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU SAY THAT. I DON'T SEE ANY PROBLEM. I'M AMAZED THAT YOU SEE THINGS THAT WAY. I JUST DON'T SEE IT THAT WAY AT ALL. IT WASN'T INTENTIONAL. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHERE THIS IS COMING FROM. JUST CALM DOWN. TRY TO GET A GRIP ON YOURSELF. THIS IS A COMPLETE SURPRISE TO ME. THE THOUGHT NEVER CROSSED MY MIND. I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS. ISN'T THIS A LITTLE BIT MUCH? THAT'S A WEIRD WAY TO THINK ABOUT THINGS. I JUST CAN'T RELATE. WE CERTAINLY DO HAVE DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON THINGS. YOU'RE MAKING TOO MUCH OF THIS. NOTHING'S THE MATTER. STOP GETTING EMOTIONAL. YOU'RE BLOWING THE WHOLE THING OUT OF PROPORTION. EVERYTHING'S FINE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? YOU'RE BEING PARANOID. YOU'RE OVERSENSITIVE. YOU'RE READING TOO MUCH INTO IT. STOP JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS. IT DIDN'T OCCUR TO ME. YOU'RE OVERINTERPRETING THE DATA. I DON'T THINK IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT. IT WAS JUST A SIMPLE MISTAKE. IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING. YOU'RE SEEING TOO MUCH IN THIS. NOTHING'S GOING ON. I CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT. I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE REFERRING TO. I REALLY THINK YOU'RE OVERDOING IT. YOU'RE JUST TIRED. DON'T TAKE EVERYTHING SO SERIOUSLY. IT'S NO BIG DEAL. YOU'RE JUST PROJECTING. YOU'RE OVERREACTING. NOTHING HAPPENED. DID I NOTICE WHAT? I DON'T SEE ANYTHING TO GET UPSET ABOUT. I DON'T SEE WHAT YOU'RE GETTING AT. I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM. WHAT'S THE MATTER? YOU'LL GET OVER IT. DID SOMEONE DO SOMETHING WRONG? WHAT'S GOING ON? WHAT'S THIS ABOUT? WHAT'S WRONG? STOP MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT. I DON'T SEE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. EVERYONE DOES THAT. SO WHAT? BIG DEAL. WHO CARES? NO, NOTHING LIKE THAT. JUST A MISUNDERSTANDING, THAT'S ALL. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS IS ABOUT. I'M MYSTIFIED BY YOUR REACTION. I DON'T GET IT. SO? WHAT'S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT? IT WAS JUST AN INNOCENT SLIP-UP. I REGARD THAT AS PERFECTLY NORMAL BEHAVIOR. I SEE NO PROBLEM WITH THAT. YOU'RE THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM. WHY BRING THIS UP? YOU SEE EVERYTHING IN TERMS OF YOUR OWN PROBLEMS. WHY IS THAT OBJECTIONABLE? YOU'RE COOKING UP PROBLEMS WHERE THERE ARE NONE. YOU'RE MAKING THINGS UP. I DON'T BELIEVE THAT HAPPENED. I'M NOT SAYING YOU'RE LYING, I'M JUST SAYING YOUR PERCEPTIONS ARE DISTORTED. IT'S NOT NECESSARY TO SEE THINGS IN THAT LIGHT. YOU'RE TOO UPSET TO THINK CLEARLY. WE'LL DISCUSS IT LATER. NO, NOT NOW, I'M BUSY. STOP MAKING TROUBLE. YOU'RE SEEING THINGS THAT AREN'T THERE. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. SO HOW ARE YOU OTHERWISE? I REFUSE TO DISCUSS THIS. WHAT'S SO WRONG WITH THAT? CHANGE THE SUBJECT. PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES. I'M NOT GOING TO LISTEN TO THIS. YOU TAKE EVERYTHING TOO PERSONALLY. YOU MUST HAVE PERCEIVED THAT INCORRECTLY. I'M SURE YOU'RE MISTAKEN. I'M SURE THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN QUITE THE WAY YOU DESCRIBE IT. SURELY YOU'RE EXAGGERATING JUST A LITTLE. YOU'RE BEING IRRATIONAL. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME BELIEVE THAT. THIS IS SO UNNECESSARY. YOU'RE WAY OUT OF LINE. IT'S NOT YOUR PLACE TO SAY THAT. DON'T PUSH IT. YOU'RE GOING TOO FAR. GET OFF IT. YOU'RE SPEAKING OUT OF PLACE. LIGHTEN UP. YOU'RE ASKING FOR TROUBLE. YOU'RE BEING INAPPROPRIATE. NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK. YOU'RE LEAVING YOURSELF WIDE OPEN. YOU'RE CRUISIN' FOR A BRUISIN'. PUT A LID ON IT. CAN IT. STUFF IT. BAG IT. FORGET IT. DROP IT. I WOULDN'T PURSUE THIS ANY FURTHER IF I WERE YOU. YOU'RE REALLY ASKING FOR IT. DO YOU WANT TO GET IN TROUBLE? YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT. YOU'RE STICKING YOUR NECK OUT. YOU'RE DIGGING YOUR OWN GRAVE. A REAL GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT. YOU CAN'T GET AWAY WITH THIS. YOU'RE DEAD MEAT. I HATE TO DO THIS. I'M REALLY SORRY THIS IS NECESSARY. THIS HURTS ME MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU. I'M DOING THIS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. YOU'LL APPRECIATE THIS LATER. I'M JUST TRYING TO HELP YOU. SOMEDAY YOU'LL THANK ME FOR THIS. ACTUALLY I'M DOING YOU A FAVOR. IN TIME YOU'LL UNDERSTAND. YOU'LL LEARN TO SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

The Law

There's a thread in these articles about the law - or about power relationships. The Butler article starts off with the point about the subject being constituted when the law is imposed on them. The Wright article is a call to acknowledge the institutional power at play in the exhibition, and how it effects the content of the exhibition. And finally the Ronell article describes TV as "about the law."

I'm not sure I've digested in which ways this relates to identity - but, as I'm reading it now, I see it as working on an assumption that identity doesn't really come from some pure inner well of being. As Butler writes:

Identifying with a gender under contemporary regimes of power involves identifying with a set of norms that are and are not realizable ... This "being a man" and this "being a woman" are internally unstable affairs.

For Joel's class I'm also reading "We Have Never Been Modern" and so I can't help seeing the notion of a "pure" gender as a vestige of the modern program.

Along those lines, and in agreement with Fields notion of race (as paraphrased by Wright) as a "historically ritualized repetition of an ideology that sustains oppression through it's distinctions" - I have an anecdote. This is also in reply to "my problem" as presented by Adrian Piper: I noticed not long ago that on a couple of forms, where in the past my options for the 'race' question would have been 'caucasian,' 'chicano,' 'latin american,' etc. there was a new category - 'mixed.' I love this category, I was so happy when I saw it - it's really the only possible description of my race or my identity.

Haunted Identity

After reading the articles, I started to think about a new category of identity, which defines certain communities after 09/11, also inferred to in Chica-Iranian project in 2004: http://www.pochanostra.com/#Scene_14

Identity is subject to change and even transformation over time. Is this the media-and art at the service of the media- that manufacture identities for propaganda purposes?

I found it interesting in Butler's article when she refers to the camera as being "empowered as a phallic instrument" and a "vehicle through which the transubstantiation occurs". She also says the camera represents the "white gaze". As a photographer I really started to think about this relationship betweeen the model (subject) and the artist. It seems so much of our concepts of identity are based on the cultural media we are exposed to on a daily basis. We all strive to transform ourselves to some extent to fit some ideal identity norm, whether that be a specific gender role or the role of a succesfull artist. Often those images that we associate with that idealized identity are created by the use of a camera (magazines, tv, movies, internet, etc..) by white executives. Its no wonder people are drawn to the camera as a tool to re-identiify themselves.

On a seperate note, the Wright article accuses the Whitney Curators of limiting the "definition of the human agent in order to call him/her the subject". I totally agree with Wright but isnt that what the public expects to see when going to a show of this kind? Not to justify the Museum not taking a different approach to diversity, but they first and formost cater to the public and shape their biennials accordingly.

Linda Butler hurts my brain

Last night I dreamt I stole a yellow highlighter from Walgreens and used it to highlight every 7th word in Butler's paragraphs. In doing so, I was able to decipher her coded verbosity.
I rented Paris is Burning and will watch it tonight in hopes that I can better understand the discussion and post something a bit more intellectual rather than sarcastic. I think the outrage and controversy around the '93 biennial was that it marginalized the white, heterosexual male and questioned the level of sanctioned training the artworld had and still has for what is "good art". The mere fact that there was more video and installation rather than traditional painting (the most "respected" of visual art forms) shook the foundation of art as a tangible commodity and brought into question the value of art masters.

We all know that art history is organized according to chronology, medium, nationality and geography. The '93 biennial cracked open the narrow pigeon hole documentation of the work/voices of a wider audience (race, gender, religion and orientation) both in producing and collecting. How far have we really come from the Guerrilla Girls?

Because of this exhibition scholars, critics and audiences see and understand the work of contemporary artists more clearly.

On Piper's satirical yet profound questioning of blackness, I was reminded of a poem written by Langston Hughes one of my favorite poets who just happened to be black and homosexual. The poem published in 1953follows:

"That Powerful Drop"

Leaning on the lampost in front of the barbershop, Simple was holding up a copy of the Chicago Defender and reading about how a man looks white had just been declared officially colored by an Alabama court. "It's powerful," he said. "What?"
"That one drop of Negro blood- because just one drop of black blood makes a man colored. One drop- you are a Negro! Now why is that? Why is Negro blood so much more powerful than any other kind of blood in the world? If a man has Irish blood in him they say, "He's part Irish" if he has Jewish blood in him, they say, "He's part Jewish" But if he has just a small bit of colored blood in him- BAM!- "He's a Negro" n ot part Negro, No, be it ever so little, if that blood is black, "He's a Negro"
Now, this is what I don't understand- why our one is so powerful. Take paint- white will not make black white. But black will make white black. One drop of black in white paint- and the white ain't white no more! Black is powerful. Yopu can have 99 drops of white blood in your veins down South- but if that other drop is black, shame on you! Even if you look white, you're black. That drop is really pwoerful. Expalin it to me. You're colleged."
"It has no basis in science," I said, "so there's no logical explanation."

So my question is this, is my son part lesbian?
more to come...

Disempowerment

In searching for more information on Paris Is Burning, I came across the following article
http://www.cpinternet.com/mbayly/filmandtheology5.htm . It referred bell hook’s article “Is Paris Burning” in greater depth than did Butler, and put words to some of my thoughts concerning Livingston’s documentary Paris is Burning, of which I have only seen clips on YouTube.

Quotes from ball participants (from bell hook’s article):
“To be real is to look like your straight counterpart”.
A minority’s dream is to “live and look and work as the white person”
One is a “marvel” if one has “captured the great white way of living and looking”

What bell says viewers see in Paris Is Burning is not black men seeking to become like or impersonate “real” black women, but “their obsession with an idealized fetishized vision of femininity that is white”. Becoming like a wealthy white female is what would liberate and empower the ball-goers.

hooks says that “longing to be in the position of the ruling-class women…means there is also a desire to act in partnership with the ruling-class white male. And so, the oppressive power structure, the “brutal imperial ruling-class capitalist patriarchal whiteness”, which marginalizes and disempowers the ball participants remains unchallenged.

She sees them worshiping at the sacrificial altar of a false god, at the throne of whiteness.

My response to Is Paris Burning was illuminated by bell hooks.

Michael Bayly’s theological analysis, about self-love and how the ball could be a force for positive personal and social transformation is interesting too.

Painting turns conceptual as you look: Under what circumstances does painting turn into conceptual art?

San Francisco Chronicle, 09/22

Group Show: ”Id Is” in Wolf gallery in SF
Frances Trombly’s Aftermath Remnants:
...Part of Trombly's seriousness consists in revisiting and revising notions such as site-specificity, truth to materials and dispersal of form…

Hypocrisy

I find it interesting that those who are the most vocal about pornography, obscenity and/or morality are those who are also least likely to address a problem at the root issue—they’d rather try and beat to death the symptoms, not solve them, or even treat them, but beat them into some sort of submission. For instance, the “threats to women” given as a reason for removing the show at U of M addresses an ancillary outcome that is really the result of poor behavior and upbringing. Violence comes about out of fear or ignorance (or both).

As far as government involvement, I have mixed emotions and views. While I’m not a fan of having information withheld from me at someone else’s discretion, I understand the need for it at certain times. I’m not sure if the AIDS epidemic had begun, say, last year, it would have been addressed the same way (I chose last year specifically because of the Republican occupation of the Oval Office). However, I understand holding back some information to reduce the likelihood of mass hysteria. That’s really what happened back then—even the 8-year-old hemophiliac who contracted the virus from a blood transfusion was treated like a pariah and was refuse the basic right to an education because parents were terrified he would infect their children by looking at them. I’m getting off on a tangent, sorry.

The long and the short of that bit that people today (and 20 years ago) are too touchy and far too easily offended. People now look at every thing as some sort of divinely ordained right—whether it’s a right to take up two seats on an airplane because they weigh 500 pounds or to smoke on a public street or to have their own Puritanical views upheld by the rest of society. More tangents. I’ll stop now.

Thought provoking essays.

Adding to Ginney's comments about gentrification and the exchange between the homeless and the wealthy in these hyperurbanized places, I kept thinking how the push away from homogeneity is strongly a Western argument. Including the other articles we read this week, many of these artistic "war on culture" critiques would have very different meaning in the global experience. While I'm not apart of that culture, I would like to see how this "war on culture" fits into China or Iran.

Deustsche’s article is interesting. I really enjoy seeing the projection works of Krzysztof Wodiczko. The essay is about gentrification fosters gross real-estate speculation and results displacement of low-income residents. Wodiczko’s series of works talk about homeless revive, under changed conditions, the symbolic battle waged during the Commune against architectural representations of power. The projections reveal that municipal monuments intended to memorialize the city’s stability, in fact, commemorate its barbarism.

When I read:” More precisely, the architecture of redevelopment constructs the built environment as a medium, one we literally inhabit, that monopolizes popular memory by controlling the representation of its own history.” I thought about the spectacle that we discussed last semester. The architecture or urban planning is just the medium used by power structures to create spectacles. They try to let the mass believe that the evolution of the city is correct and peaceful, but hide the segregation and polarization of the city.

The essay also let me think about “artist colony”, rethink of “SOHO” and “lofts” which have been popular in many cities all over the world for many years. I thought these are good ways to preserve and restore traditional, ancient buildings. It can help reuse some abandoned real estates and help to establish nice communities. Deustsche’s essay makes I rethink this “art colony” movement. Maybe it’s just a form of Gentrification.

Gentrification, or urban gentrification, is a phenomenon in which low-cost, physically deteriorated neighborhoods undergo physical renovation and an increase in property values, along with an influx of wealthier residents who may displace the prior residents.

At the center of the two articles by Vance is the ability of right wing conservatives and the anti-pornography feminists (conservatives in their own way) to make broad assumptions about a work, or group of works, without considering the context. They also assume the work will be read by all viewers in exactly the same ways they see it. The goal of these groups is to define a "standard of public taste," and in doing so they are also trying to suppress their own fears.

On pg. 135, Vance writes, "physically eliminating objectionable images and symbols as a means to change the culture that produced them [is] a tactic that would be utterly implausible were it proposed to combat anything but sexually explicit imagery." I also think it is the nature of the medium of these works that make them even more confrontational. The past notions that photography and video are "truth," somewhat a documentation of reality, makes it harder for people to look at and understand as art. It perhaps makes it easier to denounce and pass off as trash or filth, or pornography, rather confront underlying issues within the work or themselves.

It is interesting that these groups choose a certain rhetoric when referring to the works in question to persuade how the public responds to them. It is also interesting how they believe their viewpoint is the only correct one. I found in all of these articles a want to suppress diversity, and leave no room for differences of opinion. People do not want to converse, they want to control.

Throwing Stones

The point Deutsch is making in “Architecture of the Evicted” is that the conservative power establishment disingenuously evokes an enthusiasm of the past to justify urban renewal and redevelopment, often of areas currently occupied by the poor and politically mute. Using an aesthetic vocabulary, which includes “history, tradition, preservation”, the New York City development institutions return areas to an earlier, but not original state (this being part of their disingenuity), often throwing the displaced poor into homelessness. Deutsche refers to Krzysztof Wodiczko’s 1984 work using the Astor Building in Manhattan’s Union Square, which challenges and disrupts our understanding of how architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. As a social activist, Wodiczko appropriates and activates public sites to examine ideas of human rights, democracy and contemporary capitalist life, while highlighting the alienation, violence and inhumanity that is part of that life.

While I appreciate and agree with the issues Deutsche raises about gentrification, I think she would have more credibility, particularly if she wants to influence those in power, if she would look more deeply at the specific history of the place – Union Square --and acknowledge that the rich might have a historical right to that place. Her argument, then, would be about the moral and societal cost of displacement rather than who should be able to claim squatting rights.

In the article, Deutsche limits the context to just the most recent cycle, where redevelopment is displacing the homeless from Union Square Park. She criticizes that pre-Civil War statues are spiffed up to attract buyers of luxury condos. A city like New York (or Rome, or Paris) is sort of like rubber-banding rush hour traffic – it fluxes over time, moving from affluent to ruin and back again, and again. Deutsche’s point is that corporate interests legitimize the displacement of the poor by claiming a past through “tradition” and “preservation”. She says that these projects, however, do not return the sites to an earlier or original state, rather by refurbishing existing sculptures and street furniture they fabricate traditional neighborhoods anew. She’s arbitrary, however, about which “original” state she chooses.

I personally witnessed this class-clash over land use. I purchased an apartment in a redeveloped building on the Upper West Side in 1980 (I sold it in 1983, I’m sorry to say). As I was leaving for work one morning, a man was gazing up at my building, pointing out a window where he had lived. I felt sad and guilty. The truth of the situation, however, was that when he lived there, the building had been a single-room-occupancy hotel until a fire burned the roof off. The interior of the upper middle class apartment building with its turn-of-the-(last) century wedding-cake plaster ceilings and fireplaces then melted in the elements for years, until finally it was gutted and “redeveloped” as market rate apartments. At some point, the poor, who were displaced by the fire, had displaced the affluent folks.

Union Square had a similar history. It was one of four squares laid out as residential precincts for wealthy New Yorkers prior to the Civil War. The park with its monumental sculptures was gated and locked. It later became a center for “radicalism”, where thousands of protesters waited news of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Might we say the rich, who didn’t share the protestors sentiments, were dispossessed? The latest redevelopment did not re-gate the park, so the transformation Deutsche discusses is less exclusive than it originally was.

I’m sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, and I believe the rich can afford, and have a civic obligation, not to greedily gobble up all the best spots. However, the ebbs and flows of old urban centers are much more layered and complex than Deutsche’s analysis accommodates, and for articles like hers to influence and facilitate change, they need to probe more honestly and deeply.

Reading the Vance essays is a confirmation to me that “the majority rules” when one is part of something immense, like the United States. I say the US because the money that the NEA received comes from the government, which really means the people or the US citizens (taxpayers) and to most of them art is portraiture and landscapes, anything other than that is not art. Especially 20 years ago when the country was much more conservative. Personally, I think if your artwork strikes a nerve with someone, the artist is headed in the right direction.
One thing I found so parallel with the AIDS reading is the between the line care
The AIDS reading was really interesting to me. Interesting and sad to see the statistics of how many deaths occurred while the government did nothing. It reminded me of Katrina in New Orleans where in both situations the people mostly affected where the minorities. people of color in New Orleans and (because of media stereotypes) gay minorities in the AIDS epidemic. There was 244 known deaths from aids in 1981 and it was not until 1987 and 1,123 deaths later when the government finally said something public about it. Twenty years later in New Orleans, a national disaster occurred and it still took 3 days for any assistance from the government. I think one point that can be made is not to vote republican!

Sexuality, Gender and Religion. A very touchy subjects for Americans, or should I say the right winged Americans. What I am most intriqued about is the power of the art and image. The mainstream of society is familiar with art, they know it is out there, but they do not necessarily understand it. Same goes for the issues presented in the week's articles.

I think it is interesting that in the case of the NEA debates, it is a question of whether or not the art is in a sense "appropriate" in a public sphere, and made/funded on the publice dime. As in regards to Mapplethorpe's work he is making a "sexual subculture visible". In the eyes of the conservative, it is one thing to know it (homosexuality) exist out "there" somewhere and that this is familiar ground for this subculture, but it is another to actually be drawn into this subculture through the arguable images. This subculture then becomes tangible and real and no longer in the closet (so to speak).

In response to the feminist article, it is interesting that the two feminist groups, the anitpornography and the fundamentlaist share a commonality, yet with different ideals.
"Both share a powerful desire to reshape cultural attitudes toward sexual imagery
as part of a larger program of political, social, and legal reform".
So it then becomes a questions of what is the best approach in reshaping these cultural attitudes. One by keeping the issue (prostitution) under the rug (antiporn feminist) or the other is exploring the issue and looking at it face on. The antipornographic feminist, MacKinnon, states that:
"It is one thing to talk about trafficking women, and it is another thing to
traffic women". She also debates that "Showing pornography sets women up for
harrasment and rape".
But what doesn't? In this cultural there are countless ways that women and girls are sexualized through media, advertising, clothing in department stores, child beauty pageants, etc.

A parrelel in both debates, NEA and the Michigan Law School, goes back to MacKinnon's statement about trafficking women-(in regards to a lifestyle or a pornographical act being tangible). It is one thing to know (homo/sexuality/prostituion, anti-religion) it's out there (talk about trafficking women), but it is another thing to actually endorse/engage in the act, and display this act in public domain.

The Vance articles on censorship make me question if there will ever be a possibility for artists to be funded again by the government? And if so are the requirements going to be stringent as to not allow the possibility for sexually offensive or pornographic images to be shown. Are artists who work in a political, sexual or social nature be restricted from receiving funding. Even though the work of Andre Serrano is responsible for this loss of funding was i feel that it is important for artists to constantly push the envelope and test limits. Which makes me think okay, thats been done now what's next.

CENSOR- WHAT?

After having watched the videos from last week's class and read Carole S. Vance's articles on War on Culture and Feminist Fundamntalism I find it quite amusing and shocking at the same time that we have to deal with the conflicts created by censorship that is in my opinion totally misplaced in the art world and a burden to free evolvment and creativity.
As the text says on page 129: " The fundamentalist attack on images in the art world must be recognized (...) to restore traditional social arrangements and reduce diversity." And: "(...) Images do stand for and motivate social change, the arena of representation is real ground for struggle."
I don't agree with that. The world lives through diveristy, change and innovtion. It lives through controversity and confrontation, though private expression and nonconformity. We need ART- especially provocative art- for that, to express our needs, thoughts and feelings. To understand and perceive society we need to be open for possible discomfort in discussions and pictures. I believe strong picutes (Art) and strong arguments are a neccesity for society to become a better one. How do we gain or develop if we never step out of our frame and old customs?!
The same is true for feminists oposed to pornographic pictures. I might have a different attitude concerning sexual issues through my european background since I see sex as a very important part in our life. Regarding the antipornography feminist's opinion, I don't believe in any of the threats that these pictures are supposed to create. In truth, I feel the opposite. What do we hide about it?
In this regard, I would like to mention Camille Paglia, who is a fellow feminist. She gives a very nice arguement to the antifeminin movement:

"whenever sexual freedom is sought or achieved, sadomasochism will not be far behind"; "rape is male power fighting female power"; and pornography is art.

Because most of my life I was openly lesbian, I totally understand men's passion for women. Women are beautiful and remote and unreachable. You feel desperate. There's nothing you can do to win their favor. The only thing men want is women's attention, and in nude dance clubs, they can get it for a moment.

The feminist line is, strippers and topless dancers are degraded, subordinated, and enslaved; they are victims, turned into objects by the display of their anatomy. But women are far from being victims -- women rule; they are in total control.

My whole life I've been gaga about beautiful women. That's why I have this angle on it -- I can see the way men see. White middle-class feminist rhetoric has been produced by professional women, lawyers, bookworms, and paper pushers who can't stand the fact -- it's unbearable to them -- that most men will still turn their heads and gasp when a beautiful women walks into the room and exposes a little tit and ass. It's a white, bourgeois prejudice to find the seductive wiggling of a butt degrading.

Even though I'm one of those supersmart white middle-class women, I don't have this jealousy. I'm strong enough as a woman to say that it's natural for a beautiful young girl walking into a room to capture the attention of all the men and women. That's an eternal human principle. It's not white male hetero-sexism. It's universal. All people admire youth and beauty. In the Greco-Roman tradition, youth and beauty are divine and worthy of worship. That's my theory. I'm saying that people go to strip clubs to see beauty and it's fucking elitist for people who go to museums to look at paintings and statues of beautiful bodies to denigrate strip clubs. These museum goers are staring at beautiful nude bodies for pleasure, and it's supposedly high art. The educated and rich get their kicks in museums. Most people who come to these mid-level or sleaze-level clubs are usually not highly educated literati. It's perfectly legitimate for them to want to look at beautiful female bodies.

I don't want a culture that says that a woman exposing her breasts is degrading. That's white middle-class bullshit. Men are fascinated and terrified by women's sexuality. That's why they pay prostitutes. The feminist analysis of prostitution says that men are using money as power over women. I'd say yes, that's all that men have. The money is a confession of weakness. They have to buy women's attention. It's not a sign of power; it's a sign of weakness.

The feminists who claim that woman are violated and diminished by this kind of format don't know what they're talking about. Current feminist rhetoric has gotten parched and bleached and sanitized and distorted. It doesn't allow for passion, for instinct, for lust, for beauty, for the awesomeness of nature. It's not sufficient to explain sex."

censorship

After reading the two Vance essays, I found myself trying to figure out what really constitutes censorship. In one section she says there is a kind of de facto censorship because it's only public funds that can reliably support a plurality of perspectives (private funds can be very easily be channeled to support only favored perspectives, and if there is no existing support for a minority perspective, a private funder is less likely to champion it). This is sort of a practical issue - but I don't think it answers the core of the issue (I can imagine Jesse Helms easily worming his way around that question). I think she states the central issue most clearly when it's a question of the implicit assumptions about a given artwork. For example:

If we are always afraid to offer a public defense of sexual images, then even in our rebuttal we have granted the right wing its most basic premise: sexuality is shameful and discrediting.

Once you give ground on the pronouncement that a given piece of art is "offensive" (in the judgment of some supposed authority), it's already been censored (whether or not it gets displayed).

I think all of the essays had this in common: a question of allowing some moral/political/economic authority to set the terms of the discussion. When coming from an outsider perspective it's common to accept the terms unconsciously, or as a prerequisite for joining the discussion. I agree there are many domains where this is an impossible position.

I really enjoyed the Deutsche essay, gives me a much clearer sense of the context of downtown San Jose, or the beige-square shopping centers all over suburbia. It's interesting how little we (the public) normally shape public space. Last week's FUSE speaker Red76 is a good reference for this stuff.

Thoughts

I recall once hearing in a philosophy class long ago, the phrase “nothing is good or bad except that thinking makes it so.” It is a laugh to consider this while reading. What conditions brought the thoughts into the minds of the politicians concerning the NEA grants. Was it really the art that they objected to, or the fact that they were somehow tied to it through government funding? If they had seen the art outside of that connection, would they have given it second thought or moved on to what’s for lunch?

The habit of urban planners to create revitalizations and restorations is from a subconscious fear of change. Granted this is not the case with all, just many. People are unsure of contemporary, they want new but not strange. This is why change happens in small steps and often masked by such terms as traditional.

What Greg mentioned, the use of art as propaganda, is an exercise of thought production: the showing of a work with the end goal of changing how people think. Could it be said that all art is for the production of thought and change of thought?

Vance, Crimp and Deutsche

One thing that really interested me in these readings is the role of art as a tool for propoganda. The use of artwork as a symbol of immorality for political agendas (images or preformance art considered obscene-sometimes these images are not shown to the public by the powers that be so that they can be mystified as a particular harmful evil), or the use of artwork as a symbol for political activists (example Silence=Death). If an artist is creating push-button type art, Should that artist have some responsibility for creating ammunition for political agendas? Is it enough to say "My part is to create dialog", and leave it at that or if you make a picture of a piss soaked christ, or a giant chocolate-christ should you actively engage in the political arena because your fame comes at the cost of the ramifications of that dialog (ie the loss NEA funding and the further privitization of the art world)?

Roberta Smith in NY Times

Dear All,

Hope you're not sitting around reading about art as I am. . . but I see that the article "Is It Art? And Who Decides?" by Roberta Smith--in the 9/16 Sunday NY Times--is floating around on the grad list. I find this interesting, particularly in light of our class discussion last week. Here are a few themes I found in Smith's article that we also addressed in our discussion/readings over the past two weeks.

1) How, since the 1960s, "site-specific" art has developed away from an interrogation of the physical site toward cultural critique (Kwon).

"Mr. Büchel’s dense, fraught creations, which compress masses of material and objects into historically charged labyrinthine environments through which viewers walk, climb and crawl."

2) The (limited) autonomy of the artist in the face of institutional pressure; the power of the curator today (Kwon, Brenson, Kester).

"The artist’s freedom includes the right to say, “This is not a work of art unless I say so.”

3) The YBA-effect, or, the artist-as-entrepreneur and the spectacle of art (Gaywood).

"The meltdown at Mass MOCA is sad for all concerned, yet is also a reflection of the changes wrought since the late 1960s, as installation art evolved from renegade form into an institutional staple of ever-bigger galleries and museums."

4) The effect of the 1990 "culture wars" on the relationship between the artist/museum/public today (this week's readings).

"It’s hard for a museum to recover when it forfeits the high ground. To this day the Corcoran Gallery of Art remains infamous for canceling its 1989 exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs after his work was denounced by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina. To conservatives’ horror, the show had been partly financed by the National Endowment for the Arts."

Cheers,

Dr. b