On Thursday I went to 319 Scholes to attend the art opening of “Collect the WWWorld: The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age”.
Beyond the anecdotal post/pre hispter crowd, the exhibition itself is a sad celebration of noise. Which, in itself is as valid, or invalid, as any other starting point in the endless debate about art (more so in regards with contemporary, electronic, net, etc).
But it is its legitimization attempt, with research project, curator, catalogue, and international tour, which brings the debate to a whole different level.
The Norse vs Inuit approach
There are many seemingly “small events” in history to which we do not pay much attention, when actually they provide very important lessons. I always talk about historical examples of perfectly successful cooperatives and anarchist self government. But this time I want to comment on a very different historical event: the Norse attempt to colonize Greenland.
When the Norse tried to colonize Greenland, the Inuit already lived there.
Afghanistan already is the longest (official) war in US history.
In order to begin to understand that mess, as usual in modern history, we may have to go back to the end of World War II, when Pakistan`s colonial nominees, the “Taliban”, were sent to take over Afghanistan to give them a strategic edge over India in the war over Kashmir.
Today the Taliban and Pakistans ISI (Directorate for Inter-Service Intelligence) alliance are at the heart of why the USA is stuck in an endless war: the USA aligns, or so it would seem, much more with India in terms of values, policy, economy, etc, than with Pakistan.
On Thursday I was invited to the New Musuem for the screening of “Graffiti – PostGraffiti” documentary and panel discussion.
Your usual suspects were there. Besides the panelist (Pattie Astor, Fab Five Freddy, Lady Pink, and Lee Quinones), there were many old glories and a couple of aspiring bomber kids in the audience that I am sure were tagging walls late that night.
What started as a celebration, a remembrance, and a comunion, as the liturgy advanced ended up becoming a hurtful vindication and even a flat out purist attack.
Lying on the carpet, poetry book and pencil in hand, U2 in the background.
October
October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care
October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on…and on…
So many literal meanings: the fear of wearing-out (The Edge was considering leaving the band like his brother did before they were even called U2), the false sense of security arising from self-defeat (“What do I care”), moving on after a loss (both Bono and Larry had just lost their mothers), the high hopes and expectations arising from new democracies in Eastern Europe only to become despair and dissapointment, and eventually resilience, surviving, going on…
Last Sunday I went to see Searching for Sugar Man bio/docu/pic at Lincoln Plaza Theaters.
Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock ‘n` roller, Rodriguez.
While the movie is a very good one, and the story quite powerful (not only a human story about an incredible musician called Rodriguez, better than Bob Dylan if you allow me the heresy), there are two aspects that go well beyond the typical in this kind of documentary:
September 5th (I know, I have really fallen behind my posts; bear with me, there is just too much going on to keep up) I attended a very interesting and enlightening round table at the New York City Bar Association titled “How Will Recent Developments in the Law Influence the 2012 Elections”?
Moderated by Nan Aron (lecturer, author, and President of Alliance for Justice), the panel consisted of:
Angelo Falcón: President and Founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy Keesha Gaskins: Senior Counsel in the Brennan Center`s Democracy Program Lawrence Lessig: Professor of Law at Harvard University (and much more) John Samples: Director of the Cato Institute Center for Representative Government The discussion was quite interesting.
