Head over to James‘s site. He just put up several posts on recent art we’ve seen, with images.
·
Culturebot.org has an interview with the brilliant Deb Margolin. Her wondeful book “Of All The Nerve” is really expensive, since it’s from an academic press. Go see if Powell’s has a used copy.
She will be doing work from her new “performance novel” as part of the Dixon Place Veterans Series in May and early June. I recommend going!
A sample:
Q: When is solo performance effective and when is it self indulgent?
Self-indulgence… IÂ’m very careful about that word because I feel like thatÂ’s a word we can use to shut ourselves down. ThatÂ’s the word that the inner critic uses. Sentimental thatÂ’s another one, see there is no art without sentiment. As soon as you can drop down and reveal something about your own humanity, the minute you reveal something truthful about your own humanity, you shed light on the entire spectrum of human experience. ThatÂ’s why we go to the theater for the revelation, thatÂ’s why I go. I go to stare at people!
You canÂ’t do it in the subway you canÂ’t do it on a bus. You go to the theater, you pay your money and you just stare at these people. ThatÂ’s what you do and no one is going to arrest you. ItÂ’s very exciting. The more specific you are with your character the more generally we see the whole human condition. And so I feel the only way to get at that could be labeled, in advance of finding the jewel of revelation, self indulgent.
I donÂ’t worry about self indulgence. I donÂ’t worry that my work is self indulgent. I feel the need to step up and take responsibility for how my work signifies politically and I feel the need to be responsible for a passionate and articulate desire to speak. Those are my responsibilities. I donÂ’t say anything that IÂ’m not dying to say onstage. I say the things that I cannot die without having spoken about. And you know, thatÂ’s going to reveal something weird about my humanity and in so doing it will reveal something about the entire human condition. I trust that chain of events the way I trust IÂ’m wearing this jacket. I know that to be true I know very few things and thatÂ’s one of them. So I live my artistic life by that principle. IÂ’m not afraid of self indulgence as long as I am passionate to speak. I know that I will be revealing something important about humanity through my own humanity. Once you find your passion for speech, and your prerogative to speak, you are unstoppable.
·
Even the comics I read for fun are getting political.
·
Remember when I wrote about how Jay Blotcher can’t be a stringer for the NY Times because he did media relations with ACT UP over ten years ago?
One would hope that the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association would be concerned about such things. You would be wrong, at least in terms of them being on the right side of the issue. As Jay tells us:
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association has barred me from appearing at their Plenary on Journalistic Objectivity, scheduled at the June Convention in NYC.
The plenary session was created and organized by CNN journalist Rose Arce.
A month ago, Rose invited me to sit on this panel. She felt my case strongly reflected the current debate over journalistic objectivity. She plans to have the two SF Chronicle lesbian journalists on the panel, who were reassigned from the gay marriage beat after becoming hitched.
However, when Rose gave her list of panelists to NLGJA’s Executive Committee, she was told I could not sit on the panel.
Why? NLGJA felt my problem with the NY Times was a “personnel matter” between employer and employee … and NOT an issue of journalistic ethics. This was the same reasoning they gave me in March, when they refused to support my case.
Note that the NLGJA thinks it was wrong for the San Francisco Chronicle to prevent two lesbian reporters from covering gay marriage after they got married.
I guess it’s only things related to AIDS that the NLGJA considers mere “personnel matters.”
Revolting.
Openings we’re going to tomorrow:
Eyewash @ Boreas – group show that includes Joan Linder
Jennifer Dalton at Plus Ultra
Tim Laun at Parker’s Box
Yun-Fei Ji at Pierogi 2000
Eve Sussman at Roebling Hall
·
Let’s have a holy war!
If churches want to engage in politics, they need to be taxed just like everyone else. In Michigan, Catholics think doctors should have the right to refuse treatment to gay people if they don’t approve of their “lifestyle.”
Can you believe the Bush administration is actually talking about giving these people more tax dollars than they already receive? Where is my “I’m gay” checkoff box on my tax return to object?
Doctors or other health care providers could not be disciplined or sued if they refuse to treat gay patients under legislation passed Wednesday by the Michigan House.
The bill allows health care workers to refuse service to anyone on moral, ethical or religious grounds.
The Republican dominated House passed the measure as dozens of Catholics looked on from the gallery. The Michigan Catholic Conference, which pushed for the bills, hosted a legislative day for Catholics on Wednesday at the state Capitol.
…
Paul A. Long, vice president for public policy for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said the bills promote the constitutional right to religious freedom.
“Individual and institutional health care providers can and should maintain their mission and their services without compromising faith-based teaching,” he said in a written statement.
And people wonder why I won’t set foot in a Catholic church for a wedding or funeral?!
·
Bush went to Buffalo yesterday to promote the Patriot Act. He chose it because it was the location of the prosecution of the “Lackawanna Six,” but that’s not a case that provides a convincing argument.
Even now, after the arrests and the anger and the world media spotlight, the mystery for neighbors in this old steel town remains this: Why would six of their young men so readily agree to plead guilty to terror charges, accepting long prison terms far from home?
…
But defense attorneys say the answer is straightforward: The federal government implicitly threatened to toss the defendants into a secret military prison without trial, where they could languish indefinitely without access to courts or lawyers.
That prospect terrified the men. They accepted prison terms of 61/2 to 9 years.
“We had to worry about the defendants being whisked out of the courtroom and declared enemy combatants if the case started going well for us,” said attorney Patrick J. Brown, who defended one of the accused. “So we just ran up the white flag and folded. Most of us wish we’d never been associated with this case.”
The Lackawanna case illustrates how the post-Sept. 11, 2001, legal landscape tilts heavily toward the prosecution, government critics contend. Future defendants in terror cases could face the same choice: Plead guilty or face the possibility of indefinite imprisonment or even the death penalty. That troubles defense attorneys and some legal scholars, not least because prosecutors never offered evidence that the Lackawanna defendants intended to commit an act of terrorism.
I bring this up because of the suicide car bomber in Riyadh today.
A suicide car bomber destroyed a Saudi security forces building in the capital Wednesday, killing a senior officer and at least nine other people.
Medical and security sources in Riyadh said more than 60 people were wounded in what an official said was the sixth attempt to mount such a “terrorist attack” in a week. Five others had been foiled.
The blast, which coincided with a visit to the city by a top U.S. official, tore the front off the six-storey administrative block. Saudi television showed uniformed security force personnel in hospital and said some children were also injured.
The kingdom, a key U.S. ally and the world’s largest oil exporter, is battling a tide of Islamist militancy linked to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, which Washington accuses of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.
Last year, suicide bombs killed 50 people in Riyadh.
If a police state like Saudi Arabia can’t prevent attacks with such tactics, what makes people think curtailing our liberties will make us safer?
·
James and I went to the “new and improved” Brooklyn Museum on Sunday. I don’t know if I like the new glass entrance, but I wasn’t totally offended by it either. The vibe was so good, with all kinds of people you might not always see at a museum, it was hard to be grumpy. I really enjoyed the Open House: Working in Brooklyn show. Because the variety of artists working in Brooklyn is so large, in a way it felt more diverse than the Whitney Biennial. It was fun to see all kinds of people walking through that show and commenting on the contempary work. Where else would I see an Orthodox Jewish family with kids watching an Anthony Goicolea video? While you’re there, don’t miss the Patrick Kelly show either. I loved it. I hadn’t realized Bette Davis had been such a fan of his.
Tom Moody wrote about the Paper Rad show. Go read him.
Carlos de Villasante organized a show in Miami that looks great. Franklin has photos.
·
We saw two shows worth recommending in Chelsea today, before heading to the Paper Rad opening — which is definitely recommended!
The first is Paper Chase at Axel Raben, curated by Renee Riccardo. Jon Rosenbaum’s little paper sculptures are magnificent, as are many other works in the show.
The second is Joseph Maida at Wallspace. We realized after looking at his web site that we had seen one of his park images in a group show at the gallery. Also, he did the photo of Christian Holstad that appeared in the New York Times Magazine last October.
·
