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March 16, 2010

New Issue: CULTURAL POLITICS, Volume 6, Issue 1, March 2010

Fig.6, Alec Finlay (text) Alexander Maris (photographs): the blade has to fall before it can rise / blade turns against blade turns against blade

NOW OUT IN PRINT

Cultural Politics

Volume 6, Issue 1

March 2010

Official website

Read full content on Cultural Politics’ Artists’ website:

http://culturalpolitics.org

Subscribe here

Articles

The Exit from Capitalism has Already Begun
André Gorz on the implications of the new capitalism’s reliance on immaterial contents for increasingly problematical reproduction and with the emancipator potential inherent in this situation.

Towers that Flower [Link to images]
Artists and poet Alec Finlay and photographer Alexander Maris explore the windmill turbine, the only monumental sculpture suited to symbolize the era of climate change.

An Extreme Case of Social Life: Inmate Society in National Socialist Concentration Camps
Maya Suderland critically reflects on the widely held view that, because the concentration camp represents an extreme case of a relationship of subordination, it cannot be examined from a social point of view.

Special Section on the Cultural Politics of Celebrity
The Cultural Politics of Celebrity
Philip Drake and Andy Miah consider celebrity as a ubiquitous aspect of contemporary culture, mass media, and the Internet that is inextricably linked to developments in media systems that operate within capitalist systems of commodity exchange.

News, Celebrity and Vortextuality: A Study of the Media Coverage of the Michael Jackson Verdict
Gary Whannel examines the transformation of news as a cultural commodity and a social process by the expansion in the range, volume, and circulation speed of media production or what Whannel conceptualizes as ‘Vortextuality’ with reference to the coverage of the verdict announcement in the trial of Michael Jackson.

Unsolicited Submission [Link to article + images]
American artist David Levine’s project about unsolicited wannabe celebrity submissions to talent and other cultural agencies is a multidisciplinary and multiyear project of gathering, analysing, and archiving such unsolicited submissions in every field of cultural endeavour.

The ‘Public Inquisitor’ as Media Celebrity
Michael Higgins looks at the development and utility of celebrity among high-profile political interviewers, offering the revised description of ‘public inquisitor’ to describe the rise of the political interviewer as a celebrity form.

‘As Seen on TV’: The Celebrity Expert: How Taste is shaped by Lifestyle Media
Helen Powell and Sylvie Prasad examine how television, print, and advertising contribute to the construction of media stars such as Jamie Oliver whose function is to transfer knowledge of particular lifestyles to the lived experience of ordinary people.
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About Cultural Politics

“Cultural Politics is a welcome and innovative addition. In an academic universe already well populated with journals, it is carving out its own unique place—broad and a bit quirky. It likes to leap between the theoretical and the concrete, so that it is never boring and often filled with illuminating glimpses into the intellectual and cultural worlds.” -- Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina, USA.

Edited by

  John Armitage, Northumbria University, UK;  Ryan Bishop, National University of Singapore, Singapore;  Douglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Cultural Politics is an international, refereed journal that explores the global character and effects of contemporary culture and politics. It analyzes how cultural identities, agencies and actors, political issues and conflicts, and global media are linked, characterized, examined and resolved. In doing so, the journal explores precisely what is cultural about politics and what is political about culture. It investigates the marginalized and outer regions of this complex and interdisciplinary subject area.  Each issue publishes artwork by selected artists reflecting contemporary cultural and political issues.

March 16, 2010 at 01:53 PM in Art of Advertising, Criticism, Current Affairs, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

La Mama La Galleria presents 'Movement Schmoovement'

For Immediate Release:

La Mama La Galleria presents Movement Schmoovement:

March 25 – April 18

Opening: March 25, 6 – 8PM

www.lamama.org

Joy Episalla, Linda Matalon, Siobhan Liddell, Liz Deschenes, Zoe Leonard, Sarah Rapson, David Nelson, Nicola Tyson, Tony Feher, Nancy Brooks Brody, Carrie Yamaoka, David Knudsvig

With a nod to Jill Johnston’s 1971 essay, Movement Schmoovement, which highlighted the tension between movement and stasis, collective power and individuality, the desire to work with others to create change, alongside the desire to set out alone, this exhibition brings together 12 artists who have pursued their work for as long as thirty years.

Living and working in New York from as early as the 1980’s, these artists collaborated as activists in ACT-UP, WAC, in anti-war and social justice efforts and alternative art projects. Four of the artists collaborate in the lesbian collective fierce pussy, one founded the exhibition space Trial Balloon. They have been drawn to the potency of collective action and have generated tremendous transformative energy outward.

As mid-career artists, they have maintained rigorous studio practices for two to three decades, through times thick and thin. They have maintained their artistic integrity and curiosity during times of being sought after, exhibited, collected and written about, as well as times when there was little or no external support, times of terrific privacy, unconsidered by art world dialogue.

The artists are not unified by dogma, a common technique, medium, or subject, but have lived and worked in proximity. They have balanced the outward impulse to foster change with the inward impulse to persist in maintaining rigorous art practices. In the 39 years since Johnston wrote her essay, the specific political issues may have changed but the fundamental challenge remains the same.

La Mama La Galleria : 6 East 1^st Street

Thurs – Sunday 1 – 6 PM

212-505-2476 www.lamama.org

Press Inquiries: Organizers Nancy Brooks Brody, nbbrody@gmail.com; Linda Matalon, lmatalon@earthlink.net

Save the Date: April 11, 4 – 6PM discussion, performance, reading to be announced

March 16, 2010 at 01:53 PM in Art of Advertising, Events, Exhibitions | Permalink | Comments (0)

Artforum Pick: Carol Bove, thru May 1

View of “Carol Bove,” 2010. From front to back: Untitled, 2009; Untitled (lamp), 2010; Harlequin, 2010; La Traversée difficile (The Difficult Crossing), 2008–2010; Touch Tree, 2008; Harlequin, 2010.

via Artforum Picks: [Link]

Carol Bove
KIMMERICH
50 White Street
March 5–May 1
— Michael Wilson

Identifying Carol Bove’s particular approach to the found object is no easy task. The Brooklyn-based artist plunders a broad range of styles and periods, yet her aesthetic somehow remains unmistakable. And even when the items she displays are of entirely natural origin, their manner of presentation expresses the refined imposition of a singular style. Yes, there are cultural codes to be cracked in Bove’s careful constructions and juxtapositions, but it’s their exquisite formal exactitude that captivates. To use abalone shells, peacock feathers, and delicate beaded curtains might suggest an unfortunate lapse into New Age sappiness, but Bove channels even these familiar models of conventional beauty toward unexpectedly subtle and allusive ends. Here making judicious use of this new gallery’s handsome vintage interior, the artist exudes quiet sangfroid.
Several works in the show force materials ravaged by various strains of decay into conjunction with newer, sleeker structures. The results generate an engaging visual-tactile friction and initiate an interrogation of the processes of intellectual historicization and physical entropy that poses some intriguing questions about the ways in which we communicate individual and cultural importance. Countless artists have made knowing use of the pedestal as a signifier of “museum-worthy” status, but few have produced such fine-tooled or individual bases as those here. (In the likes of Untitled, 2009, and The Oracle, 2010, they begin to resemble living things themselves in their reactive idiosyncrasies, mirroring the organic patterns of branches or veins.) Weaving the made and the grown together with rare sensitivity, Bove delves deep into the interaction of appearance, taste, and meaning.

March 16, 2010 at 01:20 PM in Art of Advertising, Exhibitions | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 13, 2010

Federal Panel Finds Bias in Ouster of Principal

Debbie Almontaser at Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn in April 2007. Photo: Liz O. Baylen for The New York Times.

via NYTimes:

Federal Panel Finds Bias in Ouster of Principal
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
Published: March 12, 2010
A federal commission has determined that New York City’s Department of Education discriminated against the founding principal of an Arabic-language public school by forcing her to resign in 2007 following a storm of controversy driven by opponents of the school.
Acting on a complaint filed last year by the principal, Debbie Almontaser, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the department “succumbed to the very bias that creation of the school was intended to dispel and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on D.O.E. as an employer,” according to a letter issued by the commission on Tuesday.
The commission said that the department had discriminated against Ms. Almontaser, a Muslim of Yemeni descent, “on account of her race, religion and national origin.”
The findings, which are nonbinding, could mark a turning point in Ms. Almontaser’s battle to reclaim her job as principal of the school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn.
The commission asked the Department of Education to reach a “just resolution” with Ms. Almontaser and to consider her demands, which include reinstatement to her old job, back pay, damages of $300,000 and legal fees. Should the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the dispute will end up in court, her lawyer said.
Commission officials declined to answer questions about the case, citing federal confidentiality law, but Ms. Almontaser’s lawyer provided a copy of the letter to The New York Times.
“There is no question that this is an important step in the road to her ultimate vindication,” said Alan Levine, Ms. Almontaser’s lawyer. “Up until now, the D.O.E. has really had its way and hasn’t had to answer for its actions.”
[read on...]

March 13, 2010 at 12:05 PM in Barbarians in Govt, Current Affairs, Futures, Protest | Permalink | Comments (0)

After Prospect.2 Postponed, Dan Cameron Out

Mark Bradford's "Mithra" at Prospect.1 in New Orleans. Photo by John d'Addario. via ARTINFO

I want the rest of this story:

via NYTimes: Arts, Briefly:

Problems for New Orleans Art Show
By RANDY KENNEDY; Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF
Published: March 12, 2010
Prospect, the New Orleans art biennial that began in 2008 (which included Mark Bradford’s “Mithra”), winning critical praise and generating millions in tourist income for its hurricane-battered home, has become entangled in fund-raising and administrative problems that are jeopardizing its future, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans reported Thursday. The ambitious event, which installed the work of more than 80 artists at sites throughout New Orleans, ended up badly over budget after the bills came due in 2008, owing more than $1 million more than it had raised. Late last month, its founding director, Dan Cameron, announced that the next iteration of the event, Prospect.2, would be postponed until the fall of 2011 from this November because of fund-raising shortfalls. The Times-Picayune reported that several directors who joined the biennial’s board in 2009 to help shore up the finances and raise money for Prospect.2, stepped down in February because of differences with Mr. Cameron over how the project should be managed. Two people with knowledge of the board resignations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, confirmed the basic account of the problems to The New York Times. The Times-Picayune reported that the biennial’s executive director, Barbara Motley, a theater owner who was hired last year to oversee the administrative side of the event so that Mr. Cameron could focus on selecting artists and helping them to realize their works, had also resigned. Ms. Motley told the newspaper that she believed in “organizational charts and management protocols” while Mr. Cameron was “much more organic in his approach to management.” Earlier this month the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans announced that it would not renew Mr. Cameron’s contract as its part-time visual arts director. The center’s director said it needed someone to work full-time to oversee its art exhibitions. Mr. Cameron did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages left for him today.

March 13, 2010 at 10:09 AM in Art Programs, Art World, Barbarians in Govt, Current Affairs, Events, Exhibitions, Futures | Permalink | Comments (0)