( Usual Waring : Art Rant )
Yes,But is it art? But is Jack Kingston an idiot?
Yes,
Tis' the season, readers, and Georgia Republican Jack Kingston, Representative of Georgia's First Congressional District ( the full Southeast corner - swamp, Golden Isles, tobacco, onions and snakes ) is channelling the Ghost of Christmas Past , this year being played by Jessie Helms!
Let's make a long story , longer:
Difference and Desire in American Portraiture
October 30, 2010 - February 13, 2011
National Portrait Gallery
Smithsonian Institution
From the gallery : ""the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture." It's an exhibit that considers sexuality (including homosexuality and bisexuality) as a major -- though often hidden -- factor in the lives of, and as inspiration for, many modern American artists."
As far as I can tell it is a exhibit of how gender roles and sexual identity has changed within American portraiture in the 20th Century. Get it ? How GLBT images have changed. Let's start with some defining of terms. What is a portrait?
Sure, your 1796 Gilbert Stuart of George Washington, pretty straight forward. But a portrait can be a song ( U2's Pride as a portrait of MLK ), a poem, movie ( Coal Miners Daughter ? ) etc....
Annie Leibovitz 1998 Portrait of
Ellen DeGeneres.
Different for sure, maybe not your taste or style, but a portrait, for sure..
Untitled ( Portrait of Ross In LA ) 1991
Felix Gonzalez-Torres ( 1957-1996)
" Candies, individually wrapped in mulitcolored cellophane ( endless supply) ideal weight 175"
Yes, it's a big pile of hard candies in the corner that Mr. Gonzalez- Torres says is a portrait of Ross. His work, his art... and I sort of get a feeling for Ross. So, there , we have our terms. Art is what ever the artist says it is....
Also in the exibt is a clip from a 30 minute portrait/film by artist David Wojnarowicz ( who we will be calling Dave). From the Washington Post : "David Wojnarowicz, a gay artist who died from AIDS-related illness in 1992. As part of "Hide/Seek," the gallery was showing a four-minute excerpt from a 1987 piece titled "A Fire in My Belly," made in honor of Peter Hujar, an artist-colleague and lover of Wojnarowicz who had died of AIDS complications in 1987. And for 11 seconds of that meandering, stream-of-consciousness work (the full version is 30 minutes long) a crucifix appears onscreen with ants crawling on it."
Here is the clip. It is weird. It is hard to watch , PARTS OF IT ARE VERY ADULT ( really ) I do not really care for it, at all, but, it IS ART....( because he says it is )
From the museum :“A Fire in My Belly, a compilation of footage largely shot in Mexico, weaves together numerous images of loss, pain, and death into a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic; it concludes in a picture of the world aflame.”
The description speaks of the video artist's "poetic, yet furious, condemnation of the way greed, religion, and selfishness conspire to label certain people as outside the scope of our caring." It also quotes Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS, as saying, “When I was told I’d contracted the virus, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d contracted a diseased society as well.”
It is Dave's interpretation of the pain his friend went through dying of AIDS. There are 11 seconds of the ants on the crucifix. tick, tick tick.
Let's define another term : The Catholic League : the rank fool , tin foil wearing hat Bill Donohue ( really he is the WHOLE group) does what he does. Those eleven seconds are : " hate speech , designed to insult and inflict injury and assault the sensibilities of Christians " He does this for everything. He is the reason that anyone outside or the Upper West Side of Manhattan knows who Andres Serrano is ( google Piss Christ, if you need too.... I am not going to link, because, where I do see it as personal expression, some would find it offensive )
So one guy in his basement , with a good internet connection hates something, right? He sends out his little emails and gets those prayer chains going . Quick as a wink The Smithsonian backs down and removes the film from the show. HERE is where Capt. Crazy from Georgia comes in:
YES! Cut off all funding to the Smithsonian .... because of these 11 seconds of outrage. Kingston is a flea of a human, who really, this is the stuff that he lives for. Enter the Young Guns : House Majority Leader-designate Eric Cantor (R - Va.) and future Speaker of the House John Boehner (R - Ohio) called for the exhibit to be shut down, saying that the museum could face budgets cuts come January when a new session of congress begins, according to The Hill. Seriously....
LISTEN to the Nation Portrait Gallery Director Martin Sullivan's conversation with PBS News' Jeffery Brown.
Dangerous times. The book burners are getting a little taste of power, and your wicked ass could be next in their sites.....
WAPO op-ed in reaction .
UPDATE : The Glennster weighs in:
Note to Glenn : The crucifix is EASTER... not Christmas.. I know, you are a AA Mormon and all, but the two ARE different....
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