Asshole of the Week: Bolivia's National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore

When a museum is part of a "proud" exhibition that honors a murdering, racist dictator (who now holds the record for the longest living dictator on the planet), then that museum is not only an easy "Asshole of the Week" winner, but also an almost certain "Asshole of the Year" award and an early favorite for "Asshole of the Decade" award.

Read about these dictator-loving mutants here.

Juan Villanueva (representative of the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore), you should pray that the disaster that has consumed the unfortunate island of Cuba never visits your beautiful nation.

Ann Telnaes: Asshole of the Week

It has been a while since DC ART NEWS has selected an Asshole of the Week, many asshole-less weeks in fact! Not for lack of assholes, but for lack of such an egregious act (like these orifices) that catches my eye or ears.


Editorial cartoonist (and a terrific artist) Ann Telnaes easily earns the orifice award this week, for depicting one of the current Presidential candidate's grade-school daughters as "dancing monkeys for their appearance in a presidential campaign ad."

The animated cartoon featured a Santa Claus-costumed Cruz winding a music box as two leashed monkeys danced in elf costumes. The monkeys represent Cruz's daugthers Caroline, 7, and Catherine, 4.

On Tuesday evening, a note from WaPo editor Fred Hiatt appeared on the WaPo's website reading:

"It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree."

And the WaPo's Callum Borchers nails it when he notes that this Telnaes' blunder is a gift to the fiery Texan; read that here.


On the other hand, the Telnaes' visual assholity once again underscores my point of the immense power of the visual arts. This is what happens when a spectacularly talented artist, as Telnaes is (evidence here) fucks it up (as all of us do once in a while).


Cartoon here.

Penis Guy

Amanda Hess of the Washington City Paper has an interesting article about an even more interesting controversy at the current Artomatic.

Seems like Eduardo Rodriguez, a DC area artist who has been known as Artomatic’s "Penis Guy," had a rules issue in nearly rule-less AOM. Hess writes:

Why did Penis Guy take down his penis pictures? The controversy originated in the spot adjacent to Rodriguez’s now-abandoned space (at NW B1 on the 9th floor) where Moore Photography, a mother-daughter team, exhibit their work. Photos of flowers, butterflies, and fireworks are carefully matted and labeled with titles like “Reflections,” “Delectable,” and “Simply Elegant.” Rodriguez’s Cocksure Series was a bit different: neck-down nudes, mostly male, with message-inscribed torsos — easy to swallow reads one. Another: i am not hung.

The visual irony of a 15-year-old’s flora mounted alongside Rodriguez’s phallic extravaganza wasn’t part of Artomatic’s vision and juxtaposition sets up a vintage Artomatic drama. This one plays out in the following sequence:

• On Wednesday, May 7, the last day of Artomatic’s two-week installation period, Rodriguez enters the Artomatic building at 1200 First St. NE and begins hanging his Cocksure Series.

• The next day, Rodriguez reenters the building, officially closed to artists, to apply some finishing touches.

• In the meantime, another artist notices Rodriguez’s last-minute installation and notifies Moore Photography of the content. The Moore family, unimpressed by Penis Guy’s pedigree, complains to Artomatic without having seen Rodriguez’s work.

• Artomatic officials confront Rodriguez at his space. On the night before Artomatic’s opening, two hours before the building’s close, Rodriguez is asked to remount his penis pictures in another spot, away from a minor.

Read the whole article here.

Even a free for all extravaganza like AOM has a few rules and sounds like Rodriguez may have had his share of ignoring some of them, but I also think that artists should be able to work out things like this between themselves... and by artists I include the hardworking volunteers who run AOM, Rodriguez and the Mom & Daughter team.

So... someone in this mini drama is an asshole. A lot of the commenting masses in the CP think that Rodriguez is the asshole as do a lot of comments at the ArtDC forum... maybe they're right, maybe 80% right... maybe 50%.

The power of representational visual art to offend is immense; it is one of its key ingredients and an easy way to your 15 minutes of fame for a lot of artists. Over the years AOM has had what a lot of people may consider offensive art. I'm familiar with Rodriguez's imagery from past AOMs and it doesn't offend me at all.

But I have seen a lot of visual art imagery of erect and flaccid penises in my lifetime.

But I can also see a mother's desire in delaying her daughter's discovery of penis imagery and thus not desiring to be next to the "Penis Guy." And then again, she should also have known that AOM features all kinds of imagery - in my first visit I saw a lot of penises, a lot of vaginas, and a lot of tits. So her minor daughter is probably going to be exposed to them anyway.

But I can see that mom doesn't want to be "next" to a constant visual barrage of a male's reproductive organ in various states of excitement.

This should have been an easy thing to solve; the two neighboring artists should have worked this out and one of them should have moved. This year's AOM is in an amazing, huge, spacious environment and there are hundreds of great spots open.

If Mom & Daughter didn't want to be next to Rodriguez, then if Rodriguez is the "non confrontational" guy that he says he is, then for penis' sakes, take the fucking high road and move your penis photos to another spot. Rodriguez already screwed up by not following the set-up time rules to start with, so clearly set-up was not an issue for him.

If Mom & Daughter didn't want to be next to Rodriguez, then for daughter's sake take the fucking high road and move your nice photos to another spot.

Problem solved.

An event of the size of AOM always has mini dramas and controversy... some of us recall Kathryn Cornelius' closing her installation at an AOM a few years ago because of water issues and someone destroying JW Mahoney's swastikas on the wall.

Go see AOM and buy some art.

Asshole of the month

It's only the second day of the month but @DallasNews, @RobertTGarrett, @MorrisReports have already won the "Asshole of the Month" award - sharing it in equal parts for this sorry piece of mierda.

Olympic Report: Asshole of the Day

See the guy in the USA shirt in the process of standing up to cheer his daughter Alexandra "Aly" Raisman's gold-award winning performance on the floor exercise today in London?

See the Ernst Stavro Blofeld-looking jerk behind him telling Raisman's justifiably excited dad to "sit down!"? - That's our Olympic Asshole of the Day.

Artomatic: Visit Two

On my return visit I did notice that many artists took my advise and did put signs with their prices up, and/or added easy to find contact information.

I have never been a fan of anything that is for sale and which yet makes you ask what the price is. In this context, just like in a commercial gallery context, art is a commodity and if you want to sell your artwork, you better make it very clear how much the artwork is.

Still working on my review... 

Per the comments here, seems like some asshole has an issue with artist Gloria Chapa's installation and vandalized it on the 23rd. Chapa repaired the vandalism, only to have the installation vandalized again (apparently according to her, by the same asshole) on Friday evening.

Chapa fixed it again, and when I saw it on Saturday it looked terrific, but one has to wonder what's going on through the head of the mutant doing this.

David Gregory: DC Asshole of the week

I know that this is very City Paper of me, but this story about TV talking head David Gregory (D-NBC) throwing a fit over parking issues in his "this is where the rich people live in DC" neighborhood really makes the "Meet the Press" host a perfect choice for my inaugural DC Asshole of the Week.

Hopefully it will be another few years before another one is awarded to some idiot who doesn't understand what "public" means in reference to a street and parking.

Gregory flatly denied warning the show-house folks that he “knows all the politicians in town,” as witnesses claim.

"Witnesses" (Plural) -- What a schmuck!

Penis artist

While I was over at Reuters checking out the Mark Jenkins story, I came across this "artist" who paints with his penis.

I suspect that dickilism (or as it is called in the UK: willyism) may be simply the latest ridiculous effort created in order to stand out in an art world often dominated by gimmick. It worked for Chris Offili, Damien Hirst and many others... so why not for Pricasso (whose real name is Tim Patch).

And in case you were wondering... yes, there's already a guy who paints with his asshole.

Update: And in case you were wondering part two... yes the a guy who paints with his asshole once exhibited in Washington, DC (many years ago) - It was painting (geez) titled "Rectal Realism" and the piece was in fact a portrait of Andy Warhol.

Ahhh... the good ole days...

Guns and Hypocrisy in the World of Modern Art Blogging – An Old Testament Point of View... with a Little Bit of Humor.

A guest piece by James W. Bailey:

There's been a rumor floating around the art blog circuit the past couple of weeks concerning a reported incident involving an UCLA art student who supposedly brought a gun to an art class being taught by artist/teacher Chris Burden (the dumb-ass artist who in the 70s had himself shot in the arm with a rifle) and who proceeded to scare the shit out of his classmates by threatening to commit suicide right in front of their very imaginative MFA-high-tuition-paying eyes. The rumor also suggests that this frightening suicide attempt was nothing more than a dramatic performance art piece offered up in tribute to Burden.

When I first read the breaking news reports (properly vetted, of course, through rigorous journalistic art blogging standards and practices) echoing across the Internet among certain highly credentialed art bloggers, I nearly fell out of my vintage cane back rocking chair on the veranda of my ancestral Southern Gothic mansion in Mississippi with a seizure brought on by endless waves of laughter generated by the possibility that such a poignant story could in fact be true. I actually laughed so hard over this comic what-goes-around-comes-around scenario that I probably spilled half of a bottle of my father’s finest Jim Beam bourdon through the ancient cracks of the veranda into the inspiring Mississippi soil resting silently underneath my genteel family’s Ante-Bellum Greek Revival abode – hopefully, that whiskey will inspire some truth to sprout up out of the ground about this rumored gun issue.

But the more I laughed over these gun reports, the more I realized that something really wasn’t very funny about some of what I was reading on some of these art blogs. I retired inside to the library, gathered my composure, poured another stiff drink, lighted one of my illegal Cuban cigars given to me years ago by a former County Sheriff (a righteous Southern dude who's currently serving time in a Texas federal prison because of his excessively close association with the infamous Dixie Mafia) and began to harmonize on this matter of Guns and Hypocrisy in the World of Modern Art Blogging.

And here it is...

Full Disclosure: I’m from Mississippi; I’m a hard-core anti-political Southern anarchist artist who holds most hierarchical powers that be in total contempt; and I’m also a member of the National Rifle Association, as was another radical Southern-born anarchistic artist/writer by the name Mr. William S. Burroughs (who I am honored to say I counted as a correspondent friend before his death in 1997) on all counts.

Southern liberals with guns - it's a Deep South religious thing that I will not waste valuable server space on DC Art News site explaining or justifying. Let me just simply comment that I’m indeed an extreme liberal Southern artist who knows a thing or two about how to use firearms.

GUN REPORT: I'm especially transfixed by the ease of use and accuracy of the M9 Beretta 9mm. If guns had existed in the Old West Biblical era Holy Land, our savior Jesus Christ would have carried a M9 Beretta 9mm. The M9 semi-automatic pistol weighs two pounds and has a maximum effective range of 50 meters. It has a staggered 15 round magazine with a reversible magazine release button that can be positioned for either right- or left-handed shooters. The M9 is a semiautomatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated, double action pistol, chambered for the NATO 9mm cartridge. The service pistol is a close personal defense weapon and is deadly accurate.

I take it that the dumb-ass art student at UCLA, just like his counterpart art teacher back in the day, weren't deploying real weapons. I believe Burden used a .22 caliber rifle -good for shooting squirrels and pulling off art stunts, I suppose, but not for killing people. I’m anxious to learn what weapon the dumb-ass art student was packing. No doubt whatever his combined student loan and art scholarship could afford – minus all deductions for condoms, beer, nightly internet porn hook-ups, black market electronic goods and male hair care products.

Anyway...

I also know a thing or two about speaking direct to the subject without gagging on the coughed-up phlegm of politically correct speech patterns designed to convey my false sensitivity on issues of such national importance as some dumb-ass art student walking into a classroom and trying to one-up his more famous art teacher who himself pulled a pre-MTV Jackass stunt way back in the day when smoking cheap pot with long-haired anti-Vietnam War radicals and burning American flags made in Mexico while reciting English translations printed in the Philippines of anti-capitalist poetry by Mao was considered chic (Of course, many of these committed raging sincerely angry artists remained true to their dream to change the world, grew up, got married, settled down in Northern Virginia, went to work for the defense industry mind-melding their software programs into a more efficient satellite guided missile killing system and now enjoy nothing more than having missionary position sex once a quarter so they can ease into a post-coital reading of their online 401k statements to see how the market is treating them).

A certain collection of the more dedicated art sensitive radicals, however, settled into similarly comfortable life styles of "teaching" art at the university level... as if art can be taught.

But that's a fraud subject for another day.

Chris Burden and Guns -

I don't know Chris Burden, I've never met Chris Burden and I don't give a damn about anybody named Chris Burden. I' not inspired by bullet holes in Chris Burden' body anymore than I'm inspired by the entirety of Chris Burden's body of work. I don't consider him to be a great artist. I do believe that he must be a smart and clever person to have parlayed his 70s era gun stunt into the career, success, fame and money he now enjoys - that I do find inspiring. I also recognize that he has undertaken significant efforts during recent years to divorce himself from Shoot because he wants to be perceived as an architect/artist.

Chris Burden is a married 57 year old member of the art elite who lives in the lap of luxury in California – I've actually seen his home as a friend of mine in California once lived mere blocks from Burden. In short, Burden has a lot invested in his public perception and has demonstrated in the past his fruitful ability to manipulate the press for his own gain. This rumored dumb-ass art student gun stunt will probably prove out to be yet another example.

But, for the sake of argument...

The Dumb-ass Art Student –

What can I say? If everything is true as is reported on the art blogs (and God knows that if it's reported on a left coast art blog it must be true), then he's a dumb-ass. But in my libertarian/anarchistic world even dumb-ass art students, just like dumb-ass art teachers, ought to be protected by a little thing called Freedom of Artistic Expression. This kid didn’t shoot anyone and it wasn't a Columbine situation. For Christ sakes, everybody I knew in Mississippi as a student carried a knife and/or gun to class and we never experienced a major life threatening knifing or shooting. Some serious wounds? Sure. But I don’t recall anyone ever dying.

The angry froth among certain art bloggers over what UCLA should do to this student is laughable. UCLA knew exactly what they were getting when they hired Burden. Indeed, they gleefully promote the Burden-style attitude on their web site.

The Department of Art is committed to a professional art training within the context of a liberal arts university. Visual artists are responsible for some of the most provocative and enduring expressions of culture. At UCLA, emerging artists are provided with the tools they need to express themselves in ways that are meaningful in the social context in which they live and work.

The department attracts gifted and motivated students who thrive in an environment that encourages autonomy. They are drawn not only to the outstanding creative faculty, the University's resources, and its location in one of the world's leading art centers, but also to a program that encourages them to develop as artists. The result is a distinguished list of graduates who have made significant contributions in their field.

I assume the school provided the dumb-ass art student "with the tools they need to express themselves" – a gun – "in ways that are meaningful in the social context in which they live and work."

What's curiously missing from Burden's bio (he’s a professor of "new genres") on UCLA’s web site is any reference to Shoot. One wonders why...

Supposedly, according to the rumor, Burden has quit teaching at UCLA because the university has refused to expel the offending dumb-ass art student.

Imagine UCLA hiring a paroled Charles Manson to teach a creative writing class, having a student of his class decide one day that he’s going to one-up Charley by ritually killing the Dean and his family in the hopes of being imprisoned so he can become an American Icon (serial killers in America automatically qualify for Pop Icon status), going to trial and being acquitted for lack of evidence, re-enrolling in Charley’s class, and having Manson scream, bitch and moan that UCLA has to either expel this kid or he's quitting.

Moral of the story: Be very careful about elevating Asshole Pop Icons to Sainthood and be even more careful about whom you hire to work for you.

Chris Burden and the dumb-ass art student and whether he pulled a loaded gun and fired it or didn't and whether Burden and the art students were scared or not is irrelevant to me. It's almost like worrying about some multi-millionaire asshole in California who might have had Frank O. Gehry build a titanium-sheathed house on a steep dirt mound and having it slip down the side of the mountain into the ocean after God decides to take a drunken piss on the left coast. In a world where a Tsunamis can kill hundreds of thousands of poor people, the problems of a gargantuan narcissistic ego-jackass not being able to find his precious Ferrari under 50 feet mud don't amount to jack-shit.

Or put it this way: If you're an aspiring artist who believes you've got to get an art degree to be taken seriously in the art world, don't be a sucker for an MFA at UCLA because it damn sure doesn't guarantee a Whitney Biennial invite. Find better things to do with your art time than sitting in a class being manipulated by an AARP member-eligible art dinosaur and subjecting yourself to the risk of being shot by an ADD dumb-ass art student sycophant.

Theo van Gogh and Guns – My Only Serious New Testament Concern

Here’s what happened to Theo van Gogh in the real world that I care about:

Van Gogh had received death threats after his film "Submission" was shown on Dutch TV. See the film here.

It portrayed violence against women in Islamic societies.

The film was made with liberal Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who fled an arranged marriage.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been under police protection since the film was aired. She has also received death threats and has renounced the Islamic faith.

For making this film, Theo van Gogh was rewarded by being chased down like a dog and repeatedly shot by a radical extremist Islamic right wing piece of shit that was part of an organized conspiracy. The murderer then placed a note on van Gogh’s bloodied corpse and slammed a knife into his chest.

And the reaction from the art world elite on this crime – silence.

The reaction from the art blogger community – near silence.

Theo van Gogh was slaughtered on the streets in Amsterdam by a bunch of radical conspiring religious assholes that hated him and his art and who believe they have the perfect right to kill anybody they target to advance their sick agenda.

I am deeply troubled that the art world has yet to rise up and demonstrate its collective outrage over what happened to Theo van Gogh. But the deafening sound of silence over this matter is not a mystery to me – the art world establishment has boxed itself into a corner with its politically correct doctrines and now finds it almost impossible to defend controversial artists such as Theo van Gogh and what should be his basic right under the concept of Freedom of Artistic Expression to express himself, even if some of his views were indeed intended to be insulting to certain people.

The reasoning among the politically correct art elite goes something like this: "Well, it’s a real shame about van Gogh, but he really brought it all on himself with his outrageous words and art and should have been more sensitive about offending the deeply and sincerely held religious views of some of the minority members of his community. If his art had just been more culturally sensitive, this horrible crime probably never would have taken place."

I find it appalling that so much energy has been spent writing so many words that have been posted over a host of art blogs that express such outrage over what the dumb-ass art student did or may have done concerning this still rumored event at UCLA. Where were these moral voices, or anonymous internet-handle-delivered words, when Theo van Gogh was violently killed in the real world? I have taken the time to review some of these sites and find it very interesting that there was at the time, and has been since, a dearth of expressed outrage.

I think I know why: The Fear Factor – In this country it is perfectly acceptable to the art world elite to be an artist who pisses on the Bible, smears cow shit all over a statue of the Virgin Mary or rams a photograph of the Pope up the ass as a performance piece. These people get extolled. You can even make an anti-Bush "documentary" and become a goddamn millionaire, win major international film prizes and have people back home hype you for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Sure, the usual right wing Republican assholes jump up and down and demand your grant money be rescinded, but that’s usually about as far as it goes. The talking heads get to chatter and the offending artist or filmmaker gets invited be on "Larry King."

But the cultural elite here and abroad know this fact for sure – if you dare insult Islam by pissing on the Koran or smearing cow shit over a statue of Mohammed or ramming a photograph of any radical Islamic leader up your ass as a performance art piece, you will have just guaranteed that your butt will be placed on the world-wide Jihad Art Assassination Squad fatwa hit list and that your name and address will be broadcast nightly on Al Jazeera.

Even the younger generation of art bloggers has heard of Salmon Rushdie, I hope.

I am very grateful to DC Art News for publishing my letter the day after Mr. van Gogh was brutally murdered condemning the extremist conspiracy of religious fanatics responsible for his death.

My letter can be read here.

I am also very grateful that there are other voices out there in the art world wilderness speaking with clarity on this issue.

Here is one of the very few: Peacetalk.com.

I am profoundly grateful to Mr. Pieter Dorsman for his bravery in staying on top of this story.

Artists and art bloggers need to stand up for higher principles than the false immediacy of politically correct doctrines that seem to be so highly valued in the insulated world of those who pose no risk, and dare not to pose a risk, to the established order.

And if certain parties in the art blogging community are unwilling to risk their lives standing up in defense of a consistent definition of Freedom of Artistic Expression that protects every creative person no matter how offensive their words or art, then at least do us all a favor by engaging in a modicum of basic fact checking before hyper-ventilating about meaningless art rumors involving dumb-ass art teachers and art students who like to play with toy guns out in California.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey

FACT CHECK:

I called and/or emailed the following parties to verify if the above referenced rumored story was true. The truth of this rumored story can not be confirmed by any of the following parties that I have communicated with as of Wednesday, January 19, 2005. Chris Burden has not responded to my email.

1.) Editorial Staff of the Los Angeles Times

2.) Editorial Staff of the LA Weekly

3.) Editorial Staff of the The Daily Bruin

4.) The Office of the District Attorney of Orange County

5.) UCLA Department of Art

6.) UCLA Chancellor’s Office

7.) UCLA Department of Security

8.) Personally emailed Chris Burden

By James W. Bailey

Asshole of Super Bowl week

New York Congressperson Alexandra Ocasio Cortez gets the nod this week as I finally understand what "AOC" means = "Antipatica O Comemierda" as she blasts religious ads in Superbowl.

Back to me

The Seattle PI's sharp art critic Regina Hackett takes me to task for my description of Jacob Lawrence a few days ago while I was in the process of delivering an irate and foul-mouthed rebuke on how Lawrence was labeled. Read her post here.

And in retrospect, that description obvioulsy delivered more than intended, which wasn't a character attack on Lawrence, but simply my recollections, observations and opinions from the perspective of a young art student about one of his teachers. All in a handful of words selected at the speed of light to be complimentary, or so I thought!

The comments about Lawrence as a teacher - especially coming from me, and let me tell you I was a beauty of an asshole student: demanding, combative, loud-mouthed, challenging, feh! - would essentially be how (unfortunately) I would describe practically any of my art professors at the time and somehow still translating to 2007 - from the eyes and memories of a juvenile art student - not just to Lawrence but probably could apply also to Alden Mason, Frances Calentano, Everett DuPen (who was very gentle) and others from that lively period at the UW.

Perhaps I should have used the adjective "difficult" (in fact I have corrected my post to say just that). I did say that he was also a "brilliant teacher" to others, as a way - I thought - of showing that I was relating my own biased experience and perspective as a student about a faculty member.

Are there any art students out there who don't think that some of your prefessors are assholes difficult?

All it takes is a B minus and you're doomed, partner!

I also described him as a good drinking buddy - that's a good thing - I think.

I also described him as an opinionated bastard - That was meant as a compliment - I certainly consider myself an opinionated bastard, and Lawrence's opinions, especially when translated to canvas or paper, were what made his work earn him the title of a great artist.

And Hackett is correct: he was also a very generous person; especially with his time and opinions, and even with his artwork (which as I recall used to drive his art dealer crazy).

And a great artist.

PS - Here is an earlier 2007 post on Lawrence where I wrote: "He is/was of one of the most influential and courageous American artists who's never been given a show at the National Gallery of Art."

And here in 2004 I also question why the NGA has ignored Lawrence for so long.

Asshole of the Week: Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

(Via) U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) appeared on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell slamming U.S. efforts to provide Cubans with a Twitter-like social media network.

This was part of a broader, global Obama Administration program to provide connectivity to the censored citizens of closed regimes.

As a matter of fact, Senator Leahy has been a champion of these programs throughout the world, but apparently feels the Cuban people aren't worthy of the same support merited by Syrian, Iranians, North Koreans and the victims of other repressive regimes.

Here's language from Leahy's very-own 2014 State, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill:

SEC. 7072. (a) Of the funds appropriated under titles 8 I and III of this Act, not less than $44,600,000 shall be made available for programs to promote Internet freedom globally: Provided, That such programs shall be prioritized for countries whose governments restrict freedom of expression on the Internet, and that are important to the national interests of the United States: Provided further, That funds made available pursuant to this section shall be matched, to the maximum extent practicable, by sources other than the United States Government, including from the private sector.

Thus, we ask Senator Leahy:

Is Cuba not a government that restricts freedom of expression on the Internet?

Is Cuba not important to the national interests of the United States?

Or, are Cubans just second or third-class citizens less deserving of Internet freedoms?

In Leahy's false outrage on MSNBC, he also stated:

“If you’re going to do a covert operation like this for regime change, assuming it ever makes any sense, it’s not something that should be done through USAID."

Really, Senator?

So how come your very own bill states:

Funds made available pursuant to subsection (a)  shall be—made available to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for programs to implement the May 2011, International Strategy for Cyberspace and the comprehensive strategy to promote Internet freedom and access to information in Iran, as required by section 414 of Public Law 112–158.

Senator Leahy should be commended for his global commitment and leadership on Internet freedom. However, Senator, be consistent -- for Cubans are no less deserving of these freedoms.

 And to the left (of course) that's Leahy all smiley with one of the Castro brothers, heads of the one of the most racist, repressive and brutal dictatorships in the world.

Art Scam

I've got another art scam email to share:

From: Samuel Matinez (s.martinez212@gmail.com)
Sent: Wed 8/04/10 4:12 PM
--
Hi Dear,
My name is Samuel Martinez, i will like to order for some piece of your work from your studio as gift for my parent are celebrating their wedding anniversary, so i will be glad to have your reply as soon as possible, i will be glad if you can send me your website address to choose or send me four of your product via email that is available for me to choose.

Waiting to read from you today.so that we can make some progress.

I will be waiting to read from you at you convinet time.

thanks

Samuel Martinez.

This asshole can't even spell his fake name right (Matinez). But as it is the tradition in my dealings with these scam emails, I always send them a hook back. Here's my response:

Dear Samuel,

Thank you for your order and interest. I am very pleased with your interest and desire to own some of my artwork. As you probably already know, recently I've sold a lot of work thanks to all that great publicity that I received! I've never had so much money in the bank in my life before. It is so odd to struggle in making good art for so long, and then suddenly a break happens and people are buying my artwork from all over. Last month alone I deposited over $750,000 in my bank account from art sales. There's well over a million dollars in there now!

I am very picky as to who owns my artwork. Before I sell it to you, I need to know a few things about you. Also, I will need an international money order as payment or I can send you all my bank account details and you can transfer the funds. I will ship the artwork as soon as I receive an International Money Order.

But before that can even be a conversation I need to make sure that my precious, beloved artwork will be loved and in the collection of a deserving collector. Therefore, I need to know a little more about you. Where do you live and what do you do for a living? (Warning: if you are a Kosher or Halal butcher, I will refuse to sell you my art). Also, if you are married, I need to know if you have children. If you do, you must promise in writing that you will protect my artwork from possible damage from the rugrats.

I am also picky as to where you will hang the work. Please send me JPG (not TIFF) images of your walls in your house so that I can select the spot where you'd hang the work.

Please forgive me for being so picky, but my artwork is very important to me, and I know that it will give you years and years of visual pleasure. We can work together to make sure that it works out well.

May Allah, Yaweh, Buddha, Christ and Crom bless your home and may the bluebird of happiness fly all over the house of Martinez

your friend The Lennymeister....

PS - Can I call you Sammy?

When Gallery Owners Bite

Four years ago I wrote this piece for Blogcritics on the subject of "Vanity Galleries."

And today, some disgruntled gallery owner somewhere, perhaps burned out after the waste of time and money that has been the 2008 art fair season, and maybe in a hotel room somewhere in the South as he/she drives the gallery van full of unsold work back to his gallery in Illinois or some other such state, writes the following in a comment about my post:

What you don't realize is that running a gallery is a BUSINESS, and there are expenses. If you had a full list of patrons and a CONFIRMED sales track, you'd be able to show anywhere in the world free of charge. If you're NOT going to sell paintings, a gallery still needs to pay its operating expenses. Upcoming artist need to gain EXPOSURE before anyone will buy their paintings.

If you are a NOBODY, no gallery will show your work. Show me a list of patrons who regularly BUY your work, and I'd invest into your career. It costs upwards of $40,000 a month to run a commercial gallery. If a gallery only showed UPCOMING artists with no fees, they would go out of business. My gallery shows one established artist a month, and has a few unknown artists.

If I ONLY made $20,000 from the established artist, I'd be $20,000 in the hole EVERY MONTH. Why should I take that burden to promote your art. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE LOGIC BEHIND THAT!

You are DELUSIONAL if you think that I'm going to go broke promoting you for no financial reward!

You folks need to reevaluate the BUSINESS that you have chosen. When I go to Red Dot or Art Miami, I have to pay upwards of $20,000. EVERYONE has to pay to show work! You need to join the real world. A gallery falling in love with your art and selling out of an UNKNOWN's paintings is a fantasy. It doesn't happen. You need to be FAMOUS before you make money as an artist, or you can paint "hotel paintings" and sell them for $1,000 a piece. The choice is yours...

I'll let you folks answer this person; please feel free to comment here or at the Blogcritics post. I'm too tired to deal with this asshole.

Art Scam Alert

The asshole using the name Laura, and who uses the email witchates@gmail.com is an art scammer; stay away from this mutant who tries to steal artwork from artists.

Asshole of the Week: Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association has banned high school students from chanting certain words and phrases at basketball games, and none of them are remotely close to being hurtful or inappropriate.

The generation of the easily offended strikes again! Details here.

Asshole of the year: Jezabel Dabouis

If you watched the scam jurying at the Olympics,  it brought back memories of when the Soviet block judges used to screw all other athletes...

Jezabel Dabouis: fuck you!

Asshole(s) of the Month

Assholes of the Month for December (and maybe for all of 2023) goes to Virginia's 2nd Sundays Art and Music Festival! They cancelled a scheduled menorah-lighting ceremony because...

Instead, the planned celebration turned into a debacle when Second Sundays leadership decided, on Nov. 16, not to hold the menorah lighting because they feared it would be seen as an endorsement of Israel during its war with Hamas in Gaza.

The excuses seemed flimsy:

 Shirley Vermillion, the festival’s founder, said 2nd Sundays are inclusive to different religions or cultures, and the menorah lighting “seemed very inappropriate” given current events in Israel and Gaza.

Goldberg: The Woman Behind the Flame at Zenith Gallery

By Rosetta DeBerardinis

“Art is truth,” declares Margery Goldberg, the owner of Zenith Gallery in Washington, DC’s Penn Quarter who yesterday closed ONLY the doors to her downtown store front, but not her business. And, if it is truth you want, she is your lady. Ms. Goldberg is one of the most honest and outspoken members of the Greater DC art community.

“When you own your own business there is no sabbatical,” she sighs. “You work all the time.” She wants to make it perfectly clear that she is NOT closing her business, but merely changing the way she does business. The success of Zenith has been reliant upon her visibility and her relationships with the artist and art patrons along with its ties to the community. “I haven’t had a day off in years,” she declares. “I am exhausted!”

Many of the readers of this blog were not born yet when Ms. Goldberg opened the doors to her first gallery on 14th Street in 1978. There she rented a 50,000 sq. foot industrial space and nurtured and supported 50 artists. She relocated Zenith Gallery to its present location on Seventh Street in 1986. Many of the artists who began their careers with her remain affiliated with the gallery or return to exhibit in her annual anniversary show. When asked why she wanted to be responsible for the career and welfare of fifty artists, she shot back, “I always take care of everybody”. And, her care-taking extends to her family, her dog Max and to the needs of her now deceased father.

“This is a bitter-sweet moment,” she laments. “I have wanted to do this for years but I waited until I hit a good round number. Thirty is a good one, much better than 18 or twenty-five. I wanted to do it on my terms.” The petite woman with coiled hair, a boisterous voice and one of the best sock collections on the East Coast, is a tough business woman with a big heart.

She is concerned about the impact the closing will have on the downtown business district. “Zenith is more than a gallery is a close-knit part of the community,” she explains. When Zenith moved on 7th Street, it was not the upscale real estate district that it is today. The million dollar condos and the yuppie chains did not exist and the rents were reasonable. Today, it another part of the city where artists have pioneered through urban blight and can no longer afford to remain.

However, Zenith is not moving because of the absorbent rent increases. That is something Ms. Goldberg wants to drive-home. Unlike other downtown landlords and developers, hers has been most supportive and wishes the gallery would stay. Zenith is leaving its brick and mortar because its owner needs a rest and believes there is a new way to operate in the art world. Most of the staff will remain on the payroll and so will the majority of the artists it represents. Although, she did admit that this is an excellent time to sever ties with those artists who are either difficult to deal with or whose work isn’t in demand.

“When I first opened, I had this motto: Genius, good-looks and money are not an excuse to be an asshole,” she says laughing. So, if you are one of those she recommends that you find another gallery, not hers. In addition to her disdain for prima-donnas, she has no great admiration for urban developers, D.C. Mayor Fenty or the Washington Post critics since Paul Richards. She accuses the developers of raising rents sky-high making downtown real estate too expensive for small business owners and that the District of Columbia offers little support for its small businesses, especially the arts. Her mantra is, “I am mad as hell and can’t take it anymore!”

As artists continue to whine about declining sales, the absence of press coverage and high commissions few understand or care about the responsibilities of the art dealer or gallerist who is chained to a storefront operation from opening to closing, answering calls from artists and customers, paying the rent on the white cube and mounting show after show each year. She predicts that storefront commercial galleries will begin to disappear. “Nobody can afford the rent and it’s not safe anymore,” she says. It was surprising to learn that Zenith is robbed almost once a week. No, they don’t break the large glass windows that would be too obvious. Instead the thieves snatch a small piece or sculpture, a cell phone on a desk or a wallet buried deep inside an employee’s purse. Ms. Goldberg attributes the lack of police presence as part of the problem. And, when she calls the police they claim to be unable to find the gallery.

Since art dealers and gallerists are a pivotal link between artists and their public and between sellers and collectors, her prediction about the disappearance of storefronts will have a definite impact upon the local art market. If she is correct, art galleries will soon become destination points and few will be able survive in obscurity. Nor does she believe chain galleries can survive in there. When asked why so many galleries fail, she provides a direct and honest response. “Anyone can open an art gallery,” she admits. “But, they have no freaking idea how hard it is- the hard work and the hours. It is for people who need to make money, not for the rich. It is for those who need to earn a living and who have a fire in their belly.” According to Ms. Goldberg, even rich contacts are a restricted audience because patrons only purchase a limited amount of art annually. Then, there is the daily grind which is so demanding and that most people simply don’t want to work that hard, despite their love for art.

When she closes the doors to the glass fish-bowel this week, Zenith gallery will begin to operate its new format. With most of the staff continuing and the construction of a gallery in her home, Ms. Goldberg intends to cast her entrepreneurial net far and wide. She will continue to work with her stable of artists and retain a relationship with the 20,000 people in her database. Watch out, she is taking her show on the road doing traveling exhibitions, studio visits, art tours, promoting her foundation, producing and exhibiting more of her own sculpture and dreaming about the 100-acre art community she hopes to develop. She may say she is tired but her ‘to-do list’ is quite long. I predict that Margery Goldberg will sleep late a few mornings here and there and take off a day or two once in a while, but this woman with fire in her belly will remain a noticeable flame.

Mark Halperin: Asshole of the Week

Other than my frequent ramblings on the brutal Cuban dictatorship, and an occasional political cartoon, this blog seldom discusses politics, so please forgive this nauseating excursion into that world.

Last night I watched the Mark Halperin interview of Senator Ted Cruz, an interview that, as a Cuban-American, not only made me immensely uncomfortable, but also revealed the disturbing insides of this "journalist."


Senator Ted Cruz is Cuban-American, and because the Texas Senator is one of those rare politicians that actually says in a very loud voice what he believes, and then sticks to his beliefs, you either like him a lot, or despise him even more, depending if you agree with Cruz (as the majority of Texans who voted him into the Senate apparently do) or disagree with him (as practically every Democratic Senator and even some Republicans does), and that is just one of the beautiful things about living in this great nation: Politicians (and the rest of us) can (and often should) have widely differing views on things, and disagree, and argue, etc.

Watching Halperin's revolting interview of Cruz, I actually wanted to throw up.

Up to last night, I had never heard of the online interview show that Halperin co-hosts on BloombergPolitics.com. It is called "With All Due Respect", but the last thing that Halperin showed Cruz was respect; in fact what Halperin revealed about himself was not only a disturbing and sickening inside look at his mind, but also evidence of his lack of journalistic ethics.

Imagine Halperin interviewing Senator Obama in 2008:

"Senator Obama, as a historical matter, when you applied to Harvard, did you list yourself as a Kenyan-American"?

"Who's your favorite African-American performer?"

"What's your favorite kind of black music?"

"What's your favorite soul food?"

Or imagine Halperin interviewing Senator Elizabeth Warren today:

"Senator Warren, what's your favorite Native-American dance?

"Can you say something in Wampanoag?

Had those interviews happened, Bloomberg would have fired Halperin (who has since then somewhat apologized... cough, cough).

What Halperin was doing when he asked Senator Cruz to speak in Spanish (when everyone knows that Cruz is not fluent in Spanish), or to reveal his favorite Cuban dish, or to list what sort of Cuban music the Senator likes, was to challenge Cruz's Cubanosity and to diminish his Hispanic/Latino "credentials."

Halperin wanted to diminish and embarrass Senator Cruz because Ted Cruz does not fit the stereotype of what the main stream press and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) wants us Hispanics/Latinos to be: homogeneously brown, solid Democrats, poor, and victimized. Cruz, on the other hand, is white, right wing, and very vocal and proud about his extreme right-wingness.

Why did this interview bother me so much? I thought about this overnight, and I've come to the conclusion that, for the first time, starting when I was a child in Brooklyn, grew into a man while serving in the US Navy, and the many years since, I've now personally felt, for the first time in all those years, the slimy touch of racism.

It sickens me that Halperin can give a half-assed apology and go on pretending that he's an unbiased, objective journalist, when it is clear to the most casual observer that all along he had a goal and a focus in his sickening interview of Senator Cruz.

It sickens me that it took a Mark Halperin to make me feel insulted, nauseated, violated and angry. And it sickens me that he's tarnished my American dream.