That's my right shoulder, which as previously announced, has been out of commission since December 23rd and will be cut open and operated on this morning around 8:30AM.The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.Read Graeme Wood's eye-opening article in The Atlantic here.
It all started with a box. A box jam-packed with treasure — previously unseen, extremely rare Picasso drawings and collages, 271 works altogether. The box has been through everything imaginable. It survived flooding of the painter's workshop when the Seine River overflowed its banks, the German occupation, the Liberation, and it was carted about from home to home.
The deceased Pierre Daix, the best expert on the painter's works, once told us, "Picasso was often ejected from his Parisian workshops. He didn't know how to store his works anymore. It made him furious."Read all (thanks to NotionsCapital.com) about it here!
The box, one among thousands, then wound up in one of the villas on the French Riviera where the artist lived. Once Picasso filled one home with his paintings, he would buy another one to fill that too.
When the artist died in 1973, the box disappeared. No one noticed because his two villas, the "Californie" and the "Notre-Dame-de-Vie," were overflowing with paintings, sketches and packages.
A box worth €60 million
The box reappeared almost half a century later, and in a completely unexpected way.
"Whatever debate may linger about the government’s harsh early tactics — until 1993, everyone who tested positive for H.I.V. was forced into quarantine — there is no question that they succeeded... Other elements have contributed to Cuba’s success: It has free universal basic health care; it has stunningly high rates of H.I.V. testing; it saturates its population with free condoms, concentrating on high-risk groups like prostitutes; it gives its teenagers graphic safe-sex education; it rigorously traces the sexual contacts of each person who tests positive."These "quarantines" were actually nefarious HIV/AIDS prisons. Or as the Castro-friendly World Health Organization ("WHO") calls them "pretty prisons."
"In Cuba, a variant of HIV that is much more aggressive than other known forms of the virus has been documented. Patients infected with this new variant progress to AIDS so rapidly that they may not even know they are infected, with AIDS symptoms occurring within 3 years of infection."And how did this new strain come about?
"If a person contracts multiple strains of HIV - typically by engaging in unprotected sex with multiple infected partners - then these strains can recombine into a new variant of HIV within the host. The new Cuban variant of HIV is one such recombinant version of the virus."Clearly those "harsh early tactics" were not only cruel and inhumane -- but they were also unsuccessful [and are now responsible for developing a new, much more aggressive, strain of AIDS].
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| Ernesto (Che) Guevara de La Serna Lynch - Castrum Canis Charcoal and Conte on Paper. 20x16 inches, c.2015 F. Lennox Campello |
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| "Fleur" circa 1993, watercolor 10x8 inches by F. Lennox Campello |
They simply don’t have the money, and money is all that matters. Never mind that the institute would have enlivened a neighborhood that pretty much goes dark when offices close at the end of the day. Never mind that the city desperately needs an open space for large temporary art exhibitions that are a staple of the cultural diet in other, more progressive, far-sighted metropolitan areas. Never mind the innumerable intangible advantages to having an institution devoted to free expression and innovation closely knit into the fabric of the downtown core.
Welcome to the solipsistic world of equality activism, in which the removal of sloganeering in chalk on the pavement, which might have been wiped away by routine maintenance, if rain didn’t get it first, is equated with the censorship of a faculty artist.
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| "Putin" by President George W. Bush |
It took four decades, but Photoworks—the photography center at Maryland’s Glen Echo Park—has become enough of an institution to have a retrospective of its own. The location of the exhibit, a large, airy space at the American University Museum, is quite a bit fancier than what Photoworks had in its early days.
Back then, according to the retrospective, “the facility was rustic. Entering the Photoworks space felt like passing through a tiny Alice in Wonderland door… into a deep, dark cave, a room with bare bulbs and wet floors.” By contrast, the retrospective, which includes the work of both current and past artists affiliated with Photoworks, is impressively large and sprawls across the museum’s first floor.Read it here.
Andrei Trach, of Laurel, Maryland, has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the region, including the Mill River Gallery in Ellicott City, the Morris Mechanic Theater, the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel, the Howard County Center for the Arts and the Laurel Art Guild. Mr. Trach was also commissioned to build public sculptures for the City of Baltimore and the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission. He also has a permanent outdoor sculpture at Centennial Park in Hyattsville, titled “Vainglorious Bluebird”. Mr. Trach has received several awards for his work, including first place by the Laurel Art Guild’s Spring Show at Quiet Waters and an honorarium from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Division of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Division.
The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) is proud to announce the 2015 Artist Fellowship Program (AFP) Exhibition. This exhibition presents some of the District's finest visual artists, who each were awarded a FY15 Artist Fellowship Program (AFP) grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The exhibition and its programs are free and open to the public.The 24 AFP artists will each exhibit a small body of work that illuminates their unique artistic perspective. The collection of these artworks within the I Street Galleries underscores the importance of establishing the first District government-operated public gallery, and captures the broad scope of the dynamic, Washington, DC art scene. The gallery provides an opportunity for artists to share their work with the public on a daily basis, especially with those that may not visit museums or galleries regularly. While on display, the work will receive exposure from residents, art patrons and the press. Many works are available for purchase directly from the artists."Our grantees are integral to improving the quality of life in Washington, DC, and the Commission is pleased to support them," said Edmund C. Fleet, Chair of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. "Funding is vital, and our support allows these artists to produce quality art and programs for District residents and visitors.""Promoting excellence is a key part of our mission," said Lionell Thomas, Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. "The AFP grant program and this exhibition are prime examples of how the Commission supports diverse artists and artistic disciplines."The AFP offers grants of up to $10,000 to individual artists who make a significant contribution to the arts and who strive to promote the arts in the District of Columbia.Exhibiting Artists include: Sondra Arkin, Jessica Beels, Anne Bouie, Adam Davies, Anna U. Davis, Christopher Dolan, Nekisha Durrett, Mary Early, Cheryl Edwards, Rik Freeman, Rania Hassan, Ian Jehle, Timothy Johnson, Rachel Kerwin, Gediyon Kifle, Nate Lewis, Alex Mayer, Kathryn McDonnell, EJ Montgomery, Mike Osborne, Marta Perez Garcia, Carmen Torruella-Quander, Joyce Wellman and Martine Workman.
