And then there were two?

It has nothing to do with the visual arts, but much ado has been made of the fact that Bill Richardson is a "Hispanic" candidate for the Presidency. I'm still mulling his "Hispanicity," a label that most of you know I have some issues with...

I recently heard on some radio show that Mitt Romney's parents were born in Mexico, not from Mormon missionaries who were visiting Mexico as part of their Mormon mission, but born from Mexican-born Mormons who had been living in a Mormon colony called Colonia Juarez, which his great-grandfather had helped to create 122 years ago.

South Americans by the millions who are of Italian, Japanese, or German ancestry are still labeled "Hispanics" because they're born in a Spanish-speaking country. Thus we have Alberto Fujimori (former Peruvian President and son of Japanese immigrants) and Alfredo Stroessner (former Paraguayan strongman and son of German immigrants) as "Hispanics."

I know it's silly, but I didn't make the rules - I think the Nixon administration was the one which invented the term back in the 1970s. Before that we were Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc.

But, since Mitt's grandparents were Mexican, does that make him a Hispanic? If you say no, because theirs and Mitt's ancestry is "American," then that immediately disqualifies loads of people from this curious cultural misnomer?

Like Fidel Castro, whose parents were Galicians, and although Galicia is geographically located in Northern Spain, their people are not ethnic Spanish, but Galeg, with a different language, culture, etc. Galicia is one of the remaining Seven Celtic Nations.

Or maybe Shakira (Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll - born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She is the only child of Nidia del Carmen Ripoll Torrado, a Colombian of Catalan-Italian descent, and William Mebarak Chadid, an Arab-American of Lebanese-Catholic extraction).

Otherwise Mitt is a "Hispanic" and so is Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire. After all, his father, John H. Sununu (White House Chief of Staff for Bush The First and three-times NH Governor) was born in Havana, Cuba to Victoria Dada (a lady born in Central America) and John Saleh Sununu, a Boston-born businessman then living in Cuba.

I hate the labelling of people, and thus why I am wasting your time this Tuesday with this silly issue.

Only in America can a made-up cultural misnomer grow into a label which sometimes passes for cultural, and sometimes for ethnic, and sometimes for racial, depending on the ignorance or agenda of the user.

We wouldn't call a full-blooded Apache person an "Anglo-American," but we call the full-blooded Mayan person doing your landscaping or cleaning your house, a "Hispanic."

Fun with Lenny and silly labels.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 5, 2007

Albertus Magnus College invites artists to submit postcard size artworks that explore the impact of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights on the lives of people living in the United States today. Postcards can engage topics such as: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and the right to bear arms.

The exhibition will be in Rosary Hall, on the campus of Albertus Magnus College, with an opening reception on September 10, 2007 at 4:00 pm. Format: postcard, 4 x 6" maximum, mailed with sufficient postage (works w/ insufficient postage not accepted). Return address required. All works thematically linked to topic will be displayed. (The College reserves the right not to display works which are patently obscene or degrading.) No entry fee, no jury, no insurance or returns. Exhibition dates: Sept 10-30, 2007. Send entries to:

ATTN: Dr. Sean P. O'Connell
MAIL ART SHOW
Albertus Magnus College
700 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511

Grants

Deadline: August 13, 2007

National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence - Offers funding to foster and preserve excellence in the arts, as well as provide access to the arts and arts appreciation for children, youth, and intergenerational education projects. Applications may be submitted in the following categories: Dance, Design, Folk & Traditional Arts, Literature, Local Arts Agencies, Media Arts, Multidisciplinary, Music, Musical Theater, Opera, Presenters, Theater, and Visual Arts.

Funding range is from $5,000-$150,000. For more information, contact:

National Endowment for the Arts
Nancy Hanks Center
1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20506-0001

Curatorial Fellowship

The Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University has announced a search for The Ann Tanenbaum Curatorial Fellow (2007-08) in the area of modern and contemporary art.

This one-year full-time fellowship offers an outstanding opportunity to to gain professional curatorial experience with the Rose's internationally recognized collection, which includes iconic art works from early 20th century American masters to De Kooning and Warhol; Rauschenberg and Lichtenstein. The fellowship will offer curatorial training and support scholarly research in connection with the permanent collection to an exceptional graduate-level candidate.

The fellow will have a passion for modern and contemporary art, a proven desire for curatorial work and research, and have recently completed graduate work in art history, either a Masters or Doctorate, specializing in modern and/or contemporary art. The fellow will be exposed to all aspects of curatorial work, gain experience in education and research, publications and cataloguing, acquisitions and conservation. He or she will also participate in a major project of publishing a comprehensive catalogue of The Rose's permanent collection. With a start date of October 2007, the fellowship will carry a stipend of $25,000.

Applications must be filed by Sept. 1. Application requirements: letter of interest describing the applicant's interest in the fellowship, museum work, and reasons for applying; resume; two letters of recommendation from academic and/or professional settings; and two writing samples. Please send applications to:

Curatorial Fellow Search
The Rose Art Museum
Brandeis University
MS 069
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728

Or Email: rosemail@courier.brandeis.edu

Separated at Birth

One of my favorite DC area sculptors is Adam Bradley. For years and years, even as a student at GMU, Bradley has been recycling junk and found objects and creating intelligent allegorical and narrative sculptures from them. He was doing "green art" without realizing it. See his work here.

One of my least favorite airports is the Philadelphia Airport, which essentially has been stuck in the 1970s for three decades. While at the airport, I spotted the below Honda ad:



Which looks suspiciously close to the well-known "Skirt" sculpture by Bradley shown below:

Curious

The Philly Inquirer's art critic Edward J. Sozanski has a curious statement in his recent review of "Kiefer, Polke, Richter" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sozanski writes:

"One doesn't hear much about Kiefer these days, or Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, A.R. Penck, Georg Baselitz, Jorge Immendorf, or any of the other so-called neo-expressionists. While their moment dominated a good portion of the 1980s, an especially vigorous decade for new art, it's long past."

Mmmm... that's news to me.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

By Kris Kristofferson

Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt.
Then I washed my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

I'd smoked my mind the night before
With cigarettes and songs I'd been picking.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Playing with a can that he was kicking.
Then I walked across the street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken.
And Lord, it took me back to something that I'd lost
Somewhere, somehow along the way.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.

In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl that he was swinging.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs they were singing.
Then I headed down the street,
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing,
And it echoed through the canyon
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.