"Little White Turd" or the curious case of Professor Susan Eckstein

The famous Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, the subject of several movies about his extraordinary life and perhaps the Cuban dictatorship's most notable literary critic, once wrote a devastating poem about American academics who are boot lickers to the Cuban dictatorship while enjoying the benefits of a free nation.  He wrote it while in exile in new York City, when (to his horror) he discovered the disturbing number of American academia who supported the Cuban dictatorship.

The poem has recently been re-dedicated by Cuban exiles to Susan Eckstein, a Castro apologist and ardent Cuban dictatorship supporter while demonizing the Cuban Diaspora - she's a Professor in the Pardee School of Global Studies and in the Sociology Department at Boston University and most deserving of the poem.

Professor Eckstein: I join my fellow Cubans in dedicating this poem to you:

Blanco mojoncito,

quisieras ser guerrillero, pero cómo renunciar a

los productos Shaklee, a la loción después del baño,

a la nevera bien surtida ni (oh, de nunguna manera)

a la lectura del New York Times que tan puntualmente

llega a tu puerta.

Blanco mojoncito,

te arroban los desfiles militares y las marchas multitudinarias,

pero tu pie opta por el confortable

Addidas y no por la bota rusa, y tu culo no cambiará

jamás (a pesar de su férrea ideología) el suave

papel sanitario por las cuatro hojas del Granma,

cuya tinta (dicho sea de paso) te dilataría las

hemorroides

Blanco mojoncito,

admiras las vastas plantaciones colectivas (¿koljós

o granjas del pueblo?) donde los jóvenes ya no tienen

que pensar ni soñar, pero permaneces acá en

tu espaciosa habitación refrigerada, armoniosamente

invadida por plantas ornamentales que se

detienen junto a la biblioteca bien surtida donde

un afiche, EL FUTURO PERTENECE AL COMUNISMO,

domina el conjunto.

Blanco mojoncito,

ligeramente bronceado, consistente y pulcro,

comedido y escultórico, residuo casi final de una

dieta rica en proteínas y carreritas en short por

todo el parque, por mucho Baron Dandy o Air

Freshener («shake well before each use») que

esparzas en tu impecable apartamento nada podrá

impedir que tu olor te condene.

Blanco mojoncito,

para ti todo marchará admirablemente mientras

esa teoría que defiendes y tan bien te alimenta

(¡Me dicen que ya tienes hasta el tenore professor!)

no se te aplique en la práctica, matándote de

hambre.

(Reynaldo Arenas, New York, 1984)

A sailor and his date

A sailor and his date

 

A sailor and his date

Say it isn't so MSAC!

The Independent Artist Awards (IAA) program will not be offered in the FY2023 fiscal year while MSAC staff work to envision the program for FY2024 and beyond. 

From MSAC: 

The Independent Artist Awards (IAA) program will not be offered in the FY2023 fiscal year while MSAC staff work to envision the program for FY2024 and beyond. The existing IAA program is structured in a three-year cycle of artistic disciplines (Performing, Visual/Media, Literary). 2022 marked the completion of a full cycle, during which, MSAC received feedback from applicants, awardees, panelists, and staff about how the program could be improved. In FY2022, MSAC completed a yearlong process that resulted in a new program supporting the working and living expenses of Maryland artists, the Grants for Artists program. As the MSAC staff, Council, and public considered the needs and objectives around this new program, questions regarding the IAA program surfaced, underscoring the need for a thorough and thoughtful reconsideration of the intention, structure, and impact of the awards program. 

During FY2023, MSAC staff will seek a team of editors from the public to consider how the IAA program looks for the future. The timing of this pause will ensure we can serve all of our constituents to the best of our ability - considering new programs, funding allocations, goals, needs, and MSAC’s staff capacity.

While IAAs will not be awarded in 2023, there are many other MSAC opportunities that support Maryland’s independent artists, including: Creativity Grants; Professional Development; Opportunity Grants; Maryland Performing Artist Touring Roster; Teaching Artist Roster; Public Art Across Maryland; Folklife Apprenticeships; Heritage Awards and; coming in early 2023 - the new Grants for Artists program!

Art Basel Miami Beach week - The Saturday report

The crowds at Context Art Miami crowds were the largest that I have evr seen in any art fair in 20 years! They just kept coming all through the day.

The only issue was an apparent lack of sales everywhere, which is rather unusual, since art sales at an art fair are in direct proportion to the amount of people attending the fair.

Other than several drawings on Bisque, in our case, we again failed to materialize a significant, larger priced sale.

Sunday remains to "save" the fair.

Tomorrow morning, we'll pre-stage the vans around 6AM on the streets around the fair. We do this in order to save significant time during pack out. 

Art Basel Miami Beach week - The Friday report

Friday saw a lot of people strolling through the fairs, heard a few collectors discussing what fair was good and what fair sucked - also that there are about half as many fairs this year as usual, which makes sense as the world recuperates from Covid.

Sold multiple Bisque pieces again and also one of the Cuba series pieces.

Cuba - Isla Encadenada c. 1980

Art fair shoes

Art fair shoes

Life imitates art

Art Basel Miami Beach week - Thursday report

Decent crowds again, although mostly "strolling" through the fair -- not a lot of interested buyers, heavy Florida rains at times, and rather windy by the water.

Press coverage has been good - although rather "recycling" ideas from more than a decade ago, when know-it-alls where predicting the demise of the art fair model. The Art Newspaper calls it "the event that has become most synonymous with art-world excess", which is somewhat true, but showcases the art medias well-known antipathy towards the commodification of art.

Valentina Di Liscia from Hyperallergic title tells you all that you need to know about her outdated angle: Why Is There No Spanish at Art Basel Miami?  But she does opine about "art that is mostly drab and uninspiring" and gossips about a rush for "Anna Weyant (who happens to be dating the influential art dealer Larry Gagosian)." She also notes that Latino Miamians are "the most common ethnic group living below the poverty line in the city" in discussing fair ticket prices, but does not tell you that more that half of the wealthiest 1%centers in Miami are also Latinos.

She does nail it with this observation though:

"... an installation by the Brooklyn art collective MSCHF epitomized the worst of art fair gimmick: an ATM retrofitted with a screen that displays users’ account balances when they swipe their debit cards. It was presumably conceived as commentary on wealth disparity, but instead comes off as pretentious and reductive. I’m sorry, but we don’t need an art installation to know that some people have $2M in their checking account and others have $4.50."

I've heard from multiple collectors, including those who bring other collectors from their home states, that the big miss (again) this year is the Untitled art fair, which has been described to me as "too much fiber" and also as "heavy handed curatorial hand."

Artsy's Ayanna Dozier opines on the 10 best booths there... five gets you ten that all of those selections have Artsy accounts. She starts her article like this... cough, cough...

The beachfront setting lent soft, cool lighting to the 11th edition of Untitled Art, Miami Beach, and gave way to an impressive showcase of art. At the VIP preview on November 28th, the breezy atmosphere was matched by a vibrant audience dressed in vivid tones that perfectly complemented the bright white tent and the dazzling works on view. While droves of out-of-towners descended upon the fair, Miami locals were present, too, acquiring works on view while wearing chic beachwear like hot pink shorts and sheer glitter dresses.

Maximilíano Durón from ARTnews has seven different booths as his top choices for the same fair, including a nice look at my good friend Amber Robles-Gordon:

Building on two previous bodies of work, both created since the pandemic, With Every Fibre of My Being (2022) by Amber Robles-Gordon presents a visual summary of the ongoing research that the artist has conducted into her identities as an Afro-Latina of Puerto Rican heritage and as a U.S. citizen living in the District of Columbia. The work, installed in a U shape, is made up of dozens of textiles, many of which are stretched over differently sized hoops used in embroidery and needlepoint. There are prints, florals, sheer fabrics, and fragments of the American flag. In other places are small texts that read “Keep Abortion Legal,” “Make Womanhood Legal,” and “Keep Democracy Legal.”  

Five of the seven are Hispanic/Latinos/Latin(x)/Latinas, etc., which tells me something about the Durónmeister's approach... cough, cough... 

Finally, Anja Maltav at Miami's iconic Brickell Magazine, and thus the local set of eyes honors me with a selection for their top choices:

Among his most popular productions is his “Cuba Series,” an ongoing collection of art pieces started in the early 1970s. Some were completed before he started formal art training, and the bulk of the work was executed as art school assignments between 1977-81 at the University of Washington School of Art. 

 

Art Basel Miami Beach week: Wednesday report

Today Context Art Miami and Art Miami opened to the general public at 11AM, and people dropped by throughout the day, with warnings of heavy showers all day.

Yesterday, at the VIP opening we sold a few of my Bisque pieces and one of Christina Helowicz's unique sculptural works.

Sculpture by Christina Helowicz

The visual stimulation is overwhelming as usual, and the parade of "Art Fair people" begin...

I continue to sell Bisque pieces steadily throughout the day, and later on two of Tim Tate's smaller sculptures find a home in Miami.

Art Fair "tie guy"

Christina Helowicz with a Janis by Frank Hyder

Random art fair visitor with a Janis by Frank Hyder at Projects Gallery