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The G-20 ministers declared their meeting in Pittsburgh a success, but as Rob Kall reports in OpEdNews.com, the meeting’s main success was to turn Pittsburgh into “a ghost-town, emptied of workers and the usual pedestrians, but filled to overflowing with over 12,000 swat cops from all over the US…”
This is “freedom and democracy” at work. The leaders of the G-20 countries, which account for 85% of the world’s income, cannot meet in an American city without 12,000 cops outfitted like the emperor’s storm troopers in Star Wars. And the US government complains about Iran.
read Paul Roberts at Counterpunch.
It’s hard to believe this douche has a job. It must be wonderful to be so stupid.
From Eyeteeth:
In advance of Tuesday’s UN summit on reducing carbon emissions, The Yes Men and 2,000 volunteers distributed spoof copies of the New York Post — only every word of the 32-page paper is true.
From the release:
The fake Post’s cover story (“We’re Screwed”) reports the frightening conclusions (pdf) of a blue-ribbon panel of scientists commissioned by the mayor’s office to determine the potential effects of climate change on the City. That report was released in February of this year, but received very little press at the time. Other lead articles describe the Pentagon’s alarmed response to global warming (“Clear & Present Disaster”), the U.S. government’s sadly minuscule response to the crisis (“Congress Cops Out on Climate”), China’s alternative energy program (“China’s Green Leap Forward Overtakes U.S.”), and how if the US doesn’t quickly pass a strong climate bill, the crucial Copenhagen climate talks this December could be a “Flopenhagen.”
The paper includes original investigative reporting as well. One article (“Carbon counter counts New Yorkers as fools”) reveals that Deutsche Bank – which erected a seven-story “carbon counter” in central Manhattan – not only invests heavily in coal-mining companies worldwide, but has recently entered the business of coal trading itself.
The paper has the world’s gloomiest weather page, covering the next 70 years rather than just 7 days. The “Around the World” section describes the disproportionate effects of climate change on poorer parts of the world, including extreme droughts, floods, famines, water shortages, mass migrations and conflicts. Developing countries will bear the brunt of climate change effects even though they have done very little to cause the problem.
Proximity Issue 005 Release Party
Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan St.
Friday, September 25, 9pm – 1am
Please join us as we celebrate the release of our fifth issue of Proximity magazine. Very special performances by Magical Beautiful, Christo Mofisto, the debut of The Gaze , and sounds and mischief by Hunter Husar.
Admission: $10 for magazine and performances. $5 for performance only.
In conjunction with the Proximity Presents Exhibition: Berry Sanders, Tales from the bubble. The exhibition will be on view until October 11
This issue is devoted to International Contemporary Photography. For a preview of the issue visit Proximity’s website.
Artists and authors featured in the Proximity 005 Fall issue 2009 are; Che Onejoon,Vincent Dermody, Caroline de Vries, Kim Keever, Jaimie Warren, Cassini Probe, Greg Stimac, Bill Sullivan,Rob Funderburk, Jem Southam, Peter Sutherland, Rod Hunting, Bas Princen, Gretchen Kalwinski, Sarah Pickering, Rod Slemmons, Renay Kerkman, Shannon Stratton, Nicolas Lampert, Michelle Grabner, Allegra Murphy Denton, Mallika Rao, Sarah Galvin, Nancy Zastudil, Jac Jemc, Blake Butler, Caroline Picard, Amelia Gray, Mary hamilton, Lindsay Hunter, Aaron Burch, Patrick Somerville, Zach Dodson, Mark Staff Brandl, Mairead Case, Jay Ryan, Aaron Delehanty, Brandon Kreitler, Bert Stabler, Karsten Lund, Robby Herbst, Post Typography, Laura Pearson, Tyson Reeder, travis and Claude Bussac.
View 160 pages of Proximity magazine in less than 20 seconds.
The fifth issue of Proximity magazine will be released this Friday, September 11, at threewalls in the west loop during the opening salvo of the fall gallery season.
This issue is devoted to International Contemporary Photography. For a preview pdf of the table of contents and some sample spreads please download one from this link.
Artists and authors featured in the Proximity 005 Fall issue 2009 are; Che Onejoon,Vincent Dermody, Caroline de Vries, Kim Keever, Jaimie Warren, Cassini Probe, Greg Stimac, Bill Sullivan, Jem Southam, Peter Sutherland, Rod Hunting, Bas Princen, Sarah Pickering, Rod Slemmons, Renay Kerkman, Shannon Stratton, Mark Staff Brandl, Mairead Case, Jay Ryan, Aaron Delehanty, Brandon Kreitler, Bert Stabler, Karsten Lund, Robby Herbst, Post Typography, Laura Pearson, Tyson Reeder, travis and Claude Bussac.
The magazine will be available at local outlets next week and internationally a week or so later. Please check our stockists for a location near you.
The official release party for the issue will take place Sept 25 during the Proximity Presents Exhibition Series at the Co-Prosperity Sphere featuring Dutch artist Berry Sanders.
I try my best not to be a defacto Chicago-Reader blogger, but gosh darnit, that newspaper keeps churning out great articles. The most recent is this piece from writer Deanna Isaacs about Chicago-based art podcast Bad At Sports and the National Summit on Arts Journalism. I don’t have time to write much more about it, but it is most certainly worth a read… I will say this though, to anyone who might be interested, I’d like to start a podcast called bad at art and have it be strictly about sports. In all honesty, good luck at the summit Duncan and Richard, Lumpen is rooting for you.
For you history buffs:
The Origins of Labor Day
By WALTER BRASCH
It’s Labor Day, and that means millions of Americans are celebrating. Most Americans have no idea what Labor Day is, other than self-serving political speeches, hot dogs, burgers, a pool party, and the last day of a three-day holiday. Few even know that Labor Day exists to allow people to remember and honor the struggles for respect, dignity, and acceptable wages and working conditions for the rank-and-file employees. >> read more at Counterpunch.org
'Progress'
How desperate is the right wing media? Look at this Fox News clip.. According to this art critic Rockefeller Plaza is a communist/facist landmark..
just watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWL-pfCao-U
In this Clip Glenn discusses some art at Rockefeller plaza. Youtube suggested some Alex Jones after that, who proposes Glenn Beck is CIA. Let’s explore this theory. Fox news wouldn’t let rockefeller come out as a pinko without a plan. In intelligence circles this is called partial hangout. Telling a portion of a hidden truth, hiding it right in the open. In the end it’s just a bunch of art that the un-educated masses never learned to interpret and won’t start now. Another intel tricks is Beck’s partisan presentation. It creates a framework of control, thereby controlling the debate. Democrats just dismiss it out right, Republicans are just spurned on to lynch Obama (ouch did I just say lynch aloud?) Perhaps his mission is the same old story, to keep us fighting amongst ourselves. I am fortunate in being an independent. It affords me clearer vision by not feeling rabid or scoffing. If he is not CIA, then poor Glenn just seems confused and acts like it’s a big news flash a “capitalist supports communism”. People with money like the Rockefeller family are bigger than one country, one “ism”.
So is peace and the goodness of humanity.
– ~Space
Our friends at Neoteric Design helped build Appolicious. It’s a Chicago-based social networking-like site that helps you find the right app for your iPhone. We just hope they will index some apps for the G-Phone, the Lumpen phone of choice due to contractual obligations.. Sigh.
I’d like to point everyone over to a website called Book By Its Cover and a post by Chad Kouri of Eric Ellis’s sketchbook. The post has garnered a good deal of discussion about the work in this sketchbook and the work of artist Geoff McFetridge. McFetridge has even weighed in with his own thoughts on the matter.
What bothers me about discussion like these are the belief that someone can seemingly own or possess ownership of a visual style or aesthetic. Perhaps I shouldn’t say much more, but I will. The point of contention in the post and discussion is whether the sketchbook artist, Eric Ellis, is copying the “style” or work of Geoff McFetridge. As McFetridge himself points out in his comment, a common defense in situations like these is that we all work on a sliding scale copying, which McFetridge says belies the truth of the situation. The truth of the situation is that one cannot copyright, patent, lay claim or otherwise possess any kind of style, as it is not something that is tangible nor something which origin can be objectively traced. I don’t think this is a matter of intellectual property rights either. I know there are a lot of art historians out there who might disagree with that statement that a visual style’s origin cannot be traced back objectively, and for those I will say again, “objectively”.
What is to say that McFetridge’s “style” or aesthetic of “drawing hands and bending things to make characters,” wasn’t already created by some high school kid or art student in the 70’s, but instead of getting on top of their shit and becoming a world-famous bad-ass like McFetridge did, that young kid’s drawings are still in his math notebooks? Does recognition and notoriety also encompass an entitlement?
Also, while this “style” that is in question may have a lot of thinking and precision behind it, it’s appeal is in it’s universality. The reason it is visually appealing is because people can relate to it.
The bottom line is that I think this conversation and many like these that deal with ownership of aesthetics are the epitome of egocentrism and indicative of a specific point-of-view and artistic perspective that I believe goes without critical self-analysis. But that’s just my two cents. I went to school for journalism not art.
