Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Comments
For those that don't recall the name, is same artist:
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY: THE OBAMAS
by artappraiser on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 5:56pm
This is how you change culture. Not by being bothered by the old, not by tearing down history. Just add new to show who you are now. To requote my excerpt:
This is what art does, this is what it is "for", and a lot of what the best art does comes from "appropriation".
by artappraiser on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 6:05pm
Wiley called the statue "Rumors of War" because he is mad as Hell and is not taking it any more. He was tired of seeing the rows of statues of Confederate traitors.
https://www.richmond.com/video/news/kehinde-wiley-comments-before-rumors-of-war-unveiled-in-times/video_5bfa96a1-303d-5d9d-8ebb-089352642a6a.html
Take note that Germany does not take pride in statues of Nazis.
Wiley says the times are changing. Confederate statues are meant to instill fear.
Eit to add:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/28/us/rumors-of-war-in-ts/index.html
2nd Edit to add from the Mayor of Richmond
https://www.pilotonline.com/entertainment/arts/vp-nw-kehinde-wiley-new-sculpture-20190928-bh7abktspfbz3abshke3guf5ny-story.html
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 7:41pm
Wiley in the NYTimes article
He has a definite clue here about what to do about all this angina, and promote healing, get people to see things as they are now and think about present and future in new ways. You on the other hand hunt and peck all over the internet to cherry pick to ditto grievance about the past, and fuel further anger, tribalism and divisiveness.
by artappraiser on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 7:56pm
You really haven't a clue. Before intuiting that he thinks just like you, and then trying to prove it by picking out quotes from google, what you should do is check out his work, you need to check out more of Wiley's work to understand what he does. He first gained attention in his career by appropriating famous 19th-century white European cultural memes and putting present day black figures in them. From wikipedia entry on it, this is one of his most well know images/works:
Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps, Artist: Kehind Wiley, Year: 2005
Napoleon Crossing The Alps. Artist: Jacques-Louis David; Year 1801
Hot tip: Wiley is not for taking the David painting off the wall at the Chateau Malmaison. He was inspired by it. Appropriated it in a new work, attempting communicating something about this century in which he lives and works. He is not for tearing down historical artifacts. If anything, he is for appropriating them.
Edit to add, from the Brooklyn Museum page on his painting:
by artappraiser on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 8:29pm
A High School named after Malcolm X Shabazz? He was a convict, a criminal who committed armed robbery among hundreds of other crimes from his juvenile delinquent days on plus opposed integration of the races and spent a decade promoting and recruiting other cons to a a radical violent group that eventually killed him when he tried to leave.
Isn't that a strange monument and testimony to have for kids in school?
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 9:48pm
Kevin M. Levin, educator/historian and author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth:
by artappraiser on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 7:42pm
The statue is about confrontation. We only need 1699 more to balance things.
Edit to add:
From the Virginia. Museum of Fine Arts website. This is the permanent location of the statue
Seems like the Confederate statues will need to be addressed individually. or they could just be removed as suggested by the mayor of Richmond.
2nd Edit to add:
Those without artistic skills are working to remove Confederate statues legally.
.https://www.salon.com/2019/08/18/confederate-monuments-where-are-they-now_partner/
Positions on the statues of Southern traitors are not uniform. Some who feel dread and fear take action by taking the monuments to terrorists removed.
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 09/28/2019 - 11:56pm
The statue is about confrontation
It's about confronting you with awesome grandeur, beauty. and power. Just like David's painting of Napoleon does.
(Happens to be why Barack Obama specifically requested that the artist not do that kind of thing for his portrait, he did not want to be portrayed that way, as a heroic romantic figure, he wanted more of his humility to come across)
Once placed in Virginia, it will make the Reconstruction-era statues of Confederates look pitiful. That is the key. That is why you don't have to remove them. Because they are history, and not reflective of current culture. That is why they don't need to be removed and why I said on an older thread that it shouldn't be a bother that they are there. Because they are history.
This is precisely why Wiley does things like this Wiley has also been commissioned to paint musicians as nobility. In Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II, Michael Jackson (the King of Pop) sits atop a white steed as a pair of cherubs adorn his head with a wreath. (link) To show we have new heroes in the current culture. Not obsessing with the past like you do. His work is not about revenge and grievances of the past, it is about the present, a portrait of the present. About who our current kings and queens are. In reality, Napoleon and Michael Jackson and Confederates were not heroes even in their own time, they were humans with lots of flaws that are used as symbolic heroes. Wiley's work is not about the humans, it is about who the current heroes are. (And again, I stress: Obama did not want that kind of heroic portrayal, and when you take a commission like that, the sitter has a say.)
Wiley is not a pedant or a preacher. My opinion, anyone that thinks that is dissing his work and not enjoying full appreciation of it.
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 3:22pm
Heather Heyer is dead because a Nazi murdered her for protesting a Confederate statue in Charlottesville. The best way to honor her is to take down the statue. A state legislator representing Charlottesville put forward a bill that would allow local communities in Virginia to take down Confederate statues with public approval. Like the mayor of Richmond, his desire to have the local community decide on keeping the statues was blocked in the state Senate by Republicans who control the Senate 51-49. The bill died in committee.
The Charlottesville Confederate statue still stands.
There are not enough artists to counter every Confederate statue
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 8:51am
1) "The best way to honor her is to do what I personally consider most politically attractive."
2) People are killed or die every day with most not being "honored", even those in the calling of a good cause. Why is this woman so special?
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 11:00am
That is your response?
The city council voted to remove the statues.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charlottesville-city-council-vote-removal-stonewall-jackson-statue-n798821
Richmond is trying to figure out how to deal with its white supremacist statues
https://www.apnews.com/4e9b77a3c11f457883fbfb7f30df76e9
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 1:26pm
I referred to your statements, not city council.
See, I know how to stick to the subject.
"Honor" - I don't believe the City Council addressed "honoring" this young lady -
the article addresses only honoring a street,
aside from a short period of mourning via covering the monuments with a sheet.
“It was interesting for me to see more artistic ways to think about it — changing architecture or the landscape, playing with perspectives of the monuments, whether they’re at eye level or not,” she said after seeing the exhibit.
So again, why to "honor" this particular woman among millions of deaths the last 200 years, including those from noble causes?
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 1:33pm
The best way to honor her memory.was statue removal. The mayor of.Charlotesville agreed. The city council agreed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottesville_car_attack
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 2:43pm
Wow, you actually answered a question/comment. Whether it was the *best* way's another issue, but baby steps...
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 3:42pm
The irony, though, is that it's basically supportive of a "state's rights" argument, no outsiders gonna tell them what to do and what symbols to continue to have around or not to have around.
(Just to be clear: of which I am fully supportive for this type of thing.It's none of the rest of the country's business.)
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 4:26pm
The Virginia legislature is deciding what local communities can do, not rejecting the orders of the federal government.
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 5:21pm
The statue didn't kill anyone and the white supremacist groups will still exist if the statue is removed and will find something else to troll their concerns with and cause flame wars with if it was not there. As a matter of fact, if the statue is removed, they will have another grievance to stoke. I can't tell you how ridiculous a majority of art historians find the left buying into these statues as powerful symbols in this day and age. Doing so verifies white supremacist goals of making them of import again.
Kehinde Wiley knows exactly how to handle this! People like you don't, you exacerbate the situation. Like I said: this is how you deal with culture change. Leave it to the artists.
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 3:34pm
Kehinde Wiley felt fear and dread. There are over 1700 other statues that remain. World renowned artists aren't coming to challenge them. So we have ongoing fear and dread. Remove the atrocities.
Fuck what white supremacists might do. They are slaying people in churches, synagogues, and stores despite the statues remaining in place.
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 5:14pm
He's talking about his past reactions there. He learned from that, from his feelings. What he has decided should be done about it is what he is doing here. Not obsessing on the old ones but making new to represent the present and future. Don't you think that his statue officially endorsed by Virginia institutions would strike a white suprematist with similar feelings? It's a glass half full approach and opposite of your victimization approach. It's a "we already won" meme, that's history. Not a constant fixation on victimization nor is there a need expressed to wreak vengeance on descendants of people who are dead.
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 5:33pm
P.S. You are certainly entitled to twist what he is doing to try to get to fix like a square peg into the round hole of your tribalist vision of eternal warfare. As with all art work, it's the beholder's choice. But I think you do it to your own detriment. How many times does his introduction have to be repeated to you for you to get what he is after here?
He's not out for more anger and division and zero sum game between tribes. It's "make America proud again" and "e pluribus unum", it's very much the Obama vision.
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 5:51pm
So, there cannot protest to have the statues taken down? Protest aimed at removal does not seem like the action of a victim. The tribal people are those promoting the Lost Cause. You make the discussion personal. People came out in Charlottesville to protest a statue. The mayors of Richmond and Charlottesville want the statues gone. Those arguing for statue removal are diverse, not single tribes. The Nazis were, wel they looked like Nazis.
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 7:12pm
How is removing statues of dead people wreaking vengeance? Aren't you making those people victims?
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 7:19pm
The main meme is "victory celebration"
In Times Square, Kehinde Wiley Unveils His First, Monumental Work of Public Art
By Helen Holmes @ TheObserver. com, 09/28/19 9:00am
Which reminds me very much of "we're here we're queer deal with it", which, after a period of much sturm and drang, turned out to be astoundingly sucessful in a short amount of time.
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/29/2019 - 5:26pm
Similar just went up across the pond in a very prestigious prize commission. Kara's been an art world star quite a bit longer than Wiley, and is taken more seriously as well, as she has proven herself not to be a flash in the pan:
by artappraiser on Mon, 09/30/2019 - 6:40pm
Kara Walker produced a painting honoring the late Toni. Morrison for the New Yorker in less than 24 hours.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/kara-walker-honors-toni-morrison-new-yorker-cover-1620208
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 09/30/2019 - 9:04pm
Update: The sculpture was unveiled Dec. 10 at its permanent home @ the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Short essay at their website here. Nota bene: Was not cheap; cost a lot of money to do this, donated by these rich people listed here:
by artappraiser on Wed, 12/11/2019 - 12:36am