Sunday, February 9, 2014
F Bombs over Europe
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/victoria-nuland-f-bomb-020714
by Charles P. Pierce
As it turns out, there are
many ways to say, "Fuck The EU." Millions of Greeks say it every day.
They turn in the general direction of Angela Merkel, order up some ouzo, and in
the language of Plato and Euripides, say, "Hey, fuck the EU!" The
people in Iceland and Ireland say, "Fuck the EU," by putting bankers
on trial and, in the case of Iceland, in jail. And every day, Vladimir Putin,
the World's Host for the next two weeks, is saying "Fuck the EU" with
armored vehicles and firearms, and he would like the Ukrainian people to say
it, too, but they have thus far declined, preferring instead to say, "Fuck
Vladimir Putin and our own government."
None of these, however, have
caused the flap over the fact that Victoria Nuland, an assistant secretary of
state, has caused by saying "Fuck the EU" over her
telephone, which had been tapped, and her conversation was then leaked to the
world.
Read more: Victoria Nuland F Bomb - F Bombs Over Europe - Esquire
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Saturday, February 8, 2014
Petition: To the organizers and curator of the IVth Moscow International Biennale for Young Art
http://art-leaks.org/2014/02/07/petition-to-the-organizers-and-curator-of-the-ivth-moscow-international-biennale-for-young-art/
To The Ministry of Culture
of the Russian Federation
The Department of Culture of
the City of Moscow
National Centre for
Contemporary Arts
Moscow Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Moscow
Curator D.Elliott
Preparations are underway
for the IVth Moscow
International Biennale for Young Art, the opening of which is scheduled for
June 26th, 2014.
The curator of the biennale,
David Elliott has chosen the theme of the project based on Martin Luther King’s
famous speech, “I Have a Dream.” In the open call for project, the curator
claims that today’s world is as precarious, with “many similar examples of
inequity and oppression that are still not fully resolved,” “while the
compromises of life and politics seem frustratingly weak.” Therefore, Mr.
Elliott encourages the young participants in the Biennale to “make things
better,” as well as be active, courageous, critical and idealistic enough so
that their art reveals “unexpected truths.”
The curator is right,
artists, curators and those who are interested in the organization of the
Biennale do have dreams!
And one of these dreams is
that our work must be paid!
Even Martin Luther King
would agree with us.
King’s his famous speech, “I
have a Dream,” was delivered on August 28th, 1963 with the occasion of the March for Jobs and Freedom on Washington. Protesters
then demanded an end to discrimination and segregation, equal civil and labor
rights, and that measures be taken against unemployment.
Also, when Martin Luther
King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4th, 1968, he had come to support
African-American sanitation workers, who also demanded better working
conditions, higher wages and union recognition.
Artists, curators and art
workers in general involved in the production of large-scale cultural events in
Russian contemporary art, live in precarious economic and social conditions.
This particularly affects young artists and curators who do not have the
support of galleries, private foundations and other cultural institutions which
Biennale counted on. But what kind conditions does the Biennale create for
these young professionals, so that they have the ability to dream, if the
organizers do not consider the time and labor of its participants worthy of
recognition and compensation? Or perhaps, Mr. Elliott is also not receiving any
remuneration for his curatorship?
Social and economic
inequalities within cultural institutions are only part of larger inequalities
in Russian society – this is what the Moscow International Biennale for Young
Artists demonstrates for the forth time in a row.
Young, novice participants
are seemingly given the possibility to produce a project in an institutional
art space in Moscow, but in practice, the reality is that they usually receive
a meager production budget, they have to be day and night at the installation,
they lack necessary materials and technical equipments, they encounter problems
with finding accommodation and staying in Moscow, and difficulties in
communicating with the organizers. They are expected to produce their work,
install and transport it from their own funds.
This also increases the
workload of the supporting staff in Moscow’s cultural institutions,most of
whom are working on a small salary. All the while, their working day, seldom
limited to only eight hours, means working well into the night and unpaid
overtime.
This is what we call
exploitation of labor. And we dream that this state of things will not continue
any longer.
We encourage all concerned
artists, curators, art workers to sign this petition! We are confident that
this year, it will make a difference.
Evgeniya Abramova, art
worker
[...]
The Separation: A February Story with Blacklisting, Longing for a Biennale and the Unbearable Weight of Belonging
On January 30th, 2014,
Nicolaus Schafhausen, the appointed curator of the Bucharest Biennale 6 (BB6), released a public statement that he was withdrawing from the
project, stating that : “The curatorial direction of BB6 developed in a
direction inconsistent with that of PAVILION – the local organisers in the
Romanian capital, Bucharest.” (Răzvan Ion & Eugen Rădescu, are the
co-directors of BB6 and the co-directors of PAVILION)
Schafhausen had been
appointed in the summer of 2012 and had attended the previous edition of the
biennale (BB5) which opened in May 2012 in Bucharest. This current project was
to be organised in close cooperation and collaboration with Kunsthalle Wien in
Austria, and significant symposia in both Vienna and Bucharest had been
planned. Schafhausen also stated that he contacted several sponsors to fund and
support BB6, based on the curatorial direction and the theme of “Longing and
Belonging.” This theme was to include international artists born in
Romania. The curator and his concept had been also officially announced by the
organizers of the biennale who supported it.
However, after a year and a
half of work, the partnership between PAVILION and Schafhausen /Kunsthalle Wien
fell apart, the curator citing that “irreconcilable differences” had emerged,
so that “the curator and his partners cannot in good faith continue to support
BB6 and PAVILION, and consequently must terminate any further commitments.”
Upon hearing the news, which
was announced only via an official statement of withdrawal on the website of
Kunsthalle Wien, the artistic community in Romania was left with a series of
unanswered questions as to what exactly the “irreconcilable differences” were
and in general, the details behind the dissolving of the partnership. In a public note, Raluca Voinea, a curator based in
Bucharest, wrote: “I think this decision has a negative impact upon the entire
scene in Bucharest, which will be again judged as unserious and unprofessional.
I don’t believe he was not warned what he’s getting himself into and he had
enough time to figure it out in the meantime. [..] he was not to curate the
Vienna biennale but the one in Bucharest, so I expected at least an open letter
with explanations if not a press conference addressed to the professional
community in Bucharest.” Voinea’s note received many comments from local
artists, critics, curators, and gallerists. Artist Cristina David had
this to add: “[…] I don’t think as you do, that the entire art scene of
Bucharest will be judged as unserious, I do hope that the team of BB6 will be
the one that supports the consequences. […] I think people should not do
compromises of getting along with all kinds of irregularities, because then
they also give credit to the ones that don’t deserve it (BB6 people)”. Mircea Nicolae, artist,
also remarked: “Personally, I do not think BB6 internal organisational problems
have anything to do with others than Pavilion people themselves. What they have
been doing for a while now is well known and publicly available, not in the
least on the ArtLeaks page. To start with, maybe we can lay the blame where it
belongs, and leave it there for a while. […] I do not believe that the invited
curator should have just accepted the problems, even if they menaced to
completely alter the project. For one, it seems that Pavilion has a blacklist
of local artists. So if you want to work with the local scene you have to make
your way around that list, if you can. If the list is extensive and maybe even
goes to the point of being exhaustive of the local scene, there might be a
problem.”
[...]
Friday, February 7, 2014
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