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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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

Sergey Guskov, journalist, observer at Vedomosti newspaper, art editor at colta.ru

[...]

The Separation: A February Story with Blacklisting, Longing for a Biennale and the Unbearable Weight of Belonging

http://art-leaks.org/2014/02/07/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.”

[...]

http://critical-theory.tumblr.com/post/74566299869/discourseontheotter-slavoj-zizek

Koch World 2014

Kenneth P. Vogel

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/koch-brothers-2014-elections-102555.html#ixzz2rWLG6Pwc

[...]

This year, the Kochs’ close allies are rolling out a new, more integrated approach to politics. 

That includes wading into Republican primaries for the first time to ensure their ideal candidates end up on the ticket, and also centralizing control of their network to limit headache-inducing freelancing by affiliated operatives.

The shift is best illustrated in the expansion of three pieces of the Koch political network expected to be showcased or represented at the three-day meeting in Palm Springs, whose evolving roles were described to POLITICO by several sources.

• Center for Shared Services: a nonprofit recruiter and administrative support team for other Koch-backed groups, which provides assistance with everything from scouting office space to accounting to furniture and security.

• Freedom Partners: a nonprofit hub that doled out $236 million in 2012 to an array of conservative nonprofits that is now expanding its own operation so that it can fulfill many of the functions of past grantees.

• Aegis Strategic: a political consulting firm started last year by Koch-allied operatives who will recruit, train and support candidates who espouse free-market philosophies like those beloved by the Kochs, and will also work with nonprofit groups in the Koch network, like Freedom Partners, with which it has a contract to provide policy analysis.

(PHOTOS: 2016: Who’s next?)

The Koch network raised an astounding $400 million in the run-up to 2012, spending much of it assailing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. After the Election Day letdown, the Kochs did an in-depth analysis to find out what went wrong and what they could do better. Among the areas identified for improvement were greater investments in grassroots organizing, better use of voter data and more effective appeals to young and Hispanic voters, according to sources.

Still, the big question was whether the donors who attend the conferences would keep stroking big checks or scale back their efforts. There’s no way to measure that definitively, since most of the groups in the network don’t disclose their finances regularly or reveal their donors. Early indications, though, suggest enthusiasm is high.

Groups in the Koch network — led by the brothers’ main political vehicle Americans for Prosperity — spent $25 million between the summer and early this month on ads bashing Democrats over Obamacare, which have been credited for hurting Democratic senators who are vulnerable in 2014.

James Davis, an official at Freedom Partners told POLITICO that his group has expanded rapidly, “and we expect to continue to grow.”

(PHOTOS: Republican 2016 contenders)

The 2014 potential of AfP, Freedom Partners and the other groups in the network depends in large part on the reception they get at this weekend’s gathering – the annual winter installment in the Kochs’ long-running series of twice-a-year meetings. Koch Industries spokesman Rob Tappan declined to comment on the Palm Springs meeting, but the company’s website includes a statement describing the events as bringing together “some of America’s greatest philanthropists and most successful business leaders” to “discuss solutions to our most pressing issues and strategies to promote policies that will help grow our economy, foster free enterprise and create American jobs.”

Many of the right’s most generous benefactors – folks like Minnesota media mogul Stan Hubbard, Wall Street investor Ken Langone and Wyoming mutual fund guru Foster Friess – are regulars. The gatherings, which attendees call “seminars” and are typically held at tony resorts, routinely attract some of the top operatives and biggest names in Republican politics, as well as rising stars tapped by the Kochs’ operatives.

The last seminar, held in August outside Albuquerque, N.M., drew Rep. Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and Iowa state legislator Joni Ernst, who is running in a crowded GOP Senate primary.

The seminars typically conclude with pledge sessions that can raise tens of millions of dollars. 

In 2012, that cash mostly went into a pair of non-profit conduits — Freedom Partners and the Center to Protect Patient Rights — whose operatives then doled it out to a range of nonprofits blessed by the Koch operation, including some groups asked to make presentations to donors at the seminars.

(POLITICO's full elections coverage)

But several sources suggested that Freedom Partners’ growth and expansion into a more central strategic role within the network means that the roles — and possibly funding — of the Center to Protect Patient Rights and other groups in the network will diminish. In other words, Freedom Partners will bring in-house many Koch network functions that had been outsourced. 

That could reduce the chances of a repeat of situations like that which the Center to Protect Patient Rights and one of its beneficiary nonprofits found themselves in California, where they paid $1 million last year to settle an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations. The settlement stipulated that the violation “was inadvertent, or at worst negligent,” but the investigation brought unwanted attention to the Kochs, who repeatedly stressed that they had no involvement in the matter and distanced themselves from the operative who ran the Center to Protect Patient Rights, Sean Noble, explaining that he was just a consultant.

Freedom Partners, by contrast, is run by Marc Short, a former Koch employee, and staffed by other Koch loyalists, although Koch Industries issued a statement saying the group “operates independently of Koch Industries.” The group, established in November 2011, is technically a business league, and its members pay at least $100,000 in annual dues. “Our membership has grown out of concern that the administration’s policies are hurting Americans by crippling businesses and our economy,”

[...]