By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 8th, 2012 
I woke up Saturday morning blown away by Charles Blow. His witty defense of PBS in his column is perfect. PBS as the enactment of the ideal of a democratic culture: refined, enlightening, open, inclusive, transforming. Blow presents not only illuminating personal reflections gleaned from the one gaffe of the Presidential debate on Wednesday, the dissing of Big Bird and PBS, as Aron Hsiao’s post yesterday analyzed, Blow also significantly addresses one of the crucial fields of contestation in American history: the perils to and promise of cultural excellence in a democracy. I have been thinking about this issue for much of my career. It was at the center of my book The Cynical Society: The Culture of Politics and the Politics of Culture in American Life. Blow shows how Big Bird and his Sesame Street friends, along with much else in PBS programing, contribute in a significant way to the health of the republic and its citizens.
Blow celebrates the character of Big Bird as it contributed to his own character. “I’m down with Big Bird.” Being black and poor in rural America, in the absence of good schools, PBS became his top quality primary and secondary schools. His uncle daily cared for him and permitted only one hour of PBS TV each day. (The same regime, I used with my kids. I wonder: how many millions were so raised?)
Blows imagination was sparked. His thirst for knowledge was quenched. He learned about science through nature programs, to his mind his SAT prep. He devoured arts programs, which he believes enabled him, a college English major without formal art training, to work as the design director of The New York Times and the art director of National Geographic magazine.
“I don’t really expect Mitt Romney to understand the value of something like PBS to people, like me, who grew up in poor, rural areas and went to small schools. These are places with no museums or preschools or after-school educational programs. There wasn’t money for travel or to pay . . .
Read more: On “Don’t Mess with Big Bird”
By Vince Carducci, September 27th, 2012 
In the current issue of The Baffler, journalist Thomas Frank takes on the notion of “vibrancy,” a term which has recently come to underpin cultural policy at the national level. As Frank reports, vibrancy is an attribute of so-called creative placemaking, the stimulating effect that culture ostensibly brings to the local environment, a kind of artsy aura that is taken to result in economic revitalization in the long run. The concept of vibrancy is being promoted in particular these days by ArtPlace, a collaboration of the National Endowment of the Arts, 10 major foundations, including the locally based Kresge Foundation, and six of the nation’s largest banks. In Frank’s analysis, vibrancy is shown to be the latest term of art, as it were, that substitutes an ephemeral quality of hipness for the erstwhile solidity of a once activist welfare state. It’s the successor paradigm to the creative economy and other gambits of gentrification, shifting responsibility for the public domain onto private individuals, in this case artists and other creative types.
Much of Frank’s critique is well taken. And yet, one wonders what other recourse there might be at this juncture? What, to coin a phrase, is to be done? In this age of compulsory diminished expectations, working with what’s at hand, bricolage as an aesthetic approach and a way of life, seems like a viable solution if only by default. Hell, even The Baffler has a Kickstarter campaign underway.
One acknowledged agent of vibrancy here in the Motor City is Power House Productions, a nonprofit organization created by 2011 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellows Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert of Design . . .
Read more: Riding the Wave of Vibrancy in Banglatown
By Tomasz Kitlinski, September 4th, 2012 
The performance of Pussy Riot and its repression represent the deep political challenge of post communist authoritarianism and its progressive – transgressive alternatives. This is the first of two posts by Kitlinski that have great significance for Eastern Europe and beyond. -Jeff
Don’t let Putin fool you. Banishing Pussy Riot to a penal colony allowed the Russian leader to reassert his rule. Democracy be damned. Civil rights, religious freedom, and gender equality from herein would be subject to his purview. The ex-KGB officer’s message wasn’t just aimed at Russia. It was directed at all of Eastern Europe, too.
For anyone familiar with the history of regional politics, Putin’s positioning was thick with signifiers. Pussy Riot’s sentencing would please fellow reactionaries, obviously, as well as help serve as a salve for social distress. It also confirmed that the post-Communist period was formally over. Authoritarian capitalism is the rule of the day. There’s no alternative.
The political transition in post-Communist countries has turned majoritarian, as ex-Soviet bloc states start to formalize discrimination against pro-democracy forces. Curiously, this reaction, of what can only be described as the ancien regime, both Stalinist, and its antecedents, focuses on sexual dissidence, to broadcast its worldview. In the Ukraine, it’s Femen. In my own home, Poland, it’s Dorota Nieznalska, an artist who was convicted of blasphemy.
It’s a familiar story, one that Pussy Riot’s Nadia Tolokonnikova was quick to point out, when, in her closing statement, she compared her band’s fate to the trial of Socrates, and the kenosis of Christ. Jesus was “raving mad,” she reminded her religiously observant tormentors. “If the authorities, tsars, presidents, prime ministers, the people and judges understood what ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ meant, they would not put the innocent on trial.” Tolokonnikov also cited the prophet Hosea, in the Hebrew Bible: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice.” Surely, the authorities were not thrilled.
Pussy Riot’s choice of Jewish scripture is of course telling, as well as calculated. The prophets argue for forgiveness (Hosea forgave . . .
Read more: Pussy Riot vs. The Pseudo Religious of Eastern Europe
By Hakan Topal, August 20th, 2012 
In my last post, I explored the idea of artistic research as I reflected on my visit to this year’s documenta exhibition. Today I will follow up by reviewing a case in point, “The Afghan Seminars” of dOCUMENTA (13), and then add some concluding reflections.
dOCUMENTA (13) actively stimulated the development of new artistic encounters by commissioning new projects, organizing various proceedings and publications. The organizers invited various artists and scholars for a series of events before and after the opening, for example, in Kabul, Cairo and Banff. “The Afghan Seminars: A Position of Documenta (13)” is particularly interesting because it included artists such as Michael Rakowitz, Giuseppe Penone, Mario Garcia Torres, Francis Alys, and Adrian Villar Rojas, most of whom were commissioned to produce a new work related to their experience in the war-torn country. In addition, the exhibition in Goethe Institute, Kabul presented 27 artists from 13 countries as part of the dOCUMENTA (13).
Although artists had no prior personal knowledge about the context of Afghanistan, they came up with interesting plans. For instance, in his film, “Reel/Unreel” (click link to watch), Francis Alys follows children who are playing a game with a steel circle, as well as an actual film reel given to them by the artist himself. Children continuously navigate by rolling the reels, following different paths in Kabul streets. The camera constantly shows the rotating reels in a close shot, depicting an intimate engagement with the urban context, providing a unique perspective, and a ground-up view of the city. The film operates in many layers. As we follow the kids and the reels, the film reel unfolds and refolds back, both literally and metaphorically, depicting life in Kabul. The project relates to the Kabul’s recent troubled past where films were burned down by the Taliban. However, the children’s playfulness offers the possibility for a joyful future.
Michael Rakowitz’s “What Dust Will Rise?” (2012) (click link for image), a conceptually complex project deals with the books that were destroyed during the aerial bombing in Kassel in 1941. Rakowitz’s . . .
Read more: Notes on dOCUMENTA (13): Afghanistan and Conclusions
By Hakan Topal, August 17th, 2012 
This years’ documenta—dOCUMENTA (13) titled with a small d as a subtle typographic gesture to create a distinctive branding —is sited around the city of Kassel with over 180 art projects, mostly new commissions. With a budget of thirty five million euros, it is the most expensive contemporary art exhibition in the world.
I visited dOCUMENTA (13) during the opening dates of the exhibition. Everyone spoke of the curator’s peculiar approach, choices, and her eccentric personality. The idea of the star curator is relentlessly promoted in the growing numbers of biennials and triennials all over the world, without bearing on the quality or content of the exhibitions. But nevertheless, the organizers use the lure of the curator-figure as a cheap marketing strategy. In fact three months before the opening, a press kit landed on blogs, featuring curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in various glamor shots with different outfits. With almost no mention of the participating artists, the emphasis was on the curator as the sole mastermind.
These days, biennial openings are eerily like business events. Museum directors, gallery owners, collectors and schmoozing artists form a toxic bubble, diluting art’s effectiveness for a salient alternative future, transforming it into any other commercial activity. But one has to ignore all this to see the content and the hard work put into the exhibition by thousands of cultural producers. A biennial is best navigated by creatively selecting the sources to read, the people to speak with, the restaurants to eat at, and the events to participate in. Even so, it is exhausting to spend three days to see all the work. I have to admit that I could not watch all the films or visit all the sites.
Nevertheless, compared to many other contemporary art biennials, with its scope and careful execution, documenta is still a very exceptional experience. Since the organizers have an extensive time period to put the exhibition together, from its research to its commissioned projects, it provides a vigorous snapshot of the current state of contemporary art. Because of its scholarly yet experimental approach . . .
Read more: Notes on dOCUMENTA (13): Artistic Research
By Hakan Topal, August 16th, 2012 
This is the first of three posts on this year’s Documenta art exhibition. -Jeff
Documenta opened its doors to the public on June 6th. Documenta —one of the largest contemporary art exhibitions in the world—takes place in Kassel, Germany every five years. This high point of the international art world calendar was initiated in 1955 to heal the scars of the Second World War, largely as a response to the “Degenerate Art” exhibition by NAZI regime. But it also intended to show the open mindedness of western societies and freedom of expression to the rest of the world, specifically the Eastern Bloc. Obviously the world’s political conjuncture has dramatically changed, since then, as has the exhibition.
One of the most interesting aspects of this year’s exhibition was its multifaceted relationship with the idea of nature and the paranormal. Some of the projects sited in Kassel’s Orangerie, Karlsaue Park and the Ottoneum (the natural history museum) offered a distinct approach to engage with matter and living things as an artistic category.
Eighteenth century parks in the English tradition are spread around Europe as idealized slices of nature in urban settings, with Arcadian forests, bridges, small houses and creeks. The bourgeoisie depicted the countryside in a sentimental way, as a response to rapid urbanization. Nature became something to be looked at and leisurely experienced. Parks are highly crafted artificial sites and reflect this modernist ideology. A small army of maintenance workers maintains the ecosystem and botanists carefully manage the flowers and plants. Even wildness is manufactured.
Pierre Huyghe’s “Untitled (2011-12),” one of the most intriguing projects of the exhibition, negotiates with the park itself. When one arrives to the composting area of the park to see Huyghe’s work, they encounter scattered aggregate, asphalt, sand, soil and construction materials. The location registers as peculiar and haphazard. One inevitably wonders if they arrived to the right site, or just a staging areas for park services. But there is no randomness like this in German parks, known for their preciseness. So this oddity resolves itself as you navigate by jumping over the . . .
Read more: Notes on dOCUMENTA (13): Parks, Nature and Artifact
By Vince Carducci, July 5th, 2012 
While most art institutions have wound down for the summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit has been busy cranking things up. The companion exhibitions now on view, “Vertical Urban Factory” and “Post-Industrial Complex,” are arguably the most timely and thought-provoking in recent memory. Running through it all is the simple yet profound question: “Who owns the future?” This question not only applies to Detroit, although arguably this is the place where its implications are most starkly presented, but to the United States and indeed to the rest of the world. The exhibitions capture a dialectic of opposing forces at work in the city as it looks to reboot for the twenty-first century.
One force is working from the top down and it’s what might be termed the “Techno Utopia.” The other works from the bottom up and can be called the “Postindustrial Arcadia.” The former seeks to catch the wave of postmodern capitalism; the latter exists if not in outright opposition then at least in resistance to it. One reinforces the typical gentrification model, the use of the so-called creative economy to drive speculation and investment, basically the purview of what post-OWS is known as the 1 percent. The other operates within the cracks of the capitalist system to open up new ways of thinking and living for rest of us. Tied together, the shows explore the potential for realizing what sociologist Eric Olin Wright terms “the real utopia.”
The summer exhibition (“Vertical Urban Factory” and “Post Industrial Complex” are a curatorial yin and yang and thus need to be discussed as a single case study) pick up a narrative that began five years ago with the “Shrinking Cities” project, exhibited at MOCAD in conjunction with Cranbrook Art Museum. In that exhibition and its surrounding research, Detroit was posited as an extreme example of the abandonment of the urban environment in the wake of the demise of the modern mass industrial system AKA Fordism.
“Shrinking Cities” . . .
Read more: Detroit Museum Debates the Future
By Vince Carducci, June 29th, 2012 
The ruin has had a prominent place in Western culture going back to at least the Renaissance. As Brian Dillon notes in his Cabinet essay “Fragments from a History of the Ruin,” in Quattrocento Italy the ruin functioned as an indexical sign of classical culture, a trace of the Elysium that was lost with the fall of Rome and left to lie in pieces during the long night of the Dark Ages, legible only to those who had access to the redoubts of preserved knowledge. Early Renaissance paintings of St. Jerome, for example (see these works by Ercole de Roberti, 1470, and Giovanni Bellini, 1480/90), often depict the Great Doctor of the Church reading amidst a landscape of ruins, fasting, meditating, and otherwise preparing himself for the task of translating the Bible into Latin.
For the Romantics, the ruin was a symbol of artistic creation, a marker of irrepressible natural genius pushing through the strictures of academic form. Western civilization’s vestige of the Noble Savage, the artist was seen to possess intuitive knowledge that wells up solely from within. Through what Raymond Williams terms “the green language” — reveries on the natural in words, images, and sounds — Romantics sought to reverse the disenchantment of the world that came at the hands of industrial modernity, and in Romantic paintings, such as those of Caspar David Friedrich, the ruin serves as a harbinger of what is to become of its edifices.
Sociologist Georg Simmel presents a similar idea in his 1911 essay “The Ruin”:
“According to its cosmic order, the hierarchy of nature and spirit usually shows nature as the substructure, so to speak, the raw material, or semi-finished product; the spirit, as the definitely formative and crowning element. The ruin reverses this order.”
For Simmel, the ruin is a symbol of the dissolution of moral codes and social structures, of estrangement and alienation, key aspects of the modern urban condition under capitalism. It’s a theme that carries through much of his writing, in . . .
Read more: Clinton Snider: Painter Among the Ruins of Modernity
By Vince Carducci, June 20th, 2012 
During the media preview for her show of photographs at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Patti Smith spoke of her most enduring memory of the 14 or so years she lived in suburban St. Clair Shores, just northeast of Detroit. She was taking her young son and daughter for a morning walk on a crisp autumn day. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, the birds chirping. The two children walked ahead holding hands, silhouetted by the light. She remembers thinking, “This is a perfect moment and soon it will be gone.” That statement is an apt description of the nature of photography and some key ideas in “Patti Smith: Camera Solo.”
The first traveling museum exhibition of Smith’s photography, the show features some 60 black-and-white images, the majority taken with a vintage Polaroid Land 250 camera. The exhibition also contains a number of personal artifacts, several of which appear in the photographs.
A large segment of the exhibition is devoted to artists and their creative surroundings. There’s a photograph of Roberto Bolano’s writing chair and another of Herman Hesse‘s typewriter. There’s an image of a jar of Bloomsbury artist Duncan Grant’s paintbrushes. A large section is devoted to the poet Arthur Rimbaud, including several shots from the museum dedicated to him in Charleville-Mezieres in northern France. Another image shows a view of the River Ouse taken from the bridge under which Virginia Woolf‘s body was retrieved three weeks after she had drowned herself in March 1941. In a display case next to the photograph is a rounded rock Smith collected from the river similar to those Woolf filled her pockets with to prevent herself from floating and ensure the success of her second attempt at suicide. There is of course a section devoted to Robert Mapplethorpe, whose deep relationship with Smith is chronicled in Just Kids.
In his 1927 essay “Photography,” Siegfried Kracauer compares the medium with what he terms the “memory-image,” . . .
Read more: Patti Smith: Photographer in Search of Lost Time
By Vince Carducci, June 11th, 2012 
The Cass Corridor art movement is Detroit’s aesthetic undead. Like a zombie rising up from the earth, it keeps coming back no matter how many times you try to kill it. And not unlike a George Romero B-grade movie, in some respects it’s understandable why it continues to hold our fascination. It reflects a place and time of creative foment — the slum area just south of the Wayne State University campus in the mid-1960s to late 1970s — when art in Detroit appeared to be serious business indeed.
The Detroit art world was in fact pretty robust then. Artists were in their studios hard at work (and in the off-hours even harder at play), a small but intrepid band of collectors were supporting the artists’ production, and both of the daily newspapers’ full-time art critics (imagine that!) were conceptually connecting the dots and documenting it all. (Side note: My first encounter with the Cass Corridor came as a teenager in the suburbs reading Joy Hakanson Colby’s multipage full-color spread on the scene in the now-defunct Detroit News Sunday Magazine.) The whole thing was capped off with a blockbuster exhibition mounted by the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1980 titled: “Kick Out the Jams: Detroit’s Cass Corridor, 1963-1977.” Legends grew up around the major players that echo to this day.
One of the caretakers of the Cass Corridor legacy is Dennis Alan Nawrocki, an art historian and curator who was there for a good piece of the action and who from time to time has come forward to draw attention to Detroit’s aesthetic heyday. The most recent iteration is currently on view at N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art in the area now known as the Sugar Hill Historic District in Midtown. The show raises some timely and important questions, and Nawrocki and gallery director George N’Namdi deserve credit for mounting it.
The show is titled “Menage a Detroit: Three Generations of Detroit Expressionistic Art, 1970-2012.” As the title suggests, . . .
Read more: Specters of the Cass Corridor @ N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art in Detroit
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