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BIRTHERS graffiti, shot by Martin Olson, on a rail mural by IMPEACH, AMFM and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Here's another shot.
Earlier: Rage on the rails: ALB's IMPEACH, POVERTY, BAILOUT.
[O]n the Chinese internet you cannot type any sentence with the word 'tomorrow' in it -- the word 'tomorrow' has become a sensitive word.Because maybe people will say, “Tomorrow we will all walk in Wang Fu Jing.” [The central spot in Beijing for the recent jasmine protest activity]. At the same time you cannot type, 'today'. The machine will just take anything with 'today' in it. [Laughs] It's really amazing that you can't use the words tomorrow and today. So you can see how extremely nervous they have become. And there's no discussion, no intellectual exchanges or argument. It's so much like Chinese parents from the olden times, where the children just had to listen to them without showing any sign of disagreement, or questioning, or different attitudes. To try and challenge the economic and political situation today is not going to be OK. That is going to be devastating. This nation has had no creativity for the past 100 years.
[W]hatever the evidence being assembled about tax evasion or other charges, that this was not the motivation for Ai’s detention. This case started out on a “detain first and look for justification later” basis. If evidence sufficient to sustain a conviction is found, the case will become a preeminent example of what criminal justice experts call “selective prosecution.” Ai has been singled out from a large number of potentially suspected offenders not because of the magnitude of any alleged economic crimes but because of his creative and eye-catching political challenges to the regime and his defense of human rights.• China wants to "deepen mutual understanding," as CNN puts it, in talks with the U.S. this week, but human rights -- including Ai Weiwei's detention -- is off the table.
Under Mao, Confucius was a banned figure, since the Communist leader saw his philosophy of harmony and submission to family and duty as dangerous remnants of China's feudal past. Now, on the home page of the hardline Communist Web site maoflag.net, the character for "demolish" has been scrawled on an image of the statue. A maoflag.net user named Jiangxi Li Jianjun exulted that "the statue of the slave-owning sorcerer Confucius has been driven from Tiananmen Square!"• In a visit to China, Swiss Interior Minister Didier Burkhalter made mention, if tepid, of Ai's plight.
They stated that they have no problem with Darfurnica, never had, and that they only object to me using "their product" in my Simple Living "logo" [pictured here]. We highly objected to it all, since Simple Living is an art work, just as Darfurnica and because LV has aggressively been going after the painting from day one.
We also presented the threats regarding the painting that LV's attorney made to me by phone, which he of course denied completely.
I thought the most important part was when the judge asked LV's attorney why Darfurnica was mentioned in the lawsuit - and forbidden by the court order - if they didn't have a problem with it? To which their attorney responded "You shouldn't read it like that."
Then the judge asked how else he could read it, since the painting is the first thing mentioned in the list of works they want to forbid, but their attorney insisted that the court order should be read as if the paragraph regarding Darfurnica was not there. He aggressively went on and on for an hour about how I abused them, for example by using their Audra bag as an eyecatcher on the invitation for my exhibition. Yes, I used my own Simple Living drawing (not their Audra Bag) on the invitation to my art exhibition about Darfur. What a crazy thing to do.
We had a 1:1 print of Darfurnica in the court room and I presented it to the judge and explained why I painted it and what the different symbols represented. I have had the chance to present Darfurnica to a lot of different people by now both in my studio, in the Odd Fellow Palace and at the HEART museum, but it felt so surreal to do it in a court room, especially in front of various LV representatives.
I explained the urgency for raising awareness about the situation in Darfur, and how I had painted various Hollywood gossip stories that got an insane amount of media attention.
The judge listened, and I believe he understood the meaning of the painting.
There were about 65 people present during the hearing, many artists and fellow students came to support me, and they had made these great little supportive badges with different texts like: "Louis, art is cool", etc. It made a great difference to me that I was not there alone, and I am grateful to the people who showed up.
There were also different reporters present, and even though LV's attorney consistently claimed that I had manipulated the media to be on my side, the articles today are not different from the previous ones, even after the reporters had heard both sides of the story and were presented with the evidence from both sides.
The final result was that we asked the judge to have the court order from January 27th annulled, and LV objected to this. The judge said he would try to give his ruling before May 4, 2011.
@statedept, condemn Chinese hacker attack on @guggenheim’s @change campaign to free Ai Weiwei @aiww: http://chn.ge/fnOU4H #freeaiww• The Telegraph (UK) takes western governments to task for its "shameful silence" on Ai and the plight of other jailed dissidents in China: "[I]nstead of continuing with their craven kowtow towards Beijing, the leaders of the free world should stand together and demand the release of this brave man."
Chinese Hackers Attack Change.org Platform in Reaction to Ai Weiwei Campaign
Attackers use distributed denial of service attack to bring down the world’s fastest growing social action platform after more than 90,000 people in 175 countries call for release of Chinese dissident artist.
19 April, 2011 – Chinese hackers temporarily brought down the world’s fastest-growing social action platform after more than 90,000 people in 175 countries endorsed an online call for the release of internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Weiwei, best known for his role in the construction of the Beijing Olympic stadium and his recent Sunflower Seeds exhibition at the Tate Modern, has become an increasingly outspoken critic of the Chinese government in recent years, in particular over the handling of the 2008 earthquake in the country’s Sichuan province.
The cyber attack on Change.org follows the viral success of a petition calling for Ai Weiwei’s release by leading global art museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Modern, London, as well as the Association of Art Museum Directors. The campaign is attracting more than 10,000 new supporters a day and is now the most popular international campaign on Change.org, the world’s fastest growing activism platform with some 3.5 million monthly visitors.
The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack began early Monday and made the site completely inaccessible for a few hours. Change.org issued a formal request for urgent assistance to the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of East Asian Pacific Affairs within hours of the attack.
“We do not know the reason or exact source of these attacks,” said Ben Rattray, the founder of Change.org. “All we know is that after the unprecedented success of a campaign by leading global art museums using our platform to call on the Chinese government to release Ai Weiwei, we became the victims of highly sophisticated denial of service attacks from locations in China.”
“We've notified the U.S. State Department of the situation and asked for their immediate assistance,” Rattray added. “Our engineers have been able to keep up the site during parts of the attack, but we've had some down time and without government assistance there are limits to what we can do.”
Change.org, a platform which allows anyone, anywhere to launch online social action campaigns, has been blocked in China at various points over the last few years.
...Chinese Foreign Ministry press briefings have mocked Western concerns and laughably held up the United States as oppressive of human rights in contrast to ChiCom self-righteousness. The first thing to remember when considering how to ultimately bring down the ChiComs [Chinese Communists] is that this suppression is totalitarian in its essence: complete, pitiless, uncompromising and unpersuadable by traditional liberal appeals. In arguing with well-meaning Western actors who advocate "engagement," one must respond that there is no fundamental difference between ChiCom police tactics and those of Nazi brown-shirts or Stalinist police in previous eras. Therefore, in the art world, for example, continued activity in China by major auction houses or Western galleries must cease immediately and it is incumbent on artists and collectors who care about what is happening in China to insist on this, refraining from doing business with these players until they withdraw from China.• Gao Ge, Ai's older sister, says, "Weiwei is doomed to be 'exposed' as a public enemy of unforgivable sins. (People) will know that when they look back at the 'crimes' of his father in 1958 and 1966. We're fully aware the authorities will not easily let him go, they must work out more crimes beyond the 'economic crimes.'"
Like Ai's pointedly critical art, Gai's politically charged work may offer clues about why Chinese authorities are holding him (although official charges haven't yet been made public).Tom wanted to get Guo to show here not just because of his striking photography, but because Guo himself knows that he really can't show these works in China, and cannot perform the choral work at all. He's of an older generation of artists ... who have lived through China as communist, and now find themselves in a quasi-fascist dictatorship of unbridled capitalism coupled with complete repression of dissent, ruling, apparently, with the approval of everyone. He sees a rising middle class, a rising consumption of contemporary art, but still no questioning of why China has to be like this. His work is very much concerned with this hypocrisy; at least Mao was honest about repression... and that communist repression was towards some greater end rather than the accumulation of wealth.
"The Soap Factory is distressed to learn of the arrest and detention of artist Guo Gai on March 24th at the Beijing Contemporary Art Museum. He was arrested with 3 other artists for taking photographs during a performance exhibition dealing with the 'Jasmine Revolution.' Like his collegue, Ai Wei Wei, Guo's only crime is that of free expression within a repressive dictatorship. We hope that Guo will be released soon, and our prayers are with him, his friends and family."
...I do not want to be free among individuals who value regression, fear, and stagnation — I want to be jailed with the villains. I want to be in detention with David Wojnarowicz, with Jean Genet, with Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, with Ai Weiwei. I'd rather be imprisoned with artists, intellectuals, and citizens whose work and actions makes us think and question rather than bend over with a smile to the oppression of convention....• Vergne says he's taking part in Sunday's sit-in protest, a Creative Time project that's happening at 1 pm local time at Chinese embassies worldwide. Find locations here.
...[Ai's] art is his ability to be a poet, a sculptor, a politician, an architect, a merchant, an activist, a citizen, a trickster. Ai Weiwei is the fou du roi, the sole person who is authorized to poke at the king because the king knows that his position is only as powerful as his acceptance of the critic. The minute the buffoon is silenced, the king is naked, and the king knows that it is not pretty...
China’s leaders recognise that culture can buy goodwill abroad. High profile exchanges like the Enlightenment exhibition can convey openness and sensitivity as well as confidence.• The petition: 84,000 voices and counting.
Anyone know anything about this wheatpaste poster in Northeast Minneapolis? Looks like a Shepard Fairey–inspired jack-o-lantern or luchador mask. Or maybe an Obey-style Mexican wrestler pumpkin...
Update: On Twitter Carl Atiya Swanson shares another shot of the poster, which in this version has the word "Lucha" underneath it, seen at 25th and Stevens in South Minneapolis. So much for my pumpkin theory... (Thanks, Nallo.)
Update: Now I'm wondering if it's by Luis Fitch of UNO marketing. It looks an awful lot like this. UNO's Luis Fitch seems to be a big lucha libre fan.
To participate, find an embassy near you.A question posted on Facebook about what we, as an arts community, can do to support the safe release of Ai Weiwei sparked great ideas, including one by curator Steven Holmes to reenact Ai Weiwei's project Fairytale: 1001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs—an installation which was comprised of 1001 late Ming and Qing Dynasty wooden chairs at Documenta 12 in 2007 in Kassel, Germany—in front of Chinese embassies and consulates around the world. This Sunday, April 17, at 1 PM local time, supporters are invited to participate in 1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei, by bringing a chair and gathering outside Chinese embassies and consulates to sit peacefully in support of the artist's immediate release.Artist and activist Ai Weiwei is an internationally regarded figure who has fought for artistic freedom and for freedom of speech throughout his distinguished career, envisioning and shaping a more just and equitable society through his work. He has been missing since his arrest on April 3rd in Beijing. Referencing the spirit of his work, 1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei calls for his immediate release, supporting the right of artists to speak and work freely in China and around the world.
Be very afraid! Of the color pink.
That's the message from a Fox commentator, who pens a 675-word reaction to an image on the J. Crew website of a male toddler with pink toenail polish. The company's art director, Jenna Lyons, says in the accompanying text, “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.”
Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist, co-author of a Glenn Beck book and Fox opiner, sounds the alarm!
Yeah, well, it may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid—and maybe a little for others who’ll be affected by your “innocent” pleasure.
This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity—homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such “psychological sterilization” [my word choice] is not known.
Later he writes, "These folks are hostile to the gender distinctions that actually are part of the magnificent synergy that creates and sustains the human race. They respect their own creative notions a whole lot more than any creative Force in the universe."
Meanwhile, the rightwing "Culture and Media Institute" dials it up even more, calling the J. Crew promo "blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children." J. Crew, writes Erin R. Brown, "apparently does not mind exploiting Beckett behind the façade of liberal, transgendered identity politics... Propaganda pushing the celebration of gender-confused boys wanting to dress and act like girls is a growing trend, seeping into mainstream culture."
Brown's organization, the media wing of the conservative Media Research Center, has a mission to "preserve and help restore America’s culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the assault of the liberal media elite, and to promote fair portrayal of social conservatives and religious believers in the media."
Via The Advocate.
"I still believe songs occasionally mean something to people — they obviously mean something personal to the writer, and often to the listener as well. A personal and social meaning is diluted when that same song is used to sell a product (or a politician). If Crist and his campaign folks had asked to use the song, I would have said no."Byrne, who settled with Crist and his campaign, today:
“I was shocked to discover, while working out our settlement, that the use of songs for political ads is pretty rampant. It turns out I am one of the few artists who has the bucks and cojones to challenge such usage - I'm feeling very manly after my trip to Tampa! Other artists may actually have the anger but not want to take the time and risk the legal bills. I am lucky that I can do that. Anyway, my hope is that by standing up to this practice maybe it can be made to be a less common option, or better yet an option that is never taken in the future.”While details of the financial part of the settlement haven't been released, apparently a video apology from Crist was part of the deal: