Bits: 12.09.10

Sze Tsung Leong, Zhongshan Lu I, Xinjiekou, Xuanwu District, Nanjing, 2004

• Counterpunch's Jimmy Johnson, writing that "we should consider Wikileaks to be a literacy organization": "Something secret has to develop more forms of secrecy in order to keep itself secret, thus the classified universe, in the words of geographer Trevor Paglen, 'tends to sculpt the world around it in its own image.' How, after all, can a secret be transparently discussed?"

• Must-read: Hip-hop historian Jeff (Can't Stop Won't Stop) Chang co-writes an American Prospect piece with the Center for American Progress' Brian Komar about how culture needs to lead in the push for progressive change. (Via Davey D.)

• Related: Exiled Iranian artist Shirin Neshat tells attendees at the TEDWomen conference that in the West, culture runs the risk of becoming mere entertainment. An Xiao, who was there, tells Hyperallergic that Neshat "explained that art and culture are a form of resistance, and that she envied Western artists for not having to think about resistance in their work."

• Essay: Diane Mullin, associate curator at the University of Minnesota's Weisman Art Museum and former Minneapolis College of Art and Design/Jerome Fellowship director, on how "the persistent consternation such fellowship shows provoke may be the fault, not of the artists, jurors, or program directors, but of the mode of and perhaps even the inclusion of the exhibition itself."

• Tyler Green breaks news that the National Portrait Gallery commissioner James T. Bartlett has resigned in protest of the Smithsonian’s removal of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly from the Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture exhibition. As a leaked Smithsonian memo suggests, it's not the only sign of internal tension over the institution's handling of the work, which rightwing groups have claimed is "anti-Christian."

• Jabari Jordan Walker interviews Eyeteeth pal Matt Olson of Minneapolis design firm ROLU for 01 Magazine on all that he and partner Mike Brady do: landscape design, blogging, furniture design, art commissioning...

• On the occasion of the arrival of my Danzig-style Werner Herzog t-shirt, Taylor sends a link to an exhaustive gallery of Hüsker Dü gig posters (here's 1984). Which filmmaker fits the font? (He suggests Uwe Boll.)

• Speaking of metal and visual culture: The Minneapolis Egotist points out the Map of Metal, which lets you navigate through kinds of metal I've never heard of (mathcore?) Earlier: Diagram of heavy metal band names, and an interview with Christophe Szpajdel, the "Paul Rand of metal."