LOS ANGELES — A book by Scott Pasfield explores the diversity of America’s gay male community.
multiculturalism
In the last few days, Afro-Swedish artist Makode Linde has learned the power of the viral web. His controversial cake performance at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet has ricocheted around the world and has garnered reactions of all types from support of his edgy gesture to raise awareness about female genital mutilation to the denunciation of the artist and the Swedish culture minister pictured in the event photos as racists. Linde spoke to Hyperallergic about the controversy and he was happy to explain the context for the piece and how commenters have not wanted to delve deeper into the work and what it has to say.
“Wow your accent sounds so amazing,” is a phrase I often hear when people detect my South African accent. Whereas this is usually a compliment — and I accept it graciously — it can also have the effect of creating a distance between me and the other person if they aren’t South African. In short, it can often clarify that they belong to this place and I am an alien in their territory. But as pop star Sting’s pithy “legal alien” phrase comes to mind I quickly snap out of my self-imposed victimization. Of late, however, it has been quite obvious that the art world still propagates a fascination with the “other.”
LOS ANGELES — I’m not a fan of the word “Third World” (third world to what?) but I am a fan of pop culture, and I’m fascinated by how American pop culture has intersected with all sorts of countries, rich and poor alike. So when I stumbled across a new tumblelog called Pop Culture and the Third World, I had to click on it.
The death of Kim Jong Il has reinforced the feeling that North Korea may just be one of the most remote places on earth, yet it is a distance not based on geography but psychology. Looking at the retro-seeming images from this faraway land makes me think its population of 24 million has been trapped in amber for decades.
The Carl Beam retrospective now at the National Museum of the American Indian Heye Center in Lower Manhattan could be a response to the museum itself. Located in the imposing Alexander Hamilton US Custom House, a monolithic reminder that New York City was originally built on European immigration, the museum presents artifacts and art by North America’s first people. Beam’s work likewise was always aimed at juxtaposing the modern culture of North America, a transformation of the country that he marked with the arrival of Columbus, with the traditional imagery of the American Indians. Neither the museum nor the influential Canadian artist’s work offers much harmony between these two clashing worlds, but in the resulting collage of Beam’s work is an engaging sort of turbulence.
This week’s Required Reading … Banksy on UK phone-tapping scandal, Hirst-a-palooza at Gagosian Galleries worldwide, affordable Warhols, what do you do with a stolen art work, Sam Maloof, Hans Hoffmann as art teacher, how the “Mona Lisa”‘s became famous and the problem with “minorities.”
A few weeks ago, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), debuted a new television series. I reviewed the debut of MoCADA TV but Hyperallergic’s editor and I continually had a back-and-forth about the usefulness of TV as a medium, and the fact that this pioneering move on part of the museum could open a lot of new discussions.
With all of these dialogues lingering, I caught up with Kalia Brooks, director of exhibitions at MoCADA, to get a better idea of the series’ aims.
When Apartheid was abolished in 1991, probably the worst thing to be symbolically in South Africa at the time was a white male, as it embodied everything associated with being the oppressor. With the abolishment of Apartheid came a number of important more subtle shifts.
There’s a lot of art news coming out of Milwaukee this week and all of it makes some of us wondering what the hell is happening in the city we normally associate with Laverne & Shirley and bratwurst. First, the director of Milwaukee Art Museum made silly comments that museums should not be political and now the union-busting Republican governor of the Wisconsin has removed a very multicultural painting by local artist David Lenz from a prominent place in the governor’s mansion.
![Release Takeshi Miyakawa Now! [UPDATED] He's Free!](http://hyperallergic.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-popular-posts/scripts/timthumb.php?src=/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/takeshi-miyakawa-hanging-plastic-bags-from-trees-146x90.jpg&h=60&w=97&zc=1)
