Having 40 years of Holzer’s work in one place means it’s possible to trace lines of activity that are subtler and more poetic than the broad strokes she’s most known for.
US politics
Posted inArt
Democracy, Art, and the Frustrations of Populism
Art exhibitions concerned with politics are very much of the moment.
Posted inOpinion
US National Intelligence Is Now on Tumblr
If you follow the news these days, you might be worried about the American government and the secrecy and ruthlessness with which it has been conducting itself. You might be concerned about the National Security Agency (NSA) reading your email, or dismayed by Bradley Manning’s 35-year sentence, or horrified by the Joint Special Operations Command’s (JSOC) dirty wars. But if you’ve been worrying, there’s good news: you needn’t anymore. Because President Obama made a Tumblr blog.
Posted inNews
Should We Be Worried? Christie’s Called Detroit Museum About Its $2bn Collection
News has emerged that representatives of Christie’s auction house called the Detroit Institute of Arts last month, asking for an inventory of artworks and “if appraisers could visit to assess the collection,” the New York Times reports.
Posted inOpinion
The Egos of US Politicians, Preserved in Paint
US politicians are notoriously stingy about arts funding, but it turns out they’ve been dropping tens of thousands of dollars on commissioned portraits for decades! Why are we not surprised?
Posted inFilm
Cell Phone Images of the War of Terror
The NSA surveillance scandal has, in a short term, made a lot of people feel depressed and/or worried about the state of governance in America. This is both good and bad for Jeremy Scahill’s new documentary, Dirty Wars, which is directed by Richard Rowley and is also the title of a simultaneously released book by Scahill. Good because it casts all of the revelations in the movie in a now easily believable light. Bad because most people don’t want to spend their Friday nights falling even deeper into depression, and that’s what the film will do. Currently playing in select theaters across the country, Dirty Wars will wring you of whatever wide-eyed, wholehearted faith you may have had left in President Obama.
Posted inOpinion
Five of the Best Presidential Campaign Ads from the Past 70 Years
With Hurricane Sandy relentlessly bearing down on the East Coast, we know many people are cooped up at home and more than a little flood obsessed. But we thought we might just remind everyone there’s another really big event right around the corner: that presidential election we were all tweeting about nonstop until yesterday. In honor of the upcoming election, and as yet another distraction on this insane day, we’ve chosen five of the best presidential campaign commercials from the Museum of the Moving Image’s Living Room Candidate archive.
Posted inNews
Symbol of Disrepair: US Capitol Dome Is Falling Apart
The conventions are here; election season is officially upon us. I figure, since everyone’s already busy having strong opinions and heated discussions about all sorts of political issues, why not throw another one into the mix, something all of us can tweet and roll our eyes and get annoyed about?
Posted inNews
Obama Team Name-Drops Salvador Dalí
As we detailed two weeks ago, Mitt Romney made it clear in a recent interview with Fortune magazine that funding the arts is not his priority. Obama and his team haven’t exactly responded with a resounding defense or promotion of the arts (Will Brand speculates on why over at the L Magazine), but last night the Obama camp did at least show that it’s got a little bit of art history under its belt.
Posted inNews
Mitt Romney Says He Would Ax Arts Funding If Elected
Politico has excerpts from an upcoming Mitt Romney interview in Fortune magazine, in which the Republican presidential candidate expounds on his plan to shrink the federal government and reduce spending. Depressingly, but not surprisingly, he targets arts funding.
Posted inArt
All-American Art
An artistic duo has started the group Tea Party Artists, and the Republic National Convention is holding an art competition. Happy Fourth of July!
Posted inArt
When Republicans Were Progressive: US Political Cartoons, Circa 1912
Marc H. Milleris the man behind an exhibition that is currently going on at the Charles P. Stevenson Library at Bard College in upstate New York, The Presidential Election of 1912 in Cartoons. Drawn from his personal collection these images provide a window into the world of US Presidential politics a hundred years ago when Theodore Roosevelt, who was a Republican and a “Progressive” ran in a hotly contested race. As we gear up for the 2012 elections, these images are a useful reminder about the down and dirty world of politics, what we can expect in the year to come and political mudslinging is nothing new.
