Shooting in Ramallah

This is part of the Tania Bruguera Crowdfunding Initiative. This is one use of guns I approve of wholeheartedly.

Take the workshop the Palestinian Jarrar has designed, for instance: It will use both the artist’s background as an ex-bodyguard for the late chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, and the current penchant of Cuban police to violently repress the free speech of their fellow citizens. “I want to teach them how to use their weapons to make Jackson Pollock-style abstract paintings,” Jarrar says when reached by phone in Ramallah. “Many armies and police forces are taught that they are superior to their fellow citizens. The idea with this workshop will be for the police to recognize themselves in other people and to control their aggression in order to make it productive.”

Beauty Everywhere

Claudia Bicen shows the deep beauty of age, of impermanence. I’ve always had a deep and abiding love for Vanitas work, but I think there’s a tendency to show humans in vanitas only as skulls, or what detritus they may have left behind. Perhaps it’s in self defense that we skim over aging, in every day life as well as art. As an aging person, I’m all for seeing the beautiful in age, rather than looking away or being engaged in a desperate fight to fob it off. Bicen’s work is exquisite, go have a look.

Tat tvam asi - Pastel on wood block 12" x 12" - © Claudia Biçen 2013 Gauntlet Gallery, Visions & Reflections Group Exhibition (SOLD) Editor's Award - Portrait Competition 2013 - www.myartcontest.com

Tat tvam asi – Pastel on wood block 12″ x 12″ – © Claudia Biçen 2013
Gauntlet Gallery, Visions & Reflections Group Exhibition (SOLD)
Editor’s Award – Portrait Competition 2013 – www.myartcontest.com

Art withdrawn

Denver Student's Art Work, withdrawn

Denver Student’s Art Work, withdrawn

A 10th grade Denver student withdrew her work after receiving criticism from police. There’s insistence that this was done voluntarily, and it most likely was, but it both pains and infuriates me that the artist felt the need to do so. It’s not as if police killings, especially those where the victims are non-white people are some sort of rare event here in the States. The work seems self evident to me, but according to the meeting with the mayor and chief of police:

“I wanted to know from that perspective exactly what are you saying and what can you share with me that I can share with the men and women of the police department to kind of correct what that artwork portrayed,” Chief Robert White said after Friday’s meeting.

So, the work wasn’t clear, and he expresses a desire to “kind of correct” cops killing black people. I think that alone expresses very clearly the need for this type of artwork, whether the police like it or not. If they don’t wish to be portrayed as bigoted killers, perhaps they should stop being bigoted killers. (Yes, fine, qualifier: not all cops, just way too fucking many.)

Beautiful Science

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council photo competition allows researchers and doctoral students to share their work in pictures, with winners from categories ranging from eureka to weird and wonderful. Award winning images of science in action. Thanks to Opus for the heads up.

A rotating jet of a viscoelastic liquid, which won first place in the weird and wonderful category Photograph: Professor Omar Matar/EPSRC/PA

A rotating jet of a viscoelastic liquid, which won first place in the weird and wonderful category
Photograph: Professor Omar Matar/EPSRC/PA

Quotation Challenge

There’s a quotation group on Moblog, and it’s a lot of fun. You choose a quotation, then illustrate it photographically. Some quotations can be a real challenge. I’d like to do that here, but with a bit of a twist. Leave quotations you’d like to see illustrated here, and anyone can choose one, and illustrate it any way you like, with a photo, drawing, or other art form, then send it to quesneaffinity@gmail.com.  Here’s an old one I did for the Moblog group, way back when, titled Perhaps:

perhaps

“Perhaps the most lasting pleasure in life is the pleasure of not going to church.” – William Inge