Thursday Links: Thank God There’s Not a Baby on That Tractor!

• Canadian politics are just as dumb as American politics. Ontario Progressive Conservatives are up in arms because Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne rode on a tractor the wrong way. Thank God she wasn’t holding a baby! [The Globe and Mail]
• The Taipei Biennial 2014 just announced its artist list; its theme concerns the relationships between humans and non-humans. Artists like Sterling Ruby were chosen because they use polymers: “In the light, a new generation of artists is exploring the intrinsic properties of materials ‘informed’ by human activity, including polymers (Roger Hiorns, Marlie Mul, Sterling Ruby, Alisa Barenboym, Neil Beloufa, Pamela Rosenkranz) or the critical states of materials (the nebulizations of Peter Buggenhout, Harold Ancart or Hiorns).” Artists have been using all sorts of materials for ages, and for all sorts of reasons outside of interspecies connectivity, but who cares about that. [e-flux]
• Red Lobster parent company Darden Restaurants sold the cheese-and-biscuits franchise to a capital equity firm. Hazlitt’s David Berry recaps the Lobster’s more glorious days. [Hazlitt via The Paris Review]
• “Everybody told me mink are untameable — they’re the most vicious creatures alive.” Despite that warning, Jesse Hirsch began his lifelong interest in training minks to hunt. [Modern Farmer]
• File under heart wrenching stories: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case For Reparations.” A must-read. [The Atlantic]
• You’ve seen this before. Saving room for cats. [Saving Room for Cats]
• You’ll see lots of white people looking at Kara Walker’s “A subtlety” at the Domino Sugar Factory. According to Jamilah King, “This is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s reassuring that so many white people have a vested — or at least passing — interest in consuming art that deals with race. At the same time I found it unsettling to view art by a black artist about racism in an audience that’s mostly white. It reinforced the idea that black people’s histories are best viewed but not physically experienced.” [Colorlines]
• In case you missed it: A performance made in honor of the late Ana Mendieta left chicken guts out front the DIA Foundation for the Arts. [Hyperallergic]

Tagged as: Ana Mendieta, CANADA, cats, dia, e-flux, politics, red lobster, Sterling Ruby, Taipei Biennial, tractors