After Donald Trump’s election, private prison stocks soared. While this small but ominous tidbit might be overshadowed by the glut of other horrifying news pouring in since Tuesday, it makes On The Inside, a group show of incarcerated LGBTQ artists at Abrons Arts Center, that much more crucial.
Curated by Tatiana von Fürstenberg (yes, the daughter of designer Diane von Fürstenberg), the exhibition is an essential reminder that art can be harnessed for activism. Many shows claim to make the invisible visible, but rarely does the work come from the silenced populations themselves. Von Fürstenberg organized the show in collaboration with LGBTQ prisoner grassroots organization Black and Pink. They placed an open call for art in their monthly newsletter, which reaches 10,000 prisoners. The response was overwhelming, receiving around 4000 submissions from prisons in all fifty states.
Petr Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to the Red Square in protest of Putin. Now there’s going to be a Burger King meal about it.
Weirdest art news we’ve read in awhile: fast food giant Burger King is making a series of burgers inspired by Russian performance artist Petr Pavlensky for its Saint Petersburg location. Pavlensky is famous for nailing his balls to Moscow’s Red Square, setting fire to a government office building, and sewing his mouth shut to protest the arrest of Pussy Riot. He’s not exactly the type of political figure usually associated with international corporate junk food. [BBC News]
“Of the 40 galleries and nonprofits that took part in the first edition of the NADA fair, only 13 remain in business—Derek Eller Gallery, Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, James Fuentes, Galerie Zink, Inman Gallery, Moniquemeloche, Momenta Art, Taro Nasu Gallery, Participant Inc, Peres Projects, Kavi Gupta, Hiromi Yoshii, and ZieherSmith.” ARTnews tracks down what became of the first class of NADA, and the results are depressing. [ARTnews]
The news above makes us ask: what is the average lifespan of a gallery? Does it map to what gallerist and art fair founder Edward Winkleman once described as the average length of time an emerging artist’s work remains profitable for a gallery—seven years? [Art F City]
In other NADA news, the fair’s Miami Beach iteration is moving back to the Deauville this year. Thank God. Fontainebleau sucked the life out of NADA. [ARTnews]
Star Trek Beyond’s weird/desperate cross-promotion with Rihanna was pretty terrible. But for the film’s Chinese release, they replaced her with pop star Zhang Jie and an even more terrible track. His song sounds a bit like it was written by an algorithm in 15 minutes, which at least makes it a little more interesting that the U.S. brand of schlock. [Fansided]
People in one South Carolina apartment complex have convinced the local police that clowns are in the woods offering money to children and flashing laser pointers. The Atlantic seems to be the only publication wondering if some kids just made this bizarre story up. [The Atlantic]
Lisa Crossman discusses the state and importance of art criticism in Boston. It sounds like institutions get most of the mainstream press coverage, and the criticism that emerges from those institutions tends to focus on its own bubble. It’s a great read about the need for criticism in general. [Big Red & Shiny]
Starchitect Renzo Piano will lead the cleanup effort in Italy after their major earthquake. Amongst other buildings Piano designed the new Whitney building in New York’s meatpacking district. [The Guardian]
Can cities be too tall? According to most Londoners they answer is yes. Residents associate tall buildings with rich people and are increasingly voicing their opinion that cities should not be so dense. The anti-density movement is heating up. [Curbed]
An interview with artist, activist and Arts Advocacy Project Program Associate Joy Garnett from the Arts Advocacy Project at the National Coalition Against Censorship. She discusses Artist Rights, a new online resource that informs artists on their rights and what is and isn’t protected under the first amendment. [Creative Capital]
Sometimes I think there’s an unexpected value in relating to pop culture on a wholly personal level. For example, there are pretty much just two things from the past 50 years of media that shaped my ethics and worldview: the anti-capitalist, but otherwise almost entirely separate, phenomena of Star Trek and punk.
The above GIF shows the brief few seconds when those worlds improbably collided in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The story was conceived of and directed by Leonard Nimoy (RIP) and involves the protagonists travelling back in time to then-present-day San Francisco to rescue whales, who had been hunted to extinction. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Spock (played by Nimoy) gives a Vulcan nerve pinch to a punk who is loudly playing music from a boom box on the bus. It’s exactly the kind of camp 80s-era Star Trek pulled off so well.
The song was actually written by the film’s associate producer Kirk Thatcher, who recorded the song with the band Edge of Etiquette, which was formed specifically to make this music for the movie. Thatcher also played the punk guy. In the context of a movie about time travel to reverse an ecological disaster, the lyrics are actually pretty smart:
Just where is our future, the things we’ve done and said! Let’s just push the button, we’d be better off dead! ‘Cause I hate you! And I berate you! And I can’t wait to get to you!
The sins of all our fathers, being dumped on us – the sons. The only choice we’re given is how many megatons? And I eschew you! And I say, screw you! And I hope you’re blue, too.
So when I watch a film like Star Trek: Beyond (which was directed by the guy who made The Fast and the Furious movies about cars exploding, and began production before a script was actually written) I find myself asking “Just where is our future?” For those who haven’t seen the film, don’t bother. The “plot” involves a bunch of sexy rebooted characters blasting The Beastie Boys to somehow blow up CGI aliens in order to save Space Dubai. It’s probably the dumbest possible encore “punk” could make in the Star Trek universe. Don’t even get me started on that horrible Rihanna marketing shtick…
JJ Abrams, Justin Lin, and all others responsible for the desecration of Star Trek, I have one message for you:
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