Beyond the Palewall (3)

 

["Beyond the Palewall" is the title of this series because "Beyond the Paywall" is taken. Information for which you are not willing to pay, along with information you may not wish to know, is presented in abbreviated form without charge. What has caught my eye may sometimes feel like a poke in yours and, in that sense, be beyond the pale for you. Items will appear weekly, or perhaps monthly, or maybe semi-annually, if I can get started and the weather is bleak.]

                                        News From the Art World

Intolerance Outside the MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE
   There is some irony left in L.A. where the Museum of Tolerance is located and where fights occurred outside the Museum recently because of what was going on inside. You will find a few articles about it in early November. For example:
"Inside the Museum of Tolerance's Screening of Hamas Attack Footage," Josh Rottenberg, L.A. Times, Nov. 8, 2023.
"Demonstrators Brawl Outside LA's Museum of Tolerance After Screening of Hamas Attack Video," Associated Press, Nov.9, 2023.
The website of the Museum of Tolerance is here.
Now, on to a museum that is really tolerant.

Serrano's Piss Christ

The Upcoming Brawl in Barcelona - THE MUSEUM OF PROHIBITED ART
   The Museum of Prohibited Art is a brand new one in Barcelona and, while I welcome it, it is highly likely that others will not. During a time when everyone is highly sensitive and just about anything displayed is offensive to someone, you have to admire the chutzpah of Tatxo Benet, a wealthy Catalan, who is opening a museum dedicated to nothing but showing offensive artworks which have already been censored and previously prohibited. Skirmishes outside this museum are predicted. Apart from controversial sexual and political items there are also religious ones, although it is also predicted that one religion will be treated lightly and there probably aren't any of those cartoons on display. Some titillating headlines:
"Is This the Most Offensive Museum in the World," James Badcock, The Telegraph, Oct.24, 2023. The question:
"Who would dare to open a museum of censored art in these puritanical times, when barely a day passes without news of a work being withdrawn after offending sensibilities or due to the creator's "problematic" persuasions?"
The answer:
"Tatxo Benet, a Catalan art collector, has no such qualms as he prepares to open the doors of his Museu de l'Art Prohibit in Barcelona tomorrow."

"A New Museum of Prohibited Art Shows How Censorship Evolved: When One Person's Art is Another Person's Insult," The Economist, Nov.3, 2023.

"Christ crucified on a fighter jet. Ronald McDonald on the cross. The Madonna in traditional guise, reaching under her robe between her legs. At the new Museum of Prohibited Art in Barcelona, it is not hard to detect a common theme."

Many objects in the museum focus on religion, but not all. Mockery of macho politicians has a way of bringing out the censors, too. Here is Andy Warhol’s Mao Zedong, there a painting of Emiliano Zapata naked on horseback, wearing a pink sombrero and high heels. (The revolutionary Mexican leader’s descendants threatened, preposterously, to sue the artist, Fabián Cháirez, for defamation.) The museum’s main criterion is that works were banned or censored in some way. Tatxo Benet, a journalist-turned-businessman, founded the museum and collected the art."

The website of the Museu de l'Art Prohibit is here, if you dare to look.

Post Script: 

   Although I suppose one can always find in art a bit of politics, today the latter subject is harder to avoid. I mentioned recently that I visited the Vancouver Art Gallery and among the exhibits is "Conceptions of White" which you can view until Feb. 2, 2024. Curious about the reaction to it, I learned that on social media there were some (probably white) who were not happy with it. Among the regular media I have not found much, but will include the references here to help you decide if you want to go to Vancouver. 

   The VAG description of "Conceptions of White" is found here. 

It includes a YouTube presentation by the curators, found here. (13:50)

An article by Lindsay Shepherd is here. "SHEPHERD: An Inside Look at the Vancouver Gallery's Anti-White Exhibit, True North, Nov. 8, 2023. 

(You may remember her for getting in trouble for showing a bit from a TVO program including Jordan Peterson at WLU.)   

There is another in Georgia Strait: "VAG'S Conceptions of White Takes an Uncompromising Swing at a World That Seriously Needs to Change," Mike Usinger, Sept. 7, 2023.

B.C. Tidbits or Titbits: Take Your Pick

 

 This blog was abandoned over three weeks ago because I was in British Columbia for part of that time and have been experiencing trip-lag during the rest of it. Now the weather has turned and I am inside, without excuses, although I may have to come up with some if I can't increase my blogging output. 

  B.C. is a marvelous and scenic place and many interesting things happened there while I was in it, but not to me. Unless I include items relating to my children and grandchildren about whom you are not interested. Therefore, I will simply present past material about British Columbia, which is very interesting, but which you will likely not have read. In the academic world, where I was a minor citizen, presenting links to past work is known as "self-citation", and I am guilty of it here, but only for the legitimate reasons hinted at in this definition: "Self-citation occurs in an article when an author references another of their own publications. This can be a legitimate way to reference earlier findings; but self-citations can sometimes be unduly made in an attempt to inflate an individual's citation count."

  The good news for an increasingly small number of us is that British Columbia is still called "British Columbia." I had suggested that it was likely (and likely still is) to be given a new shiny name or a duller, pre-colonial one. See: "British Columbia or Sasquatchia? There is more good news (for a few) in that, although the elementary school which the grandchildren attend was retrofitted to withstand the coming earthquake, the name was not changed and remains as, "David Livingstone Elementary School." The Vancouver School Board "Archives & Heritage Blog," indicates that it was named for that David Livingstone, but apparently no one has read it or thought much about the name of the school. If they do, there will be a call for a change since it is now known that Livingstone should never have been on the African continent and Stanley should never have bothered looking for him. As an aside, it should be noted that the folks in London are perhaps more progressive than those in Vancouver. The father of the children who go to David Livingston, attended "Ryerson Public School" in London, which has now the very imaginative moniker, "Old North Public School."

  My post about B.C. last year was titled, "The Left Coast", not for political reasons, but because residents there once drove on the left-hand side of the road as a result of the retrograde attitudes of the British colonialists. Another, "Notes From the Coast", describes the "atmospheric rivers', which were flowing again this year.

  The crows which darken the often dark sky over Vancouver were still able to fly against the flow of the atmospheric rivers. See, a "Murder of Crows."

   Although we did not go to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens and the Yosef Wosk Library located there, you can learn more about the philanthropist, Mr.,Dr.,Dr.,Rabbi Wosk by reading "Unexpected Libraries" or the section about him in, "Olde Posts Addenda."

  We also did not make it up to UBC, but I am sure it is still the "University of Beautiful Cars," since we saw many on the streets close by. I did not notice any 

Cullinans, but I did see a few Rivians. Other evidence of opulence abounds even though one sees many people apparently without homes. Back in the early years of the last century one could get a piece of property in B.C. by subscribing to a magazine, see: "Property in British Columbia."

  We did see the sculptures of Parviz Tanavoli at the Vancouver Art Gallery, but, being white, were made to feel somewhat guilty by another exhibition, "Conceptions of White" which was designed to help "viewers grapple with contemporary configurations of White identity." Those who created the rather crude collage probably aren't aware of "A Black Sculpture" found in a back yard elsewhere in the city. It was based on an event that happened many years ago on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where I grew up and which I would have more reason to feel guilty about if I thought guilt was heritable and that I was accountable for the historical acts of others.

   This has been a useful exercise for me, if not an enjoyable reading experience for you. I often don't properly "tag" posts in MM and had difficulty finding some of these that relate to B.C. There may be more. For example, you will learn about the "British Columbia Food History Network" in my post about "Food History." and about the "Angling Books" found in the "Harry Hawthorn Foundation Collection" at UBC.

The Bonus:

   If you want more old news from British Columbia, be sure to visit "BC Historical Newspapers" where you will find hundreds of digitized newspapers dating from the mid-1850s. Unfortunately there will be fewer of them in the future. Both the Alaska Highway News and the Dawson Creek Mirror recently stopped publishing. See:"As B.C. Communities Lose TheIr Last Newspapers, Hope Emerges For Locally Owned Publications," Kate Partridge, CBC News, Oct. 18, 2023.