tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27290920.post6581869550882350783..comments2024-01-06T03:54:46.267-05:00Comments on the sceptical futuryst: Oil and waterStuart Candyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847397597090443677noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27290920.post-7609223190664895222010-12-21T19:35:23.468-05:002010-12-21T19:35:23.468-05:00Sarah, great to hear from you, and very encouragin...Sarah, great to hear from you, and very encouraging to hear that Watermark is still going! By all means let's chat about the collaborative postcard idea: that project clearly deserves to happen. My email: stuart [at] futuryst [dot] com.Stuart Candyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11847397597090443677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27290920.post-63293476019292626152010-12-21T19:13:46.089-05:002010-12-21T19:13:46.089-05:00Stuart, I just stumbled upon your thoughtful and p...Stuart, I just stumbled upon your thoughtful and perceptive review. Thanks! Interestingly enough, Watermark has re-convened recently for a show in Seattle around the American Meterological Association conference in January 2011. We're right in the middle of creating a set of travel posters / postcards that build off the original ones you show - so it's inspiring to see all the postcards that others have made on what the future might look like in different places. There has been talk amongst ourselves about trying to create some larger collaborative climate change postcard project that collects all of them in one place. We'd love to get in touch and see what other examples you might have found. Thanks again for the good words!<br />Sarah KavageAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27290920.post-6533384640436261002008-02-28T02:30:00.000-05:002008-02-28T02:30:00.000-05:00I agree that art and politics are intertwined, but...I agree that art and politics are intertwined, but I think the reason that the combination makes some people queasy is that they're concerned about conflating the value of the political message with the aesthetic value of a given work of art. There really is a problem, especially perhaps in this country, with people who deny that work they find politically offensive can have aesthetic merit. You get into this problem on both sides of the political spectrum -- on the conservative side, you have Giuliani trying to shut down the Sensation exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and Focus on the Family harassing the NEA about supporting David Wojnarowicz, but then on the liberal side there are lots of people who automatically denigrate artwork for being racist, sexist, Orientalist, etc., regardless of its other characteristics. Hunter Thompson, for example, is often the subject of hysterical condemnation by feminists who are upset by his admittedly rather unreconstructed views on rape, but these same women are rarely willing to concede that his writing has tremendous aesthetic merit, regardless of how sexist it is. Anyway, I think that's why people get into insisting that art shouldn't be political -- because they're tired of seeing bad art promoted for political reasons and good art fall into disfavor as social mores change.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27290920.post-51263591914794248952008-02-28T01:12:00.000-05:002008-02-28T01:12:00.000-05:00By the way...Kistler's twist on the archaeological...By the way...<BR/><BR/>Kistler's twist on the archaeological genre (in her "Tour from the Future") finds a sort of Hawaiian counterpart in some of the work of local artist Carl Pao.<BR/><BR/>Carl has a strand of artwork consisting, in his words, of <EM>"artifacts" that were "discovered" at various locations around the island. What I’m trying to do is create a museum, The Post-Historic Museum of the Possible Aboriginal Hawaiian -- PHMPAH (pronounced poom-pah). One of the issues it addresses is the ridiculous nature of federal recognition -- the idea that we need to be recognized by some entity in order to be ourselves, when in actuality, we are still a kingdom.</EM> (<A HREF="http://hccp.ksbe.edu/talkingstory/carlpao2.php" REL="nofollow">Carl Pao interview</A> by Melehina Groves, Ka'iwakiloumoku/Hawaiian Cultural Center, 10 January 02007.)<BR/><BR/>During an artists' talk last year at the <A HREF="http://www.artsatmarks.com/" REL="nofollow">Arts at Marks Garage</A>, Honolulu, Carl presented this work in character, as an archaeologist puzzling over the provenance and significance of the "discovered" artifacts.Stuart Candyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11847397597090443677noreply@blogger.com