Why So White: Tony Awards

An infographic of the appalling lack of diversity in the Tony Awards over the past 31 years.

Would it look much different for the visual art world? (Hint: just take a look at ‘The Asian’s’ ongoing Proximities show, which explores the question “What is Asia?” through the eyes of a white male curator and an almost entirely white roster of artists.)

White domination of the theater world

From: Where’s the Diversity? The Tony Awards Looks in the Mirror

Keep in mind that racial diversity is not the same as racial justice.  Diversity only means variety, not equity, and while beneficial, integration is not sufficient to produce fairness.  Diversity can be a tool for advancing equity, but equity (fairness, justice, agency) is the goal.

Racial equity can only be achieved through a conscious critical examination of “choice points” to prevent replication of implicit bias and the status quo, to no longer exclude key stakeholders, overlook barriers to access, and fail to consider key inequities around race, gender, income and elsewhere.

Empire & Ellison at ‘The Asian’

Passed by the Asian Art Museum the other day, where the Terracotta Warriors show is making way for this summer’s banner exhibition of imperialist japanophile Larry Ellison’s art collection, opening later this month.

Impressed with their gutsy guerrilla marketing! And the, ahem, “citizen spell-check.”

It’s in the Culture: “Why I’d Hate to Be Asian” video

Via Colorlines

Just a reminder for those of you who believe we live in a post-racial color-blind society.

“Why I’d Hate to Be Asian” video, by Indiana student Samuel Hendrickson (click to view at Colorlines)

The Indiana student sparked widespread outrage this week when he posted a video listing all the reasons he wouldn’t want to be Asian.

“Most Asians look alike,” Hendrickson says in the video. “I don’t want to look like everyone else.” The video also includes dumb remarks like “If I was an Asian man, chances are I’d probably be with an Asian woman and guess what? I don’t find Asian women attractive. Kill me.”

Hendrickson’s initial apology, after the video went viral:

“Well, I’m hated by the entire Asian race apparently over a joke #bummer.”

Full story and video at Colorlines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Museum pulls art critical of anti-immigrant policy

Click to view the art at PoliticAlabamaDesign.com

Via HuffPost:

Edward Noriega, a professor of Art and Design at Troy University in Alabama, had his artwork pulled from an exhibit earlier this month from Talladega’s Heritage Hall Museum because the directors objected to the content.

One piece featured stacked Ajax cans relabeled as an “ethnic cleanser” called “Ala, with HB 56,” a reference to the immigration crackdown passed by the Alabama legislature in 2011. Another piece shows an image of the Virgin Mary holding a dustpan and a broom in an empty office, over the title “Señora de la Limpieza,” or “Our Cleaning Lady.” An ashtray reads “Feed Me Get Out.”

But the kicker appears to have been a red square overlaid with a white swastika and the the abbreviation HB 56. The tips of the swastikas read “Presbyterian indifference, Baptist indifference, Catholic indifference, Methodist indifference.” [Full story here]

 

Racism Still Exists: Billboard Series in Brooklyn

Via Colorlines (Jamilah King):

Billboards are everywhere in New York City. They’re on subway trains and in stations, and on top of and inside taxis. But few, if any, have been anything like a series of anonymous billboards that have popped up on bus shelters in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. They’re not selling anything but a declaration: that racism still exists… (Read more)

RISE (Racism Still Exists) project statement:

Although public commentary describes the United States as “post-racial”, racism continues to exert a very real and pervasive influence on institutional policies and processes, interpersonal interactions, neighborhood infrastructure, socioeconomic opportunities, media imagery, and more. RISE is a project designed to illuminate some of the ways in which racism operates in this country.

Note that while the authorship of this impactful billboard/poster series remains anonymous, the billboards themselves are officially sanctioned through the private advertising company contracted by the New York Metropolitan Agency (i.e. these are paid for; this is is not guerrilla billboard liberation).

Turkey seeks repatriation of art, Museums resist

NY Times: “Seeking Return of Art, Turkey Jolts Museums,” by Dan Bilefsky, Sept. 30, 2012

An aggressive campaign by Turkey to reclaim antiquities it says were looted has led in recent months to the return of an ancient sphinx and many golden treasures from the region’s rich past. But it has also drawn condemnation from some of the world’s largest museums, which call the campaign cultural blackmail…

Museum directors say the repatriation drive seeks to alter accepted practices, like a widely embraced Unesco convention that lets museums acquire objects that were outside their countries of origin before 1970. Although Turkey ratified the convention in 1981, it is now citing a 1906 Ottoman-era law — one that banned the export of artifacts — to claim any object removed after that date as its own.

Thievery and looting are wrong, Turkey says, no matter when they occurred. “Artifacts, just like people, animals or plants, have souls and historical memories,” said Turkey’s culture minister, Ertugrul Gunay. “When they are repatriated to their countries, the balance of nature will be restored.”

>>Read more

Guantanamo Bay Museum of Art and History

We must have slept on this:  Guantanamo prison has been closed and turned into a museum!

Click on image to arrange your visit now

Featuring:

• Exhibitions
• Center for Critical Studies
• Artist Residency
• Planning Your Visit
• Membership

Here’s a statement from Museum organizers, via Lawfare:

Artists’ Website Project Closes Gitmo and Replaces It With Art Museum

 On August 29^th, 2012, the website of the Guantanamo Bay Museum of Art and History was publicly launched. Designed by a group of artists from around the globe, the project creates a ‘speculative present’ in which the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facilities have been closed and replaced by an art museum whose purpose is to reflect on the history of the site.

The museum was listed as an official place on google maps ( http://goo.gl/tg72v ) and features original artworks from 6 different contemporary artists, as well as essays on Guantanamo Bay from leading contemporary scholars including Judith Butler and Derek Gregory.

Ian Alan Paul, an artist from San Francisco who coordinated and curated the project, states:

“The purpose of the project is both to explore the human rights abuses that occurred and continue to occur in Guantanamo Bay, but also to provide a space for radical imagination and potential openings and to insist that it is both possible and necessary to close the prison facility.”

The project was the result of large collaboration, with over 25 artists, writers and other volunteers contributing to the project in some way from Europe, North America and South America. Visitors to the museum were invited to plan their trip to Guantanamo Bay, become a member of the museum, apply to be an artist in residence, as well as read about the history of the museum itself.

There were over 3000 visits to the museum on the first day from 42 different countries.

 

Update on Labor Struggle at Fine Arts Museums of SF

Via Change.org

Hello Champions for Workers,

COFAM nonprofit workers are deeply moved by all of the community support they have been receiving. Unfortunately, management hasn’t budged much on proposals that would be harmful to the workers and their families. They have made it clear that they aim to destroy the job securities that workers have fought for decades to get.

This would jeopardize the long-term stability of the museums which would have a negative impact on the quality of your experience when visiting the de Young and the Legion of Honor.

In response, the museum’s workers have authorized a strike if absolutely necessary. They will only use this tool once all other options are exhausted.

They still have much fighting to do before winning a fair contract. A win for these workers will set a precedent that will have far-reaching effects in our city. You can leverage your community influence to support these workers in one of the following ways:

1. The cities unions and allies will be mobilizing en masse Friday, September 7th at 6PM to takeover the de Young Museum. Your participation will show that our city will not stand idly by while its workers’ rights are under attack. RSVP here: http://on.fb.me/PK3BOq

2. We ask that you call Charlie Castillo, director of human resources, at (415) 750-3673 to let him know that you support nonprofit museum workers and that he must settle a fair contract now.

3. Spread the word about what’s going on by signing and sharing our online petition. http://chn.ge/LWndth

Onward,

COFAM Nonprofit Worker Supporters

Got Racism? Students Dress Up As Mexican Stereotypes At OC High School

From CBS-LA (video), via Think Mexican

During Senior Spirit Day at Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills, boys dressed up as gardeners and gang members, and one girl dressed as a pregnant woman, pushing a baby stroller.

Other students dressed in “Border Patrol” T-shirts and were photographed “arresting” their fellow students dressed as gang members.

An alum filed a complaint.  Instead of turning this into a teachable moment, the administration simply canceled the event entirely.  More

Anaheim Hills, hmm…  that’s about 15 miles from

Anaheim Police brutality protest at Disneyland after two fatal police shootings, resulting in the deaths of Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo. Photo: Creative Commons/Amber Stephens (via Colorlines, 8/3/12)

Sotheby’s knowingly tried to sell stolen Asian art?

Via NY Times: Prosecutors File Arguments in Effort to Return Cambodian Statue, 8/21/12

Federal prosecutors seeking to repatriate a 10th century statue to Cambodia filed court papers Monday accusing Sotheby’s of knowing the sculpture “was an important piece of cultural property that had been stolen” from a remote temple complex when the auction house put the massive sandstone artifact up for sale in March 2011.

A 2011 Sotheby’s catalog shows a thousand-year-old statue believed to be from the Koh Ker temple in Cambodia. (New York Times)

Despite testimony from multiple experts declaring it stolen property, Sotheby’s continues to argue for the right to sell the Cambodian temple statue for as much as $3 million on behalf of its Belgian “owner,” shamelessly arguing that “that no one has provided proof the item was stolen.”

As if the temple monks had a yard sale, but failed to keep receipts?

No, the lack of provenance of this statue is in keeping with what researchers found of the Asian antiquities collected by Norton Simon (Pasadena), Walter C. Mead (Denver), Sherman Lee (Cleveland), Avery Brundage (Asian Art Museum), John D. Rockefeller III (Asia Society NY), and others.

But since those collections were formed before international heritage laws went into effect, they are apparently immune from this kind of scrutiny and repatriation effort.