Toe to Toe with the Border Patrol - Still from Video - Lee Basham

Filming down by the river is risky. Don’t do it. Nevertheless, documentary is the best resource we have when it comes to telling the truth about America’s deluded domestic war zone. I’ve been pursuing this endeavor for nine years, so I’ve learned nine ‘rules. Think Zombieland – descriptions of what to expect. Legal disclaimer: These ‘rules’  are merely my own, have no universal application whatsoever, and are based on my personal experience alone; I have no legal standing and offer no guarantees. In short: Don’t film on the Rio. Think Deliverance. But if you feel the need, it’ll go a little like this:

Rules for borderland documentarians:

1. You’re a drug dealer, coyote, or arms smuggler, until proven otherwise. The Border Patrol (BP) knows  that a $4,000 video camera is a tricky disguise. Very clever, that.

 

The first time I got detained, I told them I was making a documentary. They replied “That’s a slick trick,”  and that they didn’t appreciate being lied to. If I didn’t tell them about the drugs, they were going to tow my car to sector command and cut it up with chain saws. “Your cocaine? We’ll find it.” Moral of the story: stick to your story. Gently explain your project. Be good humored and patient, smile. Ask if you can film them. It’s part of the drill.

Entry, July 20th, 2006: Today I’m lucky; the Border Patrol agent who detains me is from McAllen, the town I live in. I tell him about the new Convention Center and he finally believes my ID isn’t fake. I ask if he doesn’t feel silly trying to catch the little kids sneaking over from Mexico to go to school. He says, “Yeah, it’s idiotic, but I love driving that road.”

2. Your kayak, canoe, or other flotation device will drive the BP batty. Think Apocalypse Now.’ You will be swooped down upon by armed helicopters,
closely filming you, while military-style ground forces are on their way. But having a boat is definitely worth it.

 

In Nuevo Laredo local entrepreneurs have discovered that cheap, plastic, kiddy-pools are perfect to ferry contraband across the Rio – the disposable cigarette lighter of smuggling. Abandoned pools line the banks west of town. But the canoe, now, that is probably the worst choice for smuggling: It’s big, turtle slow, expensive, takes two people to easily operate, and you can see everything that’s in there.  Get a canoe.

Kiddypool - Still from Video - Lee Basham

Entry, March 7th, 2011: About the dumbest thing we can do is put a $4,000 video camera in a 10 cent trash bag, toss it into a canoe, and head out on the Rio. So we do it. We leave, eager for the water, wary of the heat. The dashboard radio chatters about Muslim hordes, hordes of Mexicans. It’s AM 710, the best ‘hate radio’ in south Texas. It sets the mood: ‘unreal,’ for Susan. At the river the air is thick, sweet with springtime, the new greenery is luminescent, and the water, crystal clear. We put in and head upstream for the bend where trucks gather on the south side, waiting. As we paddle on, ‘picnickers’ pepper the south shore, lounging on blankets, waiting for darkness. We film, wave, they wave back, stand up, curiously studying us. At sundown, they will walk into the river and cross,  ‘just like taking a bus.’ At the river’s bend there’s the usual colony of vehicles. As we glide by we see a boat tied to shore, where a bunch of young guys surround beer coolers. Two older, serious looking middle-aged men with binoculars stand in the truck beds, glassing the north shore. “Birders, right?” she asks, wide-eyed. “Mebbeso,” I drawl, knowing these are businessmen waiting to move their loads. The cooler-guys race down to the water and dive in, dog-paddling like mad towards our canoe,  laughing and shouting something about “my woman.” Cuanto cuesta? Is that what they’re saying? We pretend not to paddle faster. Around the bend we find another colony. They’re birds, thousands. Swallows. They live in mud-hut cities, and here they cover a south-side dirt cliff and dart freely to the U.S. for grasshoppers to feed their babies.
At sunset everything gets busy. The witching hour. It’s the best time to be on the river. Up on the 30-foot bank of the north shore we see a tight group of silhouettes against the brown-orange sky line. Men and women with suitcases and trunks – Money mules. A dark speedboat appears out of the dim, racing at us. It turns into the bank where the people stand. They leap off the edge, tumble down the steep dirt cliff and struggle onto the boat. It’s amazing. They’re falling, running, and no one says a word. The boat roars, races past, and its wake nearly swamps us. To the south we hear splashing sounds. Like penguins diving into the sea for a meal, here come the replacements.

Now back to the rules:

3. The Border Patrol will find you, quickly.  They may approach for  your ID.  You will cheerfully offer it, if asked.  You will not dig into your pocket without being asked to.  Hands are Bad Things to Law Enforcement.  Hands draw weapons.  Keep your hands in sight. BP may accept or reject your ID.  Be happy with either.

They may cuff you. A little S&M. Enjoy. Don’t worry, ‘What goes on must come off.  You’ll probably be released soon. Again, be patient. Good humored. It’s part of the drill.

4. They will point M-4 assault rifles and 12 gauge combat shotguns at you. You will not act frightened or shocked, but continue in your breezy, chatty way (see rule # 8). You will ask them, “How can I Help?” And you will mean it.

The border isn’t being militarized, it is militarized. You are playing war correspondent. Accept this cheerfully. One plan: Read some of those macho-looking gun magazines they have at the grocery store. Yes, it’s bizarre, even repulsive, but learn about AR-15s, ‘Tactical’ shotguns and semi-automatic pistols. Know what each looks like. The Border Patrol is proud of their ‘Iron’. With a little knowledge, you can correctly compliment their weapons. Ironically, this sets a better tone. The BP are gun nuts. Gun nuts love gun nuts. Play the part.  Speaking of gun nuts: The smugglers are also a friendly lot. As they buzz by in their speedboats or roar by in their trucks, don’t look shocked. Wave, smile, and go on. And definitely don’t let them see you filming them. Leave them alone. They have a job to do.

5. Agents will chase you with vehicles  and  even helicopters. If you see a helicopter, speed up.  Being chased by a helicopter is fun. If it lands in front of your car, you WILL apply brakes fully. You’ll stop for  those flashy lights on their trucks, too.

Photo - Lee Basham

Entry, October 17th, 2010: They chase Jon and me with the helicopter again. We show up in a new vehicle – a jeep – and they freak out. If you really want to have fun, show up in a different vehicle. The blue and white chopper comes over the field at tree-top level and swoops right at our windshield. We spin around and decide to tear down a farm road. Jon is screaming with joy. I’m trying to keep the camera steady. Boom! Another huge bump. The jeep starts sliding sideways. We brake and shudder to a halt.  Jon reaches down and produces a beer can. He cracks it, “Going down in style!” I tell him toss it. He takes a swig and flings it. We gun it, the chopper’s chasing, 50 feet behind us, 20 feet above. Suddenly, the roar is everywhere. It flies right over the top of the jeep! It’s turning. It’s flying backwards! Right in front of the jeep! The speedo says 25 MPH. The pilot is gesturing wildly. He’s pulling farther in front of us, he’s landing on the road! Wow. Dust explodes everywhere. We hit the brakes, bail out cheering, thumbs up to the pilot! Nice! A BP truck is closing fast from behind. The pilot smiles at us, nods, waves and heads back into the sky. We compliment the agents on their Air Force. They calm down and give us the ‘Please be careful’ speech. Nice guys. We’re lucky,  we’ve indulged ourselves, but the video is shaky as hell. We try again at night on black top and it looks better – not as dramatic. The copter won’t come down as close, but the swinging spotlight is beautiful.

6. Agents will watch you from afar, sneak up on you and hide in the bushes, follow you, puzzle over  you. You will not try to avoid or interfere with this.

Yes, that sound over there in the bushes might be friends from the south – check for marijuana scent, Mexico has much more reasonable drug laws than we do. But it’s as likely to be The Man in Green, Mr. BP. Play peak-a-boo if you like, but keep it friendly, never too sneaky or aggressive. Your body armor is your smile. Always wear it.

7. The BP is where the action is. You will watch what they watch. You are Border Patrol Paparazzi.

 

Agents usually break-off their interrogation of you because something’s up, especially at sunset. See where they go, listen for the radio chatter; feel free to follow.

Entry, March 19th, 2011: We’re on the high Roma bluffs. Susan Harbage-Page is cheerful, chatty, amazed at the night view. She wants to drink a beer; I fetch some. I’ve been keeping my eye on the south shore, on the unmoving tiny red dot of a cigarette. He just stands there, cigarette after cigarette. I dub him ‘the smoker.’ The Rifleman up in the BP observation tower to our left is snoring. The long bridge over the river is lit by giant, gorgeous pink lights, hundreds of feet high. They cast amazing pink ellipses on the broad water below. Suddenly, the radio in the tower starts chattering excitedly – that gets my attention. The rifleman snores on. I look down at the river. “Aha!” I whisper to Susan, “Yes! From the south side! Boats! here they come!.”  Two inflatable rafts, stuffed with people and boxes, paddling across the pink pods of light. The camera swings on the tripod. I have them! Susan is hopping up and down. She starts blazing away with her new DSLR. The sight is gorgeous. The first raft reaches the United States. Suddenly there are male shouts from below our cliff. From the north shore, deep blue LED beams slice angrily through the brush, out onto the dark of the water. Women start screaming, we hear big branches breaking, men shouting, a child starts howling in pain, everyone’s panicking, people are running back into the river, the boat is pushing off, the second is turning midstream, people are dragging themselves back on board. The video camera is getting it all. Susan isn’t clicking away anymore. She’s motionless, astonishment on her face. Across the river the smoker doesn’t make a move. Then the red dot vanishes: Maybe tomorrow night, maybe later tonight?

8. Agents like polite, chatty, cooperative and friendly.  They like compliant.  These things keep  them happy.  You want happy machine-gun-carrying agents, not unhappy ones.  You will be all these things.

Yes, you will. No lawyer boy, OK? Not here, not now.

9. The agents will not harm you. Their concern is legitimate, their admonishments to ‘be careful,’ sincere. You will express your gratitude. You will be sincere. If at any time you get a bad feeling, you will leave. You will leave now.

Entry, April 10th, 2011: It’s blazing hot. We’re deep in the thicket, at the edge of a dune over-looking the river. Last week a van on the south-side panicked when we popped up over the dune. Jon had his telephoto. When they saw it they started running in all directions, freaked out, tossing all the product back in the van; they high tailed it out of there. I feel strangely nervous. Not comfortable. Something’s off. My eyes keep turning to the right. But I can name no reason. From the left a sweat-covered Agent suddenly appears in a cowboy hat. The Agent says somebody is sneaking up on us. I, the lone agent, and my friend, scan the brush intensely. We hear hushed, angry voices. On the right, there’s a metallic clicking sound? The agent looks at us, we look at him, and we all decide we need to leave. Immediately.

While I have the gravest reservations about the Federal policies the BP enforce, I suspect, along with a bit of luck and trust in the self, they’re the only reason I’m around to write this. If you need to film on the Rio, do it, there’s truth there, and the truth is, hey, it’s a lot of fun. But try to keep these rules in mind. And good luck. See you down by the river.

Borderlife, focusing on art and life at the river’s edge, is now in post-production. Our documentary is about the militarized border and how people adapt to it and subvert it. It’s the story of human creativity amid the economic, political and existential struggle created by the Department of Homeland Security’s response to the US/Mexican border.

Lee Basham is a professor of Philosophy at South Texas College, and an Independent cinematographer. His film, Joined at the River, received high recognition; the Omar Vasquez Case documentary is currently in production.

Rick Perry by Gage Skidmore

Now that Texas Governor Rick Perry has made his election intentions clear, his history with the art world should be re-iterated for those interested in government funding of the arts.

Governor Perry’s official website has a page related to the Arts in Texas, and the importance (if not outright necessity) of the arts in helping our economy.  The statement includes such well worded gems as;

“The Texas arts industry plays an important role in generating and sustaining this economic success. While legislative initiatives made to establish an inviting business climate are a vital component, the arts are responsible for creating a welcoming environment and high standard of living, which attract tourists and play a significant part in businesses’ decisions to relocate here. They contribute to and express our state’s intriguing culture and heritage. They personify and instill the unique pride common to all Texans, and help cultivate a way of life unlike any other place in the nation.”

And the classic;

“Such efforts to encourage development of creative industries are essential to making Texas the best place in the nation to live. It is in our state’s best interests to foster and support this thriving industry because of its capability to enrich our communities and stimulate economic development. The availability of cultural resources and opportunities helps attract jobs and companies to Texas, and bolsters the continued growth and prosperity of our state.”

These are awesome statements.  They embody some of the deeply felt convictions of artists (at least those who are involved in the business and commercial side of the arts) and the understanding that the work done by artists is of such importance that we need it not only to advance our economy but to even be a part of the culture in which we exist.  Governor Rick Perry shows us that he cares for our state and cultural and understands our needs.

The problem is, of course, that he really doesn’t.  At least not in the Arts.

At least not if we are to take his fiscal concerns and budgetary ‘suggestions’ as any indicator of his true concerns.

The above listed quotes were taken from his website and dated 2008.  In the current budget package proposed by the Office of the Governor (available here) Perry had a completely different view of the arts.  He lists the Commission for the Arts among the top items on the budget to ‘suspend’ until the Texas economy gets on its feet.  The suspension would ‘save’ over $5 million in the state budget.  If the arts are of such high importance in our state’s economic growth and prosperity, why would they be among the first to go?

Also on the chopping block is the suspension of the Texas Historical Commission, for around $4.6 million in savings.  The budget also states savings coming from the suspension of the Board of Professional Geoscientists, Board of Professional Land Surveyors, the consolidation of many Texas Agencies, surcharges on state employee spouses on state health insurance, healthcare cuts and more.  Read it here.

The numbers indicate (and on this Perry seems to be correct) that Texas has been the most successful state in terms of recent job creation.  We have the above listed agencies and commissions to thank for that, at least in part, and Perry points out how much we will save by giving these programs the ax.  What about the cost in job numbers?  What will a loss of $5 million in the arts industry do to the arts industry employment rate?

How about the $1 trillion cut from the Higher Education Base?  Saving $383 million due to ‘increased faculty productivity’ can easily be translated into fire some, make the remaining work harder.

All this is listed as a way to save money.  A ‘cut’ if you will, to help our ailing state economy.  Then the budget rolls on to tell us how much the state will spend on Homeland and Border Security.  Perry’s Budget calls for $40 million to go toward border security.  Perry boasts that his border security initiatives have reduced crime in the border area by 60%.  This was completely false, as the report was constructed along favorable lines drawn to assist in the numbers having a positive outlook.  For more on that report, and the details of it’s problem areas, see Politifact.

So the state can afford to give $40 million to a program that has not shown any provable positive numbers, while cutting a much smaller $5 million to The Commission for the Arts, which Perry’s office claims is of great importance.

All of this is coming from the man who’s office fought long and hard to get federal stimulus money, only to now (when it is politically viable) state that the very idea of federal stimulus is outrageous.

And Perry calls Social Security a ‘Ponzi Scheme’?

Joking aside, anyone interested in healthcare, border security, arts and education funding should visit Presidential hopeful Rick Perry’s official site and then download the budget and compare the sales pitch to the stats and make a decision for themselves.  It must be stated, in the spirit of honesty, that although there are some changes in the educational realm, there are actually some improvements as well.  And there are improvements in many issues dealt with in the budget, and there are huge holes that are of great concern.  Ultimately, these items may be beyond the reader’s concern politically and therefore not matter at all when choosing a candidate, and to each his own.

It is important, however, to state that no matter what one’s political slant, concerns, needs and wants, what is of the most importance is for us to be able choose candidates freely from the information available on them.  One would hope that that information was not only true, but honestly spoken, and not misleading or misrepresented in any way.

One would hope that our politicians, on all sides, could just be honest…

But until such time arrives, we need to dig for the truth, and then make decisions based on our findings.

(see part 2 in this series here)

Playlist for this article:

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

Kelli Ali/Dropz

Networking

My Examiner.com feed -  San Antonio area art and events.

Low World -  My Personal site.  Short Stories, photography, project updates, stuff…

Voices of Art Magazine -  an archive of my articles for VOA.

Flickr -  My photostream, includes works in progress.

Facebook -  For networking, art, fun and strangeness.

Google+ -  My profile.

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The Joseph Bravo/Ron English @ IMAS; Background: X-Ray Guernica,digital print on vinyl, 12’x24’, 2011

Ron English entered the Valley of South Texas in full force and occupied the art community and its Art institutions, demonstrating his seditious creative spirit in three independent and simultaneous exhibits.  English’s approach is so pronounced that a distinctive, yet diverse, connect was witnessed within these three exhibits. South Texas College’s Visual Arts and Music Gallery presented the opening exhibition; the International Museum of Art and Science, (the most prestigious and experienced of the Rio Grande Valley’s Art establishments) presented the  next, and a new, friendly, inventive artist-run space hosted the third.

South Texas College presented English’s inventive satirical and subversive series of works that make a mockery of, and chastise, corporate advertising. English is timely, clever and ingenious with his observations that spank the hell out of their campaign jingles and tag lines. He targets immediately recognized corporate advertising slogans that seduce us with their fervent lies and deceit into believing happiness comes in a baggie, a bottle, or deep fried in lard and coated in sugar.

Ron English, Military Might. Digital print, 2011, STC VAM Art Gallery.

English’s brilliant propaganda of genuine reality changes a Miller Light Ad into a war protest poster. Utilizing the same font he changed the text of the logo to read Military Might, with a Jingle that sings Less Chilling and More Killing. And the small print warning at the bottom reads “Repeated exposure to violence may lead to psychological conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder. Veterans have a higher risk of homelessness and societal neglect after service. “ The beauty of the success of his parodies lies in the fact that they are humorous and accessible; we don’t shut down from their harsh reality, we see corporate advertising’s falseness and become enlightened by the veracity of English’s reality. His concern is to champion the rights of the common man, for compassion, empathy and fairness. True Patriotism often runs against the status quo and requires courage to question the reasoning behind many of the conflicts our country is in today.

He designed a poster with the likeness of a sneering insensitive Uncle Sam clad in a Red White and Blue suit, extending his arm with index finger pointing to a color gradient between dark brown and lily white, like a carnival sign that reads, “You Must be This Tall to Go on This Ride.” But in this version Uncle Sam was forewarning all passersby: You Must Be This Color to Enter the Country. (The gallery audience loved taking their picture next to this poster). English and his crew took the sign across the river into Mexico, set it up at the entrance to their Immigration and Customs Port of Entry and photographed Mexicans walking past the sign entering their customs office. And if that wasn’t ballsy enough he then set it up at the entry door of the Immigration and Customs office on this side of the river, again photographing Mexicans walking past the Snidely Whiplashesque caricature of Uncle Sam as they entered through the glass doors of the U.S. customs office. One can only imagine the perplexed and astounded stares this setup fetched. One of his crew stated, “Customs officials asked to see the work, gave it a worried frown, and passed us thru.” While in Mexico they heard the firefight that left six people dead less than ten blocks from where they had filmed. He then quietly traveled down the river toward Mission, and suddenly, the Border wall sported a Ron English souvenir – a Mexican and U.S. hybrid donkey, which due to its configuration, cannot function normally.  It is, in fact, necessary to participate in one of English’s secret art actions in order to appreciate how determined and daring he is.

While here in South Texas, English never let up; like a throttled wrecking crew he lectured, did radio, and T.V. interviews, filmed, photographed, shaved a horse, bombed the wall, and whether talking to a Diplomat or an art student, never lost his humble, gracious, interest in their creative endeavors.

Super-Sixed Ronald McDonald Piñata destruction at the artist’s space.

English’s event at the artist run space, Texas Naturally Surreal, was the climax of his triad exhibits. English examined the customs of our Border Nation and discovered one of our most popular symbols of established cultural entertainment, the piñata. He had several fabricated in the image of his most admired toys, Fat Super-Sized Ronald McDonald, Gas Mouse, Blue Bunny and his Mexican/American opposing headed Hybrid Donkey. Each was stuffed with appropriate materials that added effect to their meaning: Ronald was overfed with frozen French fries, and the others ballooned with red paint. This became a performance of surreal play, the collective of Artists Unanimous hoisted the piñatas, and English ceremoniously took the first couple of swings. The crowd cheered him on in a traditional metric Spanish chant of Dale, Dale Dale, in excited amusement at this violent theatre of bizarre piñata ballet, until a flood of colored body parts, seasoned with what looked like blood and guts, tumbled from the night sky and fell at their feet. English’s crew and the audience quickly destroyed two more piñata’s. Then he invited the audience back into the gallery to make ruin of the most prevalent icon of overindulgence, Fat Super-Sized Ronald McDonald. English handed the spiked staff of revolutionary reward to a svelte and attractive member from the collective, Artist Unanimous, to annihilate Ronald. She did so, swiftly with flair, showering the gallery floor with golden French fries leaving a shredded and tattered Ronald hanging from the ceiling. This aggressive performance mirrored the violence in our backyard – across the river in Mexico – and represents the hostile challenges we suffer because of our seemingly inept government, and consequential failing economy.

The International Museum of Art and Science, under new Director Joseph Bravo, presented English‘s tour de force exhibit, You Are Not Here. The title refers to the fact that only a few thousand people will visit the Museum to see the exhibit compared to the ‘tens of millions’ that drive past the billboards of English’s art that IMAS placed along the Interstate, plus the flux of English’s images on the IMAS website, links, art zines, blogs, news media, and you tube.

You Are Not Here – but you are here – the media is the extended information file format that English utilizes to reach beyond museum and gallery walls. IMAS set the standard for all three of the English exhibits. Bravo spent five days with English, researching his concepts, process and messages; the product of this interfacing labor is witnessed in a sublime selection and display of art. When entering the exhibit, visitors are immediately star-struck by the scale of the work – large billboard sized reproductions of his paintings printed on vinyl. The quality control English demands for printing is outstanding – it is impossible to identify these as digital prints until they are closely examined. No pixilation, superb resolution. The visual premise of these works mirrors that of a circus sideshow, English borrows beloved popular cultural icons such as Mickey Mouse, Barney, Ronald McDonald, Teletubbies and comic hero The  Incredible Hulk. In his piece, Mouse Mask Murphy, English parodies Mickey Mouse, who wears a gas mask, symbolic of warnings from our revered science community, warning of air pollution and it’s ozone destruction. But as a nation of unconcerned citizenry, we choose to disbelieve forewarnings of climate disrepair and air contamination, and corporate manufacturing refuses to curb its practice that worsens this calamity.  In the piece The American Infantile, a childish Hulk illustrates the intimidating expression of a child throwing a temper tantrum at the check out counter because mom won’t give in to his demands for candy. An immature child-Hulk is a clever representation speaking volumes about how we, as such a young Nation, wield our military superiority, often misguided with corporate interests manipulating patriotic discourse. The centerpieces of this exhibit – two takes on Picasso’s Guernica – are magnificent in size: 12’ x 24.’  In X-Ray Guernica English reveals what could be an under painting- exposing the skeletal carcass of each figure depicted. He simultaneously pulls Picasso’s epic horrific of the Spanish Civil War into a contemporary context of the Atomic age, making us see the piece as the fallout from an accidental Nuclear energy fail.  These exhibits demonstrate English’s genius as a multi-tasking Renaissance man; agitate-activist Ad man, conceptual artist, adept painter, sculptor, filmmaker and a surreal performance artist.

The collaborative efforts of IMAS and STC under the bold and spirited leadership of each (President Dr. Reed and V.P. Jose Cruz from STC, Bravo and Board at IMAS), took a risk inviting this controversial agitate-activist artist. This partnership proved itself daring and pioneering, raising the bar and creating an Empirical Order for future exhibits coming to South Texas’ art community; we look forward to more. Bravo! Dale!
David Freeman is the Editor of VOA

Earthbound Moon offers artists an opportunity to create site-specific public sculpture. We commission sculpture that is integrated and situated in the community it inhabits. Artists are expected to design and install their works with the ethos and history of the community in mind. Asking artists to take such care with site-specificity creates a bond between the work, the common space we are declaring, and each individual community. By inviting artists from around the world and building a sculpture garden that spreads across the Earth while embracing local site-specificity, Earthbound Moon creates a sense of each community’s place within the larger whole of the species and planet. Enhancing the challenge of site-specificity for artists, we expect the works to be rigorously contemporary and safe enough to install publicly.
Our first installation was in Fall, 2010, with Danish artist Heidi Hove, in the dunes outside Bledsoe, Texas.
In 2011, three installations are underway:
• July: Lubbock, TX artist Jon Whitfill will install a sculptural diptych on two sites in Evanston, IL;
• October: Oakland, CA artist Scott Oliver will install a work in Slaton, TX;
• October: New York, NY artist Carla Duarte will install a work just outside Plainview, TX.

For 2012, we are working with ISEA 2012 on two sites outside Albuquerque, NM. In 2013, Chicago, IL artist Christy Matson will install a work in Chania, Greece.
We are currently negotiating sites in Oaxaca, Mexico; Bildudalur, Iceland; and Hjortdale, Denmark, as well. For these sites we are talking to artists from Egypt, France, and the United States, with hopes of installing their works in 2013. We own and are negotiating leases for land in Moffat, CO; Greenland, NH; Lebanon, NH; and San Francisco, CA.
This global (eventually intergalactic) artwork consisting of many smaller artworks spins a web of gathering places, sites of curiosity and engagement and wonder on a local and global scale. It develops links between community arts organizations, artists, and municipalities worldwide. It provides opportunities for artists in different countries and across socio-economic boundaries to work together as part of a collaborative arts community. Most importantly, it encourages dialogue about the nature of community: promoting the idea of development as a human community, not just a business community – promoting athleticism and play, education and health, hope and curiosity, as well as investment and employment.
This project was born out of Earthbound Moon’s members’ shared belief that to have a voice in the course of our species’ progress, artists must be willing to engage the forces of contemporary development. Many of those forces are global – multi-national corporations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) – operating across the historic borders of community – church, city, state, and nation. Earthbound Moon intends to join these global forces as an international voice for skepticism, idealism, curiosity, paradox, and absurdity. We intend to contribute to the role of the arts throughout human history as a force for contemplation and consideration. We also intend to cast a light on the comic contradictions of the conscious mind conceiving to command the complexities of a cosmopolitan ecosystem – from Machiavellian commerce to quantum mechanics. As an international non-profit corporation we feel we are ideally suited to such an act of light-hearted enlightenment.
We conceive of this project as an act of terraforming (literally, “Earth-shaping”), though planetary engineering might be more accurate, if less poetic. Humans have demonstrated a profound ability to alter and shape our planet. Offworld – recreating Mars in Earth’s image, say – would be an act of terraforming. It is an idea rife in science fiction, but also discussed quite seriously by modern science. Two scholars from Planetary Astronautics and NASA’s Ames Research Center concluded in 1993:

“We have shown that within broad tolerances of uncertainty of Martian conditions, that drastic improvements in the life-sustaining characteristics of the environment of the Red Planet may be affected by humans using early to mid  21st century technologies. While our immediate descendants cannot expect to use such near-term methods to “terraform” the planet in the full sense of the word, it at least should be possible to rejuvenate Mars, making it again as receptive to life as it once was.”*
Here on Earth, humans began affecting our environment the day we began cultivating grain and domesticating animals. From irrigation to the industrial, carbon, nitrogen, and silicon revolutions, humanity has demonstrated an innate skill in shaping Earth. At Earthbound Moon, however, we believe terraforming is not just an act of physical manipulation, such as altering our atmosphere, building interstate systems, or engaging every human community with curious and beautiful artworks, but also an act of perceptual manipulation. The route we are taking to engage globalization is to attempt change from within it.
Global corporations are altering human perception. The degree of interpellation going on today is beyond our ability to fully comprehend. To have a voice in that, we need to be global – to stand with NGOs and other organizations fighting for the hearts and minds of a species. The physical alteration of our planet grows from a perceptual relationship to our planet, our environment, ourselves, our kin, and our fellow lifeforms. Shaping Earth means shaping the relationship humans have with their world. Artists have always played a large role in shaping this relationship. Like modern media corporations, we aim to influence human intellectual development through aesthetic and storytelling engagements. Earthbound Moon is a new media startup in that way, but perhaps post-digital; or perhaps dystopiodigital. As a startup, we are attempting to create a disruptive new  practice or behavior, an artistic work that contributes to the destabilizing force of digital technology.**

Seeing ourselves as a business allows us to be fully engaged with the philosophies and practices of economics and governance. As an NGO planning across the span of generations, Earthbound Moon ensures that artists maintain a role influencing human perception and cultural development.
We recognize that the idea of an artwork functioning as a multinational corporation across physical borders and human generations with the goal of terraforming Earth may seem irrational. However, we see it as an act of aggressive idealism; of practiced utopianism; of unbridled hope and faith. One of the most powerful tools of human manipulation is hopelessness, these days too often engendered by hip cynicism. When people believe that they cannot affect change, they become powerless. We are an intentionally audacious voice for optimistic faith in human nature. We see altruism and community standing shoulder to shoulder with selfishness and greed. We believe that linking communities through shared acts of beauty and contemplation – that is, through shared culture – we can help chart the course of development of the future, encouraging tolerance and understanding.
We do not purport to know what this future will be like, but we do believe that not engaging in the development of a universal vision of cooperation and dialogue is a mistake. We refuse to abandon the future to a philosophy of selfishness and hopelessness in the face of history. Faith that we can affect change for the better in our world and ourselves is one of the bedrock principles of not just the Enlightenment, but of philosophy, religion and politics since the dawn of consciousness. We see ourselves as just one string in a much larger tapestry; one that humans have been weaving for millennia in a consistent struggle between our individualistic and communal natures.
Our hope is to create connections between disparate people; to promote the idea of artists as a global community, and humans as a universal community. In this service we will install works in communities of every size, all across Earth, and commission an artist from every community we go into to create a future Earthbound Moon work. This is good for artists – giving them opportunities to work in environments they might not otherwise experience. We believe this to be good for humanity as well – contributing to the global network of communication, and promoting an idea of shared identity and responsibility.

** Keeping that in mind, we tend to agree with the idea that the once-disruptive digital technologies are now moving toward greater centralization. We do not believe this is necessarily a bad thing. Centralization is likely necessary for effective governance and social living. The issue is how much centralization, how much power should a centralized authority (be it government or global business) have? This is obviously a question that has no fixed answer. The history of human civilization is a continual shifting of balance and power, of freedoms and restrictions. We are staunchly pro-capitalism because we believe the last several hundred years in the West have created a greater degree of individual freedom than ever before. However, individual freedom can be taken too far. Laissez-faire capitalism clearly helps the few and harms the many. It is merely an extension of feudalism and is veering toward a neo-feudalist future. Capitalism requires a strong government, a system of checks and balances, if it is not to buckle under the corporatocracy of monopoly and cartel.

23E Studios: www.vime.org www.23estudios.com www.earthboundmoon.com

Weiwei Exhibit

Artistic Energy in Service to the State
Much of what we revere about our artistic heritage was created in service to centers of political power often to compel fear and foreboding for its enemies and servitude and adherence to a central authority by its population.  Scanning a panorama of architectural monuments over a 5,000 year period reveals many prominent examples. The common thread along this path is the vast human energy and creativity that was harnessed in service to the state or religious entity.  The artists and builders, however, were largely anonymous.
One ancient site of particular interest is the Parthenon, built in 447 BC in Athens, Greece. It has come to be regarded as one of the most beautiful buildings in the western tradition and is located in the place that inspired our concept of democracy.
Architecture, even in the modern world, remains a primary method of projecting political aspirations and agendas. The astonishing Bilbao Museum has as its intention to bring new economic life to the rebellious and poor Basque region in Spain, not to mention to enhance the aspirations of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Bird’s Nest Stadium, created by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron for the Olympics, was vital in helping China to proclaim to the world that it has ascended as one of the worlds great powers.

WeiWei detail

Cultural Patrimony and Hegemony in the Modern World
After thousands of years of rising and falling centralized cultures controlled by an elite and often hereditary few, a vastly more complex social order emerged in the late 15th century. Collecting works of art (often remnants of ancient cultures) or the commissioning of works of art from competing, but established, artists and their workshops became the expected norm for the new upper classes. Artists began to come out of the clouds of anonymity and although few achieved the status of the very upper classes, many stood above the average person and a few came close to being politically powerful in their own right. Peter Paul Rubens is the artist best known as a master statesman who helped broker agreements and treaties among governments while at the same time successfully cultivating a wide range of patrons. Artists in this period essentially owed their living to being politically astute and finding a patron in the church, the government or with a wealthy merchant.
In Britain, for the upper classes, an educational tour of the European continent was considered vital, and bringing home great masterpieces and relics of ancient Greece and Rome was pursued vigorously. One of the most interesting such acquisitions occurred when Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire received permission to remove sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens. This was received with some controversy in England, but ultimately, the British government purchased these works in 1816 and placed them in the British museum where they remain to this day. Underlying this acquisition was a sense that the contemporary Greeks of the time were poor descendents of the greatly admired and highly cultured ancient Greeks. Lord Elgin felt it was logical to bring these works back to Britain where they would be understood, appreciated, and properly taken care of.

Joe Bova

The Art Spirit and the Democratization of Art
In the 17th century the little nation of Holland won its independence from Spain and soon became one of the wealthiest countries in the world with wealth shared more widely across its population than anywhere else. Their modest, but elegantly furnished homes, were soon filled with intimate paintings that, although often possessing underlying religious and moral messages, depicted and celebrated their possessions and scenes of everyday life.
In the emerging modern world, artists became more defiant of conventions and reflected upon the changing conditions of the world. Art for its own sake came to be an idea in its own right. The Impressionists discarded the old standards and created a kind of vibrant painting that remains the most in demand in terms of the contemporary market place and museum exhibitions. Post Impressionists such as Vincent Van Gough brought a deeply personal rebellious sense of what artistic pursuit was about and helped to create the stereotype of the artist as an impoverished and misunderstood rebel. During WWI, a group of artists who called themselves Dadaists challenged all previous conventions regarding the purpose of art and concept of beauty, forever shattering aesthetic traditions and helping set in motion what many see as the incomprehensible nature of modern art.

Elgin

The Government as Curator
The Tate Modern Museum in London is owned by the British government and is located in a former electric power plant. On the exterior there is a prominent sign that states “enjoy great art for free.” It attracts millions of visitors annually, many of whom are perplexed and baffled by the art and others, often quite young, who are mesmerized and deeply engaged in the exhibits. It is one of the ‘must see’ sites of London. This free museum seems to capitalize quite nicely on its essential hip-ness through the sale of objects in its gift shop.
On a recent visit to the Tate Modern, I had the opportunity to view the installation Sunflower Seeds by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Mr. Weiwei played a significant role in the planning of Bird Nest Stadium in Beijing. Recently, the Chinese government destroyed Mr. Weiwei’s studio and, after warning him he would pay a price for his criticism of the government, he was abducted by the government and ‘disappeared.’ The Sunflower installation at the Tate occupies a space about as large as a football field and is comprised of one hundred million handcrafted ceramic sunflower seeds. Mr. Weiwei’s work incorporates multiple meanings drawn from his cultural background.  Sunflower seeds are a common street snack in China, that to him, represent human compassion, closure and friendship, among other things. The replica seeds were produced in the city of Jingdezhen, which is famous for its fine porcelain china.  The vast population of China is almost incomprehensible and this work seems to give some sense of the magnitude and overwhelming scale of its humanity. One desperately would like to pick up and examine even one of the individually made seeds, but that, of course, is not allowed. This over powering installation eloquently raises questions about our humanity and the relationship of the Chinese government to its people. It was his more direct written and verbal criticisms that caused his ‘disappearance.’ The art world, artists, and governments around the world are dismayed that this has happened. It has created an atmosphere of fear, foreboding, anger, and concern among all institutions that deal with China and particularly those that exhibit Chinese art. Most likely because of an international outcry Mr. Weiwei has been released, but still faces criminal charges and severe constraints.
In the United States our way of funding the arts is unique in the world. Most other nations support the arts with direct government funding and through bureaucracies headed by ministers who are government appointees. Only 13% of funding in America comes from government sources, and the beleaguered National Endowment for the Arts provides only 1% of that support.
There is, however, an enormous power exercised by government entities over the arts in an indirect way in our country. Government funding has helped stimulate private and business support through its power to legitimize art institutions. A strange paradox of the American political system is that this approach to funding essentially reinforces and parallels conservative political thinking. With such a tiny public investment, the free market is at play. It is easy to find most conservative politicians supportive of the tax deductibility of gifts to non-profits, but in the current democratic administration, there exists a conflicting desire to limit or curtail tax deductibility of such gifts. On the conservative side there is a belief that contemporary artists and museums often promote ideas that run contrary to public values and that in such cases public funding is not appropriate. The slightest hint of disrespect towards religion or challenge to military action, war, or apparent support of what some consider abhorrent behavior, such as being gay, can create an outcry. The very recent controversy over the Hide/Seek: Difference in American Portraiture exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution has caused substantial debate in the art world. The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution G. Wayne Clough decided to remove a video from the show by gay artist David Wojnarowicz. He did this because Republican politicians and conservative critics felt that the artist’s depiction of a crucifix crawling with ants was anti-Christian. The highly regarded Mr. Clough made what he thought to be a wise and pragmatic decision in order to protect the already challenged and delicate funding position of the Smithsonian, which is highly dependent upon Congress. The art world and museum directors weighed in heavily and negatively towards the Smithsonian and Mr. Clough’s decision. In the background is a political tug of war between conflicting views of the two major political parties that bodes poorly for the future of public arts funding at this time.
Political turbulence in the art world has intensified on many levels in recent years. In the U.S. Native Americans have fought to protect their heritage and believe that their home lands and grave sites have been raided, and that museums and collectors have misunderstood and defiled their culture. Art that was stolen by the Nazi’s from Jews during WWII is now being sought out, and museums are supposed to search their collections to make sure they do not possess such art. Nations are seeking the repatriation of works they feel were illegally obtained and taken out of their countries. The Greek government is battling with the British museum in an attempt to have the Elgin Marbles returned to the site of the Parthenon; they have even created a special museum for that purpose. In the midst of this chaos, the America Association of Museums and the Art Museum Directors Association, along with governments and international agencies, have weighed in with debate and some conflicting guidelines and emerged with general agreement on what constitutes stolen art and guidelines for negotiation and restitution.

The Next Planet — Will Robots Care?
The stress of the apparent current economic down turn is causing additional political problems for the art world.  With huge deficits and funding cuts in every level of government, arts agencies are witnessing shrinking funding.  In some cases, state art agencies have been shut down, and art as a part of the curriculum in public education is being eliminated or curtailed in many parts of the country. This, of course, contradicts everything that has been learned about the vital role the arts play in learning and cognitive development. It also runs contrary to the recognition that economic success in the future is utterly dependent upon creativity and creative thinking. Despite the chaotic state of the current political realm and its relationship to art, a more optimistic case could be made.
Indeed, art has been stolen, destroyed or misinterpreted throughout history, and guidelines for justice and restitution make sense. There is also beginning to be an understanding that had art not been appropriated and moved across the globe, we would have even less understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultures and, that because of war, conflict, and natural disasters, if the art had only remained insitu much of human cultural patrimony would be lost. The recent war in Iraq showed how quickly things can be lost through theft and destruction. Breaking down barriers in strange ways never anticipated, the internet is creating opportunities for people to access art from the darkest recesses of museums and Curators will no longer be the sole proprietor of examination and evaluation of cultural patrimony, let alone government. Individual and crowd sourced interpretation is both fascinating and horrifying the museum world.
Although human beings are far from reconciling living together harmoniously, there is progress. The ‘Arab Spring’ in the Middle East has also been given momentum by the internet and is being called a hopeful sign that all pockets of oppression may begin to disappear. The fear, of course, is that it could go quite the other way. The nation of Saudi Arabia, which has a great deal to fear in this time of Middle East transition is building one of the most ambitious museums on Earth. It is known as the King Abadula Aziz Center for World Culture. It is monumental and in its own way is as intimidating as the ancient gates of Babylon. It, however, declares as its purpose “a community gathering place designed to serve as a focus for individual and collaborative learning and the open exchange of ideas.” One hopes that the women of Saudi Arabia will soon be allowed to drive their children to this museum.
We have not yet truly come to grips with our common humanity, but art, often swimming against the tide of the political body, has helped take us a great distance. Some artists have begun to reflect on a world of artificial intelligence, the ability to genetically engineer humans, and the possibility of hyper longevity. There is the emergence of an idea called ‘singularity’ that essentially says human beings are rapidly approaching a time when they will be able to transcend and no longer be tied to their biological existence.  This could create a place of true inequality and beings that are like us, but not quite us. Art as the furthest reach of human expression, when untethered by political oppression, may be our best chance to sort out our common humanity before this strange possible future over takes us.

One Nation Under God

Although Tea Party folk haven’t defined an artistic style to accompany their movement, visual imagery certainly has been put to political purpose. Search the internet and you will find designs for t-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers that mock President Obama, howl over taxes, and trumpet individual freedom. There are posters too, the most famous of which is Sarah Para Bellum by the political cartoonist “Dale.” Here, Sarah Palin’s likeness replaces Rosie the Riveter in Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post cover from 1943. Sarah cradles a shotgun in her lap, instead of Rosie’s rivet gun, and holds a Blackberry with the words “Death Panel” on the screen, rather than a sandwich for lunch. The image of Sarah prepared for war (with whom?) speaks to the defensive posture of the Tea Party movement and appears to thrill many, more so because it irritates Liberals than for its iconography. In any case, appropriating Rockwell does not make for original political art.
Historical imagery of the American Revolution is prevalent in Tea Party visual sensibilities. The Liberty Bell, Continental soldiers, “Indians” of the Boston Tea Party, and generous use of red, white, and blue adorn websites and tchotchkes. It is reminiscent of the cheerful public art that accompanied Bicentennial celebrations in 1976, but with a less genial attitude. Most didactic are the historical fantasies painted by Jon McNaughton that depict the Tea Party narrative in original, artistic compositions. In One Nation under God, Jesus, with Constitution in hand, steps out of a pantheon of American historical figures who reverentially gaze upon him and the viewer through the mists of time. In the left foreground, kneeling in awe, are a teacher, a mom, a marine and others representing various mainstream walks of life. On the right, with their backs to Jesus, are the damned: Satan, a professor, a supreme court judge, a liberal news reporter, a politician, and Mr. Hollywood. Reactionary historical pieces, unlike compelling artistic expression, require a lot of explanation; McNaughton does not disappoint. Slide your mouse’s pointer over the internet version of the painting and a text box pops up to explain the symbolism of each figure. Who’s the fellow “lovingly counting his hundred dollar bills”? A corrupt lawyer.  In Forgotten Man, McNaughton captures brilliantly the Tea Partiers’ fetish for the Constitution and disdain for Liberals. President Obama stands indifferently with one foot on the Constitution while all past presidents look on and react in a tableau that brings to mind Disney’s animatronic Hall of Presidents. Madison reaches down to pull our founding document from the dirt. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Reagan gesture toward the downcast, average Joe seated in the foreground, forgotten. Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Bill Clinton, applaud Obama. McNaughton’s work, delivered with historical polemics, is as compelling as an overly elaborate joke followed by an explanation of why it’s funny.

The Forgotten Man

 
Do Tea Party folk present a danger to art? Yes and no. Their efforts to diminish public institutions for the sake of reducing taxes will lessen public funding for the arts in schools and community endeavors. Yet art is spared, for the time being, from the ideological framework that is so damagingly applied elsewhere in the public sphere. Take for example, the most recent cultural battleground in the state of Texas, public school curriculum guidelines. Social conservatives with Tea Party sympathies on the State Board of Education made national headlines over the past two years with revisions to the kindergarten-12th Grade Social Studies TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). Despite vigorous opposition from the public to a narrow interpretation of the American past, a majority of the Board enshrined constitutionalism, Christianity, and capitalism (the Board prefers the term “free enterprise”) as the guiding themes for U.S. history courses. A reverential catechism devoted to “American exceptionalism,” rather than guidelines promoting critical thinking and expression will be the order of the day in Texas social studies classes.
The Fine Arts TEKS are currently undergoing revision. The recommendations of review committees and appointed experts will become available in fall 2011, and the first public hearing is scheduled for January 2012. The fine art guidelines since 1998 emphasize four themes for K-12 Texas students: perception, creative expression/performance, critical evaluation, and historical/cultural heritage. The heritage category is apolitical at present and guides curriculum planners to include diverse cultures along with those of Texas and the United States. Tea Partiers may well try to politicize the revised Fine Arts TEKS by defining narrowly what “heritage” includes, while diminishing or eliminating attention to “diverse cultures.”
Tea Party folk have contributed little so far to political artistic expression (except for public theater, of course). They could yet do great damage to public funding for the arts and to art education in the public schools. It may well become necessary to stand against Tea Party efforts to limit or demean artistic expression. Perhaps you could earn a spot among the damned in McNaughton’s One Nation under God. There’s room for an artist next to the professor.
References:
El Lissitzsky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, http://www.designishistory.com/1920/e-lissitzky/.
Dale, “Sarah Para Bellum,” political cartoon, All Right Magazine, April 27, 2009, http://www.allrighmagazine.com/political-cartoons/daletoon-of-the-day-sarah-para-bellum-2424/.
Jon McNaughton, http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/.
Texas Education Agency, “Social Studies TEKS,” http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=3643.
Texas Education Agency, “Fine Art Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills,” http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=2147499973.
Texas Administrative Code, Title 19, Part II, Chapter 117, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Fine Arts, http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter117/index.html.

David Fisher is a historian teaching at the University of Texas-Brownsville.

Cande Aguilar - Slice - multimedia painting panel - 75x72 inches

If we look at the title piece of the show, Cande Aguilar’s self-titled “Slice,” we can see what is, in effect, a truly contemporary hybridization of styles which could be called Pop Expressionism, or Abstract Pop, or Graffito Salsa for that matter. The image itself could be a back alley tag figured as a banana split whose smell is a rainbow, and whose cherry-on-top might be Count Dracula in his muscle red armor. This piece signals a fun, happy, associative theme, which connects and unites the show. On the other hand, Michael Blair’s pieces, like “Untitled 3-1,” and “2-3,” while ostensibly more visually sombre, seem to perform almost a bass-line in the show’s overall referential fuzz-box, bringing in things like Duchamp’s “Chocolate Grinder, “Sir Arthur Evans’ Minoan “Horns of Consecration,” Mid-Century Modernism, and perhaps a minor keynote for the collective styles of these artists, Albert Oehlen. There seems to be, at least in Blair, some definite arcing to the Neue Wilde movement in Germany. In Jesus De La Rosa’s work “Utopia Almost,” I found a deep homage to process, but a process whose result somehow arcs between director Byron Haskin’s 1964 “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” and Max Ernst’s epic frottages, like  “The Eye of Silence.” All of the works seem chatty in various ways. Jorge Puron’s “Sexiest Elevator” evokes memory and subtly approaches an abstract landscape through an urban lens, which evokes a wryly reflexive subject matter. Are we looking at a painting of a little store front in some anonymous south Texas neighborhood? Is the elevator that penetrates the roof and continues up into the huge unlikely billboard atop its roof somehow akin to the artist’s aspirations? It is an odd, dark question, and it seems to be put to you by a swatch of cloth cut from a hammock. “Sexiest Elevator,” for me, had a second title, namely black humor siesta. These were, more or less, the kinds of thoughts I had as I looked at the show.
When I asked Michael Blair what he thought, he seemed to feel that there was still a lot of baggage to this kind of painting. I thought to myself, “I like an artist who’s wary of what he is doing,” but for some reason, I wasn’t very wary. I immediately embraced the show, and it felt like something closer to Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker jamming, than to clearly defined art-historical categories. I could see sci-fi and neo-geo, and graffiti, and pop, and just really a sort of free-for-all orchestration of materiality that ended up looking like an avatar of the title, namely, “Slice.” As if a wide swath of recent art historical styles and precedents, or some of them anyway, and discourses, had been thrown together willy-nilly in a big torta sandwich made like a pie, and then cut in different places to reveal the gooey weird contents. For me, the show ended up being more about savor and sapidity, or sabor, than dry category. And since they say that Painting will never die, then I suppose what the old Ab-Ex Pop-wild monster in the cave was cooking up was edible zombies, Frankenstein confections that wink and snicker and just start talking to you like an old friend…

[Show as slideshow]

 
Lanny Quarles is an internet artist involved in writing-as-performance, blogging, and making images in various ways. He lives in Dallas.

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Casting Pearls

Linda Lewis has created a strong statement with these recent works with regard to the relevance of the Bible in today’s changed world.  This exhibition includes a series of seventeen bibles, altered by the artist for a clearer understanding of their content. Each Bible has been used as the inspiration for a revealed and flawed dictum.

There have been ongoing criticisms regarding clashes with science in the bible as well as various factoid pitfalls. However, many of these criticisms may be explained away by faulty translations – what version was that from? Or even a lagging archeological inquiry into a particular event. Lewis focuses her visual commentary on biblical passages and dogma that currently affect us all.

The artist acknowledges that the ideas she responds to in her work existed before Christianity. They were borrowed and elaborated upon, and then were ultimately institutionalized by the  Catholic Church leaders. The bible series often exposes a dictum gone awry by the passing centuries, or one that may have been misleading at the onset. Cruel Dogma speaks of contradictory nihilism, fire and brimstone, exclusionary practices, ethnic cleansing, mistaken identity, and erosion of influence.  In this work, tiny pasta letters have been painted black and glued onto string.  Each string is a saying or a word that appears to be seeping out of the bible.  Several lines of these hang over and beyond an open page of Proverbs 5,6 obscuring the words and are themselves fairly obscure.  Focusing in to read them reveals ruminations such as “charismatic charlatans,”  “erosion of intellect,”  “fantastic confabulations,” and “my way or the highway.”

Hundreds of pages in the Bible refer to making sacrifices. In Burnt Offering, Lewis uses an open book to display a dismembered thermostat embedded in the burnt pages. The charred edges of the paper reveal only bits of the words once so prominently typed. The thermostat is not only a reference to heat, but also the creatures that are dismembered in a ritualistic fashion.  This work is her burnt offering to atone for the sins of the people who sacrifice the weak and the innocent for their own gain, and who dream up complex rituals to somehow justify that horror.

Holy Bible opens to show perfectly drilled holes in a variety of diameters piercing through the entire book.  Another work, Economic Opportunities, reminds us that religion is big business.  Dollar bills, folded to emulate flowers, are attached to golden leaves and enthusiastically bloom from the open pages.

Economic Opportunities

Sometimes biblical passages become apt commentators on the current political scene. Casting Pearls is opened to ll Kings 23,24.  It’s based on the verse in the bible about not casting your pearls before swine, or pigs, because you may become like them.  In Lewis’ piece, pearl-tipped corsage pins have been stuck into holes about a half-inch apart on the open pages. They stand an inch above the page, and in this repeated pattern create the illusion of dancing pearls upon the images of Sadam Hussein and George W. Bush as the viewer walks by.

Even though the concept has lost its dominance among educated populations, in the mainstream church the concept of good and evil has been used to characterize women. The Madonna -Whore dichotomy is still quite popular in our culture due to the persistent teachings of the church. Wild Pair contains aspects of these opposites.  Woman is a destructive object; her clothing is a point in conflict. While women are instructed to be the sexualized object in our society, they are also instructed to be good. The high-heel shoe is the sexualized image of women.  Male culture has attacked women’s feet in order to bring them into a submissive state throughout time. High heels have become curiously acceptable clothing in our sacred places. The frustration reaches a peak and the stiletto heel pieces the open book, words from its text stuck to every part of the shoe’s persona.

Cruel Dogma

Echo Direct is a direct telephone line to God.  An old rusted public telephone sits next to an equally old and worn bible in this work. An insert (where the phone instructions used to be) instructs us to add coins until we hear the Word of God. This is a stunningly successful piece that comments not only on the unscrupulousness of many contemporary religions in their quest for monetary gain, but also the success of the tele-evangelists and their commercial exploitation of the gullible.  Obviously, there will be no end to the coins the faithful might insert. And they will still hear only silence.

“Because the bible is such an entrenched system of ideology in our culture, and it’s so widespread that people don’t question it,” explained Lewis, “I like to present things in an alternate way so that people might think, ‘why do I think that? ‘” Linda Lewis offers other ways of seeing the bible.

Nancy Moyer is Professor Emerita  of Art at The University of Texas-Pan American.

Glassell School of Art, Houston by Nancy Moyer, PhD

Blooms

Jewelry has long been prized for its function of physical adornment; it has proclaimed the proud status of its wearer; it has served to supplement and enhanced the beauty of the wearer. In this unusual exhibit, Extreme Beauty, at the Glassell School of Art, the tradition seems to have gone somewhat astray.

Kim Cridler, curator for the exhibit, states as the purpose of this exhibition to “feature contemporary makers who pursue extreme beauty and adornment through metalsmithing, jewelry, and site specific body works. Works included in this exhibition gauge in a range from the devotional act of replication to works that assume a historical or critical assessment of the problematic nature of beauty.”

The phrase, “problematic nature of beauty” is significant here. Several of the artists have opposed the socially acceptable definitions of physical enhancement and offer other ways to define body adornment.

Extreme Beauty

Extreme Beauty 2

Extreme Beauty 3

Burcu Buyukunal, a Turkish jeweler, offers photographs of facial adornment pieces. Terrifying Beauty series #1 through #4 shows the model adorned. Rather than enhancement, these pieces are designed to disrupt the natural face of the wearer. Rather than behaving passively, as does traditional jewelry, these adornments actually alter the wearer’s visage. Strategically formed wire(s), each piece addresses a section of the face and fits around the head. In Terrifying Beauty #1, the shape of the mouth is altered by pressing the lips and giving them a slight twist; Terrifying Beauty #2 exaggerates a cheekbone, making it a very prominent facial feature.

Lauren Kalman reacts to the traditional desire to amend the imperfections and impermanence of the physical human form. Her digital print, Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments (Nevus Comedonicus), documents the replication of skin disease using acupuncture needles, pearls, and gold.   She presents gold jewelry as a vehicle to amplify taboo aspects of the body, such as skin defects and disease. Lauren states. “The form of the adornment often reflects malignant excrescences, such as rupturing membranes or cancerous growths. These gleaming outgrowths cause bodily residues to be shed as they spread orifices and tear skin.”

Transformed Adornment Nightstand

Lauren attempts to bring dignity to these often-shameful phenomena.

She believes that the beauty of gold when perceptively alloyed with the seeping body allow the objects to become both intriguing and repulsive. Gold adornment highlights the surfaces where the interior body transgresses its boundaries and makes imperfections and diseases visible. This gives the passerby permission to stare at a body that is normally not acceptable.

Orange Baroque, a silver, agate, and mineral neckpiece by Leslie Shershow, denies its preciousness by assuming the appearance of cardboard. This piece has denied its stylistically historical place among precious jewelry for the elite European Baroque era nobility by its surface coating.  Looking every bit a rainy day project with a corrugated box, although meticulous in its execution, it belies its precious value by its cheap mass consumerism appearance.

Your Opinion

Kristen Beeler has riffed off the form of a traditional spoon, turning it into an object speaking of longing and lost values. Your Opinion, fine silver, cotton thread, mother of pearl, and ink, denies its traditional function as an indifferent tool for transporting food and through the image of a bird, a suggested branch, and red thread, becomes a bearer of remorse.

A larger piece in this exhibit, Transformed Adornment Nightstand, by Curtis H. Arima protests  its manufacture. A large plant form exuberantly grows from the edge of the nightstand’s joining of planes. Its vine begins to control one leg. Transformed speaks of the unnatural state of manufactures objects. Their only hope is to return to nature. The very stance of the piece is defiant. It will return to its natural state.

“Extreme Beauty” lives up to its stated purpose. The works in this show rebel against their very definition, leading us toward new perceptions and rationales of physical enhancement and the man-made object.

Nancy Moyer is Professor Emerita of Art from UTPA.