Now it’s Andrew Sullivan’s turn…
“I am trying hard to create in this magazine a civil, respectful, intellectually honest space for political debate,” Haskell [the New York editor] said. “I believe there is a way to write from a conservative* perspective about some of the most politically charged subjects of American life while still upholding our values. I also think that our magazine in particular has an opportunity to be a place where the liberal project is hashed out, which is to say not only championed but also interrogated.”
Or as Seth Mandel of the Washington Examiner tweets, “Translation: I want to challenge our reader base but I don’t know how to do that without challenging our reader base,” adding, “that feeling when you thought you were publishing far-right-wing ideas because you hired Jon Chait.”
And while we’re on the subject of cancel culture, there’s this:
Until last week, Gary Garrels was senior curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). He resigned his position after museum employees circulated a petition that accused him of racism and demanded his immediate ouster.
“Gary’s removal from SFMOMA is non-negotiable,” read the petition. “Considering his lengthy tenure at this institution, we ask just how long have his toxic white supremacist beliefs regarding race and equity directed his position curating the content of the museum?”
I confess I’ve never heard of Garrels or of SFMOMA. Sounds like quite the Nazi, doesn’t he? Let’s see:
The petitioners cite few examples of anything even approaching bad behavior from Garrels. Their sole complaint is that he allegedly concluded a presentation on how to diversify the museum’s holdings by saying, “don’t worry, we will definitely still continue to collect white artists.”
Garrels has apparently articulated this sentiment on more than one occasion. According to artnet.com, he said that it would be impossible to completely shun white artists, because this would constitute “reverse discrimination.” That’s the sum total of his alleged crimes. He made a perfectly benign, wholly inoffensive, obviously true statement that at least some of the museum’s featured artists would continue to be white. The petition lists no other specific grievances.
Are these people that powerful? Or was Garrels just tired of the fight? I could easily understand it if he were.
Here’s an article that sheds a bit more light on the Garrels flap. It appears to me that the expression “reverse discrimination,” which he used, was part of the list of his terrible crimes. My suspicion is that to the anti-racist woke, “reverse discrimination” cannot possibly exist, because of their Marxist power-dominated definition of discrimination.
Also there’s this:
…[Garrels’] lasting legacy at SFMOMA may be tied to two very different initiatives: the museum’s extended loan deal of the Fisher Collection and its decision, last year, to auction off a painting by Mark Rothko for $50.1 million in order to create a dedicated fund to acquire work by female artists, artists of color, and LGBTQ+ artists. Works that have been acquired using the fund include pieces by Rebecca Belmore, Forrest Bess, Frank Bowling, Leonora Carrington, Lygia Clark, and Norman Lewis.
So the auction and the use of the funds to buy up works by members of the designated interest groups were not enough to save Garrels. Apparently the whiteness of the Fisher Collection was a problem that offset that effort:
In 2009, Gap founders Donald and Doris Fisher agreed to lend their collection of 1,100 works to the museum for 100 years. As part of the deal, the museum agreed to organize Fisher-only displays once a decade and to keep three-quarters of the works on show at all times in designated galleries as Fisher works. But the collection contains very few works by women or artists of color, creating a structural dominance of white men in the museum’s galleries.
Those nefarious Gap collectors of white male art!! No wonder Garrels had to go.
Quite some time ago, I noticed that museum art of the modern variety had become totally political. Even for collections of older works, much of the commentary is such leftist PC claptrap that it often ruins the exhibit and in order to enjoy the art you have to skip the explanatory materials on the wall.
Then again, Soviet art wasn’t very good either.
My painting used to be on display at the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis. But I don’t work for the property maintenance company any more, and I’m sure someone has repainted those walls since then.
It was a kind of odd place with artists showing up on their bicycles. The security operation was kind of impressive, very modern and technological. These days I guess they’re all just grateful that the looters and arsonists didn’t quite make it to the museum. There was so much glass to be broken.
For decades, the making of “art” has been entirely ideological, without any sense of aesthetics nor any craft involved in creating the works in question. In addition to its relentlessly one-sided politicization, the art world has been consumed with a hatred of beauty (Roger Scruton often wrote about this “callophobia”) and an obsession with ugliness, which is intended to unmask the evils of capitalism, Eurocentrism, the patriarchy, racism, Islamophobia, etc.
It’s hard to summon up much sympathy for Sullivan after his disgraceful and legitimately deranged obsession with Sarah Palin’s uterus.
Mike
“acquire work by female artists, artists of color, and LGBTQ+ artists.”
I’m sure there is a real treasure trove of art just waiting to be discovered. The evil white man has long been discriminating against these artists and keeping them down. The only reason there haven’t been any female Rembrandts or Picassos is because the evil white male patriarchy oppressed them.
Garrels’ phrasing surely played a significant role. As an art curator in San Francisco, there is less that a .0000000000000001% chance Garrels is a conservative. More likely, he’s a clueless older white liberal/leftist who does not understand the new rules.
In progressive circles “reverse discrimination” has long been considered a white supremacist dog whistle. I learned this when I was on the left in the 90’s. Not only was it an impossibility (‘discriminating’ against whites was not discrimination; it was ‘justice’) but it was also deeply offensive as it appropriated and exploited a term exclusive to minorities.
That was 25 years ago. A white liberal/progressive using the term then would have been chastised and scolded, but likely could have kept his job if he abjectly apologized. But again, that was 25 years ago.
And then…
“Don’t worry, we will definitely continue to collect white artists”
Oh my. What a ‘problematic’ comment! Here’s the red faced Twitter SJW screamer’s response:
“WHY THE F— SHOULD ANYONE WORRY ABOUT THAT???”
And, “of course”??!!! Once again, a dog whistle. A white man giving a wink and a nod that, “yes, yes we will do something to placate those braying POCs and their white allies, but, of course, we’re still focusing on white artists…i.e. ‘real art'”
In sum, Garrels is a clueless twit who should have known better. He gets no sympathy from me. None. Now…if this is a red pill moment for him and he moves right, and publicizes the same…then he might earn my sympathy.
MBunge: exactly.
First, they planned… cancelled the unwanted or profitable babies a.k.a. Fetal-Americans (i.e. wicked solution, social progress), then the white men (e.g. social justice), then all men (e.g. rape culture), then they came for the white girls (e.g. systemic diversity)…
“Works that have been acquired using the fund include pieces by . . Leonora Carrington”
Leonora Carrington? Is she a “thing”? She was one of the lesser Surrealists whose main claim to fame is that Max Ernst was hammering her before he married the recently late (and considerably more talented, if erratic) Dorothea Tanning. Of course Women’s Studies theses have wallowed in the Surrealist women for some time, and they (the artists, not the feminists) do merit some publicity . . . or at least we antiquarians still interested in Surrealism think so.
Is it Burger King who is now bragging about their cows not farting methane as much as “ordinary” cows?
People who care about methane don’t eat burgers and never will.
People who eat burgers eventually tire of being lectured.
BK, is that so hard to understand?
Art entered a decadent period a century ago from which it hasn’t emerged. Handsome work is not to be found in museums, unless they’re displaying antiques. You find handsome work for purchase at flea markets and clothesline sales. Thomas Kinkade has been a bright spot.
And, again, either he caved or someone insisted he resign. Who is that person? Why don’t we ever hear an explanation from that person that isn’t delivered through a press agent and isn’t humbug? There is nothing that compelled that person to give in to his whiny employees. I’ve never worked for a manager who would.
First they came for the conservatives, but i was not a conservative
then they came for the classical liberals…
then they came after those closest to them
when they came for me, there was no one left to protest
on another quick note from gateway pundit
This is really STUNNING information! The Texas Department of Health released numbers recently comparing the coronavirus to the last two seasonal flu viruses.The coronavirus was actually less lethal than the flu in the state! The flu had a mortality rate of 0.03% and 0.04%. The coronavirus has a mortality rate of 0.01% in Texas.This won’t make any headlines. Via Dr. Andrew Bostom. Interesting comparative data on seasonal influenza in Texas 2018 & 2019 vs. 2020 Covid-19
The article on Garrels contained an interesting note that seems to be getting overlooked in the discussion of his “racist” remarks (old tone-deaf white liberal pretty much explains it all).
“Garells recently became the target of criticism after it emerged that he (as well as the museum’s director) had received no-interest home loans from the museum, which some saw as emblematic of its unequal treatment of employees. (Garells’s loan was worth $500,000.)”
Will he have to give back the money?
If not, does he even care that he was fired?
Yes some Soviet art was rubbish, but I think a big irony is that the Soviets and their satellites never bothered much with the idea of bourgeois culture or dismantling the past to make something better. If anything they veered too far to the conservative and stamped out Russia’s very good modernist movement as soon as they could. They retained the symphony orchestra and extended its repetoire and they kept the atelier. And some of the cinema – just wow. Not as good as American cinema, because nobody’s is, but still amazing in a different way.
yeah, a $500K, no doubt forgivable, home loan has got to be a bit galling. Docents, virtually all art history majors married to lawyers, damn near have to pay the museums to be allowed to walk around guiding folks.
Poor guy now has to sell into a declining market, too.
yeah, a $500K, no doubt forgivable, home loan has got to be a bit galling.
Again, his benefits package is none of their f*cking business. It’s the board’s business. They want to compensate him in implicit interest payments rather than adding an increment to his salary, what’s it to anyone else? These woke-tards need a bloody good hiding.
(Personally, I’d like to see portable benefit plans, delivered through employee co-operatives; your employer compensates you in cash and minor perquisites).
During President Biden’s brief term in office before he succumbs to dementia, SFMOMA will host a display of
“Entartete Kunst” where only ‘white’ artists will be displayed.
Caedmon on July 15, 2020 at 3:43 am said: Yes some Soviet art was rubbish, but I think a big irony is that the Soviets and their satellites never bothered much with the idea of bourgeois culture or dismantling the past to make something better.
Actually the interesting thing is as the soviet ideological message dies away over time, the posters and the artwork and the other items are living on having little meaning but as artwork!!
There also exist some very good Soviet-era films, such as by Andrei Tarkovsky, and fiction, such as by Yuri Trifonov. Once Stalin was dead, things gradually became a little bit different. While he was alive, well, one never knew what whim might strike him next. He even commented on and exerted some pressure on the composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
In Germany, during Hitler’s reign, a vast number of accomplished artists, writers, composers and filmmakers (also scientists) fled to the United States.
“Again, his benefits package is none of their f*cking business. It’s the board’s business.”
SFMOMA is a non-profit group, so how it pays people is the business of ANYONE who donated money to it.
Frankly, one of the things that has led us to this point has been the blatant rigging of the game to benefit people at the top of it, like Garrels, at the expense of everyone else. A billionaire is almost certainly some combination of smarter, more talented, harder working, and more ambitious than a guy who makes $50,000 a year. It is both physically and metaphysically impossible that he’s 20,000 times smarter, more talented, harder working, and more ambitous.
Mike
MBunge channels the logic behind the “why should x receive more than y in compensation, or whatever,” outrage wokeism can find a home in anyone it would appear.
MBunge:
50,000 times? The math doesn’t seem correct there in terms of Garrells, who is certainly no billionaire.
But the larger picture is: who gets to decide what’s enough, and what’s too much? Dangerous stuff.
That’s why we usually let the market decide.
miklos000rosza on July 15, 2020 at 1:08 pm said:
I don’t know whether there were any good Soviet era movies or not. I suspect from a couple of clips I have seen, that there were some … those which somehow, as others have mentioned, dealt with more or less non-political topics.
The couple of Soviet era Sci-Fi’s I’ve seen were terrible. And the new Russian historical dramas look like they are made by the same Chinese directors who make all of their unwatchable acrobatic slo-mo-violence patriotic features.
But when it comes to this one film, Dragen’s Fang (1985) aka 10 other names I won’t list, I will give this Norse /late Soviet Russian production 100% credit for avoiding the ridiculous wigs, the obviously misfit casting of producer’s buddies, and overall histrionics of most “Viking” movies.
Frankly, it’s probably too non violent and too Idyllic; but I got a kick just out of watching the boats and the authentic looking locales. It all takes place in the Baltic region and in villages so that made it somewhat easier to film, I suppose. The plot as near as I can figure concerns a Russian speaking Novgorodian Scanno Slav, who is taken prisoner by a largely good natured Scandinavian raider.
The Norwegian language version is has gone missing from YouTube. So if you want to watch a few minutes you will have to grit your teeth and listen to some Russian guy repeating the Norse dialog in Russian.
The scenery is nice … https://ok.ru/video/245138655989?fromTime=1437
“MBunge channels the logic behind the “why should x receive more than y in compensation, or whatever,” outrage wokeism can find a home in anyone it would appear.”
And om channels the obliviousness that empowers people like Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Mike
MBunge:
LOL. You didn’t understand Neo’s point? Do we have to draw you a picture with crayons? You will fit right in with the woke outrage police using your argument.
Who is allowed to make how much, and how much it too much in the world of Bunge?
I tip my hat to you Mr. Karen.
“But the larger picture is: who gets to decide what’s enough, and what’s too much? Dangerous stuff.
That’s why we usually let the market decide.”
In what way does “the market” decide the pay packages of CEOs? Here’s a link…
http://www.verisi.com/resources/us-ceo-compensation.htm
…which says the average U.S. CEO in 1980 made 44 times as much as the average worker. By 2005, the average U.S. CEO was making 411 times as much as the average worker. Was the average U.S. CEO in 2005 over nine times smarter than his 1980 counterpart? Over nine times more talented? Did he work over nine times harder? Were 2005 profits over 900% higher than in 1980?
In a free society, there is going to be plenty of inequality because ability and luck are never equally distributed. But that doesn’t mean we have to blind ourselves when “the market” is obviously being rigged to benefit some over others.
Mike
Mbunge: “Frankly, one of the things that has led us to this point has been the blatant rigging of the game to benefit people at the top of it, like Garrels, at the expense of everyone else.”
Yeah, true. There was all kinds of whining when a newly appointed member of the University of Texas Board of Regents started publicizing whose kid was getting greased in, and who was getting big fat forgivable loans. They tried to cancel the guy, but he was so stubbornly honest they failed.
“Who is allowed to make how much, and how much it too much in the world of Bunge?”
It’s hard to know how to respond to someone with such a simpleton’s understanding of economics. The suggestion that the laws and regulations which exist today, such as the ones which govern and guide how CEOs are paid, are perfect and the only such laws and regulations that possibly can exist is flatly stupid.
Mike
MBunge:
Insulting the person asking you a question does not a good rejoinder make.
How is it that the question “Who is allowed to make how much, and how much it too much in the world of Bunge?” makes the questioner a “simpleton” in terms of his/her understanding of economics? I haven’t seen any brilliant and complex economic expositions by anyone on this thread.
But if you want to peruse the literature on the issue of what was meant by letting the market decide, I refer you to this, this, this, this, and this. There are plenty more.
Mr Bunge/Karen:
Sometimes it takes a simpleton to point out the truly grandiose by asking basic questions. Share more of your wisdom, don’t hide it under the bushel. 😉