ExhibitBE

The most interesting cultural thing that I've seen since I last checked in was an exhibit of murals in an abandoned housing project in New Orleans called ExhibitBE. (Link.) It was part of the Prospect.3 biennial.

"The Fat Kids from Outer Space" had a mural. (The left-third of the second photo.) I've posted about Tard's monster graffiti here before, he's in that group. Here's a link to an interview with him from last year. He cites Captain Beefheart as an influence.

Candy Chang's collages reminded me of Richard Hamilton's work. (Link.) I normally don't read blocks of text in a contemporary art exhibitions. I like to focus on what's going on visually. These collages piqued my interest enough that I actually went back to read the story several minutes after my first walk-through.

Sharpening the Contradictions

Not that anyone is interested in what I am reading as news posted on this aging technology called a "weblog", but this commentary by Juan Cole is the best summary of the strategic motivations and larger political context of the attacks in Paris that I have read, and I would like to archive it for discussion and later reference. The article was posted on the day of the shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.

 ...

“Sharpening the contradictions” is the strategy of sociopaths and totalitarians, aimed at unmooring people from their ordinary insouciance and preying on them, mobilizing their energies and wealth for the perverted purposes of a self-styled great leader.

...

The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals.

via Hullaballoo