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Monday, April 11, 2011

Visual Art Today in Political Prisoners and Art

Posted by Jen Graves on Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 12:55 PM

An Australian paper says Ai Weiwei is being held for one drawing in particular.

Meanwhile, Maureen Dowd says Bob Dylan was a hypocrite to perform in China during the government's obvious crackdown on a critical artist. The Guardian makes a countercase, but frankly, that countercase is phrased a lot like the overblown bullshit rhetoric it blasts against. The meaning of Bob Dylan in China this week is something I can't figure out in two seconds.

In Russia, the radical collective Voina, recently imprisoned for their works, now have won a prize for a giant penis spraypainted onto a drawbridge that, when raised, gives an erect bird to the former KGB building. Land art!

Comments (8) RSS

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Meh. Stop telling Dylan what he should do - he's done more than most when it mattered.

All your freedom is belong to the NYC "terrorist cameras" that are used to arrest civilians for 99.99 percent non-terrorist things.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on April 11, 2011 at 12:57 PM

@1, pray tell, what does "done more than most" mean, Will?

Dylan in China means one thing: payday. Dylan's working. That's what he does. He doesn't work on behalf of the political agendas of others and never has. Some people thought he was working for them fifty years ago but they were wrong.

Posted by Fnarf

on April 11, 2011 at 1:05 PM

All those Corporations raking in billions can turn away their eyes but a few singers can't make a few bucks? Rich. I dare Dowd to divest her 401K from any companies doing business with the Chinese before she starts wagging her finger at anyone else!

Posted by Vince on April 11, 2011 at 1:10 PM

Isn't Dylan a conservative now like Arlo Guthrie?

www.rightwingbob.com

Posted by Born again Bob? on April 11, 2011 at 1:19 PM

@2 what I mean is back when it did matter, he was where it mattered. he never was a "soldier" for a cause.

Meanwhile, all your jobs are being exported to Red China using your corporate tax-exempted money that Americans pay for.

@3 is right.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on April 11, 2011 at 1:40 PM

It sounds like The Australian is referring to this image of Ai Weiwei, which AFAIK is from a series of images from 2009/10. He's said worse, so I'm not sure why people are pointing to this in particular, but anyway, it's basically a popular meme from Chinese Internet culture where they will use phonetically similar characters to say certain things. 草泥马, or literally Grass Mud Horse, is the toy horse he's holding, where "grass mud horse" sounds like "fuck your mother", but with different intonation. He's covering himself, which is another pun where the word for "party" (党) sounds similar to "crotch" (裆) and "block" (挡).

Posted by Nick Nelson on April 11, 2011 at 2:05 PM

How many people* defending Dylan now were excoriating Beyonce and Mariah Carey a month ago for performing for the Qadaffis? Do celebrities or artists have any responsibility beyond collecting that mad cash?

That's rich calling ordinary individuals trying to survive in modern America hypocrites because they aren't able to boycott everything and quit jobs with companies that operate in China. But giving a pass to celebrities that have a public voice that reaches beyond a blog comment. Would Ai Weiwei be released this week had Dylan passed on the paycheck? Maybe, maybe not. Would the story be more prominent, yes. Beyond the art pages of NYTimes the crackdown on dissidents of all kinds this month in China is invisible.

Maybe those artists in the 1980s should have just played Sun City and collected the cash while ignoring the suffering. Allowing Reagan and corporate America to normalize relations with South Africa without any notice to the public. I'm sure apartheid would have died on its own and Mandela freed by now, right? Was it only the artists' boycott? of course not!(hold off your strawmen Fnarf and WiS) But millions of Americans and Europeans were informed by that boycott and pressured their politicians and companies to get out of SA.

*not necessarily the previous posters on this thread

Posted by SoSea Resident on April 11, 2011 at 2:38 PM

"The meaning of Bob Dylan in China this week is something I can't figure out in two seconds."

I guess the answer, my friend, is just blowing in the wind.

Posted by tunanator on April 11, 2011 at 10:22 PM