1980s art magazines, following French theorists, often described art as a "play of signifiers." In the present era, politics requires that play be minimized and that signifiers be clear and unambiguous. An example is Ryder Ripps' painting show at Postmasters Gallery, titled "Ho." The show plays with the tradition of the male artist and female model, and questions the relationship between sexual and commercial prostitution. The "Ho" in question is Adrianne Ho, who became Instagram-famous posting attractive photos of herself advertising various brands. Welcome to the third rail of current art world discourse.
Some writers have interpreted the show as unambiguously misogynist. Yet the artist has parodied himself in the show's documentation as a macho painter, with back to back photos of a very butch Willem De Kooning in his 1950s apartment and Ripps dressed in muscle T and rolled-up jeans, painting Ho on his iPhone touchscreen. The touchscreen paintings, outsourced to third party oil-on-canvas contractors, de-sexualize Adrianne Ho's unambiguously sexy self-images by means of funhouse mirror distortions that make her appear absurd or grotesque. This could be slut shaming or it could be repurposing soulless capitalism as a surrealist nightmare.
In an earlier, more open minded era, the gallery would be a free speech zone where the yin and yang of such ideas could be considered. That's not the era we're living in.
February 2015
people on tv are liars?
Mean internet commenters are piling on Brian Williams, now that there's some proof he's an airhead. This one from Salon is good:
averow45 It was another hot day in Iraq. Hotter than Hades in the Chinook copter that the Brian was flying in. So very boring because He knew that there was unreported news occurring down there in the desert. Wasting no time Brian grabbed a chute from the loadmaster and jumped out of the chopper, drifting straight into the insurgents' command camp. He brazenly strode up to the insurgents' leader and demanded a cease fire. Despite not speaking a word of their language he simply got it done through sheer force of personality. Then he heard that one of the dastardly insurgents had disobeyed the cease fire by firing an RPG at the very chopper he had just been in! The Brian wasted no time. He jogged directly to the crash site, rendered first aid to the wounded and fixed the broken hydraulic lines using his bare hands. After returning stateside the President awarded him the Medal of Freedom in a secret Rose Garden Ceremony.