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Posts Tagged ‘Art’

Ben Shapiro

White House Painting: Obama Throws Artist Under the Bus

by Ben Shapiro

Today, the Washington Post reported that a painting by artist Alma Thomas entitled “Watusi (Hard Edge)” was being removed from the White House’s East Wing.  For those who don’t remember, Thomas’ painting is a plagiaristic copy of Henri Matisse’s “The Snail” rotated 90 degrees – see my piece, and the paintings side by side here.  According to Semonti Stephens, Michelle Obama’s deputy press secretary, the painting was moved “because it didn’t fit the space right.”  

obama bus

The White House explicitly denied that the painting was being removed because of its obvious similarity to the Matisse piece.  And the Washington Post writers cover for the White House in typical press lackey fashion:

Stephens’s explanation makes sense because it is inconceivable that the White House’s art experts would imagine Thomas’s painting was fraudulent or a copy … Elaborations on earlier artists’ work, even full appropriation, have been common practice in art for hundreds of years. 

Right.  And Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services because Obama didn’t like his red glasses.  It had nothing to do with his tax cheating.  (more…)

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Posted Nov 5th 2009 at 11:27 am in Art, Politics | 71 Comments

James Hudnall

The New Counter Culture: Liberty

by James Hudnall

Once upon a time in America, the 1960s to be exact, a generation of young people dissatisfied with the status quo decided they wanted to change society for that they felt was the better. They resented the culture of the time, which was a conservative, somewhat conformist society born out of the 1950s. Taking a cue from the Soviets who called anything that was against Communism “counter-revolutionary” they referred their movement as the “counter-culture.”

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From this we got the hippies, the yippies, underground comics, groups like the SLA and the Black Panthers, all sorts of pressure groups and social movements. These were mostly influenced and orchestrated by the left. In fact, leftists had a big hand in shaping a lot of those communities and they infiltrated academia, education, government, media. Over the years they effected a lot of change to our society.

You can judge for yourself how well that worked out. But you can’t deny they managed to get a lot of what they wanted. Except what resulted is a typical example of human irony. (more…)

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Posted Oct 14th 2009 at 6:44 am in Art, Culture, Featured Story | 165 Comments

Endre Balogh

Artists: Another ‘Entitlement’ Group

by Endre Balogh

I must admit that when I first heard about the National Endowment for the Arts conference call to enlist the arts community in propagandizing the White House’s agenda, I was a little mystified as to why it was so controversial.  After all, the NEA, through its funding choices, has been actively undermining American values for many years.  Way back in 1986 we were treated to the scandal of Andres Serrano getting $15,000 from the NEA for his mediocre photo of a plastic crucifix in his own urine – “Piss Christ.”  That is just one of a myriad of egregious examples of NEA funding going to support dubious “art” that functions solely to corrode the fabric of civilized society.

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Sure, the NEA gives money to major established arts organizations – symphonies, ballet companies, repertory theater groups, and the like — but that is how they maintain their veneer of staid respectability, all the while promulgating their Leftist, nihilistic agenda through their smaller grants.  For example, I know a truly great American artist, Harry Carmean, who, among his other credits, was the Chairman of the Fine Arts Department at the Art Center College of Design  in Pasadena, California and taught there for 43 years.  He applied for NEA grants repeatedly to help fund his work but was rejected each time because his paintings were deemed “not edgy enough.”   Translation: he actually possesses artistic talent, skill, and discipline, which he uses to create beauty instead of pseudo-artistic, politicized claptrap.  We all know he would have had a far better chance of getting a grant out of the subjective and ideologically driven apparatchiks at the NEA had he used dog feces to paint images of female genitalia. (more…)

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Posted Oct 5th 2009 at 8:22 am in Art, Politics | 12 Comments

Gary Graham

Art is Stuff …and Stuff Happens

by Gary Graham

This stuff doesn’t happen on its own.  Somebody must create it.  Art is the product of conscious action.  But art cannot be considered ‘art’…until it is named.  It must be called ‘art.’  And it seems today that regardless of the number of dissenters from that designation, if one person decides that something is art – it’s art, dammit.  End of discussion.  For to impugn its veracity would be to malign someone’s character.  It might even get you called ‘racist.’ To tell an artist that what he or she has produced is not ‘art’ would be spewing hate speech just as though you’d burned a cross on their lawn or dipped a crucifix in urine.  (Oh wait…that’s been done.  And come to think of it…that was called art.   Ahhh…I am beginning to see many disparities and conflicts in the rational line here.)

ContemporaryArt4

Help me along — I am apparently a bit slow.  Something is ‘art’ if the ‘artist’ says it is art.  Even if the viewer of said art is highly offended and appalled by this so-called art.  Then it’s his or her problem… get over it…go back to Wasilla and blow up a moose. 

But should you dare suggest that it might not be the best use of public funds to bankroll exhibitions that the majority of Americans consider to be highly offensive and even pornographic —  well…then you obviously must be a hate-filled, intolerant, racist homophobe, and you are to be minimalized as a right-wing fringe kook.  (more…)

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Posted Sep 28th 2009 at 7:22 am in Art, Culture, Politics | 105 Comments

Iowahawk

Art Will Not Be Silenced! — Win a $33.18 Grant From the Iowahawk Endowment for the Arts

by Iowahawk

Like you, when I read that a cabal of art-hating reactionary philistines had forced the resignation of Yosi Sergant from the National Endowment for the Arts, I was sickened. This was followed by shame, then fear. And then, finally, the realization that here was a golden opportunity for cheap blog traffic.

As a renowned collector of dumpster art and pork industry commemorative plates, I made a solemn vow to myself: this injustice will not stand. If these radicals are allowed to bring down the NEA’s Assistant Liaison for Art Community Outreach — for merely organizing an innocent devotional art program — who is next on their dangerous anti-culture agenda? The NEA Undersecretary for Public Engagement? Western Civilization itself?

No, my friends, the stakes are too high. We in the Arts community must confront these vulgarian bullies and let them know that ART WILL NOT BE SILENCED. To show my personal commitment to this important cause, last night I dug deep into my kid’s sock drawer and found $33.18, which I am now fully dedicating to an endowment to fund creative art aimed at promoting me and my agenda.  (more…)

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Posted Sep 25th 2009 at 5:39 pm in Art, Political Humor | 41 Comments

Big Hollywood

Fox News: Months Prior to NEA Conf. Call White House Met With 60 Artists ‘to promote the administration’s agenda’

by Big Hollywood

On Monday the 21st, Big Hollywood reported on a May 12 meeting of 60 artists with the NEA and the White House to help “promote the administration’s agenda” — the one where The Department of Alternative Thinking was proposed…

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Today, the Washington Times compiled a long list of the invited artists who are grant recipients, and…

Fox News followed up with this report:

“Rappers, dancers, writers and other activists from around the country were invited to a May 12 session next door to the White House where they were “challenged to come up with promising and attractive ideas about how artists can work to promote the administration’s agenda.” (more…)

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Posted Sep 24th 2009 at 5:47 pm in Art, Politics | 59 Comments

Iowahawk

Earn Big $$$ the NEA Way!

by Iowahawk

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It’s true — U.S. government demand for art and art-like products has never been higher! Uncle Sam and the good folks at the National Endowment for the Arts are on the lookout for go-getting, obedient artists like you for a fast-paced career in state propaganda. With the quick and easy Federal Art Instruction Institute course, now you too can get a first class ticket on the federal art gravy train!

Tell Me More!

From heath care to the economy to the environment, Washington has become infested with pesky state enemies who are clogging up the legislative pipeline and making life miserable for our cool, art-loving president. That’s why he has ordered the NEA to fund obsequious bohemians to help him exterminate the competition and drive traffic to his hip new website Servile.gov. The Federal Art Instruction Institute will show you how to get off funemployment and on the payroll of this exciting $3.6 trillion growth industry!

How can the Federal Art Instruction Institute help me? (more…)

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Posted Sep 23rd 2009 at 4:47 pm in Art, Politics | 51 Comments

Charles Winecoff

The NEA: More Than Just A Little ‘Gay’

by Charles Winecoff

Last month, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman said that, in American politics, ”the arts are a little bit of a target.  The subtext is that it is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay.”

Well, the NEA has certainly earned that reputation these past few weeks.  Just like the LGBT community, the NEA – which purports to help struggling artists of all kinds - is following in lockstep with The One, regardless of whether it’s good for artistic expression, free speech, or real people.

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Last fall, I was amazed at how many folks in the gay community let themselves believe that getting Obama elected would be the magical first step towards achieving “equality” – at least in terms of appropriating the word “marriage” - despite the fact that He had already stated clearly that He is against gay marriage.

And no one seemed to care (much less recall) that, in 2007, The One had told CNN that building a consensus for gay marriage would be “difficult and distracting” – you know, like the Iraq war?  (Or gnats.) (more…)

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Posted Sep 22nd 2009 at 3:33 pm in Art, Politics | 73 Comments

Chris Muir

NEA: Sell Outs

by Chris Muir

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Posted Sep 22nd 2009 at 6:03 am in Art, Political Humor | 14 Comments

Big Hollywood

George Will: Did the White House Initiate the NEA ‘Propaganda’ Call?

by Big Hollywood

George Will in today’s Washington Post:

“Did the White House initiate the conference call-cum-political pep rally? Or, even worse, did the NEA, an independent agency, spontaneously politicize itself? Something that reads awfully like an invitation went from Sergant’s NEA e-mail address to a cohort of “artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, tastemakers, leaders or just plain cool people.” …

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“The NEA is the nation’s largest single source of financial support for the arts, and its grants often prompt supplemental private donations. He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune, and in the four months before the conference call, 16 of the participating organizations received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA. Two days after the call, the 16 and five other organizations issued a plea for the president’s health-care plan. … (more…)

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Posted Sep 18th 2009 at 7:36 am in Art, Politics | 34 Comments

Alexander Marlow

What Did Kumar Know, and When Did He Know It?

by Alexander Marlow

Meet the face of Obama’s Ministry of Propaganda: Kal Penn.  Best known for being one of the hapless stoners in the sex-bong-fart franchise “Harold & Kumar,” Penn was brought on to the Obama Administration to be the President’s Associate Director of Public Engagement.  After failing to grab more than a headline or two in the five months since his hiring, he has entered the fray in a big way as the White House representative to a National Endowment for the Arts conference call promoting the Obama administration’s political agenda.

kumar nea

Patrick Courrielche reported on the call this morning:

Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, was to represent the White House and key representatives from the National Endowment for the Arts were also to participate.

Did you catch that? Kalpen Modi is the given name of the actor known as Kal Penn. (more…)

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Posted Sep 8th 2009 at 5:39 pm in Art, Celebrity News, Featured Story, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 89 Comments

Doug TenNapel

Found Art: Dear Leader Addresses the Children

by Doug TenNapel

Tomorrow President Obama will address our children and students will be encouraged to write his inspirational sayings on sticky notes and homemade  posters. My daughter’s class loves the Chairman President so much that they couldn’t wait to get right to work on their posters.

Here’s a glimpse of what they’re working on:

godspartners[1]
Carlos, age 7

–

(more…)

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Posted Sep 7th 2009 at 7:09 am in Art, Featured Story, Politics | 166 Comments

Scott Graves

Do The Warhol—Part 4: The Manhattan Project of the Culture War

by Scott Graves

When preaching to the choir, one directs one’s lessons to those who already agree.  Conversely, those who otherwise might listen and gain something useful get nothing.  More on that as this inter-connected series of observations comes to an end.

“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.”

American Icon: “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.”

Vast, determined, highly successful forces and superior technologies dominated the theaters of WWII prior to America’s entry into the conflict after Pearl Harbor in 1941.  The Manhattan Project began in August of 1942, a couple of months before General George Patton invaded North Africa.  Character, strategy, and tactics played as large a role in dealing with Panzer and Tiger tanks as did Patton’s Shermans, of course, because firepower alone was insufficient in itself.  But the defeat of one totalitarian threat by 1945 was not apt to make much difference in taking down another in a place where school children were being trained to fight to the death for the Empire— with sharpened sticks.  The Manhattan Project, through funding, research, experimentation, design, development and production, met the challenge and made the difference. (more…)

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Posted Jul 26th 2009 at 6:55 am in Art, Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Politics | 32 Comments

Scott Graves

Do The Warhol—Part 1: The Business of Vision

by Scott Graves
Your correspondent, as absorbed by the Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, PA.

Your correspondent, as absorbed by the Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, PA.

A dance craze— like “freaking”— it is not, but rather, a point of view.

Back in January of this year, Andrew Breitbart announced “Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment industry”.  The announcement is as important as it is radical, assessing the power of Pop Culture in shaping global attitudes and standing athwart contemporary assaults on Western values, yelling, as did William Buckley in 1955, Stop.

Ask yourself: Is a vision of the world that is contrary in almost every way to the prevailing cultural paradigms a difficult “sell”?  Given this is always so, how is such a challenge overcome? (more…)

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Posted Jul 23rd 2009 at 6:56 am in Art, Classic Hollywood, Politics | 39 Comments

Matt Patterson

‘The Dark Knight’: Year One

by Matt Patterson

What is the difference between art and entertainment?

There is, obviously, some overlap: Not all art entertains (though some does); not all entertainment is art (though some is).  At bottom, it seems, the difference is one of intent – the artist seeks to connect us with larger meanings, larger truths about the world, about ourselves.  The primary focus of art is therefore to illuminate, with any entertainment had in the process merely a bonus.

The goal of the entertainer, on the other hand, is perhaps less sublime, though no less worthy – to distract, to tickle, to stimulate the fancy.  Entertainment is at bottom diversion, and I say this without a trace of disdain – often it is the quality and quantity of our diversions which makes the difference between a joyful life and a merely bearable one.

One year ago this weekend, a beating black heart pulsed in summer’s midst: The Dark Knight.  It was big-budget, comic book based franchise movie, made for popcorn eaters seeking suitable summer diversion.  And It delivered beyond the filmmakers wildest expectations – the masses were so entertained that they lifted it up into the box office stratosphere in grateful recompense. (more…)

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Posted Jul 17th 2009 at 6:47 am in Film, Politics | 108 Comments

Scott Graves

Iran Is Not Film School

by Scott Graves

Okay Class, stop sniffing your Sharpies in a futile attempt to reach a state of intoxication and try to take notes using that writing instrument and what brain cells you have left. Remember, if you can, that information you believe to be useless is, indeed, of no value whatsoever if you are unable to apply it in real-life situations, or at the very least for pc gaming “cheats.” Otherwise your very existence is no better than a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any human being, past or present, living or dead. (Or in your cases, “living dead” or zombie, if you prefer, or the more inclusive term “differently animated.”)


Aristotle, in Poetics, slops the pearl that “art” is a “representation of reality.” By this definition, presentations of the creative sort contain something, if only a je ne sais quois, that can be recognized as a reflection of the human condition and the historical present. Reach back in time to The Epic of Gilgamesh, and out of the cuneiform pressed in clay comes the tale of a king’s hubris, lust for immortality, and ultimate understanding of his place in the world. Fast forward and select at random. “The Counsels of the Bird” by Rumi, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest,  Eliot’s “Quartets,” “The Short Happy Life Of Francis MacComber” by Hemingway.  Consider Andy Warhol’s body of work as a commentary on the superficiality of modern culture; look at the content of  films, popular songs and television programs, comic strips and “illustrated novels,” with their wide diversity of theme and thought.  All these arts, of varying degrees of cultural significance, may be seen to generally adhere to Aristotle’s commentary. (more…)

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Posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 5:41 pm in Entertainment, News | 2 Comments

Alvaro Alvillar

Happy Flag Day

by Alvaro Alvillar

I painted my first American flag in 1997 after viewing Robert Hughes’ PBS series “American Visions” about the history of American art and its coming of age in the fifties. This left me wanting to see Jasper Johns 1954 flag painting so much that I got up the next day, headed to the library, returned home and wound up painting my own flag. I have painted the American flag numerous times since and will continue to do so.

All Quiet on the Western Front, 1997

In 2001 I wanted to create a work of art that would fuse Jasper Johns flag and Andy Warhol’s 32 Campbell Soup Can paintings titled “Choices” with a little Ed Ruscha thrown in for good measure. The soup can paintings were all identical except for the flavors on the cans and that’s what I would do to my Johns inspired flags. All identical, as much as you can make thirty-two separate paintings, except in this case, instead of flavors, each vertical flag painting would have an almost invisible word at the bottom. (more…)

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Posted Jun 14th 2009 at 9:37 am in Entertainment, Politics | 2 Comments

Alvaro Alvillar

Art 101: I am an American!

by Alvaro Alvillar


“Colors” [click to enlarge]

I made the above painting:

A. To point out to the art community who I am?

B. To make clear to my Latino brothers and sisters who I am?

C. To leave no doubt to anyone as to who I am?

D. To suggest that the journey is relevant but that in the long run, it is who you are now and what you do now that matters?

E. All of the above?

Alvaro Avillar’s portfolio can be viewed here.

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Posted Jun 1st 2009 at 5:03 am in Entertainment, Politics | No Comments

Andrew Leigh

Angels, Demons and the Magical Missing Middle Easterner

by Andrew Leigh

A frequent cavil by participants in the Angels & Demons debate is, “It’s just a movie!” (Or, “It’s fiction!”)

The implication is that the filmmakers made this movie just so they could tell a ripping good yarn. Stipulating for the moment that it is a good yarn, there’s no way to show that the filmmakers were indeed fully cognizant of their movie’s cultural impact. There’s no way we can get inside their minds, right?


Hassassin Assassin

Well, I’ve figured out a way to do just that. No, I don’t have ESP or a special mind-reading device. But I do have common sense (pace my wife).

Now, whenever someone adapts a book into a movie, it’s instructive to examine where the movie differs from the book. If the movie version alters a key detail in the book, you can’t blame the original author for that decision. It’s clearly a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers. (more…)

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Posted May 22nd 2009 at 3:33 pm in Entertainment, Religion | One Comment

Alvaro Alvillar

Art 101: Hey Sean Penn, Who Wrote This?

by Alvaro Alvillar

Here’s a hint:

Sean Penn and Bono were friends/admirers of this poet and I wonder if they are aware of this very pertinent and timeless poem which reflects today’s “progressive” hypocritical agenda.

I will reveal the rest of the poem and the artist this weekend, a poet I had the great fortune of having met as a very young man in high school at the studio of an artist and friend.

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Posted Apr 14th 2009 at 8:03 am in Entertainment, Politics | No Comments

Brett Joshpe

Introducing Parcbench

by Brett Joshpe

Today is the first Monday of Spring, the season that inspires fresh hope, renewed energy, and thoughts of new beginnings.  And so it is appropriate that today a colleague and I have launched Parcbench, a pop-culture and lifestyle brand whose central feature is an online daily magazine at www.parcbench.com.   

Parcbench does not profess to be like most other publications, although we have derived much inspiration from Big Hollywood and its founder, Andrew Breitbart, who has agreed to join our Board of Advisors.  And we believe that we share a common mission.  Specifically, we strive to bring people pop-culture that reflects mainstream America.   (more…)

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Posted Mar 23rd 2009 at 1:23 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment, Politics | 26 Comments

Alvaro Alvillar

‘POLITICALLY ITS OK TO HATE THE WHITE MAN’

by Alvaro Alvillar

In March of 2007, two police officers in Atlanta, Georgia filed a hostile work environment complaint against a work of art that went up in Atlanta’s City Hall East where, among other things, the city police headquarters and Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs are located. Atlanta’s chapter of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers called for the immediate removal of the art. The artist was called a “racist” and the art a work of “hate.” 

The people who spread the word “racist” were those in the media eager for headline grabbing attention, but the only reason it became a city-wide controversy was due to the fact the art show took place in a public building, not in a gallery. For this reason, local conservative radio also added fuel to the controversy. 

I should add that no taxpayer money funded any of this. All of the participating artists installed their own work, took it down themselves, removed it when the show ended and no work of art was bought by the city.   (more…)

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Posted Mar 10th 2009 at 5:11 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, Media Criticism | 91 Comments

Alvaro Alvillar

A Little Art 101 For the Weekend…

by Alvaro Alvillar

 

…what does this mean to you?

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Posted Feb 28th 2009 at 7:35 am in Entertainment, Politics | 31 Comments