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Even odder than Lars Vilks

30/8/2012

 
Jamtli Udda och jämt logo
Jamtli is a regional museum in the city of Östersund in central Sweden. In recent days it has been blessed with a great deal of attention. At first this delighted its director, Henrik Zipsane. “All publicity is good publicity” he declared in a newspaper interview last week.(1)

Zipsane must have been cursing those words as he announced the cancellation of Jamtli’s exhibition “Udda och jämt” (Odd and even). This was to have been a group show of contemporary Swedish art. Included in the line-up was Lars Vilks. He made a name for himself in 2007 with the publication of his drawings of the prophet Muhammad as a dog-shaped piece of street furniture.

This triggered a furious and at times very violent reaction in both Sweden and abroad. Vilks is now obliged to live under police protection and has become synonymous with the polarised views pertaining to religion and freedom of expression.

Whatever one’s opinion of Vilks, it is impossible to accuse him of hiding his views on such matters. This is confirmed by his much-publicised decision to travel to New York this month in order to take part in a conference entitled SION (Stop Islamization of Nations).

Nevertheless, it seems to have been this specific action that led Jamtli’s leadership to change their mind about including Vilks in “Udda och jämt”. Yet they clearly failed to think through the potential consequences of this move. One by one the other artists in the show announced their decision to withdraw. Eventually it became clear that not enough participants remained and so the exhibition, which was due to open on 30th September, has now been cancelled.

This incident touches on lots of highly sensitive issues and gives rise to a host of often strongly held opinions. Oddly enough it is this that appears to be the greatest problem. Earlier this morning a spokesperson for Jamtli appeared on Sweden’s national radio. She lamented that the debate that had arisen threatened to overshadow the art. If this is such a bad thing, why extend an initiation to a so-called conceptual artist like Lars Vilks in the first place?

Could it be that Jamtli hoped that Vilks’ presence might have added a touch of spice to the mix – a little of that “good publicity” so craved by Zipsane? If so, this has all gone horribly wrong.

Or has it?

“Udda och jämt” promises to be one of the most talked about shows in Jamtli’s history – whether it takes place or not. So why don’t its asinine leaders go ahead with the exhibition as arranged? The plans are no doubt well advanced; the text panels and labels for each artwork must be ready to be go. These could be mounted on the wall alongside works by those artists who still wish to participate. Meanwhile, large tracts of white space would indicate those works that have been censored by the institution or self-censored by the artists.

Each (non)participant plus other interested commentators could be invited along to the opening. They could enter into debate over what has occurred, why and with what consequences. Each of the artists selected to take part in “Udda och jämt” would be compelled to explain their decisions. Did they withdraw in protest against the museum’s censorship, in support of Lars Vilks or for some other reason?

One such protagonist is the painter, Karin Mamma Andersson. She is on record as criticising Jamtli’s belated and apparently arbitrary decision to ban Vilks. But, prior to that, she was presumably happy for one of her paintings to share a wall with a work by Vilks? Or was she unaware of his participation? Whichever was the case, what “Udda och jämt” reveals is the multivocality of artworks and the powerplays inherent in the artworld. Art and artists are constantly being reframed – by the media and by curators in museums. Art never “speaks for itself”. This has been confirmed by the Jamtli debacle. Yet, rather than capitalise on this rare opportunity to unpick the workings of the artworld, what does the museum do? Simply shuts its doors, withdraws from the fray and waits for normal service to resume.

The greatest losers here are Jamtli’s public.

Because if Jamtli’s leadership had the courage of their convictions and gone ahead with this non-show then something fascinating would have occurred: the audience itself would have taken centre stage. Regular museum-goers and first-time visitors alike could have voiced their opinions about this so-called public institution. Do they applaud or abhor the actions of the museum and the behaviour of the artists?

The resulting dialogue would provide a roadmap for future decisions and contribute to an opening-up – a democratisation – of the museum.

As it is, by cancelling “Udda och jämt” the likes of Henrik Zipsane have simply placed an embargo on proper debate. And it is this lack of informed discussion and argument that characterises the hysteria around religion and freedom of expression.

The only winners here are those people who delight in spreading discord and miscommunication plus those misguided individuals and organisations who insist on separating “art” from life.

___
Note

(1) “Jamtli ställer in utställning”, Svenska Dagbladet, 29/08/2012, http://www.svd.se/kultur/jamtli-staller-in-utstallning_7458194.svd.

The Art of Nordic peace

24/8/2012

 
ARTHUR Artillery Hunting Radar
This blog posting is being written in Kuressaare on the beautiful Estonian island of Saaremaa. I am here as a participant in the final meeting of Nordic Spaces. This was a four-year research project that has explored the notion of “Norden”, the literal meaning of which is “the North”. 

One of the keynote speakers is Jong Kun Choi of the Institute of East-West Studies, Yonsei University. Yesterday he gave an address entitled, “Modelling the Nordic Peace: Perspectives from Northeast Asia”. In it he presented an informative, entertaining and unusual viewpoint on one of those seemingly perennial facets of “the North”: peace.

As he talked I started to surf the internet. My searches were informed by a text I have written as part of Nordic Spaces.(1) It focuses on the burgeoning and highly profitable Swedish arms trade. And, sure enough, I quickly discovered the sorts of things that go on under the radar of “Nordic peace”. 

Last year, for example, the Swedish arms company, Saab AB and the Republic of Korea secured a deal worth 450 billion Swedish kronor.(2) This concerned the purchase of an advanced weapon-locating system. The firm’s website indicates that this product has been “developed by Saab in Gothenburg, Sweden”.

It is, therefore, as authentically Nordic as Saab’s Carl Gustaf, an 84 mm multipurpose, man-portable, reusable recoilless rifle which shares its name with the King of Sweden.

Saab AB seems to like sweet-sounding weapons of mass destruction. The weapon-locating system making its way to the border between North and South Korea is called ARTHUR, which stands for ARTillery HUnting Radar.

Isn’t it wonderful that a region so synonymous with peace feels morally able to contribute to political disputes and simmering conflicts elsewhere in the world? 

Oh, how the management of Saab AB must love the mantra “Nordic peace”!

But be in no doubt: below the radar of our banal expectations is an utterly different conception of “the North” – one that certainly merits “remodelling”, to quote Jong Kun Choi.
 
___
Notes
 
(1) Stuart Burch, “Banal Nordism: Recomposing an Old Song of Peace”, forthcoming in Performing Nordic Heritage: Museums, Festivals and Everyday Life (Aronsson, P. & Gradén, L., eds.), Ashgate: Farnham, 2012.
(2) “Saab Receives Order For Weapon-Locating System”, press release dated, 31/01/2011, accessed 24/08/2012 at, http://www.saabgroup.com/About-Saab/Newsroom/Press-releases--News/2011---1/Saab-receives-order-for-weapon-locating-system1.

Falsity presented as truth

22/8/2012

 
After writing Manipulating Moderna Museet, I decided to revisit the museum for one last look at "Image over Image" – a temporary exhibition devoted to the work of Elaine Sturtevant.

This decision was in itself noteworthy. In one of the gallery spaces it’s possible to watch a video of “The Powerful Pull of Simulacra”. This is the title of the lecture Sturtevant gave in conjunction with the show.(1) In it she argues that “objects are out; image is the power”. But if this is the case, why do we need a museum of objects such as Moderna Museet? Indeed, what is the point of making a physical pilgrimage to see “Image over Image”?

The answer, I think, is all to do with “the powerful pull of simulacra”. I paid a repeat visit to “Image over Image” in order to savour being in the presence of what might be termed “genuine fakes”. This is a reference to one of the most striking moments of Sturtevant’s lecture: the part when she talks about “falsity presented as truth”.

That evocative phrase – “falsity presented as truth” – encapsulates “Image over Image”.
Warhol Flowers by Sturtevant
My moment of epiphany came as I genuflected in a room containing four works entitled Warhol Flowers. These are all dated 1990 – the same year of creation as those Brillo boxes that Pontus Hultén so very generously donated to Moderna Museet.

And then it struck me!

Moderna Museet is a secular temple. Its sacred spaces and canonical texts authenticate that which it displays.

Sturtevant’s “Image over Image” has allowed Moderna Museet to reclaim Pontus Hultén’s “fake” Brillo boxes. This in turn expunges their questionable provenance which threatened to besmirch the good name of Moderna Museet’s most illustrious leader.

Thanks to Sturtevant, it is now possible for the Brillo boxes’ falsity to be presented as truth. For is it not the case that, at the very same time that Sturtevant was propagating Warhol Flowers, Hultén was conjuring up a whole new suite of Brillo boxes? Endorsing the former has the effect of validating the latter.

And that’s how dead artist’s can produce genuine works of art long after their deaths.

If you still don’t get it, well, that’s probably just your “determination to be stupid” – to quote that true original, Elaine Sturtevant.(2)

___
Note

(1) Elaine Sturtevant, “The Powerful Pull of Simulacra”, a talk given at the symposium, Beyond Cynicism: Political Forms of Opposition, Protest, and Provocation in Art, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 18th March 2012.
(2) Ibid.

Manipulating Moderna Museet

22/8/2012

 
Brillo boxes by Pontus Hultén

clone, copy, counterfeit,
duplicate,
fabrication, facsimile, fake, forgery,
imitation, impersonation, impression,
likeness,
mock-up,
paraphrase, parody,
replica, reproduction, ringer,
simulacrum,
transcription,
xerox

Each of the words listed above mean roughly the same thing. Yet they are distinguised by subtle nuances, each of which leads to crucial differences in import.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word synonym as:

        two or more words (in the same language) having the same general sense,
        but possessing each of them meanings which are not shared by the other or others,
        or having different shades of meaning or implications appropriate to different contexts.


The notion that meaning and implication are context dependent is highly significant. Take, for example, the following scenarios:

        a) A forgery on sale for millions of pounds at an auction

        b) a study hanging on the wall of an art gallery

The first of these two examples indicates a deliberate (often criminal) attempt to pass one thing off as another in order to undermine the art world and/or swindle both the potential buyer and the auction house.

A “study”, however, is an entirely different class of object:

        An artistic production executed for the sake of acquiring skill or knowledge,
        or to serve as a preparation for future work; a careful preliminary sketch for
        a work of art, or (more usually) for some detail or portion of it;
        an artist’s pictorial record of his observation of some object, incident,
        or effect, or of something that occurs to his mind, intended for his
        own guidance in his subsequent work.


The intention of the creator and the characterisation of the object determine in large part whether something is a worthless “forgery” or a valuable “study”.
Sturtevant dolly
The fascinating implications of all this have been apparent to people visiting Moderna Museet's “Image over Image” (17/03 – 26/08/2012).

At first glance this temporary exhibition looks like an impressive assemblage of iconic pieces by the likes of Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol.

However, the person responsible for these works (and a few sex toys besides) is in fact the American artist, Elaine Sturtevant (born 1930).

A leaflet accompanying the show revels in this assemblage of playfully deceptive things that “defies description and instead frustrates, provokes and gathers strength in maintaining a perpetual stance of opposition.”

This characterisation is exactly the sort of on-the-edge radicalism to which Moderna Museet aspires. The Sturtevant show provides the institution with an opportunity to demonstrate that “Moderna Museet also has a history of confronting authenticity”. Cited in this regard are “the now internationally infamous Brillo boxes.”

The museum leaflet does not go into detail about why they are so infamous. Nor does it point out that they are currently exhibited in a gallery space immediately after the Sturtevant exhibition. The boxes in question are piled up in a corner alongside a label that reads:

       
        Andy Warhol
        1928-1987
        USA

        Brillo Boxes, 1964
        Brilloboxar

        Silkscreen på spånskiva

        Exhibition copy. Replik från 1990.
        Donation 1995 från Pontus Hultén
Brillo boxes by Pontus Hultén
Here, Moderna Museet emphatically does not deploy the Sturtevant exhibition to “confront” questions of authenticity or explore the nuances of words such as fabrication, facsimile, fake, forgery... Instead it lulls the vast majority of visitors into believing that the pile of boxes in the corner is a genuine artwork by Andy Warhol – produced three years after his death.

In truth these items were donated to Moderna Museet by their creator: its former director, Pontus Hultén. He used this institutional endorsement as leverage when selling other such boxes to private collectors at enormous personal profit.(1)

None of this is mentioned. Visitors are instead fed the normal fare of artspeak mystification enfolding both the temporary Sturtevant exhibition and the museum’s permanent collection. Of the latter, one room is themed: “Art as idea, language and process”. An introductory text panel by Cecilia Widenheim explains how the likes of “Marcel Broodthaers and Hans Haacke were among the first to criticise the art museum as an institution.” At the same time an artist such as “Öyvind Fahlström encouraged his viewers to ‘manipulate’ language.”

A superb example of language manipulation and the continuing need to critique an institution such as Moderna Museet lies immediately behind this vapid statement, namely those Brillo boxes by Andy Warhol (sic).

The means to highlight this are simple. All it would take is an action entirely in the spirit of Sturtevant’s “perpetual stance of opposition” and Moderna Museet’s proud “history of confronting authenticity” and Öyvind Fahlström’s encouragement for “viewers to ‘manipulate’ language.”

All one need do is quietly remove the “manipulative” label next to that pile of Brillo boxes and replace it with the following – what shall we call it? – facsimile, imitation, likeness, parody, transcription:
      
        Pontus Hultén
        1924-2006
        Swedish

        Brillo Boxes, 1990
        Brilloboxar

        Silkscreen på spånskiva

        Exhibition original. Genuin kopia från 1990.
        Donation 1995 från Pontus Hultén
Brillo boxes by Pontus Hultén
___
Note

(1) See my chapter “Introducing Mr Moderna Museet: Pontus Hultén and Sweden’s Museum of Modern Art” in Kate Hill (ed.) Museums and Biographies: Stories, Objects, Identities (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012), pp. 29-44.

___

For a follow up to this story, see Falsity presented as truth (22/08/2012).

A bird in the hand

17/8/2012

 
Picture
There has been a spate of scare stories recently about the "threat" to "our" heritage.

These often centre on fabulously valuable artworks owned by extremely wealthy people.

Occasionally the objects in question have been hanging quietly on the wall of a public art gallery - until, that is, the owner dies or runs out of cash.

A case in point is Picasso's Child with a Dove (1901). This is currently in limbo. It has been sold secretively to an unknown foreign buyer for an undisclosed sum (thought to be in the region of £50m).(1)

Unfortunately, the new owner will have to wait a while before getting their hands on it. This is because Britain's minister of culture has placed a temporary ban on its export in the hope that sufficient money can be raised to "save" this item "for the nation".

This is exactly what occurred just the other day in relation to a painting by Manet.(2) It cost the Ashmolean Museum £7.83m to "save" this integral piece of British culture from the rapacious hands of a dastardly foreigner.

But don't believe this rhetoric. Oh, and ignore the headline price and touching tales of little street urchins parting with their pennies to rescue this relic. It took upwards of £20m in tax breaks and donations from public bodies to ensure that national pride remained intact.

Yet this doesn't bode well for Picasso's little bird-loving child, does it? The art fund (sic) must surely have run out by now. So too have the superlatives and dramatic warnings from our media luvvies and museum moguls.

Indeed, their fighting funds were already seriously depleted after they chose to place £95m in the hands of the Duke of Sutherland - one of the richest men in the country.(3) This act of Robin Hood in reverse stopped the robber baron from flogging two paintings by Titian along with other trinkets he and his family had so generously loaned to the National Galleries of Scotland. And now the same museum is coming under "threat" again!

Soon we will have to watch as Picasso's little bird migrates to sunnier climes. The national heritage will be fatally winged by this terrible loss.

The consequences just don't bear thinking about...

This is just as well because, in truth, the only repercussions will be a slight dent to national pride plus a small gap on a museum wall. This can be filled by any number of artworks that are currently in store at the National Galleries of Scotland.

Deathly quiet will then return to this mausoleum of art...

Until, that is, we are panicked by the next siren call as yet another integral piece of Britain's (ha!) much-loved heritage comes under covetous foreign eyes.

Tell the world. Tell this to everyone, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies.

'Cos you never know, you might just see a sweet bird by Picasso fly by...

____
Notes

(1) Anon, "Picasso's Child With A Dove in temporary export bar", BBC News, 17/08/12, http://www.bbc.co.uk./news/entertainment-arts-19283696; Maev Kennedy, "Picasso painting Child with a Dove barred from export", The Guardian, 17/08/12, http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/aug/17/picasso-child-with-a-dove-painting.
(2) Stuart Burch, "Manet money", 08/08/2012, http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2012/08/manet-money.html.
(3) Stuart Burch, "Purloined for the nation", 03/04/12, http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2012/04/purloined-for-the-nation.html.
   


My pregnant man story

14/8/2012

 
My pregnant man story
"'Bloodchild'... [is] a number of... things...
On one level, it's a love story between two very different beings.
On another, it's a coming-of-age story...
On a third level, 'Bloodchild' is my pregnant man story."

Octavia E. Butler,
Afterword to
"Bloodchild"
(1984 / 2005)

He awoke and wanted Mars

14/8/2012

 
Picture
HE AWOKE – and wanted Mars.
The valleys, he thought.
What would it be like to trudge among them?
Great and greater yet:
the dream grew as he became fully conscious,
the dream and the yearning.
He could almost feel the enveloping presence of the other world...

Philip K. Dick
"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
April 1966

Successful interstition

10/8/2012

 
Hal Clement's The Needle published in 1950
"On his home world he had lived... for years
within the body of an intelligent oxygen-breather,
with the other's full knowledge and consent.
He had more than paid for his keep."

Hal Clement
Needle
1950

The Stud of Ambridge

10/8/2012

 
The Stud of Ambridge
Oh, The Games That Daddies Play!
Just ask Mike Tucker...
BBC, The Archers
Thursday 9th August 2012

Manet money

8/8/2012

 
Mademoiselle Claus by Manet bought for the Ashmolean for nearly 8 million pounds
Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus by the French artist Édouard Manet (1832-83) has just been purchased for £7.83. This is far less than the sum that would have been achieved on the open market. The reason for this is because the British government refused to allow the painting to be sold to a foreign buyer.

Once-upon-a-time export bars were justified on the grounds of ensuring that a work of art was being "saved for the nation". Interestingly, the new owner of the portrait - the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford - has rephrased this dubious claim. Manet's work, we are assured, has been "saved for the public".

The museum is obviously keen to justify the expenditure on this portrait of a foreign person by a foreign artist.

The purchase will, we are told, "completely transform" the Ashmolean, helping to turn it into "a world-leading centre for the study of Impressionist and post Impressionist art."

Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus is, in other words, a commodity used as a means of competing with rival collections, both in the UK and abroad. However, the Ashmolean is only able to take part in the competition because this particular item of trade has not been allowed to reach its true "value". This is due to the fact that "aesthetic importance" and national pride are deemed, in this instance, to outweigh considerations of mere money. The result being that the Ashmolean was able to purchase the item in question for only 27% of its market value.

The artwork's worth on the open market "net of VAT" was £28,350,000. The enormous difference between this and the £7.83m paid by the Ashmolean  represents a huge loss in taxation - at a time when Britain's economy is in a parlous state and when the government (it claims) is doing its utmost to tackle tax avoidance.

Mindful of this, the Ashmolean seeks to reassure us that it is "planning a full programme of educational activities, family workshops, and public events inspired by the painting."

But consider for a moment how many "educational activities" could be implemented for, say, £20 million (the difference between the "true" value of the artwork and the sum paid by the Ashmolean).

Fortunately we don't need to worry about this because money is very rarely talked about in our hallowed museums.

Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus is destined to merge seamlessly into the Ashmolean collection and be toured around various temporary exhibitions. A little label will list the charitable organisations and anonymous givers responsible for "saving it for the public". Yet the true cost of the commodity will be omitted.

Manet's money should not, however, be ignored.

Nor should one further, pressing issue. Just because Manet's painting is now "publicly" owned does not necessarily mean it will never again become a financial commodity. Alterations to the Museums Association's code of ethics mean that public museums in the UK are now able to "ethically" sell objects from their collections, albeit in exceptional circumstances.

This means that the same inventive logic and sleight of hand deployed to acquire Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus could be equally used to justify its future sale. As long, of course, that the money raised can be shown to be "for the benefit of the museum’s collection."

Where, however, will all this end? Might the change to the code of ethics be the first step towards the situation in the United States? San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, for example, recently sold Bridle Path by the American artist, Edward Hopper in order to "benefit acquisitions." Perhaps one day the Ashmolean could do the same with the support of the Museums Association and the connivance of the British government? The museum would go on to make a tidy profit from its Manet - some of which could then be used to support future "educational activities". And so it goes on...

Money might well be a taboo subject in museums. But the issues raised by Édouard Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus should serve to remind us that museums have their own carefully constructed economy: one that is just as inventive and artful as the "real" economy with its clever strategies of quantitative easing dreamt up by bands of unethical bankers.

With this in mind, should the Ashmolean have been allowed to buy the painting under such circumstances?

The answer, I think, is no.

Instead, the British government should take a leaf out of the Museums Association's code of ethics. It ought to have allowed the export, on the condition that all monies raised in taxation from the sale were ring-fenced and used to fund "educational activities" in our museums. This would go some way to offsetting recent reductions in museum funding - with outreach and education programmes suffering disproportionately as a consequence.

This outcome would be far more ethical and more effective than the spurious tokenism used by the Ashmolean to disguise its glee at acquiring a work of art that only a fraction of the public will see or have any interest in.


___________
Supplemental
09/08/2012

"Donations help keep Manet in UK". So reads the title of an article about this matter in today's Financial Times.(1) The newspaper chooses to foreground the generosity of "1,048 people who donated sums which ranged from £1.50 to £10,000". Framing the story in this manner is a carefully considered ploy. It seeks to underline the sense of universal public support and popular approval for this deal.

These contributions are certainly laudable. But they pale into insignificance given that the bulk of the £7.83m came from "the Heritage Lottery Fund, which contributed £5.9m, and the Art Fund, which gave £850,000".  The support of these official bodies plus the above-mentioned loss in tax revenue mean that the Ashmolean's latest acquisition must indeed have cost the state at least £20m.

This is, indeed, a conservative estimate. It is reported that 80% of the painting's value would have been levied in tax had it been sold on the open market.(2) It is the case, therefore, that the seller not only avoided a large tax bill; he or she also accrued more money by selling it to a UK museum for less than £8m as opposed to securing over £28m from a foreign buyer.

So, in a way, the FT is right: a very large donation has indeed kept Manet in the UK.

____
Notes

(1) Hannah Kuchler, "Donations help keep Manet in UK", Financial Times, 09/08/2012, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4168b256-e174-11e1-92f5-00144feab49a.html.
(2) Maev Kennedy, "Ashmolean buys Manet's Mademoiselle Claus after raising £7.8m",  The Guardian, 08/08/2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/aug/08/ashmolean-buys-manet-mademoiselle-claus.

_____________
Other references

Anon (2011) "Culture Minister defers export of stunning portrait by Edouard Manet", Department for Culture,
    Media and Sport, 120/11, 08/12, http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/media_releases/8686.aspx
Anon (c.2011) "Last chance to keep Manet’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus in the UK", Department for Culture,
    Media and Sport, undated, accessed 08/09/2012 at, http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/news_stories/8685.aspx
Anon (c.2012) "Manet portrait saved for the public", undated, accessed 08/09/2012 at,
    http://www.ashmolean.org/manet/portrait/
Atkinson, Rebecca (2012) "Ashmolean acquires threatened Manet portrait for £7.83m", Museums Association, 08/08,
    http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/08082012-ashmolean-purchases-manet-portrait
Burch, Stuart (2012a) "Biting the hand that feeds", 22/03,
    http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2012/03/biting-the-hand-that-feeds.html
Burch, Stuart (2012b) "I scream, you scream, we all scream for The Scream", 20/03,
    http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2012/04/i-scream-you-scream-we-all-scream-for-the-scream.html
Burch, Stuart (2012c) "A Pearl of Dream Realm economics", 16/07,
    http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2012/07/a-pearl-of-dream-realm-economics.html
Holmes, Charlotte (n.d.) "Sale of collections", Museums Association, accessed 08/09/2012 at,
    http://www.museumsassociation.org/collections/sale-of-collections

Patti's perfidious pussy pronouncement

5/8/2012

 
I predict a pussy riot


Last Friday this particular feline was lucky enough to see Patti Smith in concert. The 65-year old rocker spelled out what was on her mind: Free Pussy, that's what.

The well-behaved Swedish audience didn't strike me as being particularly militant. Nevertheless, Patti's riotous behaviour was clearly much appreciated.

I had a quick look amongst the cats in the crowd, but didn't manage to spot if Mr Igor S. Neverov was in attendance. If so, he would surely have been purring with pleasure at Patti's perfidious pussy pronouncement...

    Author
    an extinct parasite
    of several hosts
    Why parasite?

    Try the best you can

    Para, jämsides med.
    En annan sort.
    Dénis Lindbohm,
    Bevingaren, 1980: 90

    Picture
    Even a parasite like me should be permitted to feed at the banquet of knowledge

    I once posted comments as Bevingaren at guardian.co.uk

    Guggenheim New York, parasitized

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    Memorial
    Museum
    Music
    Nordic
    Para
    Politics
    Rupert Murdoch
    Science
    Science Fiction
    Shockmolt
    Statue
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    Words

    Stuart Burch
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    _
    Note    All parasitoids are parasites, but not all parasites are parasitoids
    Parasitoid    "A parasite that always ultimately destroys its host" (Oxford English Dictionary)


        I live off you
        And you live off me
        And the whole world
        Lives off everybody

        See we gotta be exploited
        By somebody, by somebody,             by somebody
       
        X-Ray Spex
            <I live off you>
        Germ Free Adolescents
            1978  

    From symbiosis
    to parasitism
    is a short step.
    The word is
    now a virus.
    William Burroughs, The word is now a virus
    William Burroughs
    <operation rewrite>

    Do nothing
    that can
    harm
    your host!

    Hal Clement
    <
    Needle>
    1950
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