Dear Art World: William Powhida’s Critique of Everything That’s Wrong with Contemporary Culture

From Facebook to plutarchy, or what Mr. Softee has to do with the war on terror the 99 percent.

William Powhida is one of my favorite contemporary artists, but his latest gem seals him as one of today’s most compelling thinkers, too. Titled Dear Art World (Derivatives), it’s an unfiltered yet incredibly intelligent and articulate critique of today’s many sociocultural, economic, and political paradoxes, including the economy, slacktivism, remix culture, war, the Occupy movement and, of course, the art world.

For the copy-pasters and the search engine bots:

Dear Art World,

I feel you sitting there trying to process the CRAZY shit going on. I’ve been there for months, and it’s driving me INSANE. Fuck it, it seems counterproductive to EVEN talk about this shit, because EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS WHY “SHIT is REALLY FUCKED UP,” or why I’m wrong.

BUT, I’ve come to some conclusions about shit. One is that we spend A LOT of time BLAMING each other for not understanding WHAT the problem actually is — TRANSPARENCY, Barack Obama, mandates LOBBYISTS, immigrants, RESPONSIBILITY, FREEDOM Truth, LIZARD PEOPLE, FLUORIDE in the water… TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE OF ANY OF IT.

I mean, everyone ALREADY has the Answer, it’s just that every ELSE just has ‘it’ all wrong. It’s really simple, apparently, to fix everything by applying some JESUS™, REGULATION®, or CONSTITUTION™ to it. If only we’d just free the Market, convict some bankers, spiritually channel the Founding Fathers, regulate derivatives, STOP eating GM corn syrup, spend more…time with your Family OR LEGALIZE DRUGS.

EXCEPT WE don’t do shit*, because this is AMERICA, Land of the Mr. Softee® and home of the BRAVES® where we are FREE to ARGUE about the CAUSES of social and ECONOMIC inequalities until the grass-fed cows come home. We argue in comment threads, on Facebook™, and twitter™. AND, when we aren’t arguing, We agree with our favorite ‘experts’ on FOX®, CNBC™, and CNN™ as we slide into RECESSION 2.0.

One of the OBVIOUS conclusions I’ve arrived at is that a very FEW people LIKE it that way. WHILE SHIT is bad for MOST of us — 9%+ unemployment, $14 TRILLION+ debt, and a perpetual War on Terror® — *THEY* hope we’ll all just pull a lever next fall ‘PROBLEM SOLVED’ and argue some more about the INTENTIONS of the CLIMATE, BECAUSE the 1% is doing fine.

The only FACTS worth stating are that 20% of the population controls 85% of the net worth and earned 49.9% of the income last year. IN the AMERICAN SPIRIT™ of BLAME and recrimination I’m going to point the finger at…deREGULATED CAPITALISM®! IT is in the very spirit of Capitalism to ACQUIRE MORE CAPITAL. To quote @O_SattyCripnAzz, fellow citizen and member of #Team #1mmy [?], “Money is money no matter how u get it.”

Unfortunately, the same 1% also supports the rest of us by BYING shit and funding almost everything else (museums, residencies, grants…) putting some of us in an awkward position (YOU TOO NATO and Pedro), BUT that doesn’t mean we should SHUT THE FUCK UP, take their MONEY, and say ‘Thank you!’ The Art World is NOT separate from SOCIETY and THIS is how SHIT gets all FUCKED UP — PLUTARCHY, motherfuckers.

So, in my useless capacity as a tool artist, I’ve made some pictures about this SHIT that are FREE to look at**, and they’re ALL DERIVATIVES.

Sincerely,

[signed William Powhida]

*#OWS?
** Bring a chair

The work was part of Derivatives, Powhida’s solo show at Postmasters Gallery, which ran through November 26. Also from the show:

For more on the implicit and enduring tensions of art in the age of commerce, see BBC’s excellent documentary, The Mona Lisa Curse.

HT this isn’t happiness; images courtesy of William Powhida / Postmasters Gallery

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Gay in America: A Photographic Tapestry of Faceted Humanity

A cultural leap forward, or what Alaskan fishermen, Oregonian fathers, and NYC artists have in common.

From Molly Landredth’s tender vintage portraits of modern queer life to 19-year-old Iowan Zach Wahl’s brave message for marriage equality to Dan Savage’s paradigm-changing It Gets Better project, it’s a time of heartening change for the mainstream’s growing awareness of just how faceted and diverse LGBTQ culture is. It is precisely this faceted humanity that photographer Scott Pasfield, a gay man himself, sought to capture in Gay in America, traveling 54,000 miles across 50 states in 3 years to weave a powerful, profoundly human tapestry of 140 fathers, brothers, sons, and friends from all walks of life, religions, ethnicities, and backgrounds, who happen to be homosexual males. From lawyers to artists to teachers to farmers, his perceptive, deeply personal portraits paint a layered picture of contemporary gay (male) life, the first-ever large-scale photographic survey of gay men in America.

People always tell you to shoot what you love, and that objective led me to this project. I knew I wanted to photograph a subject that I cared deeply about, and to create a body of work that would make a positive difference in people’s lives… I decided that I would find and meet a gay man from every state, listen to their stories, and photograph them in the hope that I could turn that material into a book that would change people’s opinions and educate — the book that I wish had existed when I was a lad. I wanted to produce a profound collection of ordinary, proud, out gay men who would otherwise never find the spotlight.” ~ Scott Pasfield

Alongside each portrait is the subject’s first-hand story — sometimes joyful, sometimes solemn, always earnest.

Alex, Seward, Alaska

Josh & Joseph, Eugene, Oregon

Mudhillin, Newark, Delaware

Michael & Allen, Delta Junction, Alaska

For Pasfield, the project was as much a public service as it was a personal journey. He writes in the preface:

A year before my father’s death [from lung cancer], I started going to a regular group-therapy session for gay men in New York City. That is where I met my partner, Nick. When I was struggling through my father’s illness, he was there for me, calling me in Florida, making sure I was okay. When I came back to New York, we both realized we had fallen in love over the past months and we couldn’t ignore it anymore. The hard part was, Nick was with someone else, and he still wasn’t out to his family. He had two major hurdles to jump before our relationship could begin, and he did so, with grace and with courage. This year we celebrate our thirteenth anniversary together.”

Dallas Voice has a fantastic interview with Pasfield, in which he reflects on the role the Internet played in painting a truly dimensional portrait of gay culture.

The Internet played a big part in how I found people. It would have been much more difficult to find them [10 or 20 years ago]. The thing that surprised me the most is the regularness of all these guys. I think most outspoken gay men and all facets of the LGBT community are those people who defined themselves very much by being gay and they have that issue that they really want to share with the world. They’re very outspoken. I think the type of men I was looking for aren’t as outspoken as a lot of those advocates are. That difficulty in finding them was made so much easier by the Internet. Ten, maybe 20 years ago, I’m not quite sure how I would have found the same men because they’re not going to gay community centers, most of them. They’re not out at a lot of gay bars or clubs in urban areas. I think that that’s one of the major differences doing it now. That I was really able to connect with a lot of gay men that are for the most part under the radar and what most see of the gay community.”

Thoughtful and perspective-shifting, Gay in America reveals the dimensions of humanity well past sexuality, a powerful step towards a culture that no longer conflates sexual orientation with human identity and a worthy addition to the best photography books of 2011.

Images courtesy of Scott Pasfield

In 2011, bringing you Brain Pickings took more than 5,000 hours. If you found any joy and stimulation here this year, please consider a modest donation.

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Happy Pay a Blogger Day: Honor Those Who Expand Your Horizons

A moment to give some love and gratitude to the web’s tireless curiosity sherpas.

Hey, look, it’s Pay a Blogger Day. After last week’s meditation on digital parasites — which inspired an unexpected wave of reader donations, thank you for those, and an intelligent discussion of what it means to provide intellectual and creative labor in the digital age — here comes an organized effort to recognize and honor the web’s tireless curiosity sherpas, and though this quasi-PSA leaves a lot to be desired (like, for instance, not equating blogging with a hobby), it’s a welcome reminder to pause and be grateful for what we consume daily and those who bring it to us.

What’s interesting to me is how much the term “blog” has evolved over the past few years, shifting from a diminutive moniker for personal journaling with no reach or substance to a medium with cultural gravitas worthy of Big Media. (CNN, New York Times, and BBC “blogs,” I’m looking at you.) Yet, paradoxically, there’s still a certain reluctance to supporting blogs, even the best of them, in the same way that we support other cultural institutions, like public radio or libraries. (Not to mention the service industry — you tip your waiter, but not your curator, as if serving brain food were somehow less worthy than serving tomorrow’s loo visit.)

And I think it’s important to create a culture around this.

Over the past several years of running what’s essentially a public service, ad-free and supported by reader contributions, I’ve been honored and humbled to receive a great deal of generous support from my readers, and I’ve tried to pay it forward — every month, in addition to my ongoing support of public knowledge mongers like The New York Public Library and WNYC, I also donate to some of my favorite, and I mean this with the highest regard possible, “blogs” — Ed Yong’s Not Exactly Rocket Science, Dan Colman’s Open Culture, Burgin Streetman’s Vintage Kids’ Books My Kids Love, and other tireless writers, editors, and curators who continue to expand my intellectual and creative horizons with their love and labor.

So, today, please take a moment to show your favorite “blog” — strike that, Blog — some love and some gratitude. You’ll make someone’s day.

(Pro tip: If you don’t see a donation button on the respective blog, you can always send money via PayPal using just the recipient’s email address, which you can usually find on the site’s Contact page.)

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