Case Study # 26 War is Over. A sobering thought for arts activists anonymous.



In 21C, I find myself in a situation of Fluxus after the full rehearsal dressed in Yoko's and Monica’s female attire, adorned by scissors (1964) followed by Presidential semen stains (1997).
In 2015, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney to touched one of Ono’s framed breasts because “War Was Over” if I wanted it to be. It didn’t say which breast to touch or which war was over while the longest US war in history raged in Afghanistan and then was lost, abandoned to pre-modern history in 2021.
An Afghan rug with the twin towers was exhibited in a contemprary art magazine for the silently salivating Leftovers, post 1989, still Left after Monica’s dress sold for 2 million at auction in 2001, an odyssey of some type, coinciding with the second 9/11.
Nearly, 30 years after the first September 11 1973, I was told by the Director of the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago de Chile, Francisco Brugnoli, that the destruction of the monument at the centre of that city is a “community action”. We should analyse it like any other post 2 X 9/11 monument = NO+ACAB. Brugnoli would know, he's been the Director of Contemporary Art in the Capital since 1998. That same year, the New Yorker interviewed the "rarest of creatures", the former General, then President then Senator for Life Augusto Pinochet. The article was called the Dictator in which Pinochet observed "everyone nowdays has Marxist thoughts, even if they don't know it". When Pinochet died of old age, under house arrest on the eve of his 91st birthday, in 2006 but not charged with crimes against humanity, they danced around Plaza Baquedano chanting "Bugger him well in hell". This public space was not yet destroyed by such dignity or renamed Dignity Plaza. Now, you can self bugger or mutually self harm with consent and burn what you like in protest every Friday night in Dignity Plaza.
I am a Counter-Insurgent Situationist (CISman), dressed in the modernist "you can have any colour as long as it is the colour" of a Melbourne architect (though I'm not one), mixed with the pacifist's surrendering White. A sober Santiagüino neuvo Pingüino
I became sober from a Left wing addiction in a situation on 18 October 2019 when 20 Metro Stations were attacked in 6 hours and city wide looting, arson, hijacking, ambush and vandalism became traditional protest. A day or two later, I took Ai Wei Wei's middle finger for a walk to Plaza Baquedano and gave it back to the Balaclava-clad rioter from where it originated. This happened to be an anonymous woman who was a member of the Unisex (fluid sex) Primera Línea (Front Line), not Pussy Riot as she didn't have lipstick. War might be Over it by now but there is a new tradition of Cultural War being Invented as Tradition that demands a counter insurgency. For this urge to surge, I've been Left Wing sober for nearly 1000 days and nights.
Feature Image:
Walking Ai Wei Wei's middle finger, Plaza Baquedano, Monument Baquedano with Tomb of Unknown Soldier and female figure offering a wreath of Copihue (the national flower). Live situation with anonymous Encapuchad@ as living sculpture, three Riot Police as the living sculpture's ACAB prop and the Counter-Insurgent Situationist (CISman) 20 October. (2019) Situation #1, Sober Santiagüino neuvo Pingüino #1. Additional phallic symbols to the raised middle finger we all have. Costanera Centre Tower (2015), the tallest building in Central an South America (Left) and Obelisk for 19C President Balmaceda (1950), (Right).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Case study #11 Democracy in Crisis through the looking glass called a camera lens

Image
The first of Guzman's trilogy "The Battle for Chile" opens in 1973, 6 months before the Golpe Estado, with an election in which the Confederation of Democracy won the majority of seats in both houses against Allende's Popular Unity coalition. This continuing minority defeat is called a victory in that Allende's party gained a couple of seats but the fraud allegation of between 200-300 thousand newly registered voters unaccounted for is not questioned. Before the election result, one person interviewed in Plaza Baquedano said it was a choice between Marxism and Freedom. Another said that the opposition will win. The interviewer asked all the Right of Centre Citizens if they believed in elections? Of the Allende supporters, the interviewer calls them all compañero and asks who will win? They all answer Socialism and the fight. He doesn't ask them if they believe in elections, the constitution, or any other institutions of democracy. When we were in Plaza Baqueda...
Read more

Case study # 20 1000 white negations No Less, NO + Men in Black

Image
  The last interview with Chilean Artist, Lotty Rosenfeld (1943-2020) in Art Review (2020) succinctly summarizes the Cultural Industry's distortion and justification for Leftwing violence and destruction through art activism. If you don't know anything about the reality in Chile, read this introduction and tell me if your prejudices have been confirmed. "The protests that spread across Chile last year (2019), violently and often lethally suppressed by the police and army, were sparked by a rise in fares on Santiago public transport. This issue was a pretext for expressing long-simmering resentment towards a political system and constitution with roots in the dictatorship years of Augusto Pinochet, together with an underlying fury at a pervasive inequality that had allowed a tiny elite to control one-third of the country’s wealth" I have made a little homage, not to Lotty Rosenfeld (RIP), but to all art activists who confuse life with art. It is based on Rosenfeld'...
Read more

Case study #8 Public Art Dialogue Community. An open call to shut up.

Image
  Open Call for Nominations for The 2023 International Award for Public Art. As PAD has declined to allow my peers to review my two research articles on Ground Zero, Santiago de Chile, I decided to nominate, for the second year running, the unmaking of Plaza Baquedano as Ground Zero for the international award for public art. Artist; The New Constitutionalists (aka Lista del Pueblo and Primera Linéa) Public Artwork; (100 words) Plaza Baquedano was negated, literally and physically by protest violence and destruction, beginning on 18 October 2019, and took two years to unmake this public space. This wholesale destruction was applauded by global solidarity groups. In Chile, the Museum of Contemporary Art Director, Francisco Brugnoli, described this as a "community action" to be analyzed like any monument. After the statue monument was removed in early 2021, the remains of the Unknown Soldier were exhumed for fear that protesters would dig them up. A desolate public space is the...
Read more