Skip to main content

"Desert of Forbidden Art" -- some brief comments

I spent Saturday evening at the renovated Fox Theater in Pomona watching (for a second time) the very good new documentary, "The Desert of Forbidden Art," and then moderating a panel discussion with its co-directors, Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev.

The movie tells an extraordinary story about an eccentric art lover, Igor Savitsky, who, during the Soviet era, managed to establish a museum of "forbidden" art in the very-out-of-the-way desert city of Nukus (check the map!).

Along with providing a nuanced and appreciative portrait of Savitsky's defiance and commitment to art, the film explores the relationship between aesthetic value and the processes that transpose aesthetic value into monetary value (or to invoke an old-fashioned Marxist term, into exchange value).  In addition -- like Herzog's recent film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams -- this is a film in which the camera both appreciates and guides our appreciation of works of visual art.

This film is a real achievement; I highly recommend it.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Response to the Pitzer Administration's "Statement on Ukraine"

On Tuesday, March 15, Pitzer's president and vice-president for academic affairs co-signed a statement of support for, and solidarity with, Ukrainians .  That statement ended with this comment: " We stand with Ukrainians who are demonstrating tremendous bravery, resilience, unity, and courage as they defend their homeland."   What's tragic and disturbing is that this valuable statement against state oppression when Ukrainians are the victims entirely contradicts the administration's opposition to taking a stand against state oppression when Palestinians are the victims.   The recent "Statement on Ukraine" evidences jarring dissonence when read next to  this statement of March 14, 2019 , when the same Pitzer president issued an unprecedented veto of shared governance, in order to block the Pitzer community's taking a stand against Israeli state apartheid and ethnic cleansing.   What follows is my public response to the administration's recent ...
5 comments
Read more

follow up on "The Debt Ceiling Deal and Progressives"

The composition of the bipartisan Debt Ceiling Panel bodes ill for there being serious cuts in the U.S. military budget as part of any "second phase" deal to reduce the U.S. deficit.  Put simply, the states with large military contractors are fully, if not overly, represented on the Panel.   Of particular note on the Democratic side is Senator Patty Murray of Washington.   Progressive commentators have generally responded favorably to her appointment (and conservative voices have singled it out for criticism), but Boeing is a major employer in Washington (with some 30,000 workers in the state) and its PAC is a major source of campaign funds for Murray.  Almost certainly, for example, the cuts in military spending that would be triggered if the panel reaches no compromise would hit, and perhaps eliminate, the 35 billion dollar contract awarded to Boeing this past February ...
2 comments
Read more

Occupy Wall Street & "We are the 99%"

One of the few things that seems certain about "Occupy Wall Street" and related protests is that these are the most positive and hopeful political events in the United States at this time.  Beyond that, I find myself curious and uncertain. I do believe, however, that those of us who embrace these protests should be thinking and talking about how to make them better--or more precisely, how it might be possible to build on them to foster a robust social justice movement in our time.  Such a social justice movement would work to build a society--indeed, a world--in which the pursuit of profts and pursuit of economic growth (as measured in GDP or other monetary terms) are subordinated to insuring universal access to high quality health care, high quality education, and food security. In terms of thinking and talking about how to build on the Occupy protests with this g...
7 comments
Read more