Sarajevo – Obsolete and lifeless for years, a secret anti-nuclear shelter built inside a remote Bosnian mountain during the Cold War for Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito has opened its doors as a modern art space. “The idea of installing a contemporary art collection in Tito’s…
Everything you were afraid to ask about “Upstream Color”
It perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that a science-fiction relationship drama depicting the life cycle of a neurotoxin-cum-immortal force that passes from nematode to human to pig and back again might get audiences confused.What’s surprising is that it has them applauding.“Upstream Color,” an at-first-blush incomprehensible movie by “Primer” filmmaker Shane Carruth, has earned qualified raves since its first screening at Sundance this year. Said Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy:“The experience of watching the film, especially this first section, is highly visceral and sensuous; the images possess a crystalline clarity that is exquisite, and they’re dispersed in rapid rhythmic waves[...] All this will seem profound to some and mean nothing to those who never got algebra.”Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir struck a similar note:“I was immediately drawn in by the mysterious, meticulous world of vision, sound and sensation Carruth creates, with its blown-out digital color scheme and intimate focus, which simultaneously seems to be contemporary America and also an alien zone of disconnection and isolation.”Continue Reading… … Read More
US law says no ‘oil’ spilled in Arkansas, exempting Exxon from cleanup dues
At least legally speaking, diluted bitumen like the heavy crude that’s overrun Mayflower, Arkansas is not classified as ‘oil.’ While the distinction might normally not mean much, in the case of the disastrous spill in Arkansas it ensures that ExxonMobil will not have to pay into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.According to ThinkProgress, which has brought attention on the strange legal exemption, ExxonMobil has already confirmed that the compromised pipeline was transporting “low-quality Wabasca Heavy crude” from Canada’s Alberta region. That particular form of crude must be diluted with lighter fluids to evenly flow through a pipeline – it also contains large quantities of bitumen (commonly known as asphalt).The end result is that both the US Congress and the Internal Revenue Service do not consider tar sand oil as oil at all, and thus exempt any company transporting the crude from paying an $0.08-per-barrel tax – which is the primary source of cash for the federal government’s oil spill cleanup fund.The strange exemption of heavy bitumen crude from classification as oil dates back to a time when the extraction of tar sands on a large scale was thought improbable with then-contemporary technology. However, as oil companies developed the means to develop Canadian tar sands into a booming energy sector, the legal definition of oil has remained the same.Funds from that same fund have already helped to clean up another spill caused by a ruptured pipeline. In 2010, more than 1 million barrels of diluted bitumen (crude oil) were spilled into the Kalamazoo River. To make matters worse, unlike conventional crude oil, bitumen heavy crude sinks. The ensuing environmental impact has made that Michigan spill the most expensive in US history, as toxic substances seeped into the surrounding soil.There is also the fear that bitumen heavy crude could be more corrosive to pipelines than conventional crude. Lorne Stockman, research director at Oil Change International, told ThinkProgress that it’s past time for the law to be changed:”The question is why we should continue this exemption given that it’s clear tar sands oil is more likely to spill because it’s more corrosive… and more and more tar sands is coming into the US.”For its part the oil industry disputes the claim, and has produced scientific impact research that does not reflect higher corrosion by transporting bitumen heavy crude.Judge Allen Dodson of Arkansas’ Faulkner County seemed to reflect the concerns of those impacted by the latest spill of heavy bitumen crude, saying: “Crude oil is crude oil. None of it is real good to touch.” … Read More
Video games zap their way into top New York museum
Pac-Man and other legends from the video game world became the latest and perhaps most unlikely additions to the Museum of Modern Art’s illustrious collections in New York on Friday. Fourteen games were displayed in the elegant contemporary design gallery on the third floor as part of a wider…
Keith Haring’s Tokyo Pop Shop On Display At The New York Historical Society (PHOTOS)
Before Banksy, there was Keith Haring. Best known for his iconic cartoon-like human figures, Haring decorated subways and sidewalks, both reflecting and practicing New York street life of the ’80s. As his international fame grew, the street artist’s pop figures appeared everywhere — on walls, found objects, canvases, and even Madonna’s jacket.
In 1986 Haring opened his Pop Shop in New York to sell works printed on commercial objects like buttons and t-shirts. Two years later, he opened an international version in Tokyo, a space made out of two shipping containers welded together to form one large room. By the summer of 1988, the Tokyo shop closed. Haring was quoted saying, “there are just too many Haring fakes available all over Tokyo and, this time, they’re really well done.” After 20 years of business, Hering also closed the New York Pop Shop when rent became too high. New York Magazine quotes Amy Cappellazzo, then the co-head of contemporary art at Christie’s, ‘This is such an end of an era,’ she said of the shop’s folding, ‘Once you can’t walk on Lafayette and see the shop, it’s the end of personal nostalgia, and the beginning of history.’
Now you can see a rotating display of the objects sold in his Tokyo Pop Shop at the New York Historical Society. The ceiling of the Haring’s New York Pop Shop hangs over the Society’s admissions entrance, and the exhibit will display a number of objects on loan from the Keith Haring Foundation.
A.M. Links: WTO Chief Thinks Cutting Red Tape Might Be a Good Idea, Egyptian Minister Warns of the Country’s Collapse, Senator Compares Modern…
The director general of the
World Trade Organization says that cutting back on red tape
could provide a $1tn boost to the global economy. Who’d have
thunk?
Egyptian Defense Minister
Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has said that the future of Egypt is
at stake as anti-government protesters continue
demonstrations.
Sen.
Ron Johnson (R-WI) believes that there are strong parallels
between contemporary America and Atlas Shrugged. No word
on who he thinks our own John Galt might be.
Malian troops are in control of
Timbuktu after dislodging Islamic militants with French
support.
The
U.S. military will set up a drone base in north Africa. We
wouldn’t want the French to have all the fun would we?
Chinese leader
Xi Jinping has said that China will not allow its sovereignty
to be violated, the latest sign that territorial disputes with
Japan aren’t going away anytime soon.
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Eric Cantor is not impressed
While many thousands of people were moved by Richard Blanco’s inauguration poem , “One Today,” a message of equality and shared experience and struggle in contemporary America, the camera fell unfortunately (brilliantly) on Eric Cantor’s grimace during the delivery.The Twittersphere was quick to wonder whether Cantor was hoping for rhyming couplets, or hated poetry in general, has a grumpy resting face or perhaps was just cold:[embedtweet id="293408114886205441"][embedtweet id="293408412530782209"][embedtweet id="293408070615326723"]Even some ghosts of the White House past weighed in:[embedtweet id="293421109284569088"] Continue Reading… … Read More
