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Posts Tagged ‘right wing’

Unknown Art Group Takes Over

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 29, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Charlie Rubin/Kasmin, New York.
An example of sculpture by Alma Allen, ‘Not Yet Titled‘ (2024). He is the artist chosen by a conservative art group to represent the US in the 61st Venice Biennale.

With all the sinister goings-on in the world, you might think that something strange in the art world would be the least of our worries. But this creepy story really got under my skin, and I’m wondering what the artists among you have to say about it.

Ben Davis reports at Artnet that the administration “has picked its artist for the 61st Venice Biennale. After months of speculation and much confusion, the artist to represent the U.S. will be Mexico-based sculptor Alma Allen, in a pavilion organized by curator Jeffrey Uslip. The sponsor is the American Arts Conservancy (AAC).

“But what is this organization, now vaulted front and center of the international art conversation, which no one I know has ever heard of? I was perplexed. So I took a spin around the internet to get a sense of what its chops were. Here are some observations.

“If no one has heard of the Tampa-based AAC, this is because it was founded only in July of this year. The press release is so poorly edited that it repeats the same quote by executive director Jenni Parido twice.

“The fact that this gaffe stands, four months later, as AAC takes on the most high-profile job in the arts, might put into question their professionalism in organizing a major international art exhibition. …

“Parido is an enigma on the art scene. According to her LinkedIn, her primary work experience is as the founder of Feed Pet Purveyor, a Tampa vendor specializing in natural foods for pets, which she ran from 2014 to 2023. …

“Frank Bardonaro was named president of the AAC board of directors in late August; he’s the CEO of the Houston-based Brock Group, a conglomerate that provides scaffolding, insulation, and the like for industrial and commercial customers. John Mocker, who serves as board secretary, is head of a pipe distributor, LB Industries.

“Mocker distinguishes himself as arty in this company because his biography identifies him as a collector of ‘American and international art.’ I’m interested! All I was able to find out, though, was that he also had a bit part in the unknown 2024 Abigail Breslin feature Chapter 51 directed by photographer Tyler Shields. …

“Ryan Coyne joined the AAC board as treasurer in September. He is best-known for running Starboard, a digital marketing, media, and government relations business. Among other things, it owns BizPac Review, which promises ‘breaking news and analysis unfiltered by the liberal bias that has eroded the media’s credibility.’ Starboard is probably best known for purchasing Parler, the right-wing Twitter clone, in 2023. Coyne also runs We the People Wine, ‘America’s Favorite Patriotic Wine.’

“Finally, AAC vice president Janet Steinger is a socialite married to superstar Palm Beach personal-injury lawyer Michael Steinger. …

“ ‘The Conservancy brings together a national network of curators, scholars, educators, artists, and patrons who believe in the transformative power of the arts,’ AAC boasted when it launched. Let’s take a look at what that means. The advisory board includes: curator Jeffrey Uslip, who is helming the Alma Allen pavilion in Venice, socialite Mackenzie Brumberg, socialite Nicola Verses … Nicole McGraw, a Palm Beach art dealer and former CEO of Jupiter NFT Group [now] ambassador to Croatia … artist Brendan Murphy, who made a diamond-encrusted spaceman sculpture for a Four Seasons in Riyadh … photographer, artist, and Web3 entrepreneur Brandon Ralph. …

“One name on the advisory board list, Madison Wright, remains an unknown, as the AAC site does not identify or provide links for its advisory board, just names. ‘Mathew Taylor’ and ‘Michelle Taylor’ are also listed. ‘Mathew’ seems to be a misspelling of ‘Matthew.’ It probably refers to a filmmaker who goes by both M.A. Taylor and Matthew Taylor, depending on whether he is directing films about conservative politics or art. He has directed both Marcel Duchamp: The Art of the Possible (2019), about the famed father of conceptual art, and Government Gangsters (2024) [about] Kash Patel‘s book about a deep state conspiracy. …

“The other big initiative AAC is pushing is the ‘Passport to Patriotism: America 250’ exhibition, which it says will happen next year. ‘Children ages 5–15 are invited to submit original works that express what patriotism means to them,’ for possible inclusion. …

“The ‘children’s art’ used to illustrate the contest has the hallmarks of very bland A.I., including [one] where Lady Liberty has six fingers, and the stripes on the flag inexplicably flip colors. …

“A bare-bones official website for the U.S. pavilion now exists. On Instagram and Facebook, AAC posted a short statement about the vision of the show.”

Maybe I read too many murder mysteries, but the thin online presence of these entities sure do suggest the shell companies I’m currently reading about in a novel by Richard Osman.

More at Artnet, here.

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Swedes Try to Define Their Culture

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 21, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Ola Lewitschnik for the New York Times.
What defines Sweden? A sauna in the cold? Abba songs? Painted red horses? IKEA?

As Suzanne’s family heads off to Sweden to experience Erik’s culture for a few months, I notice that the New York Times has an interest in trying to define that culture. So does the currrent Swedish government.

I guess diversity of opinion is part of the culture as not everyone thinks the initiative is a good idea.

Imogen West-Knights writes, “What is Swedish culture? Some obvious answers might spring to mind: Abba, the films of Ingmar Bergman, Pippi Longstocking, IKEA. It’s an almost impossibly broad question — but one that Sweden’s government is trying to answer.

“In 2023, the government began an initiative called the Culture Canon, with two streams: an ‘experts’ canon and a ‘people’s canon.’ The first involves academics, journalists, historians and other authorities who will decide on 100 works or other items of cultural importance that have played a key role in shaping Swedish culture.

“The second will be made up of suggestions submitted by the Swedish public to the Culture Canon website, which can be drawn from the arts or can include everyday activities like the daily ‘fika‘ coffee and cake break or ideas like ‘Allemansrätten,’ the Swedish right to explore nature, even on private land. So far, suggestions include saunas and the plays of August Strindberg, the 1361 Battle of Visby and Björn Borg’s five straight Wimbledon victories. …

“Yet even the suggestion of such a definitive list is dividing opinion in Sweden. The Culture Canon is a pet project of a party with far-right roots that supports, but is not part of, the government. Many in the arts scene fear that the results will project a narrow view of Swedish culture, glorifying an imagined past and shutting out the cultural contributions of minorities.

“Lars Trägårdh, a historian whom the government appointed to lead the project, said in an interview that the Culture Canon would be particularly useful for helping immigrants integrate. …

” ‘Most of the culture world is against the idea of a canon,’ said Ida Ölmedal, the culture editor of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet: ‘It’s being used as a populist tool to point out what is Swedish and not, and to exclude some people from the concept of Swedishness.’

“ ‘But even if it wasn’t nationalist, it would still be wrong for politicians to point out what is important culture,’ Ölmedal added. ‘We have a proud tradition of the government financing culture without trying to govern culture — and this is an exception.’

Martí Manen, the director of Index, a contemporary art foundation in Stockholm, said the Culture Canon was ‘a tool for a specific political agenda.’

“In the interview, Trägårdh rebuffed such objections. ‘They are not real arguments,’ he said, adding that he had no cultural loyalty to the left or the right. … He is a historian who works on issues of Swedish identity, such as in his 2006 book Is the Swede a Human Being?, which he cowrote with Henrik Berggren. … Trägårdh also rejected the idea that a cultural canon would exclude minorities from the concept of Swedishness. …

“Parisa Liljestrand, a member of the Moderate Party who is Sweden’s culture minister, said the project had been set up to be independent from government influence and was now ‘in the hands of the committee.’ It was the committee’s job, she added, ‘to find out what fields we should have a canon in, and also to establish criteria for selection of works.’

“One criteria the committee has set for the expert part of the canon is that it can only include entries that are at least 50 years old. This has stirred fears that the results will downplay the importance of cultural output by immigrants, most of whom arrived in Sweden after 1975. …

“[Said] Mattias Andersson, the artistic director of the Royal Dramatic Theater, Sweden’s national playhouse, ‘It’s about trying to speak about the Sweden from the ’40s, or the ’50s, when everyone had the same God, the same impression of what the family is, of how to live your life.’ …

“For all the Culture Canon’s critics in the arts scene, there are also those who say it is too soon to judge. Victor Malm, the culture editor of the Expressen newspaper, said he was reserving his judgment until he read the final report.” More at the Times, here.

You know, asking immigrants who have been in Sweden a while to define Swedish culture would be most revealing. I am always surprised when immigrants tell me that a characteristic of the US is that people follow the laws. Relative to where some of them come from, ordinary Americans certainly do if not high-level officials and billionaires. We pay our taxes. We obey traffic directives. I’ve heard Swedes are very law-abiding, too.

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