Robert-Goldwater-Library

Res

 Number 48 (autumn 2005): "Permanent/Impermanent" A R43

This posting is an experiment in providing timely access to the contents of journals received in the Goldwater Library. We will continue to send the monthly email "New Arrivals", which includes a list of journal issues received, for the foreseeable future. In this instance, referring to the journal's outdated web site would uncover number 45 as the most 'recent issue'.

 Selected Contents

• Sarah Adams: People have three eyes: ephemeral art and the archive in southeastern Nigeria [Igbo Ulì art]
• Kristina Van Dyke: Beyond monument lies empire: mapping Songhay space in tenth- to sixteenth-century West Africa
• Bryan R. Just: Modifications of ancient Maya sculpture

The New Sugar Hill Gang

 
 Photos: Heidi Schumann for The New York Times
L: George Preston at the Museum of Art and Origins, in his brownstone.
R: Kurt Thometz in Jumel Terrace Books, a room in his brownstone.

excerpted via NYTimes:
Home Is Where the Art Is (and the Bookstores, Too)
By JOHN STRAUSBAUGH
Published: November 28, 2005

Neighbors often cooperate to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood. George Preston and Kurt Thometz, who live two blocks from each other in Jumel Terrace at the top of Sugar Hill in Harlem, simply chose to do it in a slightly unusual way. On Nov. 10, they opened two new cultural institutions - in their homes.

Mr. Preston, 66, who grew up in the neighborhood and will retire at the end of this semester after teaching African art at City College for 32 years, turned three floors of his brownstone at 430 West 162nd Street into the Museum of Art and Origins, displaying his collection of African masks, figures and implements. Over at 426 West 160th Street, Mr. Thometz, 53, a dealer in rare and out-of-print books who moved to the neighborhood in 2004, converted a room of his brownstone into Jumel Terrace Books, featuring works on Africana, Harlem history, jazz, African-American literature and related topics.  [see also our Nov 3rd post ]

Their dual opening night drew an array of literati, artists and intelligentsia, who made the two-minute stroll between the homes. The chain-smoking humorist Fran Lebowitz chatted with the Nigerian author Emmanuel Obiechina. Robert Farris Thompson, dean of African studies at Yale, signed a copy of his new book, "Tango: The Art History of Love," for the hip-hop legend Fab Five Freddy Braithwaite. The Harlem writer Playthell Benjamin, the soul music producer Billy Jackson (who co-wrote the Tymes' 1963 hit "So Much in Love") and Rachel Robinson, the widow of Jackie Robinson, mingled.
[...]

Mr. Thometz said he and Mr. Preston were following an old and recently revived Harlem tradition of holding art exhibitions, literary salons and musical soirees in the home. At least 30 art galleries are currently operating in homes throughout Harlem. A few blocks from Jumel Terrace, Sherman Edmiston, a premiere dealer in the works of Romare Bearden, has operated Essie Green Galleries in his Convent Avenue brownstone since 1987. Around the corner from Mr. Thometz, the jazz musician Marjorie Eliot is host to weekly concerts in her Edgecombe Avenue apartment.
[...]

Turning his home into a museum of African art (also open by appointment, with a $5 entrance fee) seems a natural step for Mr. Preston, who as a 21-year-old Beat poet opened the legendary Artist's Studio, a storefront on East Third Street. There, during its one year of existence in 1959, he was host to readings by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara.

He made his first trip to Africa in 1968, doing fieldwork in Ghana toward his Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University, and built his collection during numerous visits since. In 2001, the Akan tribe of Ghana made him a chieftain, in a ceremony that involved holding dried herbs in his mouth for four hours. "That's because one of the first things for a chieftain to learn is how to keep his mouth shut," he explained.

The arts of many tribes and periods crowd the rooms of his brownstone in warm, intimate profusion. Massive ceremonial masks painted in bold geometric designs glare down from the walls above tiny ancestral figures with exquisitely expressive faces; an Egyptian mummified falcon guards a doorway; a Chokwe chief's tobacco pipe, 40 inches long, has been rubbed to a glistening patina by many years of use. This is a museum where the curator gives the tour, explaining the provenance and meaning of every object.

Mr. Preston and Mr. Thometz are now planning collaborative exhibitions, lectures and musical events with other brownstone cultural institutions in the area. Mr. Thometz was hesitant to declare it a new Harlem Renaissance, then added, "But I can't resist calling us the new Sugar Hill Gang."

Visions of a continent that is rich with life

via New York Times:

El Anatsui. Many Came Back, 2005, aluminum (liquor bottle tops) and copper wire, 84x109 inches, 213cm x 277cm (image source)

In a recent article New York Times art critic Holland Cotter surveys eight exhibits from Boston to Washington that collectively demonstrate the remarkable breadth of artistic expression identified with Africa and the growing role of "art historians, dealers and curators" in shaping our awareness.

Power Dressing: Men's Fashion and Prestige in Africa -- Newark Museum. Through Jan. 22. [Our previous post]

Lasting Foundations: The Art of Architecture in Africa -- The Museum for African Art at the World Financial Center. Through Jan. 9.

West African Gold: Akan Regalia from the Glassell Collection -- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Through March 26. [Our previous post]

African Art Now: Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection -- National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. Through Feb. 26.

The Discerning Eye: African Art from the Collection of Carl and Wilma Zabel --The African Art Museum of the S.M.A. Fathers. Through April 2.

Danudo: Recent Sculptures of El Anatsui -- Skoto Gallery, New York. Through Jan. 21.

El Anatsui -- Contemporary Africa Art Gallery, New York. Through April 30.

Mfengu -- Axis Gallery, New York. Through Dec. 22.

Expedition

Volume 47 number 3 (Winter 2005) A E961

This posting is an experiment in providing timely access to the contents of journals received in the Goldwater Library. We will continue to send the monthly email "New Arrivals", which includes a list of journal issues received, for the foreseeable future.

Special Issue: Caves   

Cover: Photo by Graeme Barker. The Neolithic cemetery is located in the West Mouth of Niah Great Cave, behind the fencing on the right.


Featuring: Neolithic Cemeteries of Niah Cave, Sarawak (G. Barker) + Sacred Caves in Mesoamerica (H. Moyes & J.E. Brady) + Australian Aboriginal Caves (P.S.C. Tacon) + Acambaro + Pastoralism in Eastern Africa + A Ritual Vessel in a Maya Cave

 

David Goldblatt: Documenting Sprawl in the Aftermath of Apartheid

George Nkomo, hawker, Fourways, Johannesburg.
21 August 2002
David Goldblatt

via ArtInfo:
David Goldblatt: The Colors of South Africa
by Eva-Lotta Jansson

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 17, 2005 - David Goldblatt, one of South Africa's most well-known photographers, is cruising the suburbs of this city, documenting its gentrification.

In the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, in the aftermath of Apartheid, giant gated luxury developments, built around golf courses, are mushrooming across the land: Islands of identical, newly built houses form surreal-looking communities.

Goldblatt has taken a special interest in one of these developments, called Dainfern. There, a massive silver-coloured pipe—a sewage aqueduct —stretches all across this gated living arrangement. "It's really a shit duct," Goldblatt says bluntly, as we head north on the highway for a visit to Dainfern.

The developers of this community have neither mentioned, nor pictured, the sewage aqueduct in any of its advertising for the place, Goldblatt says. "They have marketed it as if the sewer doesn’t exist." Even though it often smells and attracts flies, not even the residents themselves admit that the sewage aqueduct is there. "The people who live there are like the emperor without clothes," he snickers.

Adding to the quirkiness of his Dainfern series of pictures, Goldblatt has incorporated quotations from the developers' brochures, by adding them to the margins of the prints. For example, while Goldblatt’s images feature the gated luxury development complete with sewage aqueduct and bordering shack-settlement, the developers' text is promoting English country living: 'Dear Malcolm, you always write and tell me about your beautiful home in the English countryside. Well, I live in a unique corner of the earth that could easily rival that,' a Dainfern publicity brochure reads.

I was a bit surprised to find this humorous and offbeat side to Goldblatt’s photography, especially after just having perused the Johannesburg Art Gallery's retrospective of his work—images heavily steeped in the hardships of Apartheid South Africa. The retrospective extends over 51 years, starting in the 1940s and includes Goldblatt's photographs of the Afrikaaners and his work about Apartheid and the effects of it on the black communities.

But it's not Goldblatt who has changed: It is South Africa. Apartheid officially ended with the democratic elections in 1994, and it's as if with the lifting of the veil of apartheid, Goldblatt's work has become at least slightly more light-hearted. During Apartheid, "there was much that was bizarre, but there was not much that was funny," he says. Now that it’s ended, "I've allowed myself a degree of liberty I didn’t before." [read on...]

Aboriginal Languages of Australia Virtual Library

image source
Palawa children from the Cape Barren Island Primary School - spell out katina (beach) on the sand.

From to the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages (FATSIL) website:

At the time of white settlement there were an estimated 250 distinct indigenous languages in Australia. Over half of these are no longer used. Many of those remaining are known to only a handful of elders and face obvious extinction without urgent steps being taken to record them [...] The 200 years since settlement is a minute fraction of the 40,000 year history of Australia’s native people. But within this tiny window of time, the devastation of an ancient culture and many of its languages has been brutally effective.

The Aboriginal Languages of Australia Virtual Library has compiled an impressive list of online resources available for the study and promotion of indiginous Australian languages.  As of the most recent update (May 2005), there are 224 links to vetted resources grouped by type of resource, language, and Australian state. In all, about 70 languages are represented. Links are checked twice a year by the editor, David Nathan, who is also keeping tabs on sites that have gone offline (see his "Practice Statement").    

Screenings: House Made of Dawn

Kainayssini Imanistaisiwa: The People Go On; House Made of Dawn - photograph by Peter Morse © 1970

House Made of Dawn
(1972, 90 min.) US
Director: Richardson Morse
Screenplay adaptation: N. Scott Momaday and Richardson Morse
Actors: Larry Littlebird (Laguna Pueblo/Santo Domingo Pueblo), Jay Varela, Judith Doty, Mesa Bird and Philip Kenneally

Thursday, December 8, 6:00 pm - Washingtoin, DC
At the Ring Auditorium, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Saturday, December 10, 2 - 4:30 pm - New York City
National Museum of the American Indian - George Gustave Heye Center Auditorium
One Bowling Green, New York, NY 10004

Introduced by author N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), lead actor Larry Littlebird (Laguna Pueblo/Santo Domingo Pueblo), and the director. Reservatons are recommended for this screening. For the reservation form, enter here.

Poetry reading to follow at Manhattan's famed Bowery Poetry Club, featuring Momaday and Littlebird:

6 - 7:30 pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (between Houston and Bleecker streets)
New York, NY 10012
Subway: F train to Second Ave; 6 train to Bleecker
www.bowerypoetry.com
Phone: 212-614-0505
Admission is free

This film adaptation of N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a story of loss and redemption. A young man, played by actor/poet Larry Littlebird, must cope with his life in two distinct but conflicting worlds of the 1970's—the reservation in the   Southwest and the gritty urban environment. Richardson Morse's quiet, insightful film ultimately celebrates the natural and the enduring.

With support from the American Film Institute, the National Museum  of the American Indian created this new 35mm print of House Made of Dawn, as part of its efforts to preserve films that embody important moments in the history of the Native American image on film so they may continue to inspire and educate audiences for years to come.

Art in the Age of Globalization

via Bidoun, Fall Issue:

CURATORIAL COLUMN: Global Epidemic
Art in the age of globalization [excerpt; links courtesy of RGL]
Mai Abu Eldahab

Let's recap. Globalization—this obscure word remains consistently used and misused. Today, anything which includes non-western nationalities /cultures /ethnic or political groupings is defined as being the face of this globalization. On the art front this globalization is rampant; inIVA (London) produces the hit show 'The Veil'; the Fridericianum (Kassel) opts for 'In the Gorges of the Balkans' prepping the art market for the art of the new European states; in the aftermath of September 11, Witte de With (Rotterdam), the Bildmuseet (Umeå) and Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona) co-host 'Contemporary Arab Representations'; and PS 1 (New York) introduces us to poverty and violence in 'Mexico City: An Exhibition about the Exchange Rates of Bodies and Values.' In this so-called new age of multi-culti/fusion/hybrid everything, globalization rhetoric is not only modish but economically viable as well—a catchphrase for a product line.

In the coming paragraphs, I don’t want to redundantly propose yet another   definition of globalization (in 1998 alone, 2822 academic papers on globalization were written and 589 books on the subject were published), but rather I will try to put forward a suggestion of the three most commonly utilized understandings of this term and how they manifest themselves in the culture trade. [read on...]

Google Print Update ("Google Book Search")

image source

If you are looking for illuminating posts on copyright check out our new favorite blog (via NEWSgrist):

if:book - A Project of The Institute for the Future of the Book

google print is no more (11/17/05)

Not the program, of course, just the name. From now on it is to be known as Google Book Search. "Print" obviously struck a little too close to home with publishers and authors. On the company blog, they explain the shift in emphasis:

No, we don't think that this new name will change what some folks think about this program. But we do believe it will help a lot of people understand better what we're doing. We want to make all the world's books discoverable and searchable online, and we hope this new name will help keep everyone focused on that important goal.

image source

If you are looking for illuminating posts on copyright check out our new favorite blog (via NEWSgrist):

if:book - A Project of The Institute for the Future of the Book

google print is no more (11/17/05)

Not the program, of course, just the name. From now on it is to be known as Google Book Search. "Print" obviously struck a little too close to home with publishers and authors. On the company blog, they explain the shift in emphasis:

No, we don't think that this new name will change what some folks think about this program. But we do believe it will help a lot of people understand better what we're doing. We want to make all the world's books discoverable and searchable online, and we hope this new name will help keep everyone focused on that important goal.

Creeping (digital) death of fair use

 

excerpted posts from if:book (via NEWSgrist):

copyright 101 (8/25/05)

Richard Lanham, the godfather of electronic text, has written a wonderful piece in Academic Commons calling for a course in copyright for all undergraduates. Lanham, a UCLA English professor who has had a significant second career as an expert witness in copyright cases, gives one of the more cogent summaries of the copyright morass we find ourselves in as the digital tide overwhelms previous notions of property and ownership.

the creeping (digital) death of fair use (11/02/05)

Meant to post about this last week but it got lost in the shuffle... In case anyone missed it, Tarleton Gillespie of Cornell has published a good piece in Inside Higher Ed about how sneaky settings in course management software are effectively eating away at fair use rights in the academy. Public debate tends to focus on the music and movie industries and the ever more fiendish anti-piracy restrictions they build into their products (the latest being the horrendous "analog hole"). But a similar thing is going on in education and it is decidely under-discussed.
[...]

Fair use is what oxygenates the bloodstream of education, allowing ideas to be ideas, not commodities. Universities, and their primary fair use organs, libraries, shouldn't be subjected to the same extortionist policies of the mainstream copyright regime, which, like some corrupt local construction authority, requires dozens of permits to set up a simple grocery store. Fair use was written explicitly into law in 1976 to guarantee protection. But the market tends to find a way, and code is its latest, and most insidious, weapon.

Amazingly, few academics are speaking out. John Holbo, writing on The Valve, wonders:

Why aren’t academics - in the humanities in particular - more exercised by recent developments in copyright law? Specifically, why aren’t they outraged by the prospect of indefinite copyright extension?...

...It seems to me odd, not because overextended copyright is the most pressing issue in 2005 but because it seems like a social/cultural/political/economic issue that recommends itself as well suited to be taken up by academics - starting with the fact that it is right here on their professional doorstep...

Most obviously on the doorstep is Google, currently mired in legal unpleasantness for its book-scanning ambitions and the controversial interpretation of fair use that undergirds them. Why aren't the universities making a clearer statement about this? In defense? In concern?
[...]
Fair use seems to be shrinking at just the moment it should be expanding, yet few are speaking out.

 

excerpted posts from if:book (via NEWSgrist):

copyright 101 (8/25/05)

Richard Lanham, the godfather of electronic text, has written a wonderful piece in Academic Commons calling for a course in copyright for all undergraduates. Lanham, a UCLA English professor who has had a significant second career as an expert witness in copyright cases, gives one of the more cogent summaries of the copyright morass we find ourselves in as the digital tide overwhelms previous notions of property and ownership.

the creeping (digital) death of fair use (11/02/05)

Meant to post about this last week but it got lost in the shuffle... In case anyone missed it, Tarleton Gillespie of Cornell has published a good piece in Inside Higher Ed about how sneaky settings in course management software are effectively eating away at fair use rights in the academy. Public debate tends to focus on the music and movie industries and the ever more fiendish anti-piracy restrictions they build into their products (the latest being the horrendous "analog hole"). But a similar thing is going on in education and it is decidely under-discussed.
[...]

Fair use is what oxygenates the bloodstream of education, allowing ideas to be ideas, not commodities. Universities, and their primary fair use organs, libraries, shouldn't be subjected to the same extortionist policies of the mainstream copyright regime, which, like some corrupt local construction authority, requires dozens of permits to set up a simple grocery store. Fair use was written explicitly into law in 1976 to guarantee protection. But the market tends to find a way, and code is its latest, and most insidious, weapon.

Amazingly, few academics are speaking out. John Holbo, writing on The Valve, wonders:

Why aren’t academics - in the humanities in particular - more exercised by recent developments in copyright law? Specifically, why aren’t they outraged by the prospect of indefinite copyright extension?...

...It seems to me odd, not because overextended copyright is the most pressing issue in 2005 but because it seems like a social/cultural/political/economic issue that recommends itself as well suited to be taken up by academics - starting with the fact that it is right here on their professional doorstep...

Most obviously on the doorstep is Google, currently mired in legal unpleasantness for its book-scanning ambitions and the controversial interpretation of fair use that undergirds them. Why aren't the universities making a clearer statement about this? In defense? In concern?
[...]
Fair use seems to be shrinking at just the moment it should be expanding, yet few are speaking out.