***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 13:48:09 -0500
   [From]: Juan JosŽ D’az Infante  <jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Democracy

Hi all

Humberto's problem is not an isolated phenomenon and unfortunately has
nothing to do with democracy. Newt Gingrich signed the gradual disappearance
of the endowment for the arts because he did not know what the word
endowment meant. The mayor of New York is threatening to cut all the funds
for the Brooklyn Museum due to a painting that he considered offensive to
the catholic community. It was Goebels just before becoming an American
Citizen that wrote a paper on his thoughts that actually the US is not a
democracy (I think I read it in a book called "who occupied Einstein's
office")

And there are no grounds to think that in the future things are going to
change. In my particular understanding the problem is better defined in a T
Shirt I bought in LA some years ago that said "Do not teach a pig to sing,
not only the pig does not learn you really annoy the pig" It was not an
accident that Franco killed all the poets during the Spanish Revolution.

It is time to think of the artists as someone different. Not as a
handicapped person. It is very unfortunate that the education of the artist
traditionally does not lend itself to do his own marketing. Nonetheless It
is easier for an artist to learn to add and substract than  for an
accountant to appreciate or understand art.

The conversation has to be changed. But it is essential to understand the
snapshot of reality in this moment art is not for everybody. This is not an
elitist statement, but, thinking otherwise, the artist will be treated with
such indifference that it only serves to erode in its totality the essence
of the creative person. The more you think that art belongs to the mass
media the more indifference you will find.

Juan

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>From: "Raul Ferrera-Balanquet" <ferrera98@hotmail.com>
>Date: lun., 18 octu 1999 10:57

> Hector and Daniel:
>
> Amigos, I find amazing how my comment has trigered your comments.  And I
> happy. When I was refering to "the democracy above the democracies," I was
> employing my ironical Latino discourse. I hope that you realized that my
> point was to focus in the way that the US' academic world uses the "minority
> professors" and fire them. It was a reference to Humberto's case and how
> being a person of color is a political position in the "first world" and
> because of that you can be expelled from the university's jobs.
>
> Friends, me asombra como mis comentarios han originado respuestas. Cuando
> hablaba de los Estados Unidos como democracia sobre las democracias" estaba
> usando una voz ironica, propia de los Latinos. Espero que se hayan dado
> cuenta que yo estaba tranto de enfocar la forma en las universidades
> norteamericana expulsan a los profesorers minoritarios de sus puesto. Era
> una referencia al caso de Humberto y a como en el primer mundo se una
> persona de "color" es una posici=F3n political y que por esos puedes ser
> expulsado de los puestos academicos en las universidades gringas.
>
>
> Raul Ferrera-Balanquet, MFA
> Interdisciplinary Artist and Scholar
> ferrera98@hotmail.com
> http://www.artswire.org/krosrods/curriculum/index.html