Just to be on the level, I’m not going to bring back stories about grossly overpaid art museum CEO’s and their boards, not-so secret loans to art museum CEO’s, and art millage scams promoted against Tri-County Taxpayers.
Feel free to use that search window in the upper-right corner if you’re inclined to read more about it.
No, I’m going to talk about what the good people in the Snyder/Calley/Weiser/et al republican machine are in effect helping to promote with your own hard-earned tax dollars.
Just a quick warning to those who wish to continue: The remainder of this post does contain some graphic and disturbing descriptions.
Consider yourselves warned!
{Continued after the fold}
According to a write up in today’s Detroit News, the DIA is planning an upcoming exposition next March titled “Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit”.
For those of you who aren’t aware, Diego Rivera created the Detroit Industrial Murals on several walls within the DIA. Most people are aware of the images of the Ford Assembly line that look like they were taken directly from Soviet propaganda of the era (not surprising since he was a communist and spent quite a bit of time in the Soviet Union). What most people aren’t aware of is the fact that many of the images contained within his frescoes contained blasphemous imagery.
Needless to say, the images were not very well-received locally when they were first unveiled. In fact, most local leaders and the religious community wanted the murals removed from the walls of the DIA.
Despite those numerous objections, then DIA Director Wilhelm Valentiner (who had some socialist leanings of his own), ignored those calls and the murals remain to the present day.
And much like you can tell the leanings of the spouse from who they have married, Frida Kahlo isn’t much different from Rivera.
A communist like her husband, most of Frida Kahlo’s work involved strange subject matter, specifically death, suicide and self-portraits showing herself physically injured in one way or another.
Which brings me back to the point of this post.
The DIA is a little miffed that they were not able to get their hands on a painting by Frida Kahlo entitled “My Birth”. The painting is currently owned by Madonna, who has been, so far, unwilling to make any kind of arrangement to show it at the DIA. The image itself is definitely NSFW, but to give you an idea of what the image entails, according to The News;
“…which shows a bloody, adult-looking Kahlo emerging from between her mother’s legs,”
Aren’t you glad that your tax dollars are going to help promote this kind of “art”?
(20)Nuh Uh.
(0)
Kahlo's art was extremely dark and warped because her husband Diego was a notorious womanizer. Her second fiddle role drove her insane.
Anyone care to comment on Snyder selecting the Democratic apparatchik Duggan as MC of his reinaguration?
I didn't think it was worth mentioning, but when you make billions in pension obligations you were originally responsible for "disappear" (for pennies on the dollar), give suburban communities "an offer they cannot refuse" with the Great Lakes Water Authority (including making them pay at least $2-billion for the opportunity for Detroit to tell them what to do), the aforementioned Michigan Taxpayer bailout...AND you don't lose any assets in the process.
I can continue, but the absolute least you could do in that situation like that is to show up at an over-glorified grip-and-grin event and play MC.
Thanks KG one:
it is definitely shocking news that Diego Rivera was a communist. Also good to know that you disapprove of art that was NOT displayed in the show. Most likely you disapprove of Diego Rivera's art that IS on display in the DIA because it depicts [take the children out of the room] female breasts. You call it blasphemous. It may well be.
I can't help but thinking how proud you would be of Pakistan, which has passed comprehensive blasphemy laws mandating life imprisonment for disrespectful comments concerning Mohammed (no showing of bad intent is necessary). Over 600 people have been convicted and imprisoned under that and related blasphemy laws, most of them Christians, many falsely accused, and over two dozen killed by mob violence before "trial". Even those who are acquitted of such crimes – a rare event – have to leave Pakistan or face vigilante "justice." Blasphemy was also the justification given by ISIS for blowing up ancient temples in Palmyra – designated world heritage treasures – because they were devoted to gods other than the God of Mohammed (the temples, of course, predate Mohammed's birth by centuries). So I cannot disparage Pakistan's blasphemy laws or the war crimes committed by ISIS. You're an American, through and through, yet you would do the same if you could; of that I have no doubt.
Glad to see that reading comprehension is your strong suit, Mr. O'Brien.
Frida Kahlo, much like her "husband" Diego Rivera, had a head full of bad wiring. And even though they didn't display the piece from Madonna's personal collection the DIA was aching to display publically, much of her other works can also be accurately described as snuff porn as well.
What you might consider acceptable for public viewing (especially on the public dime) isn't a view shared by most rationale people. I can give you a good example of something I personally witnessed earlier this year when I was looking at the exhibit at Macomb College "101 Persons, Places and Things that Made Michigan". One of the side displays focused on Rivera when he was at the DIA in the 30's. They had a video running in the corner of the room featuring his "wife" and some of her work. The good people at Macomb College didn't bother to put up any kind of warning letting visitors know what kind of material they would be viewing before walking into that room. Needless to say, a family with three small children walked in on part of the video showing battered, bloodied and disfigured imagery that is symbolic of Kahlo's "work", and left quicker than they came in. I didn't see the family at any other part of the exhibit (which as nowhere nearly as explicit) during the rest of the afternoon. That was a shame because the rest of the exhibit was informative and it would've given the children a good foundation of Michigan History.
That been said, I should also ask if you've spent very much time here at Right Michigan, Mr. O'Brien?
Based on the cheap
shottaliban comparison, the answer is obviously not.The Rivera Murals were done slightly before my time. But I can tell you this; When you attempt make an allegorical reference to a science experiment with The Nativity, you're going to make a lot of people very angry. Henry's idiot son may have commissioned the work, but it was still knowingly approved of and displayed by the administration of a museum that was funded by the public.
A characteristic of arrogance and conceit that is being continued by the current "leadership" at the DIA today.
Well Said KG