Go to Cuba

A revolution is not supposed to last 50 years


On the eve of Halloween 2009, it can be said that the museum of communism, aka island nation of Cuba, is " All Tricks, No Treats".

Watch Adrien Baschuk's excellent video "Waiting for a Revolution" currently on Current TeeVee.

The time is ripe for Generation Y.



Just 45 minutes from Miami...



Visit to grandpa's house

Family monogram at our house in Camaguey.

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news for the homeless

Hurray, Obama just signed the Hate Crimes Bill. Love that!

"We will never know how many incidents were never reported at all," Obama said.




Just like Clockwork... Orange. Have a nice pumpkin day.





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Mums the Word

There are murmurs in the dark and stylish undercurrents of the art world in the tropics, rumors and vapors of contested deeds, of provenance and piranhas in a resurgent cloud of mummy dust. The eyes of three thousand years are opening, winking and freaking people out.
But lips are shut as if sewn with the floss of art history, dreaded desire for death and rebirth and answers.

Question is: Scooby-Doo Where are You?



Body Farmer

The original "Body Farm" (started by William Bass)

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- Nearly everything known about the science of human decomposition comes from one place -- forensic anthropologist William Bass' Body Farm.


"I'm 72 and I'm sorry I'm getting so old because I have all these things I've got to do," said Bass, who started the farm with one body and a small plot of ground in the fall of 1971.

Bill Bass is a star in a day sky.



Extract of Mummy

Local lightweight paper Sun Sentinal got the scoop on the Bass Mummy ( no relation to Bill Bass). We should all be astounded to the bone at this ghoulish discovery in the swamp, the tense traverse to Aventura Medical and the fate of this Boy from Cairo.

The Egyptian mummy, belonging to the Bass Museum of Art is at least 2,600 years old and is tucked inside a wooden sarcophagus.


Another blog said this of the 2500 year old tourist from Egypt.

After using 3D scanners to take a peek beneath the ancient bandages, it was what wasn’t inside that most surprised the doctors.


The mummyboy must have a good health insurance plan.



No Ticket, No Laundry.

The Bass Mummy may have charmed his way onto CNN inadvertently because if he knew what is being reported in major papers around the world, he may have been better preserved tucked away in the basement of the Bass.


PARIS — France's culture minister agreed Friday to return five painted wall fragments to Egypt after a row over their ownership prompted the Egyptians to cut ties with the Louvre Museum.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/france-to-return-stolen-e_n_315402.html

Hawass also cut ties with the St. Louis Art Museum after it failed to answer his demand to return a 3,200-year-old golden burial mask of a noblewoman.

Hawass also wants the return of the bust of Nefertiti – wife of the famed monotheistic Pharaoh Akhenaten – and the Rosetta Stone, a basalt slab with an inscription that was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. The bust is in Berlin's Egyptian Museum; the Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/france-to-return-stolen-e_n_315402.html

Rosetta Stone Fortune Teller Child

and from a recent ocean drive puff piece.

With a chuckle, he asks, “Did you know we have a mummy? An actual Egyptian mummy! Think of all the children in Miami Beach who would otherwise never get to see a real mummy!”




Best Closing Sentence Ever...


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Surfside Library Closed

Dried up in the Swamp

The Surfside Community Center was just that, the center of the community. It was mistakenly demolished several years ago and so all we got is a barren lot with an ocean view that is closed to the public as if some old indian bones were found during the dig.

Closed Encounters of the Literary Kind

The old community center provided the residents of Surfside with a great big swimming pool, a nice little cafe, a comfortable assembly hall, a game-room and, no less valuable, our very own little library. The staff was courteous, dedicated and perfectly bookish. There were always people there. After the demolition, all the books and other resources were crammed into a miscerable windowless trailer in a parking lot behind town hall.

Reading Between the Lines.

A long time ago our founding fathers, after incorporating, decided to opt out of Dade County Library Tax and opened their own library with town tax revenues. It was not the library of congress but it was good enough for the times, a time before the internet. I remember growing up in Miami starving for information, spending hours downtown, always wanting more books, mags, papers. Availability was the issue, today it's the opposite, info-overload.




Quiet Please - Children Thinking

Some of my fondest memories of living in this quit seaside town was taking kids to the community center and library. My daughter and I would spend hours in the children's book section rummaging through old books. Those were valuable quality of life experiences no longer available to new families in town. Maybe the demand for such resources has changed but the human experience remains.






I Read a Book Once

A world without books is like a house with no kitchen.

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Obama Family Collection

In the Age of Re-creation

Art collecting is the art of parleying dollars into high-brow prestige, it is the art of patronage that is purported to have opened the gates of heaven to the wildly earthly wealthy such as the powerful Medici Family of the Italian Renaissance.

The Obamas patronage is not so much to buy their salvation but to harness imagery in the age of information. They understand the power of Art to transform the viewing public. This is why they partnered with "street artist" propagandist Shepard Fairey to create the now famous winning poster.




Lincoln's Long Looks

First Lady has been spotted at all the right fine art venues studiously taking in whatever contemporary art has to offer these days. But the bulk of their collection is actually quite safe consisting of blue-chip works and stuff they acquired through the years.




Pow-Wow-America

In the early years of collecting, the Obamas focus was on accessing works to build a foundation of historical art that represented their love of country. But without the guiding eye of credentialed curators, their collection laked cohesion, spark and that "i don't know what" that makes great collections like the Rubell Family Collection so important to art critics.



Word

Being of sharp mind and discerning taste, the Obama's soon got on the proper and predictable path to prestige and began to buy blue-chip artists such as the wordy works of pal Ed Rusha.



Looks for Sale

Here is a classic photo of the artist... looks go a long way in the art of schmoozing prospective patrons, and Ed was a looker.




The Antique Chanel

This old piece has been in the Obama Family Collection for two generations. Michelle found it in the attic in Hawaii and is having it appraised.



Old as Mold

President Obama has been caring these two weird things around for years, they are his "good luck with the ladies charm"



Innocence Lost

Even the first girls are in on the action. Here is a painting by Malia that sold for 25,000 at her recent show in a D.C. Gallery.




Art's First Cousin Fashion

Sasha has been dabbling in Fashion Design and is inspired by the Huxtables of Cosby Show fame. I think their rather good.




De-acquisitions

Stuff they want to get rid off.




Buyers Remorse

This was purchased at the suggestion of a curator no longer in favor. With the auction houses in a quagmire and saudi collectors focused elsewhere, this portrait of the butcher of baghdad has been shopped around and now hard to move.



Waiting List

Here are a few artwork the Obama's are trying to acquire.





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Prize of Pittsburgh

Post Traumatic G-20 Summit Syndrome

Pittsburg PA is a lovely town reminiscent of other post industrial cities that are actually shrinking in size and, though not immune to the economic melt-down, seemingly less affected than places like Miami, Las Vegas and others. While NYC is in a state of shock and contraction, the birthplace of Andy Warhol is relatively sound and celebrity free.




Hall of Hispanic Fama

Roberto Walker Clemente. With a name like that and a bat swing like king kong, he is the prize of pittsburgh. Here is a photo of an enormous bronze adorning the baseball field downtown, a giant among men and a Hispanic for all seasons.




Hammertime Willy

But not all art in public places is quite so epic and commanding. Just a few steps from the magnificent Clemente is this weird marble thing with what appears to be naked workmen having head-aches. It hurts just to look.



Corporate Hip

As with most things of money today, it is the corporate sponsors that hold the OPM to get things done. Andy Warhol understood this years ago and single-handedly re-educated the corporate Joe mentality to accommodate new ways of thinking about art, it's people... and branding. This giant painting is a collaboration of Warhol and Basquait, two giants who energized chemistry of the art world.





BrilloBox Branding

Ans so it is that we celebrate 100 years of Synthetic Rubber with the collaboration of The Andy Warhol Museum, Lanxess Rubber Corporation and artist team Ryan Alexiev and Hank Willis Thomas. Ryan and Hanks are the winners of a competition to create a work of art for the occasion of 100 year history of Unnatural Rubber. Laxess claims to be 'energizing chemistry' and indeed their sponsorship has been energizing to this artist memory of Andy Warhol, my Art Father.




Will Work for Play

The Warhol Museum is an impressive institution and a fitting tribute to Andy's legacy.
There is a bounty of artworks to enjoy and many displays of memorabilia. The caption for this photo reads "we started the magazine so we would get invites to the premiers". Kinda like opening a gallery so we can get free grolsh beer.




Data Illuminatta

The winning artwork is a graphical representation of the data turned 3-D showing the exponential growth of synthetic rubber from 1909 through 2009. I wonder how things are going in Manaus, Brazil home of natural rubber.



For Whom the Bell Tolls

Their dreams are a fabricators reality. Here is the bell in production at my studio. American marble aka styrofoam is the closest thing to conceptual clay available. It's mostly air and very forgiving.




Black is the New Green

Here is the artwork after buckets of MicroRubber coating made from your recycled tires.




Rim with Bling

Here is the center-piece of the sculpture in nowheresville North Miami getting pimped with Mirra-Krome. People like shiny round things...




Wheel of Fortune

Here is a snapshot of the "Wheel of Fortune" on display at the Warhol till January 2010. It is scheduled to travel around the world to remind folks of the power of chemicals.




Propaganda Promulgated

The Warhol also provides the public with exhibitions of other artists work. Currently they have a show by uber-controversial Shepard Fairey the "street artist" from RISD and Obama Poster Fame. More on him later.



AndyMouse

I met Warhol in the mid 80's when he befriended my pals Keith Haring, Jean Michel Baquait and Kenny Scharf. These fellas are the three musketeers of the East Village Art Explosion that Andy had built a foundation for. Their collective cautionary contribution to the art mindset is immeasurable in a world gone celebrity crazy.




Even republican twitty Cindy McCain understands the power of Celebrity that Warhol espoused perfectly so each of us would feel entitled to 15 minutes of fame.

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Bloggers Backlog

INSTALLMENT ONE

on Obama, Cuba and the Nobel Prize



The Currency of Ideas

The notion that an award is granted on the merit of ones accomplishments is understandable.

So it is apropos that the cuban-american community recognize president obama for relaxing restriction among neighbors, for the promise of reconciliation.



To Coin a Phrase...

History is written by the winners.



" patria o muerte"

The photoshop generation would like to thank the president for polishing our image towards enhanced hemispheric relations.




Where's the Beef?

The American people would like to thank the president and his administration for attempting to restore our rightful place in the world stage.




First Lady Visit to the Freedom Tower in Miami

News at eleven.




Hoboken N.J. Class of 1977

There are two kinds of Cube-Ams, miami and hoboken, NY.



Greetings from Florida

The manatee would like to thank the president for representing Hope and Change.


...and kenny's sideshow gets the last word...

...The psyop at this stage is centered upon Obama, elevating the man (who has been groomed for this his entire life by the agents of the empire) to the highest possible human position, the role of “Messiah.” The theme of “Obama the Messiah” has been played-up in every media, accentuating his dual racial and national heritage and portraying him as the great “bridge” between cultures, races and nations. This theme has been carried to its most absurd extreme in the form of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was given for reading all the pretty-sounding words that flow across his teleprompter screen...


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