Art Freaks

Let me preface with: Where my art nerds at??? I need to get more motivated to do art, see art, and reignite my creative processes, help me! Doodle time or drawing war date? Museum madness to make the rounds on exhibits' last show days? Want to collaborate on a project? I'm down for all of the above and more!  

Here's Olaf Breuning's Art Freaks. I came across this exhibit that's currently installed at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris- one of my all time favorite contemporary galleries in the world! I wish I could see this, but unfortunately it's not in my agenda to make it to Paris by September. I'm a sucker for installations, portraiture, nudity, and blatant homages to earlier artists. As there's no such thing as new art, we might as well be flamboyant in our hat-tipping.

Take a look at the video (sorry could not find English subtitles, but you'll get the gist): 

This exhibit combines all four enticing elements! Huge banners hang down, depicting naked bodies painted in the manner of celebrated artists from times past. Often grotesque, mostly humorous- a reoccurring theme in this Swiss artist's body of work. By combining the grandiose past of High Art (outsiders and historically avant garde artists) with the tongue in cheek process of body painting, Breuning admires his predecessors and mocks their celebrity en même temps. This exhibit is an awesome contrast to the overwhelming, near-debilitating mass of French museums and galleries in the nation's capital, where most people masochistically perform grand Bataan Death Marches through each wing of the Louvre til brain death.

The building of the Palais de Tokyo itself is worth seeing. A massive, open, abstracted neo-classical space divided into wings around a central courtyard, one houses the Palais de Tokyo as a contemporary exhibition hall, within the other resides the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris for 20th C. exhibits. The two huge structures are conjoined by a vast colonnade entrance and dressed in relief sculpture throughout, all built for the 1937 World Expo- the very same in which the Spanish pavilion displayed Picasso's Guernica in protest of the Spanish Civil War, but also in direct confrontation with the nearby German and Soviet pavilions in full fascist iconography.

You can also see art for free via graffiti that now adorns the exterior sculptures, keep it classy Paris!   

(c) Brian Kyle

Memento Mori: Michael Scott

The Office will never be the same. Not going to lie, I did shed some tears last night during the final episode starring Steve Carrell as the incomprehensible and endearing Michael Scott. I bid you adieu with a That's What She Said montage video:

Why I'm Vegan: Industrial Animal Agriculture Hates/Heats the Planet

We should all be able to recognize by now that Industrial Animal Agriculture (CAFO systems aka Big Ag) is the LARGEST contributor to climate change and environmental pollution. These city-sized manure factories dump billions of tons of solid, liquid, and gaseous waste that degrade our environment, create antibiotic resistant diseases that contaminate other farms and in turn the public, and there are always evident workers' rights and animal welfare violations in such industrialized systems. Not to mention how unsustainable it is to filter all our natural resources through that dirty, inefficient system (water, feed crops, fuel, antibiotics, land, etc.) U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for environmental clean up, CDC costs, animal rescue, and ridiculous health care bills to name a few, totaling to billions of dollars lost each year. See below for additional information if you need any more convincing.

Great news though! Plate to Planet is new project from Farm Sanctuary! It will feature media and educational tools on the intersections between factory farming, how it affects the planet, and in turn human health.They produced a great video narrated by Jason Schwartzman, please watch it and check out their new site:




To find out more on why Big Ag hates the environment, check these out:
United Nations 2006 Report: Livestock's Long Shadow
Farm Sanctuary
Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production 
The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming
Sustainable Table 
Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future
Farm Forward
Food and Water Watch 
Price of Meat
EarthSave 
Sierra Club 
CAFO: The Book
World Watch Institute: Livestock and Climate Change
Mother Nature Network: 25% of US Meat Contaminated
Nebraska Center for Rural Health Research: Report on CAFO's Potential Implications for Public and Environmental Health
American Public Health Association's 2003 Proposed Moratorium on CAFOs
UNESCO Report: Energy Flow, Environment and Ethical Implications for Meat Production Down on the Factory

And because environmental conservation and public health are just two pieces of a huge messy puzzle, here is just one case exemplifying the issue of food (in)justice. The U.S. government would rather spend money buying out food subsidies that make America's children sick and keep private corporations rich. The Catharine Ferguson Academy--a public school for pregnant teens in Detroit with a garden and daycare--is being defunded and shut down. A thorough piece on this obscene act at Grist and coverage from Rachel Maddow.

DC: Tuesday To Do's

Go eat at Everlasting Life Cafe! Tuesday is Shepherd's Pie and Eggplant Parm, and as always, the best Mac in town! One of those I Can't Believe It's Vegan kinda meals.

While you're doing that, listen to these lovelies! There's a show from 7-10pm:

The Two Funerals

Hot Mess

Foozle

The Fordists

Everlasting Life Cafe

2829 Georgia Ave. NW

Washington, DC

7:00pm - 10:00pm

 Facebook Event Page

A little taste of the hometown heroines Hot Mess: