Sunday, October 9, 2016

this is not a parody

this is not a parody 
Let us all remember that this hilarious and horrifyingly entertaining show we call Donald Trump is in fact, NOT a parody.  Yes, a sociopathic, xenophobic, white supremacist is running for the highest office of our country, the United States of America.  I am, however, supremely impressed with the effects this man has on all corners of our country (to all degrees of power and media coverage, abuse and exploitation).

I am also intrigued to hear about this "trojan horse" that, apparently, a politically conservative pop news creator curated (?) managed to organize for a Brooklyn gallery.  Yes, a far right political group (of artists?) tricked a gallery into believing that their Trump show was a parody (easy to do because this all seems like a joke anyway).  As it turns out, their motives were Trojan.  Here's the original Opinion article by William Powhida in Hyperallergic:
This is not parody.  Fuck Trump.
The article is worth a read, so I hope you'll read it.  This is my favorite paragraph:
So, can parody be used effectively to shame, ridicule, and mock the status quo, the power elite, the crypto-fascists, and the oligarchs who are likely thrilled to watch the art world react in horror to the parasitic infiltration of Winrich? As Hito Steyrel observed in her essay “International Disco Latin,” “But satire as one of the traditional tools of enlightenment is not only defined by making fun. It gains its punch from who is being made fun of.” In this formulation, Winrich is not lampooning conservative collectors or Trump supporters, he’s mocking the shared progressive beliefs of the art community that embraced difference at a cultural level long ago, even if it’s economics and demographics have yet to catch up at the level of representation in galleries and exhibitions. On the other hand, perhaps Winrich has succeeded at parody. I think he has done a fine job of illuminating the mythology of Vice Magazine’s culture of white boy party privilege in a far more accurate way than I ever succeeded with a performance I did at Marlborough Gallery in 2011 titled, “POWHIDA.” Sometimes, the only thing you need for effective satire is to get out of the way and let people be themselves. In this, Wintrich’s performance has been entirely revealing, bravo <insert preferred epithet>!

William Powhida, “Fuck Trump” (2016) (image courtesy the artist)
**I swiped this image off the Hyperallergic site.  Hoping they won't care because I side with Mr. Powhida.**