Category Archives: New Utopia

Prof Dan Howard SC, head of the special inquiry into illicit amphetamine use in New South Wales, has handed down his report to the NSW government following a lengthy commission looking into both the drug ice but also other issues such as pill testing and the effectiveness of NSW drug laws.

In his report, Howard has recommended that the government decriminalisation illicit drug use. Many people might be wondering what on earth that actually means. Terms like decriminalisation are bandied around regularly in the media and theres often confusion as to the jargon that already exists.

Heres one way to look at it:

Depenalisation simply means to take the penalty out of the crime. For example, if you are caught possessing drugs its a crime, but you are referred to treatment instead of facing heavy fines or potential jail time.

Decriminalisation means that possessing drugs for personal use ceases to become a crime altogether, but remains a civil offence like running a red light or jay-walking there are still penalties (eg fines) and the other consequences. This system is currently in practice in countries like Portugal where people are instead referred to treatment, if it is appropriate.

Regulation means to fully legalise drugs but to control the supply of drugs either through a government or commercial market. Much of the drug field use regulation instead of legalisation because the latter can conjure up images of reckless drug use without limits. However, our current system, which is essentially mainly one of prohibition, offers little in terms of control.

Our system has been shown to spend a lot of money in arresting people, court time and lockup with little hope of changing behaviours. Prohibition laws themselves clearly do little to stop large chunks of our community from using illicit drugs.

Although depenalisation is a small step in the right direction ... it wont stop young people dying

Why is that? How can we have laws that work and others that dont? Weve changed these in the past, and changing laws can do a lot to maximise benefit and reduce the costs associated with faulty laws.

Im often reminded of Don Chipps work while he was still a Liberal, creating the R-rated classification in motion picture content rating. Before that restriction, some movies were simply banned. Did it stop people watching them? Of course not. Its foolish to think we will ever delete a black market altogether, but we can minimise and manage it. The black market in tobacco in Australia is a good example. It exists but its small enough for law enforcement to contain, as opposed to the illicit drug market.

Speaking of tobacco smoking has dropped significantly in Australia. Good regulation means banning advertising, reducing exposure, taxing effectively and running effective health campaigns all in a strategic fashion. Tobacco regulation highlights the difference between a well regulated market and one thats out of control.

A recent report shows that there have been close to 400 MDMA-related deaths in Australia from 2000 to 2018, most of which were people in their early to mid 20s.

Nearly half of these deaths were due to mixed drug consumption and just over half were due to MDMA toxicity. The NSW deputy coroner Harriet Grahame told us in 2019 that pill testing could help to mitigate both of these types of death.

Depenalisation is a step, decriminalisation is another step. But full regulation of all drugs thats when we begin to take control of the situation.

We must look to the horizon and strive towards a healthier society, one that takes control of the drug issue to save as many lives as possible. This can only be done with a fully regulated supply of drugs all drugs, not just cannabis where doctors and pharmacists are in control of someones dependency, not a dealer.

Our system will and should be unlike countries such as the US where there is sometimes little control over how drugs like cannabis can be marketed and sold.

I have already warned that, as the ACT legalises the use of cannabis in a week or so, it risks being unprepared and hurting other states future attempts to regulate cannabis.

Like our tobacco laws, regulating drugs shouldnt mean unmitigated use. True regulation should seek to take control of a harmful substance, like alcohol, and ban advertising, limit its reach to young people and use the taxes it creates to provide help for those who are inevitably harmed by it.

Regulation is not utopia in Australia. Instead, its a pragmatic approach to taking control of a situation thats taking too many young lives.

The NSW premier has an opportunity to change the state for the better. To create a healthier and safer society where harms to our children are reduced and lives are saved.

Matt Noffs is the chief executive of the Ted Noffs Foundation and a spokesman for the Take Control Campaign for Safer, Saner Drug Laws

Originally posted here:

Letting Australians get drugs from a doctor rather than a dealer will save lives - The Guardian

Jhann Jhannssons work as a film composer transcended expectations of the craft, not only supporting a filmmakers vision but clarifying its appeal. His dynamic, soul-churning music for Sicario, Arrival and Mandy reached for a visceral depth that suggested he might become one of the all-time greats. Sadly, the Icelandic talent died in 2018 at the age of 48, but not before completing one final achievement that elevated his artistry to a whole new level.

Last and First Men, which Jhannsson directed as a live multimedia performance prior to his death, has been finally completed as a singular 70-minute cinematic event. Guided by Jhannssons ethereal score, this dazzling apocalyptic immersion blends cosmic 16mm black-and-white images of Yugoslavian architecture with a deadpan Tilda Swinton voiceover, resulting in a profound lyrical rumination on the end of days.

Its also one of the most original science fiction movies in recent memory. Last and First Men draws its title and concept from Olaf Stapletons 1930 speculative sci-fi novel, in which the last survivors of an advanced society two billion years in the future send a note documenting their utopia and its imminent destruction in a cosmic memo to the distant past. While Stapletons book detailed multiple eras of human evolution, Jhannsson and co-writer Jos Enrique Macin consolidate the unconventional narrative into a riveting 70-minute essay rich with existential contemplation. Prior to his death, Jhannsson performed the piece in a handful of cities worldwide. The completed feature shows why that presentational approach made sense, even as it maintains its awe-inspiring allure in its final form.

The images of Last and First Men capture the sprawling concrete monuments to Yugoslavias Tito era. Built in the postwar period and embodying the architectural style known as Brutalism, these hulking blocks loom over the countryside like monsters of rock. Theres an operatic glory to the work, particularly the giant, angular buildings reaching out to the heavens, much like the impossible utopia that Josip Broz Tito thought his society could become. The structures were intended to salute the former presidents unique attempt to balance the two political extremes of socialism and democracy in contrast to the rest of Eastern Europes Stalinist extremes, but Jhannsson never makes that history explicit. In fact, those unfamiliar with so-called third way socialism wont come out of the movie with any new insights. Instead, Jhannssons hypnotic collage transforms the sculptures into magisterial pillars of progress at once alien and familiar.

Last and First Men

Sturla Brandth Grvlen

Theres some formula at work here: From the first image of a charcoal monolith reaching deep into a cloudy sky, Last and First Men evokes the spirit of Stanley Kubrick and 2001, while the use of black-and-white photography to evoke otherworldly themes tips its hat to Bela Tarr. However, Last and First Men also revisits the psychedelic meditations on civilizations progress in Godfrey Reggios trippy Koyaanisqatsi and its sequels, while utilizing contemporary visuals to construct an elaborate future mythology akin to Chris Markers La Jetee. Yet Jhannssons approach builds on these precedents with its own precise narrative trajectory.

Last and First Men doesnt adhere to a story in the most traditional sense, but once the premise settles in, it guides the viewer through several haunting chapters. In Jhannssons telling, humanity has obtained utopia and immortality, but bears little resemblance to its roots. Swintons voiceover includes intricate details about the bizarre simian features of this future race, the magnifying lenses affixed to their foreheads, and a ritual that involves a 20-year pregnancy followed by infancy that lasts a century. Technology has progressed to inconceivable extremes, including the insights of of telepathy and deep-space travel, which Swinton explains in measured tones that call to mind the dispassionate deity Dr. Manhattan of Watchmen fame. When Swinton describes the species subjectivity as huge fluctuations of joy and woe, its an apt summary of the movies undulating mood, as Jhannsson casts an absorbing spell.

All along, the composer guides the images along with his low, rumbling score, as it drifts through windy tangents and arrives at unexpected orchestral swells. Last and First Men manages to envelop viewers in its world before injecting it with higher purpose, as the species come around to issuing a plea to their ancestors thats both metaphorical and riddled with mystery. Outdoing no less than Arrival in its narrative finesse, Last and First Men similarly revolves around bringing an alien understanding of the world into our own.

Some may feel that Jhannssons dry assemblage deprives these images of their original significance. At the same time, one could argue that the utopia described here extends from the far-reaching goals of the Tito era, and registers as a somber recognition of their impossibility. Swinton, whose mechanical intonations develop an emotional tenor as they move along, announces that the beings have found a triumphant love of our fate. Humanity should be so lucky.

Cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grvlens crisp visuals ensure these lifeless sets come to life, as glacial camerawork hovers around the structures to enact a ghostlike sense of awe. Jhannsson counteracts the colorless palette with sudden bursts of color, including a green dot that captures the rhythms of Swintons voice like a beacon from a distant time. When she refers to her kind as the wreckage of our former selves, you believe it.

As Last and First Men builds to its climax, it takes on a wistful quality; its simultaneously an environmental plea and one that makes peace with the possibility that were already doomed. Its all so entrancing that one cant help but experience overwhelming sadness in witnessing the last work from an artist so in control of his mission. By that same token, the posthumous nature of Last and First Men injects its message with additional poignance: The movie is a testament to the strength of wisdom more powerful than death itself.

Last and First Men premiered in the special gala section of the Berlin Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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Last and First Men Review: Jhann Jhannssons Posthumous Film Is a Dazzling Vision of the Apocalypse - IndieWire

The Pinellas County School Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a $2.1 million contract with Rowe Architects Inc. to design and administer a $28 million renovation at Tyrone Middle School in St. Petersburg.

The project will be done in phases and will include new space for the schools Center for Innovation and Digital Learning, upgrades to the gymnasium, a new classroom building and a new cafeteria, art room, band room and administration offices. Other improvements include a larger space for the car line, which will face 66th Street, and the removal of four portable classrooms.

The schools digital learning program uses project-based lessons, interactive online activities and face-to-face lessons to encourage students to be critical thinkers. It is open to students countywide.

The project will begin in Feb. 2021 and is expected to be completed by August 2022. Tyrone Middle, opened in 1954, is one of the countys oldest middle schools.

The Pinellas County school system will host an information session March 12 for anyone interested in becoming a teacher. Like other districts in Florida, Pinellas is experiencing a teacher shortage. The district has 37 vacancies, with the greatest need in math. Across the rest of the state, schools also are seeing teacher shortages in elementary schools and in the areas of science and exceptional student education. At the information session, hosted by the Pinellas Schools Talent Acquisition Team, participants will learn how to become a certified teacher with a bachelors degree or higher. Among those who have gone through the districts Teacher in Transition program are a nurse who became a biology teacher, a Navy veteran who became a math teacher and a teacher who left the insurance business. The session will be held from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Stavros Institute, 12100 Starkey Road in Largo. Participants are asked to register by March 10 at https://www.pcsb.org/Page/32609. For more information, call (727) 588-3746 or write to TalentAcquisitionTeam@pcsb.org.

St. Petersburg College will host a free jewelry-making workshop using computer-aided design software from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. March 7 at the SPC Clearwater Campus, 2465 Drew St. Students will design their own 3D-modeled jewelry that will be created on site with a 3D printer. The workshop, sponsored by Duke Energy Foundation, will also provide information on SPCs Computer Aided Design (CAD) certificate program, which prepares students for careers in the energy and engineering fields. The event includes free lunch and giveaways. To register, visit https://web.spcollege.edu/survey/29334. For more information, contact Lara Sharp at sharp.lara@spcollege.edu or call (727) 398-8256.

Students in a residence hall at the University of Florida St. Petersburg are competing to see who can use the least amount of energy over a three-week period. The project was organized by Nicolas Gonzalez, an environmental science and policy senior who wants to encourage his peers in Pelican Hall to use the stairs instead of the elevator and turn off lights when they leave the room. The competition, dubbed Utility Utopia, began on Feb. 21 and ends March 13, according to the USF St. Petersburg website. It was inspired by a documentary Gonzalez saw while in high school about how competitions can motivate people to adopt more sustainable practices. Ive kept thinking about that idea, Gonzalez told the school. When I needed to come up with a research project for my senior year, I decided this would be perfect. Residents are competing to see which floor can use the least energy as tabulated on a website developed by Gonzalez. We often talk about energy harvesting and generation," said Gonzalezs adviser Madhu Pandey, a visiting assistant professor of chemistry. "But we need to think more about ways to conserve energy by using less.

The work of hundreds of Pinellas County student artists is on display over the next few days at Gibbs High School, 850 34th St. S in St. Petersburg. The exhibition includes sculptures and ceramics in the schools art gallery and short films to be shown at a premiere from 5:30-7:30 p.m. March 4 in the Grand Theatre. Student artists and their teachers will be present for the event.

(March 2-6)

Monday: Chicken nuggets with roll, Max Cheese Sticks, fruit and yogurt plate, deli meat and cheese sandwich, baked beans, marinara cup, veggie dippers.

Tuesday: Breakfast for lunch, Pizzaboli, chicken caesar salad, Jamwich Kit, deli-roasted potatoes, marinara cup, romaine side salad.

Wednesday: Pasta and meat sauce or meatballs, beef ravioli and roll, chicken nuggets with dip cup, yogurt and fruit parfait, ham and cheese croissant, crispy fries, sliced cucumbers.

Thursday: Bacon cheeseburger, grilled cheese, Apple-A-Day Salad, chicken caesar wrap, tomato soup, mixed side salad.

Friday: Pizza variety, fish nuggets with roll, chef salad, turkey and cheese hoagie or sandwich, spinach or collard greens, fresh veggie dippers.

Read more:

Tyrone Middle in St. Pete to get a $28 million makeover - Tampa Bay Times

Spoilers for X-Men #7 below!

The new issue ofX-Men strongly suggests a sexual relationship between two of the team's most prominent mutants, Cyclops and Wolverine. In previous issues ofthe series, writers strongly implied a polyamorous relationship between Jean Grey, her husband Scott Summers AKA Cyclops, and "Logan" Howlett, better known as Wolverine, his longtime rival for Jean's affections. The exact nature of their partnership has been one of the biggest mysteries looming over the recently-relaunched team, but this week'sX-Men #7makes a strong case that Scott and Logan are directly sexually involved.

Jonathan Hickman'sDawn of X relaunch has completely changed the status quo for mutantkind, relocating them to a new nation called Krakoa. The island is a peaceful utopia where all mutants are encouraged (and possibly forced) to erase past conflicts and bond together. In fact, Krakoa's ruling council set a cardinal lawmandating that the populationhook up more often: "Make more mutants." The prologue miniseriesHouse of X ended with a highly suggestive scene in which Logan, Scott, and Jean shared drinks. Jean even passed one to Emma Frost, Scott's paramourin the years leading up toDoX. (Scott and Emma are also still in a sexual relationship of their own, as Storm mentions in Marauders #8.)

Related:Wolverine Thinks The X-Men's New Home Is One Big [SPOILER]

The opening issue X-Men #1 later confirmed that the entire Summers familyare living together on the Moonin one home with a peculiar setup: separate bedrooms for Jean and Scott, as well as a room for Logan, arranged so that the three connect in a line with Jean's room in the middle. It was clear that Jean was sleeping with both men, but it was unclear when her partners were simply in simultaneous relationships with her or if the new love triangle connected at every point. Fortunately for curious readers, anearlyscene of issue 7 offers some clear evidence of attraction between the former foes.

After the opening scene and the title page, the story cuts to the Summer House, where Scott and Logan are spending an early morning together. The latter is kicking back in a light bathrobe while Cyclops is in full costume (sans the trademark head-sock). When Wolverine mentions that he had trouble sleeping, Cyclops blames "all that hair" before inviting him alongon a space vacation to Chandilore, the island-like planetoid that Cyclops mentioned inNew Mutants #7. Logan admits that the scenery is hard to pass up, especially Jean in a bikini. "Scott in a speedo", the spectacled mutant adds. Logan laughs and responds: "Hell, who could say no to that?"At this point, the subtext has become text.

The Summers' husband and the Summers' boyfriendshare a pause that could be read as comfortable silence or as a moment of tension before the conversation heads into the much darker territory that looms over the rest of the issue. Theytalk about a history of "deciding what's right and what's wrong", alluding to the"Schism" era of the franchise in whichCyclops and Wolverine were enemies locked in battle, a time that the shorter and hairier of the two doesn't want to revisit. Ultimately, Wolverine has no interest in helping Cyclops process his feelings. Is their intimacy romantic in nature or strictly physical? It's hard to say, but this sheds some light on Cyclops' cryptic remark inX-Men #2that he "loves a single someone". Did the strait-laced strategist mean that he lovesat least one person, or that he onlyloves one person? Either way, it's clear thedays of Scott and Logan fighting over lovers is long over.

X-Men #7, written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Leinil Yu and color by Sunny Gho, is available from Marvel in stores now.

More:The X-Men Need COLOSSUS For War Against Mother Russia

Iron Man is Secretly The Son of [SPOILER]

Sean Finley is a comics news writer for ScreenRant. Mutated as a child by a radioactive copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, he now contributes articles, reviews, and short fiction to local and online outlets using a variety of thematic personas. When he isn't writing, he's the forever DM for his local D&D group, where everything is made up and the points don't matter. You can reach him at wseanfinley (at) gmail.com.

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X-Men Cyclops and Wolverine Are Definitely Having Sex On The Moon - Screen Rant

Out with cocaine-fuelled hedonism, in with gender politics

Feb 22nd 2020

NAMED AFTER Marx, who famously did not want to belong to any club that would accept him as a member, the Groucho sold itself as the antidote to the gentlemens clubs of Londons St Jamess district when it opened in 1985. With a heavy drinking culture, artistic spirit and cocaine-driven largesse, the club captured the zeitgeist. Of late it has been swept up in Sohos commercialisation, and is now owned by a private-equity firm. Despite offering reduced fees for under-30s and a vegan menu, it is not the magnet for youth it once was.

Todays antidote is a breed of clubs promoting values rather than loucheness. They offer a similar aesthetic to those of the 1980s and 1990s: all have adopted the velvet chesterfields and modern British art customary at the Groucho Club and Soho House, another club popular among media types. The new ingredient is wokeness.

In October The Wing, a glossy feminist utopia that does not admit men, opened its first branch outside America, where there are ten. Candidates to join the new outpost in Fitzrovia are asked, for instance, to describe how they have promoted or supported the advancement of women and what they think is the biggest challenge facing women today. At the clubhouse, oil paintings of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mary Beard (feminist heroes in acting and academia respectively) line the walls, the library is free from books written by men, and badges dispensed at reception allow everyone to indicate their preferred personal pronoun. Members are described either as the cohort or the witches (liked for its connotations of subverting male power).

The Wings native British equivalent is AllBright. There are two in London, and there will be three in America by the end of the year. Like The Wing, it offers an additional service beyond somewhere stylish to socialise and work: self-help. At The Wing, recent events have covered self-sabotage, boundary-setting and how to be sober and social. At AllBright, group sessions have discussed impostor syndrome and how to overcome fear. Cognitive behavioural therapy and psychoanalysis are available by the hour. Mindless hedonism is off the menu.

For mixed company, people passionate about driving positive impact can join The Conduit in Mayfair, opened by a former chairman of Soho House, which claims to be a platform for catalysing and supporting new ideas and collective action. For eco-enthusiasts there is Arboretum in Covent Garden, a leafy idyll where people who care about the planet convene, create and collaborate. Its deli promises dishes free from dairy, refined sugars, additives and chemicals.

Other than the offer of cheap drinks by some traditional clubs to attract younger members, little has stirred in St Jamess. As a result, clubland is increasingly diverse. There are ever more clubs for a modern Marx to be rejected by, and even more reason to reject them.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "More woke than coke"

Originally posted here:

The rise of Britains woke members clubs - The Economist

David Harsanyi Published 10:53 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020

A record-high number of Americans 90% say they are satisfied with their personal lives, according to Gallup. And 74% are optimistic that they will continue being financially satisfied moving forward. Needless to say, the United States will never be a utopia, but for the vast majority of its citizens, most things are going in the right direction.

During the ninth Democratic presidential debate last week in Nevada, Bernie Sanders, lamenting how a once-prosperous society had been hollowed out by capitalism, claimed that we are no better off today than we were many years ago. It's a shame that not a single debate moderator ever challenges this farcical assertion. In Sanders' telling, "people ... after 45 years of work are not making a nickel more than they did 45 years ago."

For those who weren't alive then, the 1970s were largely a crime-ridden decade of stagnant economics, city bankruptcies, crushing energy prices, sky-high interest rates, institutional rot, garbage and retirement-destroying inflation. Though it was a far better place than the communist hot spots Sanders praised during those years, it certainly was not ideal.

And a big part of the post-'70s economic boom we're still experiencing today the one that certain progressive and some statist right-wingers like to disparage was propelled by policies that freed Americans from overbearing technocratic oversight, intrusive regulations and stifling taxes that undermined growth.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during First in the South Dinner, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, in Charleston, S.C.(Photo: Matt Rourke, AP)

The alleged "wage stagnation" to which Sanders and others are constantly referring is a myth. For one thing, "wage stagnation" fails to take into account the health care benefits, pensions, vacations, family leave and other perks now embedded in job packages somewhere around 30% of an employee's overall benefits. Once those benefits are added, Americans probably have seen about a 45% wage increase since 1964. More important, the amount of time we work to buy things we need is less. What we buy does more, and it's of higher quality. Does anyone believe that a dollar spent on medical care in 1975 equals a dollar spent today?

Partly because of a worldwide retreat from collectivism, extreme poverty has dramatically decreased. Massive new markets have opened to us. Despite the perception of many, medium household incomes are at an all-time high. The middle class is growing especially the upper-middle class. In the past 50 years, spending on food and clothing as a share of family income has fallen from 42% to 17%. Your house is probably more expensive than the average house was in 1975, but it's also more comfortable and safer.

The year Sanders graduated from college, less than 6% of his fellow Americans the majority of them wealthy, very few of them minorities or women were enrolled in higher education. In 1975, only around 11% were enrolled in college. According to the Federal Reserve study, millennials are the most educated generation, with 65% of them possessing at least an associate's degree.

Better education, soaring productivity and technological advances allow an increasing number of Americans to pick vocations that are safer, less monotonous and more rewarding.

In 1970, around 14,000 workers were killed on the job in the United States. That's somewhere around 10,000 more deaths yearly than the number of those who perished in the entire Iraq War. Although the workforce had more than doubled since then, the number of occupational deaths in the United States has dropped to around 5,100.

There's a decent chance that Sanders' heart attack would have killed a 78-year-old man in 1975. If not, it would have required dangerous surgery. Despite a small dip recently, life expectancy has skyrocketed in the United States over the past 45 years adding more than six years since 1975. The cancer casualty rate has fallen more than 27% in the past 25 years which adds up to more than 2 million deaths averted during that time. We've been able to mitigate the damage of so many diseases and ailments over the past 45 years allowing millions to lead longer, more active and less painful lives that it would take a book to lay out the miraculous number of advances properly.

Most of these developments, not incidentally, were brought to us by profit-driven companies.

In 1975, the child mortality rate was 18.8 per 1,000. In 2019, it was 5.7. Fatalities due to weather events have plunged. Deaths due to air pollution -- surely near its smoggy height in 1975 have fallen, as well. We have cleaner water and cleaner streets.

In 1975, Sanders' hometown of New York City saw 1,645 murders and rampant criminality. In 2017, there were 286 homicides in NYC. Vehicular fatalities per 100 million in 1975 were at 3.35; now they're near a historic low of 1.13.

Also, you have a supercomputer in your pocket that offers you instant access to all of human knowledge.

Yes, some Americans still suffer, and some of our goods and services are more expensive than they once were (usually due to market intervention). But we are, by nearly every quantifiable measure, collectively better off today than ever before. And what sufferings millennials do experience today often are a result of their making different choices than their parents did. Bernie should understand this better than most.

It's not in every country that a professional revolutionary can afford to buy a dacha on Lake Champlain.

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and the author of the book "First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History With the Gun."

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Opinion: Bernie, we're better off today than we were 45 years ago - The Detroit News

Spring is almost here, and so too is a first glimpse at some of the years biggest exhibitions. The first stop for a Yoshitomo Nara retrospective set to travel to three continents will be at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the first major survey ever devoted to Artemisia Gentileschi will make its debut at Londons National Gallery of Art. And thats not all: this years Venice Architecture Biennale and Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art are both set for May, and major exhibitions of the work of Donald Judd, An-My L, Judy Chicago, Otobong Nkanga, and others are also in the offing. These highlights and more are below, in ARTnewss guide to the springs essential shows.

Spotlight

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Paris!Centre Pompidou, ParisMarch 18June 15

The artist known as Christo and his late wife, Jeanne-Claude, are the worlds most ambitious wrappers. Theyve wrapped the Reichstag, the Pont Neuf bridge, and the coast of Little Bay, in Sydney, Australia, making enormous sculptures out of landmarks. In April Christo will continue his conquest of the worlds monuments by wrapping the Arc de Triomphe in 270,000 square feet of fabric and 23,000 feet of rope. Such wrappings often take decades of bureaucratic wrangling, but Christo got his start doing more low-profile work in the French capital, and this exhibition surveys documentation related to sculptural works made by the couple in Paris between 1958 and 1964. The show culminates in a history of Christo and Jeanne-Claudes 1985 wrapping of the Pont Neuf, one of their most iconic artworks. It is hard to imagine this show wont earn the exclamation point in its title.

March

JuddMuseum of Modern Art, New YorkMarch 1July 11

Writing recently about her early years at MoMA in the 1970s, curator Barbara London recalls that Donald Judds Minimalist sculptures distinguished the museums aesthetic. That aesthetic synergy between the work of Judd, who died in 1994, and MoMA brings a certain piquancy to the museums current Judd retrospective, the first anywhere in more than 30 years. The museum has changedthere have been three renovations and expansions since the 70sand perhaps so, too, has our understanding of Judds steely, boxy objects.

Cao Fei: BlueprintsSerpentine Galleries, LondonMarch 4May 17

For Cao Fei, the online virtual world Second Life became a tool for art. Within it, she created her sprawling RMB City, its name a reference to Chinese currency. Dealing with fantasy worlds and their opposition to real-life ugliness, her work made her one of Chinas most closely watched artists before she turned 30. In her largest-ever exhibition in the United Kingdom, Cao will bring out some of her classic worksincluding Whose Utopia?, a 2006 video in which a group of Chinese factory workers briefly stop laboring and start dancingand place them alongside a new VR project and her latest feature-length film.

Gerhard Richter: Painting After AllMet Breuer, New YorkMarch 4July 5

There are (at least) two Gerhard Richters. There is the Richter of the gorgeous, multilayered abstractions made by pulling paint across a canvas with a squeegee, and there is Richter the exacting figurative painter who references photographs. Some of those figurative paintings, such as his 1988 series about a radical left-wing terrorist group, have taken as their subject German politics. On view for the first time in the United States in this 100-work survey at the Met Breuerthe largest presentation of Richters work since his MoMA retrospective in 2002are works from Richters 2014 Birkenau series, which brought the two Richters together, with the artist alluding to a World War II concentration camp through abstraction. The Met is showing these works alongside pieces from the 1960s that made the artist a sensation in his home country. Richter fans can be assured his work is in good hands: Met curator Sheena Wagstaff has organized the show in close collaboration with Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, an art historian who has written prolifically on Richter.

Remedios Varo: ConstellationsMuseo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos AiresMarch 6June 15

For years, the work of Remedios Varo, who died in 1963, languished in obscurity, not unlike that of other female Surrealists. But lately, it has been making a comeback. Last year, Varos bizarre tableaux featuring floating figures and fantastical creatures showed up in MoMAs permanent collection rehang, and Eduardo F. Costantini, who founded MALBA and is one of Latin Americas biggest collectors, snapped up one of her paintings at a Christies auction for $3.1 million. This showamong the biggest ever devoted to the artist in Argentina, where she worked for much of her lifemay very well cement her fame.

Franz Erhard Walther: Shifting PerspectivesHaus der Kunst, MunichMarch 6August 2

Long before participatory art became widespread in museums and galleries, Franz Erhard Walther was engineering pieces that made use of the viewer, often by having people hold large pieces of fabric together. A pioneer of Conceptual art and a winner of the top prize at the Venice Biennale, Walther is now being given the retrospective treatment with this 250-work show.

Mark Bradford: End PapersModern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TexasMarch 8August 9

A little over two decades ago, Mark Bradford began making a series called End Papers, employing the paper strips used to keep hair from overheating that he first came across in his mothers South Los Angeles beauty shop. Made before Bradford became one of todays most celebrated painters, the resulting paintingswhich are surveyed in this show delicately allude to his family history, transposing grids of end papers over detritus.

Studio 54: Night MagicBrooklyn Museum, New YorkMarch 13July 5

In 1977 Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell cofounded Studio 54, the famed New York watering hole known for its wild parties. In a recent documentary, Schrager said, when I look back now, it is so preposterous. What were we thinking? Is there a Studio 54 aesthetic? Find out in this exhibition, which surveys the clubs impact on New Yorks 1970s social scene and art world through photography, paraphernalia, and more.

An-My L: On Contested TerrainCarnegie Museum of Art, PittsburghMarch 14July 26

Having grown up in Vietnam during the American war there, An-My L went on to produce documentary photographs covering war, its impact on the landscape, and the way conflict is represented in mass media. For a few memorable images, she shot on the set of a Hollywood film about the Civil War, leaving it largely unclear to viewers who didnt read the adjacent wall texts that the explosions depicted were faked. At last, this season brings her first major mid-career survey, which includes 125 photographs.

Biennale of SydneyVarious venues, SydneyMarch 14June 8

Australia may be one of the few countries in the world where it is common to acknowledge historical violence against Indigenous peoples, but its art institutions have not yet adequately recognized the art of Indigenous communities. It is therefore momentous for Brook Andrew to be the first Indigenous curator of the 47-year-old Biennale of Sydney. A member of the Wiradjuri people, Andrew has included a significant quotient of Indigenous artists, among them Nogirra Marawili (Darrpirra/Yirrkala), S.J Norman (Wiradjuri), and Demian DinYazhi (Navajo).

Hlio Oiticica: Dance in My ExperienceMuseu de Arte de So PauloMarch 20June 7

Hlio Oiticica died in 1980 at just 42 years old; his impact on art has long outlasted him. Oiticica changed the way artists in his native Braziland far beyondthink about the relationship between art and life, and made them recognize in a new way the possibilities of utopian societies. This year, two of Brazils biggest museumsMASP and the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeirowill pay homage to Oiticicas enduring art, with his early experiments with geometrical abstraction, his performances, and his interactive works all represented.

Art in the Age of AnxietySharjah Art Foundation, United Arab EmiratesMarch 21June 21

A recent poll by the American Psychological Association suggests that peoples anxiety levels are risinga fact that no doubt has to do with a tense political climate around the world, the introduction of new technologies, and the increasingly fast pace of daily life. Curator Omar Kholeif addresses that phenomenon with this survey exhibition, featuring work by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Simon Denny, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Guan Xiao, and many more.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Le Grand JeuPalazzo Grassi, VeniceMarch 22January 10

We know what youre thinking: Another Cartier-Bresson show? Luckily, this one has a twist: people of noteincluding artist Annie Leibovitz, filmmaker Wim Wenders, and collector Franois Pinault, founder of the Palazzo Grassihave been brought on to curate their own selections from Cartier-Bressons 385-work Master Collection. Their results could very well change the way the French photographers work is seen in the years to come.

April

Christina QuarlesMuseum of Contemporary Art ChicagoApril 4August 23

Christina Quarles practices a slippery kind of figuration. As one body of one color merges into another of a different hue, we are forced to confront difficult questions about gender, race, and sexuality. Whose parts belong to whom? Her works have tapped into todays shifting social mores, and not surprisingly, museums have responded with an unusual degree of excitement for a young artist. Not yet 40 years old, the Los Angelesbased Quarles has already appeared in the Hammer Museums lauded Made in L.A. biennial in 2018 and a major New Museum show about gender and sexuality in 2017. In this, her largest museum show to date, she will present paintings made over the course of the last four years.

ArtemisiaNational Gallery, LondonApril 4July 26

In a landmark 1971 essay for ARTnews titled Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, art historian Linda Nochlin wondered why we didnt hear more about the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of painter Orazio Gentileschi. Nochlin attributed this to art-world misogyny, and since then Gentileschis 1610 masterpiece Judith Slaying Holofernes has made its way into survey courses the world over, with scholars seeing in its graphic sexual violence a kind of feminism avant la lettre. This show at the National Gallery is the first major one devoted to her work in the United Kingdom.

Hilma af Klint: Artist, Researcher, MediumModerna Museet, Malm, SwedenApril 4September 27

What are the chances that the best-attended show ever at the Guggenheim Museum in New York would be that of an early 20th-century abstract painter interested in spiritualism? No, we are not talking about Wassily Kandinsky. An exhibition of Hilma af Klint, a far lesser-known female contemporary of Kandinsky, brought a whopping 600,000 visitors to the museum. Now, another af Klint show is coming to the Moderna Museet, wherewho knowsit may make an even bigger splash. The expansive survey features the first complete showing of one of af Klints most famous series, The Ten Largest (1907).

Yoshitomo NaraLos Angeles County Museum of ArtApril 5August 23

When the Japanese painter and sculptor had his first New York gallery show 20 years ago, New York Times critic Roberta Smith wrote a memorable description of the characters that would make him famous. Looking at his cast of cute but demonic cartoon toddlers, Smith wrote, might put you in mind of the scathingly arch, big-eyed infant of Family Guy crossed with a Kenneth Noland target painting or an Yves Klein International Blue monochrome. For an artist whose reputation is based on something of a punk aesthetic, Nara has awfully high prices: last fall, one of his paintings made $25 million at auction. LACMAs survey, staged in partnership with collector Budi Teks Yuz Museum in Shanghai, will travel to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain.

Niki de Saint PhalleMoMA PS1, New YorkApril 5September 7

Niki de Saint Phalles bright, colorful, curvaceous figural sculptures were out of sync with her time, but they are looking more and more relevant to our own. The self-taught artist brought the female figure to a monumental scale and made it exuberant during a period when the avant-garde was more focused on stern minimalism, but since her death in 2002 (and especially in the past few years) there has been a surge of interest in new ways of defining and celebrating women in art. This will be the first-ever museum survey devoted to Saint Phalle, and it will feature 100 objects ranging from paintings to sculpture and jewelry. Included will be works that attest to Saint Phalles activist spirit, which led her to create feminist works during the 1960s and drawings about the AIDS crisis during the 80s.

Sanford Biggers: CodeswitchBronx Museum of the Arts, New YorkApril 8September 6

Asked in 2018 by the New Yorker what he hopes to achieve with his work, which often involves sculptural installations alluding to Black history, Sanford Biggers said, to have there be layers of history and politics, along with a good dose of humor. He said that, with his works, he wants to flip through different timelines and localesto code-switch, as he put it, using the word that forms the title of this show, which includes 60 works by the Harlem-based artist that are constructed from quilts, in an homage to the history of the Underground Railroad.

Chen ZhenPirelli HangarBicocca, MilanApril 9July 26

Throughout the course of his relatively short career, Chen Zhen, who died in 2000 at age 45, repeatedly pondered the changes Western values and globalism had wrought on his native China. For one of his most famous works, he constructed a 65-foot-long dragon out of bicycle inner tubes and wheelsan allusion to both industry and Chinese history. Little more than a year after that work hovered over a major Chinese art survey at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Pirelli HangarBicocca is staging a retrospective of the late artists large-scale installations.

The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and PerformanceWalker Art Center, MinneapolisApril 18July 26

Performance art typically calls to mind bodies in motion, but this show proposes that this need not always be the casethe most cutting-edge works being made in the medium these days are making art out of stillness. For this enterprising survey, the Walker Art Center has brought together 100 works by 65 artists, among them Maria Hassabi, Senga Nengudi, Pope.L, and Jordan Wolfson, in an exploration of how performance relates to aesthetic concerns more often found in painting and sculpture. Included will be Anne Imhofs lauded 2019 performance Sex, which in past iterations involved performers slowly enacting complex choreographies amid strobing lights.

Betye SaarMuseum Ludwig, CologneApril 22July 26

The 93-year-old artist has long grappled with racism and its legacy in such works as The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), a sculpture in which a mammy figure appears armed with a broom and a rifle. Having won the Museum Ludwigs $110,000 Wolfgang Hahn Prize earlier this year, shes being honored with a solo show.

STARS: Six Contemporary Artists from Japan to the WorldMori Art Museum, TokyoApril 23September 6

Takashi Murakamis iconoclastic anime-inspired work has gained a foothold in popular culture worldwide through, among other things, his collaborations with Kanye West. Along the way, the works relationship with Japan has been somewhat lost. This presentation brings Murakamis work home, along with that of five other world-renowned Japanese artists: Yayoi Kusama, Lee Ufan, Tatsuo Miyajima, Yoshitomo Nara, and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Otobong NkangaGropius Bau, BerlinApril 30August 2

For a 200708 piece called Baggage, Otobong Nkanga shipped bags of sand from Antwerp, where shes now based, to Nigeria, where she was born, and then had people in the African country send similar objects back to Belgium. She was alluding to the way our globalist world impacts the environment, broaching all sorts of heavy issues about colonialism and the flow of ideas in the process. Such a heady blend of ideas has made Nkanga an artist beloved by curators, with her work celebrated at last years Venice Biennale, as well as at the Sharjah Biennial. In 2019 she was also the recipient of the inaugural $100,000 Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award. Her show at the Gropius Bau comes on the heels of a yearlong residency there.

May

Judy Chicago: A RetrospectiveDe Young Museum, San FranciscoMay 9September 6

Judy Chicago is far more than her iconic Dinner Party (197479), an installation that imagines a table set for a feast for female pioneers throughout history, and has become a cornerstone of feminist art history. Chicago has long hoped that the public would embrace the whole of her outputI used to say [I hoped Id live] long enough to come out from behind the shadow of The Dinner Party, she told ARTnews in 2019and with this retrospective she gets her wish. (The Dinner Party, on permanent display in the Brooklyn Museum, wont travel for it.) Including 100 pieces, the show will turn the spotlight on some of Chicagos more recent works, which deal with climate change and the rise of fascism .

Riga International Biennial of Contemporary ArtVarious venues, Riga, LatviaMay 16October 11

At last years Venice Biennale, the Golden Lion award for national participation went to Lithuania, one sign that the Baltic region has moved to center stage. For its second edition, the organizers of this biennial, which is dedicated to showcasing homegrown artists, have tapped Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, a former curator at the Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris. Around 85 percent of the work included is being produced specifically for the show. Among the artists on tap are Pawe Althamer, Nina Beier, Dora Budor, Lina Lapelyte, Hanne Lippard, and Augustas Serapinas.

Kara Walker: Drawings 19932020Kunstmuseum Basel, SwitzerlandMay 16August 23

Kara Walker has recently been associated with her sculptures recalling the horrors of slavery, such as her 75-foot-tall sugar sculpture of a mammy figure-cum-sphinx, which was installed in 2014 in a former Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This show is a welcome reminder that she is also a master of works on paper. With hundreds of pieces, including some new ones debuting here, Walkers first major survey in Switzerland will pinpoint how she so intelligently synthesizes her disturbing images of racism and misogyny with art-historical traditions.

GoyaFondation Beyeler, Riehen, SwitzerlandMay 17August 16

Alongside the modern and contemporary offerings trotted out by the worlds biggest galleries at this years Art Basel fair in Switzerland will be an unusual presentation: Francisco de Goyas painting Witches Sabbath (179798), which is traveling from the Museo Lzaro Galdiano in Madrid to hang in Fondation Beyelers booth at the fair. The occasion for such a loan is the Beyelers major show devoted to the Spanish Romantic artist, who is known for his bizarre paintings about dreams and states of irrationalityand the horrors of war. Organized in collaboration with the Prado in Madrid, this is one of the biggest Goya shows ever mounted outside Spain.

Jennifer PackerMuseum of Contemporary Art, Los AngelesMay 17November 30

Among the stars of last years Whitney Biennial were Packers beguiling paintings in which Black sitters melt into their backgrounds. Though not yet 40 years old, Packer has established herself as one of the most important figurative painters working in New York today. This is her first West Coast survey.

Lynette Yiadom-BoakyeTate Britain, LondonMay 20August 23

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye has spoken of her paintings of Black men and women rendered in muted tones as being like what Zadie Smith once called character studies of people who dont exist. Her alluring pictures have captured the attention of critics, curators, and young artists alike, and now Tate is mounting the first major survey of her work, with 80 pieces representing her output from the past 17 years.

To Tame a Wild Tongue: Art After ChicanismoMuseum of Contemporary Art, San DiegoMay 21August 23

During the 1960s and 70s, a group of Chicano artists used their work to radically redefine Mexican-American identity, presenting it as something far more complex than previously acknowledged. This survey, which takes its name from an essay by scholar Gloria Anzalda, explores the aftermath, during which artists delved deeper into that complexity. Some 30 artists are represented, including John Valadez and Ester Hernandez.

Venice Architecture BiennaleVarious venues, Venice, ItalyMay 23November 29

Considering the worlds current refugee crisiswhich often boils down to the question of who will share space with those who have become placelessthe theme architect Hashim Sarkis has chosen for this edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale is an apt one. He looked for work that deals with the spatial contract, the means by which people agree to live together. The offerings here are sure to range from the hippy-dippy to the academic, and all will likely point a way forward.

Somewhere DowntownUCCA Center for Contemporary Art, BeijingMay 30August 30

There are few moments in art history more iconic than the 1980s New York art scene, which witnessed the rise of stars like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and then saw many of them fall during the AIDS crisis later that same decade. That vibrant culture will be transported halfway around the world this season for Somewhere Downtown, a survey curated by critic Carlo McCormick, who has worked on some of the most important exhibitions and scholarship concerning the 80s art world. The material in this show is relatively new to China, with some Haring and Basquiat works making their way to the country for the first time.

The rest is here:

Spring Preview: 33 Essential Museum Shows and Biennials to See This Season - ARTnews

New York curator and cultural critic Carlo McCormick is proud and serene as he describes the National Gallery of Victorias blockbuster 2020 exhibition, Crossing Lines, as a celebration. Hes also quick to note that this is not just a celebration of the men whose names are on the door.

Keith [Haring] and Jean-Michel [Basquiat] are really ciphers that signify a whole group of artists and community, says McCormick, who guest curated the show. Every bit of modernism was actually a gang of friends getting together. And theres no arguing that this gang a bunch of bratty kids defined an era.

At that time, museums were very insular, McCormick says. They were for blue-haired old ladies ... And there was a whole group of narcissistic white men who thought they knew better. They looked down on us.

Haring, and Basquiat defied this. Coming from marginalised communities Haring was gay, Basquiat was black they made vibrant and often political art that was vernacular and younger and more youth-oriented, and then they made that kind of art the norm.

McCormick discussed with the Guardian 10 works (and the people behind them) that cemented this radical legacy three of which are currently on show at the NGV.

Whether on subway walls, scraps of paper or large industrial tarps (like this piece), Keith Harings work was meant to be universal. The young artist developed an iconic visual language of simple motifs dogs, babies, hearts and used them to communicate his generations not-so-simple energy and anxieties.

We were all Cold War babies, McCormick says, reflecting on his reading of Untitled 1982, which is part of Crossing Lines. Every age is an age of anxiety theres plenty for kids to be worried about now but for us it was knowing that, at any moment, our world could blow up. He notes that Harings dogs arent barking, as usual: Theyre almost like Egyptian statues that you would see guarding the dead.

His work always seems really nice, but when you look at it the TV sets etc it was always a lot about control, McCormick says. Haring also frequently cited homosexuality and Aids (the artist died of Aids-related complications in 1990). This was a moment where the politics [in art] turned into a kind of social politics [Haring] could express his difference or his fears but it was kinda smiley.

Jean-Michel Basquiat rocketed to fame in his late teens and early twenties. Within a few years, the Brooklyn-born artist of Haitan and Puerto Rican descent went from doing local graffiti under a pseudonym, to exhibiting at the countrys best galleries.

This work is at a moment when [hes] getting bigger, McCormick says. In the work, which is currently hung at the NGV, Basquiat is depicted (on the right) with fellow black artists Toxic and Rammellzee. Theyre living large, but theres a lot of tragedy built into their success.

Its kind of a tribute to his fellow black people in the art world [and a] barbed joke. African Americans were not well represented in our cinema, and if they were they were caricatured and marginalised. It was sort of a way of saying, Hey, were the Hollywood Africans. Its the same deal: were playing like blackface for white people.

This was an era in which art became enmeshed with celebrity and while that meant young artists like Basqiaut could prosper, it also ensured their work was seen as spectacle, rather than art. It was given the same degree of analysis that we might give a K-pop star today, McCormick says. That degree of analysis has certainly changed since the artists death from overdose, at age 27 in 1988.

Keith really loved Jean-Michel, McCormick says. Its a memorial. Think of the momento mori in Renaissance paintings; the reminder of death. The crown was Basquiats most iconic symbol, used frequently in his work.

[They] had this incredible mutual respect, he adds. They had much in common, generationally and in terms of [being outsiders] All these people came [downtown] because they were different. They were ostracised and alienated from this normal America.

This era of artists met and bonded on the street and in the nightclubs. People liked to dance, McCormick reminisces. Now, maybe Jackson Pollock liked to dance, but Im sure he danced like the ugliest white guy on the planet. This was a generation that had the beat, it had the rhythm.

This work came at a time of great change, in the midst of the Aids crisis. We went from partying every night to going to memorial services every week, McCormick says. He notes a tremendous gravitas in this; they are aware of a moment passing. [Its] the way that spring is fun, but fall is something else because you feel winter coming on.

Yes, Vivienne Westwood is British. But her iconic punk aesthetic had a lasting impact in the US and McCormick argues it actually had its origins in New York. I hate to be such a provincial New Yorker, but before [Westwoods collaborator Malcolm McLaren] created the Sex Pistols as his little boy band, he managed the New York Dolls ... Malcolm was very influenced by what was going on in New York.

By the 80s, he recalls, we were all a little bit punk even if some people were into dance music, others were into hip hop There was this hybridity, and fashion was very much interspersed in our culture.

Keith [whose work was featured in the Witches collection] cared very much about the ability for his art to interact with the real world the day-to-day. This continues today, with his work most accessible on T-shirts and fridge magnets.

People forget, McCormick says, that Andy Warhol was at the total nadir of his career in the 80s.

He was very uncool. [But] what really brought him back was the fact that there was this whole generation me included who adored him. Many of us had moved to New York because of the Factory and Warhols books.

Two decades on from his seminal work in the pop art movement, Warhol became something of a mentor to artists like Haring and Basquiat. Everyone talks about how he was a little vampiric in his relationship to people, but he was very generous and very supportive. There was a beautiful connectivity an intergenerational conversation.

In this portrait, one year before his death, Warhol renders himself with the same pop art methods that inspired others. He had a particular way about reaching people, McCormick says. About how you can do signifiers without being didactic, and how personality and life can become part of the art. Also, he adds, Andy queered things up.

Francesco Clemente migrated from Italy to join the scene in New York. He wasnt the nightclub type less Mudd Club, more like Mr Chows, McCormick says and his work had a different energy to it. It was all pastels and soft edges.

Clemente had been going to India since the 70s and he brought in much more poetic, much more Italian, a little more mythical, allegorical [influences]. But he was also just an incredible painter. Great painters recognise great painters as something entirely distinct from all the people who dont push paint in such a magical way.

Clemente and Basquiat are also often lumped together as neo-expressionists; whether you agree with that label or not, its true that they defined an era of raw and emotive art. This then went out of favour towards the end of the 80s with the rise of neo-geo (think Jeff Koons) which was much more about intellectualising your emotions.

This is an ecstatic thing, McCormick says. If its not a photo of an orgasm, its one to bring you towards that ecstatic state. It might sound provocative, but when seen in the context of Robert Mapplethorpes broader work its just a statement of fact.

Maybe Jackson Pollock liked to dance, but Im sure he danced like the ugliest white guy on the planetThis was a generation that had the beat.

The New York-based photographer had a wonderful sense of beauty, which was based off the other, McCormick says.

Obviously sexuality and fetish are part of it, but its more interesting than that Beauty had been so codified by then from Boticelli to the pinup girls in the Hollywood magazines.

Mapplethorpe portrayed the beauty of people who were inherently different by lifestyle or by body. Alistair Butler, the model used for this work, was a New York dancer originally from the Bahamas. Haring, Basiquat, all of them, this is a generation of really questioning people theyre all sponges. They take from everything around them.

Kenny Scharf grew up on the west coast, but met Keith Haring at art school in New York. Like Haring, McCormick says, his stuff looks so cartoony, happy really fun. But its all candy-coated. Its a bitter pill. When The Worlds Collide is another work about nuclear catastrophe: a grotesque and lurid collision of utopia and its demise.

[This] generation was promised a beautiful future. There was going to be better living through technology ... we were all going to be flying around in space! Instead were the punk generation of no future.

Feminist art was fantastic in 1980s New York, McCormick says, but unfortunately it was just being ignored. Barbara Kruger was the exception: the graphic designer-turned-artist became known for her acid-tongued text works that took aim at consumerism, the patriarchy and the intersection of the two.

She took the seductive language of advertising and consumerism, to throw it back in a way that rips it apart, McCormick says. Pop art took popular culture in a kinda acquiescent way, without really questioning so much its just a Brillo box [but she used it] to subvert and to question.

In this work, the images are taken from 1950s advertising: the boys posture is reminiscent of Rosie the Riveter, and the title is a Tina Turner song from two years prior. Kruger led the way for dense, appropriation-fuelled art while profoundly speaking to the womens condition from [the New York] scene.

Like Warhol, Nam June Paik was a forefather figure in the 80s scene. Paik grew up in Korea and moved to New York in the 1960s where, McCormick says, he became one of the seminal figures of Fluxus with Yoko Ono and all sorts of interesting people. It was another gang of friends getting together that, in fact, had much in common with Haring, Basquait and co.

Fluxus wanted to playfully destroy the boundaries between art and life, and experiment with the nature of what art could be. The movement was also fiercely anti-consumerist and, for Paik, this was most evident in his work relating to television. I remember his first video was like the earliest TV you could imagine, just a video of the moon, called Moon Is The Oldest TV, McCormick recalls.

In the MTV generation of the 80s, Paik went on to become the father of video art. In Video Flag Z, he reconstituted American identity as a Korean living in America. He may not have been a bratty kid but, like Basquait, Paik had a perspective so few others in the white art world could offer.

NGVs Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines is showing in Melbourne until 11 April 2020

The Stories of a Scene series is supported by the National Gallery of Victoria

See the article here:

'We were all a little bit punk': Haring, Basquiat and the art that defined 80s New York - The Guardian

Progressive initiative

Throughout Out of the Wreckage, Monbiot makes tangible his discursive proposal with a wide review of progressive political initiatives from all over the world, in fields as diverse as electoral systems, taxes, environment and employment.

For instance, Monbiot explains innovative policies such as different forms of basic income put in place around the world. However, the major strength of the authors compilation of innovative policies is those projects that simultaneously meet different aims (participation and social justice, protection of the environment and popular empowerment...). One of these examples is the community bill of rights set up by certain American cities, which has allowed some communities to legally reject threats to the local environment such as fracking an example that suggests that re-municipalising politics can pave the way to more progressive and inclusive policies, as shown by Ada Colaus government in Barcelona.

In a similar sense, Monbiot explains how participatory budgets have succeeded in improving Brazilian cities social policies, reducing infant mortality and reinforcing healthcare. The book also pays great attention to community-related projects, such as Rotterdams dense network of 1,300 cultural and social community projects, which range from cultural hubs to care cooperatives and green projects.

The gender dimension is not excluded from Monbiots analysis, but the book would have benefited from a more explicit adoption of a feminist approach. The long list of political proposals reviewed by Monbiot shows that todays societies are not as paralysed as the ruling elites would like, but in some points the explanation reaches such a high degree of detail that the reader might forget the main thesis of the book: the need for building a new political tale.

Regardless of the degree of efficacy or feasibility of each one of the policies addressed by Monbiot (some are short-term reforms while others are more ambitious), Out of the Wreckage has the major virtue of proposing a courageous utopia, which at some moments seems slightly naive, but never stops being inspiring.

This book is particularly valuable in a period in which short-term issues monopolize parliamentary politics in many countries. State institutions all over the world seem impermeable to the major questions faced by modern societies: which kind of economy do we want? How to guarantee sufficient living standards for all? How to slow climate change and guarantee a fair ecological transition?

See more here:

A new political story to get out of the neoliberal wreckage - Open Democracy

Hulu is billing Utopia Falls as the primary ever sci-fi hip-hop tv collection, and its simple to see why such a factor hasnt been created earlier than. Sci-fi has been a typically white style, and one whichs extra involved with drama than dancing, singing and rapping. That will sound like were being wiseasses, however nothing might be farther from the reality; the concept a sci-fi present might be made out of a youthful, extra various perspective is a welcome change. However is Utopia Falls that present?

Opening Shot: As we see an aerial shot of the clouds over Earth, then we begin panning into Earths barren panorama, we hear a voice over go, They are saying, time is the best thief there may be.

The Gist: As we pan over, we see that a lot of the land is uninhabitable. However then we see, below an environmental bubble, the colony generally known as New Babyl. Its the final working colony on Earth, established lots of of years after the ancestors of apocalyptic survivors went underground to dwell. Its the day when the 25 teenagers from the colonys numerous sectors are chosen to coach for a musical-dance competitors referred to as The Exemplar.

Aliya (Robyn Alomar) is a information within the Progress Sector and is the daughter of Gerald (Jeff Teravainen), a member of the Tribunal, who advise the Chancellor Diara (Alexandra Castillo), the chief of the colony. Her boyfriend Tempo (Robbie Graham-Kuntz) has additionally been chosen. Over in Reform Sector, primarily a nicer model of a jail colony, finest buddies Mags (Robbie Graham-Kuntz) and Bohdi (Akiel Julien) are picked; the primary time two from that sector are going. Sage (Devyn Nekoda), from the Nature sector, is so certain she receivedt go she doesnt even watch the announcement.

After the announcement, Diara and the Tribunal discover out that there was a breach within the colonys protecting bubble, that means that both somebody got here in or somebody left.

Once they college students get to the power the place they practice for The Exemplar, theyre greeted by Mentor Watts (Huse Madhavji), who tells them that their first efficiency is in ten minutes. Throughout that point, Bohdi and Aliya get in a tiff over what Bohdi thinks are her apparent benefits. After the efficiency, Watts takes down the mostly-confident college students by saying the performances have been common, and instantly kicks out the three worst performers to indicate the scholars how severe that is.

A lot of the new college students are invited to a mysterious celebration proper exterior the borders of the colony, which is taken into account to be off-limits; the invite says anybody who attends will get a leg up on the competitors. When Bohdi and Aliya separate from the remainder, they discover a door within the woods. Once they go in, they discover one thing referred to as The Archive (voice of Snoop Dogg) that introduces them to an historic type of music: hip-hop.

Our Take: Theres a number of good issues about Utopia Falls, created by R.T. Thorne, recognized for guiding collection like Discover Me In Paris and Blindspot. Each Alomar and Julien are interesting leads (its fairly obvious that theyre the leads of whats going to be an ensemble), they usually each do good work in a primary episode that roughly appears like Glee set lots of of years sooner or later. The complete ensemble must be multi-talented, both as dancers, singers, musicians, in addition to actors, and it appears like Thorne has discovered actors that may create plausible characters with some depth.

However the story, as with most Sci-fi thats attempting to construct a brand new world out of nothing, can get complicated. As a lot as Thorne tried to present some exposition to start with of the episode, it felt like we dont know practically sufficient about New Babyls numerous sectors, what The Exemplar truly is, how some persons are associated to one another (Sage, as an example, has a Gran Chyra (Diane Johnstone) and Gran Reale, however were undecided in the event that they raised her or are simply two of her grandparents). Additionally, stilted language abounds, like when persons are mentioned to be of their 17th 12 months as a substitute of simply saying theyre 16. The temptation to jargonize on a regular basis speech to make it sound futuristic has at all times been a pitfall of sci-fi, however the very best of the style has its characters talking in up to date talking patterns; when Thorne strays from that, it instantly loses us.

We get that this present is probably going geared in direction of a youthful viewers, however we hope that the concept the colony might seem to be a collective however in actuality comes off as a North Korea-esque totalitarian state will likely be addressed. Everybody vows loyalty to the leaders, and when these leaders name to their costs on large screens, the present feels much less like a teen dancing and singing present and extra like 1984. Maybe because the affect of hip-hop, and far of the styles message to problem authority, permeates with the scholars, that subject will come to the foreground.

Intercourse and Pores and skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: Surrounded by holographic photos of album covers, music movies and breakdancing, Aliya and Bodhi sit and soak up the historical past of hip-hop.

Sleeper Star: Wed watch each episode solely to listen to Snoop Dogg because the voice of The Archive. If we didnt see his identify within the opening credit, listening to his voice would have been one of the out-of-left area issues weve encountered on TV thus far in 2020.

Most Pilot-y Line: Moore Instances (Dwain Murphy), an influential buddy from the Reform Sector, tries to get Bodhi and Mags to present out black market footwear to the scholars. Bodhi refuses. Hes been like a father to us! Mags says to Bodhi. To start with, you may hold that father speak, Bodhi replies. Whoo boy, plenty of historical past in that sentence.

Our Name: STREAM IT. Were undecided if Utopia Falls goes to get higher than the primary episode, which we discovered hokey at instances. However well hold watching simply to listen to extra Snoop Dogg, and if the present improves, all the higher.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about meals, leisure, parenting and tech, however he doesnt child himself: hes a TV junkie. His writing has appeared within the New York Instances, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Quick Firm.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

StreamUtopia Falls On Hulu

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Stream It Or Skip It: Utopia Falls On Hulu, Where Teens From A New Earth Colony Who Discover The Power Of Hip-Hop - Checkersaga