A witch-hunt devastates the Auckland art world
If the artists responsible for the Mercy Pictures exhibition “People of Colour” were setting out to shock and provoke, they certainly succeeded. The show, which recently closed in Auckland, was […]
Category Archives: art
The liberal censors extend their reach
The self-appointed liberal censors have struck again in New Zealand. Emboldened by their success in no-platforming the visiting Canadian rightists Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern, and then disrupting a campus […]
How to defend democratic rights and political space – case study of a political victory
Renée Gerlich is a feminist and blogger living in Wellington, New Zealand. She holds that New Zealand was wrong for decriminalising pimps and punters along with prostituted persons in the […]
A visit to the museum of propaganda posters in Shanghai
I have never been very keen on Maoist poster art – not even in the period of my life when I was attracted to Maoism – and I probably would […]
The war of all against all – a review of Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan
On the northwest coast of Russia there are settlements where stubborn and resourceful human beings eke out a living, hauling fish from Arctic seas. The seashore is littered with the […]
Beauty, truth, and “the hideous music admired by savages”
Beauty is truth, truth, beauty – that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know John Keats, Ode on a Grecian urn With this, Keats articulated […]
The Sensible Sentencing Trust and the art of portraiture
The opinions of the Sensible Sentencing Trust feature prominently in the news yet again. This time the big-business media are turning to their favourite advocacy group to solicit their opinions […]
This is what a moral crisis looks like
Two staggering statistics illustrate the fact that the crisis afflicting the capitalist world is not just an economic crisis but a moral crisis as well. In the United States today, […]
A portrait of maternal intimacy
Chopin’s Berceuse for piano begins with a simple arpeggio in the left hand, rising on the chord of D-flat. It stretches briefly to the dominant-seventh chord, then relaxes back to […]
The tale of the anti-Semitic Santa
A few days ago a graphic was posted on ‘The Daily Blog’ entitled ‘Don’t forget to feed Christmas.’ Beside a grotesque Santa Claus image the text read, “Remember to support […]
A worker at large 