Brian Sewell calls for public galleries to sell the family silver

Brian Sewell, the bullshit detector whose condemnation of any artist's work has long been looked upon as the art world's equivalent of the ASBO for 'cool' status, has attacked local public galleries for hanging on to collections which could be partly sold off to fund services, now under threat by spending cuts. He singled out Bath and North Somerset for a particular kicking: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11837414

and said of Bath's Victoria Art Gallery: "I've seen it described as a lucky dip.

'You might argue that you could take anything from it and no-one would notice."

Jon Benington, manager of the gallery, defended its collection, saying: "The art collections are there to inform, to educate, to inspire.

'Once they're gone, they're gone forever. You can't bring them back."

The question must be though: Who will buy these works? Many of the individual paintings in question are hack anecdotal works or demotic 'classical' fantasies, strictly of interest only to art historians with a special interest in upwardly mobile Victorians. But their value and use increases when they are part of collections; even if some of those collections are arbritrary, held together only by their shared provenance.

Will Miral be this generation's Exodus?

by Adam Horowitz, on Mondoweiss

Today, I saw Julian Schnabel's new film Miral. It won't be arriving in theatres in the US until next March, so it will be a while until we see what effect it has, but my initial impression was amazement at what I was watching. Here was a film following many of the conventions of a traditional Hollywood film, but this time it was telling the Palestinian liberation story (which might explain why it was not produced in Hollywood and instead was a French/Israeli/Italian/Indian co-production).

The film, based on Rula Jebreal's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, takes us from the Nakba, and children orphaned during the Deir Yassin massacre, through the first Intifada to the signing of the Oslo Accords. I know there will be criticisms, and I have a few that I'll share later, but right now I am struck by the emotional impact of the film. You follow the lead character through checkpoints, refugee camps, home demolitions, interrogations, humiliations and protests. After that it is impossible to not understand, and feel, the Palestinian call for justice.

More, at http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/will-miral-be-this-generations-exodus.html

Although (no surprise) this was not an American-funded production, it will be given a full distribution in the USA, by Harvey Weinstein.

Military Industrial Complex

Lara Lee, film maker and Freedom Flotilla survivor, introduces her new short film with this statement:
In 2009, the United States government spent some $650 billion on its military. This is more than the next 46 highest-spending countries combined. Much of this treasure ended up in the hands of profit-driven weapons manufacturers. In the following short film, I take a brief look at the current state of what President Eisenhower famously called the "military industrial complex." With the U.S. waging two wars overseas at the same time that millions of people are out of work at home, those pushing to reel in government spending and balance the budget would be wise to look carefully at bloated and unchecked military spending.

Cultures of Resistance: A Look at Global Militarization from Cultures of Resistance on Vimeo.

My Father Was a Freedom Fighter

Gaza, Mohammed and my mother

By Elana Golden

My Father was a Freedom Fighter is a page-turner though I read it in small bites, the way you would eat a rich chocolate cake. It is a great read not only for those interested in the Israel/Palestine conflict but for anyone who loves books about family, courage, hope and resilience.

For while clearly illustrating the trajectory of the long and complex history of the conflict – My Father was a Freedom Fighter tells a story of survival that is beyond this particular conflict. It is a personal story told through the keen eye of Ramzy Baroud, it reads like a novel, and is universal in its tone, its humanity, its psychology.

Mohammed Baroud, the 1948 Palestinian refugee, the subject in the book’s title, who lives in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip “is” my Jewish mother who lived under the military fascist regime in Bucharest, Romania that collaborated with the Third Reich. Or anyone who’d been occupied and brutally treated! Mohammed “is” also my mother for they share an exaggerated concern for their children, choices they were forced to make to feed their families, a cynical view of the world, their humour, dignity and pride, and down to the long-Kent-cigarettes they each smoked, Mohammed in Gaza, my mother in Tel Aviv.

On the personal level, I appreciated the disclosure of family dynamics, the dark side, the wound: Brothers’ rivalry, domestic violence – patterns and attitudes that are part and parcel of many societies at all socio economic and educational strata. On the political level the book sheds light on the growing split between the factions in the PLO and how this split was created. And why Mohammed, an atheist and a Marxist, puts on his best suit and goes to vote for religious Hamas.

The book is filled with unforgettable scenes, many that bring tears, but what’s a Palestinian story without humor? In his desperate attempts to keep his dignity and his livelihood, Mohammed falls into all kinds of mishaps and disastrous traps that would make a great comedy of errors. You really don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. And he is so intelligent, so resourceful, that I wished I could get his advice on my own problems! But Mohammed is also a man who never got over the loss of his family’s house and field, and his people’s lands and freedom! His brokenness is inconsolable. It is one face to a dispossession and expulsion tragedy.

As someone who grew up in Israel, it hurt me so much while reading the book to think back at Palestinians like Mohammed who worked in Israel after the 1967 war, how they were humiliated, shamed and exploited. I also remembered Prime Minister Rabin’s policy “break their bones.” To experience this policy from the point of view of young boys in Gaza, as so movingly described in the book, broke my heart and made me understand the emotional mind set of a Palestinian boy who holds a stone in the face of a tank, the mixture of fear and revenge, and the moment the stone is hurled toward an Israeli soldier and the boy becomes a man...

My Father was a Freedom Fighter was written from a generous heart and will appeal to the hearts of many worldwide, not only to those interested in political science or the Palestine/Israel conflict.

Though get ready for a story that is very different from those told on FOX TV and all other corporate media outlets!

My Father Was A Freedom Fighter – Gaza's Untold Story. Ramzy Baroud. Pluto Press 2010

- Elana Golden, screenwriter, director, creative-writing teacher, Palestinian rights activist, Women in Black – Los Angeles. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.