“If I were a man, this wouldn’t have happened to me.” These words are found in one of the 400 pages of transcription of a rape trial. Probably heard in court rooms across the world, across time. Except these are from 1612, during proceedings in Rome where an 18-year old Artemisia Gentileschi tried to find justice for having been raped by fellow painter Agostino Tassi. 4 months of trial transcripts are preserved in full, telling us it was she who was tortured with thumbscrews to tell the truth, while he sat by. It was he who, despite his eventual conviction, did not receive any punishment, since he was in the good graces of an equally vile Pope.

My example of a singular case of failed justice and misogyny does not stop here. Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most gifted painters of the 17th century, was determined and able to convert specific gendered experience into art. Influenced by Carravagio and her own father Orazio, a successful painter as well, she made her own way – and history – by expressing female victimization as well as female rage on the canvas. Her paintings of Susannah in the Bath has two creepy lechers staring at her without shame. Her depictions of Judith killing Holofernes are a self portrait for Judith’s face, and Tassi’s face as Holofernes’. (She painted it twice, in one garbed in blue, in the other in a yellow dress.)

Furthermore, they show a servant actively involved in keeping Holofernes restrained – alluding to the power that women have if they combine forces in solidarity rather than having to go it alone.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/05/artemisia-gentileshi-painter-beyond-caravaggio

She was married off to someone available, had multiple affairs, and tried to paint irregardless of how gossip, denouncements and malice of a baroque society, tried to make her life unbearable. Paint she did and brilliantly so. That is, in any case, what feminist art historians taught us, until there was some serious backlash.

A male curator at the Met argued in the context of a 2002 exhibition that her reputation was inflated by all that salacious stuff around her sexual experiences (!), dragged up by feminists who were biased in favor of preferred role models. She, he insisted, was a mediocre painter, while her father had not received the recognition he deserved. The catalogue, clearly trying to contain the dangerous power of Gentileschi’s art, portrayed her in two ways: as just another working artist, who must be assessed apart from her sensational biography, as if separating her from her specific history would somehow be more objective – or as her being a marvel.

A thoughtful description of how a strong woman is made small even after centuries can be found in the link below: “Look at Artemisia’s reception of today to understand what she went through in her own time. Once more, she is put on display, ostensibly to celebrate her artistic significance, but with the barely concealed covert purpose of trivializing her actual achievement by conforming her to conventional gender stereotypes.” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/2002/03/31/artemisias-critics-painting-with-crude-strokes/c780b5d3-5cf2-4e4b-9bfb-d1c2b565c0c3/?utm_term=.0e31ca328139

That was written in 2002. Last year, there were at least some individual voices and some serious purchasing power that elevated her reputation as artist, when the National Gallery purchased one of her works.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jul/06/national-gallery-buys-artemisia-gentileschi-masterpiece-for-36m

Little, quite late. For some reason I keep thinking I wish Dr. Christine Blasey Ford would pick up a paintbrush….. Kavanaugh as Sisera, herself as Jael? Gentileschi did that one too….

Photographs today are the yellows and blues of Italy, so prominent in Gentileschi’s work..

And here is Vivaldi’s triumphant Judith…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kFPc-lIrkI

When your hope for humanity has reached a pretty low point, there is sometimes art that comes to the rescue. Case in point was Saturday’s rambunctious cabaret TseSho, performed by musically and artistically gifted young people who applied art to politics. The Ukrainian Teatr-Pralnia’s satirical take on current cultural issues and their heart-breaking descriptions of hatred and war were mixed up in an exuberant show using puppets, video art and vibrant music that made your heart sing and your feet dance. TseSho – What’s That? was a romp about urgent contemporary topics.

The show was both fun to watch and listen to, but also deeply thought-provoking. Four young woman on stand-up bass, cello, saxophone and accordion and one male drummer presented songs about love, gender issues, cultural clichés,

the need for affirmation (in a hilarious send-up of Facebook likes) and the desire to forget (alcoholic means included.)

Most profoundly, they described a world riddled by hate and destroyed by war through the eyes of a (puppet) child, who with ever increasing levels of fear recited alphabetically ordered words that defined the experience of those who are oppressed, imprisoned, threatened by violence and without means of escape. That takes courage, when thinking about the fate of some politically engaged artists in the Eastern Bloc. Just remember Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned in Russia for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks, ended a long hunger strike about 3 weeks ago, with irreversibly damaged health.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/10/ukrainian-prisoner-ends-144-day-hunger-strike.html

Living in a world where political art is not just censored but can be dangerous had me even more impressed with the cabaret performers on hand.

The performers used puppets to tell some bits of their stories, stories that had universal appeal, striking the distance between audience and actors from a foreign land. The props and other visuals, like lighting, costuming, and background videography were just as remarkable as the athleticism that accompanied the music. Texts were either in English or Ukrainian, with helpful, projected super-text translations. The one thing I could have done without was a smoke machine – it generated atmospherics that were not needed, given the rest of the theatrical trick bag on display.

Most impressive, though, was the sleight of hand (or mind) that led the audience into a happy, funky, slightly agit-prop romp reminiscent of the very early Frank Zappa concerts at the beginning of the show; the message became progressively darker without you quite realizing it until all of a sudden it hit the point where descriptions of conflict and aggressive war entered the room. Musically this was profoundly expressed by the instruments mimicking the war noise to perfection, a kind of musical onomatopoeia.

The show is part of the US State Department’s Center Stage cultural diplomacy initiative, presented by Boom Arts here in PDX.  This year numerous artists from Ukraine and Egypt are invited to present their work during a month-long tour. Government doing good! Who’d thought….

https://exchanges.state.gov/non-us/program/center-stage

The concert will repeat this Friday and Saturday (10/26/27) at the Paris on Burnside & 3rd.

Don’t miss it!

I’ll be there, dancing instead of photographing for the next round! Unless they display additional interesting socks….

Here is 2016 clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B88Q2Ng6oRE

Portland’s Lan Su Chinese garden is a great spot for a fall walk. Or rather an ambling, since something beckons to be looked at every 2 seconds. I have written about it before, and indeed today’s images were taken last October, but they perfectly represent what is there now. What they did not capture is this month’s exhibit, though, by Alice Debo, a graphic artist, and Jen Fuller who works with glass. I had the opportunity to see Jen’s representation of leaves in the making – she works in the studio of a friend of mine – the botanicals look like being made out of spun sugar and have a tender fragility that captures the mood of fall.

The mood of fall, the fragile, not tender, version, hits you if you sit down at any corner of this contemplative garden and allow your thoughts to gather. Not sure what’s in yours, but some of my thoughts circle around the various attempts these days, by a variety of actors, the bad as well as the seemingly less bad ones, to curb our constitutional rights.

There is the concerted attempt to curb protests in DC by effectively blocking them along the north sidewalk of the White House and making it easier for police to shut them down. The National Mall, site of MLK’s rousing speeches, Lafayette Square, Pennsylvania Ave, the area at Trump’s hotel. Not coincidentally this comes at the heels of protesters being labeled “angry mobs” and constitutional dissent describes as mob rule.

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which opposes the effort, describes: ‘‘And now you have the Trump administration that is not only engaging in extreme rhetoric against demonstrators and suggesting that protests should be illegal, [but] taking concrete actions to suppress dissent and suppress free speech.’’

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trump-proposal-could-squelch-washington-d-c-protests/

Then there is the National Park Service. It proposes charging organizers for the cost of erecting barricades or reseeding grass.   Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the District of Columbia points out that fee requirements could make mass protests “too expensive to happen.”

So many inroads to curb dissent. It all reminds me of the 1970’s in Germany, where a new law stated that even peaceful demonstrators could be charged for the entire cost of police operations, helicopters, wate canons, over- time and all, if they were present at a demonstration where violent actors did not disperse upon police instruction. Think about your willingness to go and demonstrate if by no action of your own your life can be ruined if you are the bystander the cops happen to get their hands on.

Closer to home, we had  yet another violent clash between white supremacists and left protesters this week. https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2018/10/15/23708319/joey-gibson-encouraged-proud-boy-violence-in-portland-they-are-going-to-feel-the-pain

In response, beleaguered Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler proposed an emergency ordinance that would clamp down on how protests are handled. It would allow the police commissioner in charge (currently Wheeler) to assess if a planned protest will become a threat to public safety based on “statements or conduct” by members of any protesting groups or based on “other credible information” obtained by police before the event. He can then restrict time and place of any planned protests well as how many people are allowed to participate.  This is particularly worrisome given the Portland Police Bureau’s use of the “both sides” narrative, equating aggressors from the alt- right with reactions from the Antifa -left.

As commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who is not happy with how fast this proposed ordinance is pushed through, points out:”There is a legitimate balance to be struck between public safety and free speech,” Eudaly went on. “In my view, this begins with an acknowledgment that in our city, although our policies must be content-neutral, it is far-right extremists and hate groups who are necessitating these measures.” PPB, for example, has only now acknowledged that they confiscated whole caches of fire weapons brought in by the white supremacists at previous brawls back in August. No charges or arrests, the and now, just like there were no arrest in NYC some days back when the very same Proud Boys engaged in violent clashes. No wonder comparisons of police passivity during the Jim Crow era and police inactivity now are starting to crop up in the media.

The ACLU gave this statement:

“The mayor’s proposal grants broad authority to the mayor’s office to regulate constitutionally-protected speech and assembly with no meaningful oversight for abuse,” said dos Santos in a press statement. “This action by the mayor demonstrates a lack of trust in the public and is an end-run around our usual democratic processes.”

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2018/10/15/aclu-on-portland-mayors-new-policy-we-already-have-laws-against-street-fighting-and-violence/

Art today:

北宋 郭熙 樹色平遠圖 卷
Old Trees, Level Distance