Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
General Idea's AIDS sculpture, newly unveiled at the corner of Queen's Park and Bloor, is used to graffiti, and the public's writings on the nine-foot-tall statue ("use protection ♥," "fuck homophobia," and "it can happen to you" are some of the messages on it right now) make it all the more powerful. Yesterday afternoon, a new message appeared on the statue's previously untouched base: "Stephen Harper, You Shame Us!!"
The tag is almost certainly an angry response to Stephen Harper's no-show at the ongoing AIDS conference - the largest conference for the deadliest disease in the world, all held in his country's largest city, which he opted out of to go up north. To talk about building a military base.
Some may object to the message, but the statue has always been political, with or without graffiti. It was created in 1987 by the Toronto-based collective, after all, in response to Robert Indiana's 1976 LOVE sculpture, suggesting that AIDS - not love - had become the most defining word of the time. Proving that the anti-Harper tag is "vandalism" on an art piece welcoming public interaction is much harder than if it was done on one behind bullet-proof glass. However excessive (and, debatably, insensitive) this scrawled message may be, this is simply one more opinion on a piece full of them.
Besides, if the public doesn't like it, they'll take care of removing or replying to it themselves. The addition and removal of messages and stickers on the sculpture will continue no matter what - yet more proof that, with AIDS, there's no such thing as stasis.
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In all honesty - and this comes from someone who fucking loathes Stephen Harper - it's not his job to show up at this sort of thing. It's rightly the job of the Health Minister, and the Health Minister showed up. (Chretien did the same thing.)
Really, there's plenty out there to rag on Harper for. We don't have to stretch like this.
General Idea, or at least AA Bronson are on record as saying that the added graffiti is part of the work and they felt it had been vandalized when the SFMOMA cleaned it in the 90s. In light of that I think vandalized, even in quotes, is uncalled for.
"Really, there's plenty out there to rag on Harper for. We don't have to stretch like this."
Sorry this is a "stretch"?
If you actually knew anything about the problem you'd know it's NOT just a health issue - it's much more than that. One of the struggles is also about confronting ignorance - so thanks Christopher Bird for giving us an example of the problem.
Is it Bill and Melissa Gates job, Bill Clinton's job?
Go tell Stephen Lewis it's just a health issue.
Harper certainly didn't leave the job of cheering on the Israeli army to his Minister of Foreign Affairs (and International Trade).
TETCB-- shouldn't it then be the defence minister's job to go north and talk about military bases?
Chester Pape, I'm defending why the tagging isn't vandalism, even if some people might claim that it is...
Excerpt:
"If you actually knew anything about the problem...". What a despicable, self-righteous comment. So what - because someone has a different view to yours, they're uninformed?
We scooped the Star!
From yesterday's front section. Luckily, the artist seems to be cool with it, which I'd hoped he would be. Here's an excerpt:
The artist who helped create the sculpture isn't concerned at all that people are drawing on his work — he is actually encouraging people to add their own message.
"It's a site for dialogue; it's intended to be written on. It's like a public blackboard," said AA Bronson, one of the Canadian artists who created the piece in 1989.
The comments written on the sculpture usually mirror the issues at the moment, but they are generally AIDS-related, Bronson said. This is the first time a message has been directed at a specific political figure, he said.
....
The current comments adorning the large letters — including the remarks about the Prime Minister — will not be removed, Bronson said, as they are part of the art.
Little boy blue, unfortunately this isn't a grade 5 classroom so when someone says something ignorant or ridiculous like "what's the big deal about PM Steve not showing up at a MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL conference on an INTERNATIONAL CRISIS that's killing MILLIONS" they are going to be called for it.
So yes, if someone has a different view than mine, generally I have to assume they are in some way misinformed. That's kinda the nature of adult discussion and debate.
People weren't demanding PM Steve spend more money, they weren't demanding PM Steve call out the Armed Forces, they weren't demanding he change the laws about access to medicine and care, they were only asking for PM Steve to simply show up.
Had George or Condi come to the conference you can bet PM Steve would have been first in line to arrive - sporting a pair of buttless leather chaps and carrying a stick of butter.