The more I study art, the more I find the term “art” limited. Art is not transcultural, art is not transhistorical, art assumes a particular audience and a particular set of producers. It is increasingly apparent to me that art history is not the study of the history of visual culture, but the study of a particular visual culture’s history. I have a suspicion that as long as we study the history of “art,” we are going to reproduce a hierarchical understanding of history. Visual culture itself is a limited term (what happens to relational aesthetics if such a term is adopted?), but given how specific “art” is (understood as a dynamic between artists, patrons, and patrons’ institutions) I believe it is a mistake to simply make “art” more inclusive.

lazersilberstein:

i find it hypocritical and ironic that he posts so much about the Shoah, then makes no effort to understand survivors’ outlooks, nor understands the word “antisemitism.”

That is another part of the problem I have with him. When we aren’t being good Jews or bad Jews, we’re passive victims. His narrative denies us agency. He’s a kid, he’s in HS, he refuses to listen when better educated people with different perspectives challenge him, he has no business claiming the authority that he apparently feels entitled to.

Fuckyeahjewishhistory irritates me. This recent nonsense about the usefulness of the word “antisemitism”, and the slightly less recent labeling of post-Shoah revenge plots “genocidal” really encapsulate the issue. They play into the goyische narrative of “good” Jews and “bad” Jews, and judging by the contents of his like folder, which is filled with readyokaygo, he has bought into this narrative hook, line, and sinker (incidentally, readyokaygo’s like folder is peppered with FYJH posts). His writing is readymade for those who see us as Other, and under the guise of providing an authoritative affirmative picture of our people. In his “about me,” he writes “here I am, passing on what I learn to Tumblr because I haven’t found a Tumblr page that deals with Jewish history.” Off the top of my head, I can think of five or six tumblrs on the topic, or which regularly cover the topic, yet he claims to be filling a void. It makes me nervous that goyim will assume that he really is filling a void, and will take his commentary, presented as universally representative of Jewry under the title “FYJH”, as if it actually were universal. 

judeo-christiantalk:

“Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman,” for she was taken out of man.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be…

Wow, an antisemite masquerading as someone friendly. What a shock.

german-expressionists:

Franz Marc, Cat Basket (Study of Cats III), 1909 

Franz Marc is one of the few canonical early twentieth-century avant-gardes I can really get behind. He mostly concerned himself with painting animals, and thereby largely bypassed the egregious racism and misogyny of his peers. It lets me enjoy the vivacity of his work in a way I am unable to with other Blaue Reiter artists and other expressionists in general.

Joe Hisaishi, carry me through this semester’s last forty-eight hours.

npr:

This is Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield, performing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” while floating around the International Space Station. You may have last seen the space station team walking around in outer space fixing stuff.

You will never do anything this cool.

— ‘Space Oddity’ In Space: Yes, Astronauts Are Still The Coolest Humans : Monkey See

inkmaps:

staceythinx:

Felt specimens from Hiné Mizushima’s Unnatural History Museum.

OMG

Mel Brooks – Jews In Space

For all you out there living under rocks.

lazersilberstein:

SPACE COMMUNISM

SEE

CCCP IN SPACE.

~*[musical flourish]*~

We’re Revolutionaries out in space,
We’re zooming along,
protecting the exploited base.

We’re Revolutionaries out in space,
If kulaks appear,
We put them right in their place.

When Fascists attack us,
We give ‘em a smack,
And march the Red Army right over their empire’s face.

We’re Revolutionaries out in space,
We’re zooming along,
Fighting the proletariat’s case!