Oh Yeah, and Other Stuff

I was in London for the past 5 days (Wednesday to Sunday). It was exciting. There were impossible to find Banksy pieces and the ravens weren't there just for Halloween. Cliffhanger alert, this post is not about London, just a couple of things that I had forgotten to put in before.

A while (too long) ago I went to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). It is a fairly small museum, because who's really heard of Irish modern art? Well, you might not have heard of it, but if you go to Wash U, you know. That's right, there's a surprise discovery in store for me and my fellow WUers at IMMA.

IMMA is in an area called Kilmainham, which is where the Kilmainham Gaol (that's Jail in English) is located, and not that far from the Guinness Storehouse. It's housed in the 300+ year old Royal Hospital, a home for veterans of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the pre-independence era. It was under renovation when I was there, so the main entrance was closed (which almost foiled me finding the coolest thing there) and it seemed like a fair amount of the museum's space was closed too. Nonetheless, there were a few impressive exhibits. One was full of pieces by artists reinterpreting their works that were already in the museum, which was impressive for its use of multimedia (except some of the originals weren't in the open parts of the museum). My favorite piece was in the regular gallery and was called "Above All Else." I had seen the name placard for it, but there was no corresponding artwork. The sly guy in my thought, "Wait. Above all else." I looked up and there it was!

I like textual art, and the clever little taglines that come with it, so this piece was right down my alley. I sat down and read about the artist and piece in IMMA's "curbside" study room and learned that this same artist, Douglas Gordon, directed a documentary about Zidane (the footballer who headbutted his Italian oppenent in the 2006 World Cup). I wasn't supposed to take this picture (that's why it's kind of tilted and abruptly taken) because of a no photography citing some shit about copyright.

That's something I don't understand about museums in Ireland and the UK. "Copyright" prevents visitors from taking photos. At first glance, this might seem like a legitimate concern. The artists of these works put a lot of effort and heart into creating them, why would you let people waltz right in and take pictures that could reproduce the work? Well, there are two things wrong about that argument. Number 1: I'll go out on a limb and say no way an amateur with a point-and-shoot (and probably not a fancy camera either) camera will be able to get a shot good enough to be a legitimate threat to the original piece. That's why there are 1 gazillion DPI resolution scanners and gift shops. Number 2, and this is where the crux of my frustration comes from: Taking a picture of a little art installation or painting falls under Fair Use. It is a non-commercial use (because my camera is sure as hell not going to produce anything worth selling), and for many it's educational use, whether for class or cultural education. Both of those characteristics make it legal to copy the artwork onto your camera. Oh yea, and copyrights usually expire 70 years after the artist is dead, so that doesn't help the museums either.

Now that you've scrolled by my rant, the awesomest part. You know at Wash U there is that ugly-ass bunny in the Thinker pose, and that you love it even though it's kind of hard to look at?

Well, when I walked around to see what was near the front entrance of the IMMA, I saw something that struck my eye as familiar.

I asked around and did some interwebs research, and just as I suspected, these are done by the same artist, Barry Flanagan. There actually used to be a copy of the Thinking Rabbit on O'Connell St in central Dublin. I came 5,000 miles to Dublin, and can't get away from the weird-ass rabbits that are in St Louis, I mean that in a good way though.

Also, I found a really depressing article in the Irish Times about how bad Ireland's economy is right now, especially for recent University graduates. Since it came out Monday, I've gotten 2 emails from my program directors with links and reaction to it and my Irish Politics lecturer has talked about it. But I found it first.

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Alex Christensen Oh, good to know - now that I'm stuck here for a month and a half more.

'Ireland is a disaster . . . leave now and enjoy your life' - The Irish Times - Mon, Nov 02, 2009

Source: www.irishtimes.com

On these pages last week, Shane Fitzgerald, a young graduate of University College Dublin, wrote about the Government’s failure to deliver on its promise of a bright future in Ireland for him and his generation. ...

Tue at 7:18pm · Comment · Like · Share

See? I'm on top of things. But more importantly, Ireland might be slipping back into the cycle of emigration that characterized it for 140 years. There is a horrible worldwide recession, but the Irish government and society are making it worse than it needs to be. In my opinion, and remember that I'm an amateur economist, this is not the time to be be parsimonious in public spending. Already 12%+ of the workforce is unemployed, and if social welfare can't hold them up for the next little bit, there is going to be a horrible loss of confidence and human capital in the country. And that's for the ones who don't leave.

Remember in the US last year when there was a bailout enacted very quickly to counteract the disastrous effects of frozen credit markets? Ireland hasn't done so yet, and their meltdown started before the US's. There is a widespread sentiment that the banks (like AIB) should be left to bleed, and afterwards the country can start clean. That may be true, but if Ireland wants to be able to hold the scalp of AIB in its hands as a warning to banks in the future, they will be doing so instead of working, on a block of deserted buildings. Without the credit that makes capital expansion possible, there will be no recovery in Ireland. All of the critics of the "degradation" of traditional Irish culture during the Celtic Tiger will get to revisit traditional Irish culture, this time without the rose-colored glasses. They will be poor, isolated, and begging the EU for cash because of the Government's unwillingness to step up and establish the National Asset Management Agency.