4 ms·

What an odd ending to this piece. I don’t even understand the authors purpose in writing it now. What point is she trying to make, this is all over the place.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Right - all sorts of provoking language for no purpose. Everything is 'colonializing' whatever that means. How about: famous people get interpreted by different cultures differently?
- TFortunato 8y ago
  What article did you read? The word "colonializing", doesn't appear in this article at all.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Ah this was the line I remembered: "This instance of colonising narratives in cultural translations was not the end but the beginning. "
    - TFortunato 8y ago
      Gotcha. And to be fair I don't want to just pile on, and criticize your reaction to it. I understand where you are coming from when you say: How about famous people get interpreted by different cultures differently", but I think it misses the larger point of the article, and the "colonising" quote in particular. Granted I am not a art guy by any means, but I took it to be referencing the larger concept of "cultural imperialism." In particular, it's the idea that Frida's art, or in this particular case her looks are not good enough, are not able to stand on their own, and therefore we need to tweak them to make them more palatable. So in this case it was "make Frida more sexy" in this ostensibly biographical picture about her, by applying a standard of sexiness and beauty seen by our culture, e.g. "less unibrow..." In a larger context, I take the idea of "colonising" culture, or the phrase "cultural imperialism" to be referencing similar themes: -that the 'natives' can't do things on their own. - That rich cultural traditions are somehow inferior, or need to be reduced down to a handful of icons w/o understanding of the larger context around them. I'm probably rambling - again not an art guy, and you can probably find a better reference on the topic than me :-) EDIT: So something I thought of that might be a good metaphor. On HN, there is often a lot of snark about media representations of "hackers" and tech folks in general, and how they get things wrong, or boil down complex ideas into an overly simplified (and wrong) version, or will try to make something that "looks techy", or 'looks like a hacker' while being clearly ridiculous to actual technologists. So while again its not the same, there are parallels - Basically this idea that Frida, and 'foreign' artists in general, can be boiled down to a few tropes or symbols to be come this immediately recognizable 'idea-of-frida' or 'idea-of-foreign/exotic-art' while completely discarding the nuance and the actual work / process of the artist.
      - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
        Maybe its just modernizing? Her look doesn't pass for modern sexy, but it was meant to be that at the time.
        rosser 8y ago
        No, her look, and the prevalence of her using self-portraiture as her vehicle, were even then a repudiation of the prevailing standards of beauty. It was arguably even a repudiation of the existence of those standards.
        ShabbosGoy 8y ago
        So her very appearance was subversive, interesting.
      - vowelless 8y ago
        Different cultures have different issues with their beauty standards. Maybe in your culture it is against unibrows. Come to Asia and you will see how popular plastic surgeries and skin whitening creams are. BTW, fair skin fetish in the east is not new. It goes back hundreds or thousands of years, well before European colonization occured. It's so deep that the houries in Islam/Quran (gift that pious men get in heaven) are fair skinned.
        TFortunato 8y ago
        Absolutely! And that's pretty interesting about the "fair skin fetish" in the east, I was unaware of it. I'm not trying to say that this is because of European colonization, or anything like that. I just think that people use colonization as an understandable metaphor when talking about art or culture, especially w.r.t how it is interpreted & distorted by other possibly more dominant/well-represented cultures.
      - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
        I am not an art guy but I have read a lot of ARTFORUM. The problem the FA articulates is that in respect of surrealism, Kahlo knew what she was doing and where she was going, but because Mexico was perceived as a "province" or colony and Kahlo was not a dude, they basically treated her as if she were a 5-year-old who had naively stumbled on a craft of making surrealist-like kitsch pictures (per the article, I myself don't know what people were doing with Kahlo in that time frame). No potential for innovation or influence over the "true vanguard" of Art, just a sideshow. Doing something on her own in a way, but a dead end.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    It actually appears twice, once even as a pull-quote. If you're ctrl-f'ing, remember it's spelled with 's' in British English.
    - TFortunato 8y ago
      Maybe I was being a bit snarky, but "Colonising"/"Colonizing" != "Colonializing"/"Colonialising" :-P
- pjc50 8y ago
  You don't know what it means, but you're provoked by it?
  - luckydata 8y ago
    Will Ferrell thinks it's possible.
  - subjectsigma 8y ago
    I don't know about him, but I've gotten pretty good at sniffing out the "white people are the root of all evil" narratives, even if the doublespeak is a bit beyond me.
SiempreViernes 8y ago
The article talks about how the talented painter Frida Kahlo is understood by many as simply an exotic snack, and finished with the extreme example about how someone is declared to be dressed as Kahlo by the single feature of having a unibrow. A comparable example would be an article about the hollow understanding of the 1960 hacker culture finishing with a story about how someone was declared to be dressed as Stallman because they held a printed email.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  > with a story about how someone was declared to be dressed as Stallman because they held a printed email. As an intentional Richard Stallman costume, a single printed email would be great. Although maybe too easily confused with a Knuth dress-up. :-)
- kjeetgill 8y ago
  Hey, thats only because I have the long hair and beard everyday. Nobody appreciates the subtlety of the Stallman costume I wear year round. Joking aside, while I see what the author was getting at I think it's a little unfair considering how prominently her face and brows are featured in her own work. Kahlo CHOSE that as her icon [0]. [0]: https://www.sartle.com/artwork/my-nurse-and-i-frida-kahlo https://www.sartle.com/artwork/my-nurse-and-i-frida-kahlo

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

Right - all sorts of provoking language for no purpose. Everything is 'colonializing' whatever that means. How about: famous people get interpreted by different cultures differently?

TFortunato 8y ago
What article did you read? The word "colonializing", doesn't appear in this article at all.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Ah this was the line I remembered: "This instance of colonising narratives in cultural translations was not the end but the beginning. "
  - TFortunato 8y ago
    Gotcha. And to be fair I don't want to just pile on, and criticize your reaction to it. I understand where you are coming from when you say: How about famous people get interpreted by different cultures differently", but I think it misses the larger point of the article, and the "colonising" quote in particular. Granted I am not a art guy by any means, but I took it to be referencing the larger concept of "cultural imperialism." In particular, it's the idea that Frida's art, or in this particular case her looks are not good enough, are not able to stand on their own, and therefore we need to tweak them to make them more palatable. So in this case it was "make Frida more sexy" in this ostensibly biographical picture about her, by applying a standard of sexiness and beauty seen by our culture, e.g. "less unibrow..." In a larger context, I take the idea of "colonising" culture, or the phrase "cultural imperialism" to be referencing similar themes: -that the 'natives' can't do things on their own. - That rich cultural traditions are somehow inferior, or need to be reduced down to a handful of icons w/o understanding of the larger context around them. I'm probably rambling - again not an art guy, and you can probably find a better reference on the topic than me :-) EDIT: So something I thought of that might be a good metaphor. On HN, there is often a lot of snark about media representations of "hackers" and tech folks in general, and how they get things wrong, or boil down complex ideas into an overly simplified (and wrong) version, or will try to make something that "looks techy", or 'looks like a hacker' while being clearly ridiculous to actual technologists. So while again its not the same, there are parallels - Basically this idea that Frida, and 'foreign' artists in general, can be boiled down to a few tropes or symbols to be come this immediately recognizable 'idea-of-frida' or 'idea-of-foreign/exotic-art' while completely discarding the nuance and the actual work / process of the artist.
    - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      Maybe its just modernizing? Her look doesn't pass for modern sexy, but it was meant to be that at the time.
      - rosser 8y ago
        No, her look, and the prevalence of her using self-portraiture as her vehicle, were even then a repudiation of the prevailing standards of beauty. It was arguably even a repudiation of the existence of those standards.
        ShabbosGoy 8y ago
        So her very appearance was subversive, interesting.
    - vowelless 8y ago
      Different cultures have different issues with their beauty standards. Maybe in your culture it is against unibrows. Come to Asia and you will see how popular plastic surgeries and skin whitening creams are. BTW, fair skin fetish in the east is not new. It goes back hundreds or thousands of years, well before European colonization occured. It's so deep that the houries in Islam/Quran (gift that pious men get in heaven) are fair skinned.
      - TFortunato 8y ago
        Absolutely! And that's pretty interesting about the "fair skin fetish" in the east, I was unaware of it. I'm not trying to say that this is because of European colonization, or anything like that. I just think that people use colonization as an understandable metaphor when talking about art or culture, especially w.r.t how it is interpreted & distorted by other possibly more dominant/well-represented cultures.
    - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
      I am not an art guy but I have read a lot of ARTFORUM. The problem the FA articulates is that in respect of surrealism, Kahlo knew what she was doing and where she was going, but because Mexico was perceived as a "province" or colony and Kahlo was not a dude, they basically treated her as if she were a 5-year-old who had naively stumbled on a craft of making surrealist-like kitsch pictures (per the article, I myself don't know what people were doing with Kahlo in that time frame). No potential for innovation or influence over the "true vanguard" of Art, just a sideshow. Doing something on her own in a way, but a dead end.
- icebraining 8y ago
  It actually appears twice, once even as a pull-quote. If you're ctrl-f'ing, remember it's spelled with 's' in British English.
  - TFortunato 8y ago
    Maybe I was being a bit snarky, but "Colonising"/"Colonizing" != "Colonializing"/"Colonialising" :-P
pjc50 8y ago
You don't know what it means, but you're provoked by it?
- luckydata 8y ago
  Will Ferrell thinks it's possible.
- subjectsigma 8y ago
  I don't know about him, but I've gotten pretty good at sniffing out the "white people are the root of all evil" narratives, even if the doublespeak is a bit beyond me.

SiempreViernes 8y ago

The article talks about how the talented painter Frida Kahlo is understood by many as simply an exotic snack, and finished with the extreme example about how someone is declared to be dressed as Kahlo by the single feature of having a unibrow. A comparable example would be an article about the hollow understanding of the 1960 hacker culture finishing with a story about how someone was declared to be dressed as Stallman because they held a printed email.

tomjakubowski 8y ago
> with a story about how someone was declared to be dressed as Stallman because they held a printed email. As an intentional Richard Stallman costume, a single printed email would be great. Although maybe too easily confused with a Knuth dress-up. :-)
kjeetgill 8y ago
Hey, thats only because I have the long hair and beard everyday. Nobody appreciates the subtlety of the Stallman costume I wear year round. Joking aside, while I see what the author was getting at I think it's a little unfair considering how prominently her face and brows are featured in her own work. Kahlo CHOSE that as her icon [0]. [0]: https://www.sartle.com/artwork/my-nurse-and-i-frida-kahlo https://www.sartle.com/artwork/my-nurse-and-i-frida-kahlo