Within a few days, one of the most important elections of our lifetime will be over. I cannot even count the number of hours I have devoted to this cycle of the US election, but I along with the rest of the world am feeling anxiety, worry, and yes fear. Being someone who regularly lectures on the history of revolutions and big social and political shifts of nation, I have been having many conversations with students, colleagues, and friends over the past year about all of the potential scenarios of a Clinton or Trump victory, and none of the outcomes seems especially promising or even a bit hopeful. Whatever happens, it is clear that there is something profoundly broken in the way the world's most influential democracy is operating. In my lifetime, I never envisioned a world where people would openly be questioning the values associated with freedom of the press or the need for expertise and education. Nor did I in my wildest dreams expect people to willfully embrace demagoguery and unabashed racism at the degree, and in the numbers, we have seen globally in the past year. The age of populism, anti-intellectualism, and the silencing of opposition appears to be upon us, and it puts educators like me in a very precarious and scary position. Whatever happens this week, I know many more people will be paying serious attention to world affairs--maybe for the first time-- and that alone brings some measure of hope.
List of links (for quicker linking):
- On the Cover: Donald Trump by Barbara Kruger for the Election Issue
- How important is art history in today’s market?
- ‘I’m an Artist, Not a Priest’: Ai Weiwei Faces His Fans—and Critics—in Brooklyn
- 5 Powerful Things We Learned From Marina Abramović’s Memoir
- Lost in an Art Historian’s Annals of 1960s–70s NYC
- Please Turn On Your Phone in the Museum
- Donald Trump Lookalike Causes a Ruckus on Fifth Avenue With Performance Art Piece
- Preview: "Vancouver" from Season 8 of ART21 "Art in the Twenty-First Century" (VIDEO)
- In the Media Pen at a Trump Rally | 360 VR Video | The New York Times (VIDEO)
- Happy 100th, Dada: SF celebrates influential art movement