Fuck the KKK

Finally, David Clark comes up with the goods. The KKK don't own Marlboro. Or, I suppose, Philip Morris, who does. It's an urban legend. Thanks, Dave. You win a link to your band Dragstrip's site.

           
Boston punks The Unseen have a good song called Fuck the KKK. They really do have quite a line in uncomplicated sentiment and entertaining song titles; another track, which I haven't heard, is called Piss Off, You Worthless Lying Fuck. And maverick American painter Philip Guston painted a number of beautifully satirical works which portrayed hooded figures of the KKK in mundane situations; my favourite is probably City Limits. [Note: this site seems to have disappeared, so I've uploaded a nice image of City Limits while it is offline]

One late-night drunken conversation later and I discover that my love for Philip Guston is shared by several of New Zealand's young contemporary painters. Good. On Saturday Night I was utterly dismayed by the disappointing painting in the Telecom Prospect 2004 exhibition; perhaps sometime soon there'll be some painters receiving this kind of amazing exposure and putting work on the wall that enthralls and exhilarates like I know the good stuff can.

Adding to my grumpiness was the general atmosphere at the extremely-crowded opening ceremony, analogous to my imaginings of the aftermath of a sarin nerve-gas in the Tokyo underground, in slow motion; except that this was more like an attack of dumb-ass wide-eyed art-wank schlop at the Naenae railway station subway just after school gets out on a Thursday afternoon.