The long goodbye

Carry On At Your Convenience, by Gerald Thomas, 1971

No matter what you think, or do, the wave always break

The apparent failure of this smart movie is a perfect metaphor of how powerful our narcissism and ideological blindness can affect our judgment for decades. Only now we begin to understand the break of a prosperous tidal wave.

Carry on at Your Convenience, released [by Gerald Thomas] in 1971, is the 22nd in the series of Carry On films to be made, and was the first box office failure of the series. This failure has been attributed to the film's attempt at exploring the political themes of the trade union movement, crucially portraying the union activists as idle, pedantic buffoons which, apparently, alienated the traditional working-class audience of the series. The film, known as Carry On Round the Bend outside the United Kingdom, did not return full production costs until 1976 after several international and television sales [in Wikipedia].

Full movie

During the late 1970's, the Keynesian system destroyed itself. This destruction was not just the work of policymakers but of all players in the Keynesian game: the workers, the bureaucrats, the technocrats, the politicians — Paul Mason, Postcapitalism (2015).

Who's fault?

3-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless little body on a Turkish beach (infographic depiction)

Use your he{art}

Are you still going to show {sell} your art @ Saudi Arabia, or @ the Emirates?

Warmongers in government and the media are perversely but predictably trying to conscript Aylan’s corpse into their march to escalation. They are contending that Aylan died because the West has not intervened against Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, and that it must do so now to spare other children the same fate.

Um, no, Aylan’s family were Kurdish refugees from Kobani who had to flee that city when it was besieged, not by Assad, but by Assad’s enemy: ISIS.

And ISIS is running rampant in that part of Syria only because the US-led West and its regional allies have given them cover by supporting and arming the jihadist-dominated uprising against Assad.

— Read This Before the Media Uses a Drowned Refugee Boy to Start Another War Antimedia. Dan Sanchez, September 8, 2015

More @ Reuters

O vídeo que explica TUDO sobre esta crise de "refugiados". PARTILHEM é preciso que a verdade chegue a todos aqueles que ainda estão a comer tudo que a comunicação social debita dia após dia!#EstadoIslamico #Portugal
Posted by Não Queremos o Estado Islâmico em Portugal on Quarta-feira, 9 de Setembro de 2015

“Speculectors” on the rise

The ARTnews—Summer 2015 (cover)

The economics of art show pretty well the game of power worldwide 

Less rich countries should be more careful about how to spend public money on contemporary art. These countries don't play in the first league, and for that reason it is preferable to give priority to basic art education and grants for artists, art critics and art curators to travel and to post-graduate abroad. Fewer art bureaucrats would also be beneficial for all. Last but not least, less rich countries should have fewer but better museums and fewer but better art institutions. A minimal approach may prove more rewarding.

There are no Portuguese, and no Spanish art collectors among ARTnews 200 top buyers of antique, modern and above all contemporary art. Top art collectors are from USA, Europe (Germany, Switzerland, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Greece), China, Mexico, Japan, and Brazil (see the graphics in 'Inside The List').

Those who decide policies should read these facts and numbers.

THE ARTNEWS 200 TOP COLLECTORS
The ARTnews, Summer 2015


We go to press on the 25th anniversary edition of our “200 Top Collectors” feature at a historic moment in the art market, marked by the unprecedented sale of Picasso’s 1955 painting Les Femmes d’Alger for $179 million in Christie’s May auction “Looking Forward to the Past.” It is the single most expensive artwork ever to sell at auction. Notably, over the course of just two weeks of sales in New York in May, Christie’s and Sotheby’s brought in a staggering $2.5 billion.

[...]

“We are definitely in a bubble,” said seasoned art adviser Todd Levin, director of Levin Art Group. Nevertheless, he was quick to qualify that assessment: “When people hear the word ‘bubble,’ they immediately think about an impending burst. The truth is that bubbles inflate and deflate in many different ways. No one knows how long this will go, or how or when it will end.”