Hasta La Gadget!

PARIS (AP) — In tweets, in street gatherings and in open letters, moderate Muslims around the world are insisting that Islamic State extremists don’t speak for their religion. Many are also frustrated that anyone might think they do, and a backlash has already begun.

This week’s videotaped beheading of a French mountaineer by militants linked to the Islamic State group prompted heartsick fury among Muslims in France and elsewhere in Europe, torn between anger at the atrocities committed in the name of Islam and frustration that they have to defend themselves at all. Herve Gourdel was the fifth Western hostage decapitated in recent weeks by Islamic extremists — this time, the militants said, as revenge for France’s decision to join airstrikes against the Islamic State group.

The head of France’s largest mosque called for Muslims to rally Friday in Paris to condemn Gourdel’s slaying and show unity against terrorism, saying Islamic State’s “deadly ideology” had nothing to do with Islam. Within hours of the call, the rector of the Bordeaux mosque, Tareq Oubrou, said French Muslims need not demonstrate in the name of Islam — but should be joined by everyone.

“They are doubly affected, because this crime touched one of our countrymen and because this crime was carried out in the name of our religion,” Oubrou told RTL radio.

The same debate played out elsewhere. The hashtag campaign #notinmyname — or #pasenmonnom in French — initiated by British Muslims who wanted to show their opposition to extremist violence, spawned a #MuslimApologies backlash by those who thought the sense of regret was overwrought. Tweets “apologized” for algebra, soap and coffee.

“Nowhere does the Quran say other religions or nations must be attacked. Cutting people’s heads off is really the most despicable. If airstrikes can stop these fundamentalist, aggressive ideas from spreading, I am all for it,” said 65-year-old Enes Mustafic.

Another congregant, Omer Jamak, questioned the devotion and even sanity of anyone who thought otherwise.

“According to Islam, nobody is allowed to be evil to others. Nobody has the right to do such a thing. I am against everything they do down there like every sane person is,” Jamak said.

An online poll posted by France’s Le Figaro newspaper, asking whether people thought the country’s Muslim community had sufficiently denounced Gourdel’s death, drew an infuriated response. Rachida Dati, the mayor of Paris’ 7th arrondissement and the daughter of Algerian immigrants, called for an end to the “confounding of Islam and fundamentalism, as the French political class has done for too long.” The paper on Friday apologized for what it called a “clumsy” question.

Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said headlines about the Islamic State were often frustrating in his work. Walid said he’s been speaking out against excessive force by police after the fatal shooting of a young black man in Ferguson, Missouri.

“I received calls and emails from fellow Americans who say, ‘Why are you worried about what’s going in Ferguson? Stop ISIS.’ That is ridiculous,” said Walid, a black Muslim.

“My primary responsibility as an American citizen is to try to make America more of a just place,” Walid said. “People in Iraq and Syria can’t even fix their own problems. What am I supposed to be doing from Detroit?”

Still, the banner at Friday’s gathering in Paris honoring Gourdel was emblazoned with “Not in My Name” and many in the crowd of about 500 said they were dismayed and appalled.

“We all gathered today … to tell people, you want to convert, that’s very good, but do it for your faith, because you want to convert and because you appreciate this religion. Don’t do it to go fight, to go kill people because it is not what Islam says,” said Nadir M’Sallaoui, a 27-year-old Parisian.

U.S. Muslim leaders and scholars issued an open letter Wednesday denouncing Islamic State militants point by point, notably on “the killing of innocents” and jihad.

Muqtedar Khan, professor of political science at the University of Delaware and author of “American Muslims, Bridging Faith and Freedom,” said Muslim condemnations after the 9/11 attacks failed to dent the reach of extremists.

“They are beginning to react the way they should have on Sept. 12, 2001,” Khan said. “Muslims have gotten really tired of these groups that bring nothing, that have no positive impact at all among their societies.”

Khan said whether the protests take root will depend upon what happens when the beheadings have subsided, and Islamic State is no longer considered an immediate threat. Muslim leaders will have difficulty coming up with a message as attractive as the extremists’ sermons to young people disillusioned with life in countries where they feel under constant suspicion. France’s ban on face-covering veils and prohibitions on wearing headscarves in schools, for example, are often cited as proof the country is hostile to Muslims.

Speaking of the extremist preachers, Khan said: “Their theology becomes more potent because their politics are right.”

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Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo; Nicolas Garriga and Bastien Inzaurraulde in Paris; and Ed White in Detroit contributed.

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https://twitter.com/lhinnant

From the perspective of a parent, a child comes across as a glowing angel. From the perspective of a stranger, a child can appear either as a doughy bundle of cuteness or a miniature devil creature, depending on his or her perspective. But how does a child actually feel while inhabiting the tiny body of a not yet fully formed person?

Brooklyn-based artist Alexandria Smith certainly poses a good possibility. Her renderings of hybrid adolescence blend the exaggerated simplicity of cartoons with the constant in-between-ness of collage, yielding warped creatures at once appealing and grotesque, human and not quite.

Alexandria Smith, Portrait of a Night Woman, 2013 Acrylic

For her first New York Solo exhibition, “Perpetual Adorations,” Smith explores this amorphous and endlessly awkward experience of growing up. Yet instead of delivering a narrative coming-of-age tale, Smith delves into the dirtier details of first becoming cognizant of your body and yourself. Ideological issues of race, sexuality and cultural difference mingle with the physical challenges of existing in a strange and alien form that’s constantly mutating.

Smith’s exhibition revolves around a character, Marjorie, based in part off the artist herself. Mostly dressed in pigtails and ribbons — though not always featuring a conventional face — Marjorie dwells permanently in a bizarre time in one’s life when the world is constantly shifting between states of magic and violence, and nothing is ever quite still. Rendered in claymation-esque cartoons that teeter between horrific and playful, Smith mimics our own youthful journeys of self-discovery.

We reached out to the artist to learn more about her show.

First, can you explain how the title “Perpetual Adorations” relates to the themes in the exhibition?



The title of my show at Scaramouche relates to my incessant obsession with making work using these hybrid characters as avatars to explore awkwardness as it relates to identity development and longing for belonging. Although I use the word adoration in the title, for me it refers specifically to a worshipping of these characters that have begun to take over my everyday life. It’s perpetual in that it’s everlasting, endless and constant.




Alexandria Smith, between delight, 2014

Who is Marjorie? What similarities and differences does she possess compared to you?



Marjorie is a young girl that wears a pillowcase/bag over her head and is adorned in pigtails, a dress and Mary Jane shoes traversing time, space and memory to discover where she belongs. Although, she mostly lives in my brown kraft paper sketchings, drawings and performances, I do feel that she has begun to filter into my most recent body of work taking on a different form. She sees herself the way the world sees her and this is evident in the forms that she inhabits.


The similarities to me that Marjorie possesses are mostly related to insecurity and self-esteem issues that I faced as a child. These same traits still rise to the surface in adulthood especially as I navigate transitions in my career and personal life. Psychologically, experiences in childhood affect us well into adulthood and are conjured up through memories connected to places, smells, sights and social situations so I feel it is inevitable that Marjorie and I share qualities.

As for differences between us, I feel that Marjorie is my alter ego that only those closest to me will see, when I am in my most vulnerable state. She is eternally uncomfortable in her own skin but that isn’t a burden that I possess so that is where we diverge. In a new multimedia project that is in progress, I am exploring a narrative in which Marjorie eventually comes to terms with her purpose and finds solace in who she is, so her fate does seem to be evolving.

You present a view of childhood in your work that’s far more grotesque, warped and even violent than the common notion of this innocent, pure state. How do you think childhood has been misidentified and why do you think this is so?

For me there is an innate optimism and humor that exists in my work amongst the grotesque, warped and violent moments. There is a balance of binaries that occurs that I feel is uniquely reflective of emotions experienced during adulthood and childhood. I think that many adults tend to ignore the fact that children are subversive. This stage in their lives is full of magic, strangeness and uniqueness and it allows them to see things that others don’t see. In my work, I try to encapsulate all of these elements to thwart this ideal outlook on childhood that only explores its innocence and purity. Childhood has been misidentified because we still treat young people as vessels to receive information as opposed to having the capability to enlighten us as well. It is taboo and we immediately sweep things under the rug that children say or do that reveal more about private matters in their homes and our society as a whole.

How did you decide to incorporate the influence of Persian and Indian miniatures into this series?

I believe my interest in Persian and Indian miniatures began when reading an exhibition catalogue or artist monograph many years ago. I began studying them more in depth as I was creating small paper collages that source my own paintings and re-contextualize them. I find that miniature paintings are a happy medium between artwork and narrative without being too literal, which I try to capture in my own work. The small scale of my collages and Persian and Indian miniatures force a close reading and intimacy with the work that is further complicated by a layering of interior and exterior landscapes.

How is childhood different for a girl than a boy? Is this something you aim to address in your work?

I think childhood is different for a girl than a boy mainly because society treats girls and boys differently. My work addresses the experiences of adults as well as children which is inherent in the boundaries that I blur by depicting hybrid characters. The characters in my work are sometimes multi-gendered and multi-racial so the work isn’t only addressing specific differences or similarities but also the overlapping experiences we all share.

Alexandria Smith, The uncertainty of it all, 2014 Acrylic, mixed media on panel

If you could compare your artistic process to another process — cooking spaghetti or conducting surgery — what would you say?

That’s a very interesting question. I guess, as an athlete, I’d compare creating, specifically painting, to basketball. In basketball, you practice, run drills, shoot around and work on all of these individual elements. You put in a lot of effort to improve both mentally and physically, and bring these disparate parts together to create a homogenous, well-rounded game. Similarly, my studio practice is also physically laborious. I engage my entire body as I cut and construct paper and paint skins that are used to collage the surface of the panel. I use paint and glitter to cover both large and small surfaces which oftentimes requires me to adapt painstaking positions. My intuitive approach to creating allows me to enter a zone. There’s a sense of mystery in the process and I enjoy seeing things unfold. No matter how difficult both of these processes are, I still find great pleasure in getting up everyday to paint and play basketball even as my body ages.

When I first began using oil paints in undergrad, it was to go against the grain and prove one of my professors wrong. Initially it was discouraging because I didn’t know any contemporary (living) African-American painters that were making art using African-Americans as their subjects. In undergrad, I was an illustration major and was heavily influenced by Jacob Lawrence and as I became more immersed in the contemporary fine art world, I came across the work of Wangechi Mutu and was blown away. I began to realize my connection to the history of painting and as time went on, this became the impetus behind why I continued to paint. As I entered the teaching field I realized how impactful my role as a contemporary painter was to the lives of my students.



What is a visceral childhood memory of yours that continues to affect your artwork?

I don’t have any one visceral childhood memory that affects my work but I do have many memories related to being bullied and teased. During my formative years, there were always aspects of my personality that made me different than my peers in school and everything; the way I talked, dressed and behaved was scrutinized. Those feelings are still very much present in my artwork.

“Perpetual Adorations” runs until November 2 at Scaramouche Gallery in New York.

This post originally appeared on Slate.
By David Rosenberg

There’s nothing more heartwarming than a love story between a horse and a squirrel. Asia Kepka didn’t know this at first—her series on the unconventional couple, Horace the horse and Agnes the squirrel, began when a friend brought over two masks. Kepka and her girlfriend Lynn Dowling put them on, gave them names—Agnes is named after Dowling’s late mother; Horace after a Hollywood actor and ex-neighbor of Dowling. Kepka then set up a camera to take a photograph of the couple seated on a red couch enjoying some accordion music.

“I’m always drawn to older people and coming up with characters,” Kepka said. “So when I saw them I thought of them as a lovely middle-aged couple who had fallen in love.”

Dowling began writing the imagined backstories about the pair: They met on a train, enjoy a lively social life, like to travel and play music. Kepka said that, over the course of the subsequent year, roughly 100 images and stories have been added to the series they titled “Horace and Agnes: A Love Story.” It helps that Kepka sees her house as one big stage and is open to developing new story lines from just about anything.

“I’ve got a huge collection of clothing—my house is kind of like a theater,” Kepka said. “Some people call it hoarding, but I call it collections.”

“You never know what you’ll be fascinated or stimulated by. When you see an object, an entire story can evolve from it.”

A lot has evolved from that first shoot. Friends have expressed a desire to participate, new characters have appeared, a Facebook page was started, exhibitions planned, and a prototype of a book created.

The chaos and lightness from the project has been a welcome release for Kepka. Around 10 years ago, she began a series titled “Bridget and I” with a mannequin she found on eBay. Her life during that period was turbulent and confusing filled with passionate affairs and subsequent breakups. She then suffered a series of painful losses, including one of her best friends and both of her grandmothers with whom she was very close and who were living in her native Poland. In hindsight, Kepka said, the melancholic feel of “Bridget and I” was a visual diary, a reflection on where she was feeling during that emotional period. Using photography was helpful in allowing her to recognize what was happening to her.

“I was in my thirties and the life I imagined a long time ago wasn’t happening,” she said. “I longed to be a mother and have a family and I was trying to figure out my role as a woman and as an artist.” Using the mannequin “was only a vehicle to tell the story in a more dynamic sense. I could have done them by myself but when you have two characters you have more flexibility in creating a more dynamic narrative.”

After nearly 10 years working on “Bridget and I,” Kepka said it was time to move on and she was ready to begin a new chapter in life. And then, suddenly, a horse and squirrel mask appeared and the opportunity presented itself.

“What helps me to survive is comedy,” she said. “It’s a medicine. It’s very important to create work that has depth and also a sense of humor. There is so much serious and difficult work out there and there is a need for something that makes people warm up a bit.”

“Horace and Agnes: A Love Story” will be on view at the Griffin Museum at SoWa in Boston beginning Sept. 25.

See more images on Slate.

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