Diamonds in the Rough

Arabian nights, like Arabian days, more often than not are hotter than hot in a lot of good ways. The Arab culture has gone from gross underrepresentation in television, art, and film to an intense misrepresentation over the past twenty years or so. While film directors and screen writers are helping the media plague the minds of the public about the Middle East, it’s far less often that I experience outward hatefulness from the group of people whom are relentlessly demonised as threatening, violent, and dangerous.



Bolo-khauz Mosque, 18th century.
Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Children are brought up with quirky yet adorable “street-rat” Aladdin, who steals to eat and falls in love well outside of his league. We’re lured in with lines like “it’s barbaric, but it’s home” and a cute monkey in a hat causing distractions while his mate steals apples and the like. Seriously? I’ve only got one Muslim country under my travel belt, but it wasn’t remotely comparable to this vision. How are Arabic children meant to watch this and retain any sense of respect for themselves and their culture? How do non-Arabic children manage to look beyond the stereotypes and thinly-veiled racism? Neither group can succeed as long as this skewed vision persists.



Religious complex.
Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

“But Aladdin was released twenty years ago!” you say? Let’s move on in the times to Homeland – recently off-air for the season and signed for at least another. In brief: American prisoner of war, held abroad for eight years by an extremist is ‘brainwashed’ and ultimately sent back to the United States to help wreak havoc on the system – which is perpetually recovering from 9/11. I simply do not understand why, nearly twelve years later, we are continuing to sensationalise this. I’m not saying that it didn’t happen, wasn’t important in the history of the world, or should be completely forgotten. What I am saying is that we need to move on and stop focussing on the minority of bad while clearly observing the good of the culture overall.



Registan Ensemble at night.
Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Get off of the internet (after you read this post of course), stop watching television, cease spreading your hate. Go to a museum, more specifically the Institut du Monde Arabe to see Les Mille et Une Nuits to appreciate the beauty and magic which once enthralled us all about Arabian cultures. Furthermore, relish in the stunning beauty of temples, minarets, and mosques in Central Asian Art by Vladimir Loukonin and Anatoli Ivanov, I’d almost be willing to bet it will get you to buy a plane ticket.

-Le Lorrain Andrews

Re-learning Patriotism Through Jasper Johns

I will only admit this to a group of viral strangers once, and maybe this will cause outrage and disowning or maybe you’re sitting there nodding your head in disappointed agreement, but I’m originally from the USA. Not only do I despise calling it “the USA”, I’m also exhausted to the core of defending calling myself “American”. It is not my fault that my country never established some other name that could end in -ish, -i, -ese, -ian, -ic, etc., etc. Further, Canada = Canadians, Mexico = Mexicans, and don’t even get me started on the many, many countries within South and Central America that have their own suffixes.

Having been away from “my” country for a substantial period of time, I not only find myself relating less and less to my compatriots, I also quickly find myself exhausted with their behaviour, comments, arrogance, and ignorance. For much longer than I’ve been away, I’ve considered myself a citizen of the world; but the world’s other citizens never cease to remind me of my roots. Thanks for that; how dare I nearly forget?

And here we are, in the midst of the Olympics, and I’m supposed to inherently care about the US teams. Admittedly, I don’t care for the Olympics outside of a very few, select events in the first place, but I suppose it’s a nice time to show national pride, even when your country is already blamed for being entirely too nationalistic as it is. Just a reminder, friends: nationalism and patriotism are different. I’m happy to be United States-ish for all of the opportunities I am afforded (and therefore am patriotic); however, I do not dislike any other countries or their people for any reason, nor do I think my country is superior to others (and am, therefore, not nationalistic). Look it up.

Jasper Johns is a true vision of the USA: from a broken home, he grew up with a range of members of his extended family in various, small east-coast towns, eventually moving to New York before serving in the Army. He returned to New York after the Korean War and got heavily involved in the artistic scene of the 1960s. He now lives in Connecticut and also owns property in St Martin. Johns is best known for Flag:


Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-1955.
Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, three panels, 107.3 x 153.8 cm.
Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Most of his iconic work depicts national emblems, especially flags and maps. I almost need to look away in embarrassment of my near-shame of a country that he seems to admire and venerate. Maybe I should get myself to Connecticut and watch the Olympics with Johns; he may be my last hope at holding on to my motherland. This is my favourite of his:


Jasper Johns, Map, 1961.
Oil on canvas, 198.2 x 314.7 cm.
Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The Whitney Museum, a United States-ic museum of United States-ese art, is exhibiting strong United States-i artists and their strong patriotic images. Bake an apple pie and leave it to cool while you get yourself over there to restore your own patriotism. While you’re at it, check out a Yankee (or Mets if you must) game. For entertainment on the subway ride, be sure to procure this beautifully illustrated ebook: Jasper Johns.

-Le Lorrain Andrews

Hopper: drudgery and dysthymia

Edward Hopper is being celebrated with an exhibition dedicated to his life and works in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, amassing an impressive 73 out of his 366 canvases. He would have hated this. Bitter as he was about the late recognition of his art, he avoided his own exhibitions, using them as a platform to get his paintings sold, in order to carry on living his simple and reclusive lifestyle.

Hopper has to be the least fitting name for an artist as misanthropic as he. He was an introvert with a wry sense of humour, who would fall into great periods of melancholy, pierced on occasion by flashes of brilliant inspiration. But great art comes from great depression. Take the obvious example, Van Gogh, whose struggle with manic depression led him to paint some of the most celebrated art in history. Other, lesser known depressives included William Blake, Gauguin, Pollock, Miró, and even Michelangelo. I’m not saying you have to be depressed to be an artist, but it helps. The irony is that Hopper was one of the few artists whose careers actually flourished during the Great Depression.


Edward Hopper, Eleven A.M., 1926.
Oil on canvas, 71.3 x 91.6 cm.
Smithsonian Institution, Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington, D.C.

It takes a pessimist to be able view life through a realist lens. Hopper’s work strikes a chord with people not because it gives them a cheery nod to the future, but because it reflects the banality, solitude, loneliness and boredom of moments in our own lives, and says to us: “Hey, you know what? It’s ok if you want to sit in your knickers and stare out of the window all day − people did it in the 1920s too!” For many of us, it reflects the poignancy of relationships, and the bitterness of a break-up. If there is a couple, the intimacy has gone, and each is resigned to the fate of either an imminent split or a life of regrets, each wallowing in their own well of ‘what ifs’.


Edward Hopper, Summer in the City, 1949.
Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 76.2 cm.
Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York.

Think you can create world-class art with a canvas, some paints, and optimism alone? Then think again, preferably in your underwear, staring into space.

You can still see Hopper’s works at the Hopper exhibition, at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, until 16 September 2012. Get to know the artist, and what made him tick, with this detailed art book about Hopper’s life and times.