Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Help Keep Austin Weird

Just back from Tejas. A few days in San Antonio, bookended by 2 days in Austin.
For openers, The Alamo is much improved, no longer overwhelmed by postmodern junk, restored to some simulacrum of integrity. Good curation-signage teaches history w/o pain.
Re-enactors in authentic looking Mexican Army duds with all due accoutrements; silliest hats you ever saw. "Evolution of the Bowie knife" and so on. Good stuff. Bit heavy on the shrine aspect, but how could it possibly be Texas otherwise?
Revelation awaited us at the Austin Museum of Art; shocking visualizations of American Consumption of tobacco, of plastic bottles, of prison uniforms and mens' lives, of mammary implants and womens' lives.
Amazing, mind-blowing art by Chris Jordan. Art simultaneously beautiful and horrific.
Google him. Buy the book. Fly to Austin just to visit the Art Museum, carbon footprint be damned.

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