21st-century art is a burgeoning field of practice, research, and publication, making it an incredibly dynamic field of study. Many important topics have been resonating in the new century and inspiring new thinking and scholarly debate, such as the surge of bio art in response to scientific research in the life sciences, and the critical theory known as relational aesthetics that developed in response to an increase in art that invites viewers’ participation and interaction. Other topics that were much-discussed in the late 20th century remain vital for the analysis of 21st-century art and visual culture, including semiotics, post-modernism, and feminism.
Art of the 21st century emerges from a vast variety of materials and means. These include the latest electronic technologies, such as digital imaging and the internet (see, for example, New media art in India); familiar genres with a long history that continue to be practiced with great vigor, such as painting (see, for example, Julie Mehretu and Shahzia Sikander); and materials and processes once associated primarily with handicrafts, re-envisioned to express new concepts (see Craft and contemporary art). Many artists regularly and freely mix media and forms, making the choices that best serve their concepts and purposes. Activities vary from spectacular projects accomplished with huge budgets and extraordinary production values to modest endeavors that emphasize process, ephemeral experiences, and a do-it-yourself approach. The notion of influences has also shifted with changes in communications and technology; every location around the world has artists who respond to local geographies and histories as well as the sway of global visual culture.
Globalization
A key feature of the art scene in the 21st century (and of many sectors of 21st-century life) is the impact of globalization – the accelerating interconnectivity of human activity and information across time and space. Aided by the internet and mass media, awareness of the vitality of contemporary art in localities around the globe has grown exponentially. Anyone with access to the internet can follow developments in Shanghai, Sydney, São Paulo, or Nairobi. Simultaneously the increased movement of artists across borders and oceans has added to the intermixing of influences and artistic vocabularies. For example, Wangechi Mutu, originally from Kenya, pursued further education in South Wales and then in the United States. Her collaged images of women are informed by African tribal arts, 20th-century European and American collage artists, and the latest illustrations from fashion, pornography, and medical sources.
The meaning and consequences of globalization are much debated by scholars. Economically and politically, is globalization a force for growth and freedom in societies everywhere, or does it contribute to further exploitation of developing regions by the wealthy? Does globalization work in different ways in different localities?
Regarding globalization and art, do practices in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere challenge the traditional assumptions and value judgments that are the basis of the Western canon? Are Western institutions rethinking that canon or simply adding art from other places to their rosters in a token and uncritical gesture of inclusivity? How do curated exhibitions that address themes of globalization represent artists from various parts of the world? The expanding art market and the proliferation of biennials and art fairs helped a select group of artists from every continent to gain an international presence; but have the underlying structure and values of the art market changed otherwise?
Visual culture
In the 21st century visual culture has grown as a recognized interdisciplinary field of study, taking a multi-faceted approach to understanding how images of all types communicate and participate in the construction of identity, gender, class, power relationships, and other social and political meanings and values. Medicine, science, politics, consumer culture, and religion and spirituality are some of the arenas that visual culture studies examine along with art. Visual culture scholars analyze film, television, graphic novels, fashion design, and other forms of popular culture in addition to established fine art media such as painting, and they draw upon many methodologies and theories, including semiotics, sociology, psychoanalysis, reception theory, feminism, and the concept of the gaze, to name a few.
Just as visual culture scholars are examining images and media of all types so, too, are 21st-century artists drawing inspiration, imagery, materials, and concepts from diverse areas of culture, moving well beyond influences from the history of fine art and design. The world of professional sports and fanatic fans has been a topic for Paul Pfeiffer, while the commercial television industry has informed various video installations by Christian Jankowski.
Most contemporary artists do not draw rigid distinctions between high art and popular culture. For instance, a number of contemporary artists embrace traditional techniques of fiber art but use them to create unorthodox forms or address current social and political issues. Along these lines, Ghada Amer has used thread to embroider on canvas repeated motifs of nude women engaged in sexual acts, then partially obscured the embroidered images with gestural painted brushstrokes. Her themes include the expression and repression of female sexuality and eroticism in both Western and Islamic societies. Another example of intermixing visual cultures is the complex array of interactions between science and contemporary art, with many artists engaging with scientific imagery and ideas in their practice. For example, Wim Delvoye’s ongoing series called Cloaca imagines humans as cyborgs, representing the human digestive system as a kind of biomechanical contraption. Finally, many 21st-century artists are deeply affected by their immersion in global visual culture, which is now made vividly present through online networks. Many artists maintain a personal website, and some create art expressly for dissemination through social media. As always, new technologies provide new opportunities and challenges.
One of the oldest iconic portraits that guide me is the Leonardo`s self portrait from back in the 16 th century. It is called the portrait of a man in red chalk, trying to represent a man portrait in his late 60`s , an portrait who is trying to say more than the character of his subject, telling to us an completely story of the cultural period. Is can describe Leonardo at his best, a man who embrace the new, who try to make everything in a completely different manner, as we can see the man is facing the other side his attention, has the had tilted to left (type of representation witch we can find in prophets or philosophers), and even the idea to use just simple basic elements like chalk and paper ( making it really fragile, and because of the age now has some unrepairably damages) not a real oil portrait suggest this époque of a renaissance new type of man.
Another thematic portrait of art world dated slightly before the Leonardo one, is the Albert Durer portrait as a young artist called Self portrait at 26. From the name we can say sure that this is a self portrait, comparing to Leonardo one were we just presume.
In the manner that Leonardo presents himself as a different person, slightly supreme, this portrait has a bit more of a description of the enviroment ( the outside world from the window ) and the time period; it is more like a story of his experience during his visit to Italy. The middleground of the pleasing flat plain and lake may represent his travels from 1492 to 1497, yet they are shadowed by steep mountainous glaciers; forebodings of what lay in store. Dürer's youthful character was enthusiastic, adventurous and inhibited, and after he left his hometown of Nuremberg in 1490 to travel as journeyman painter he was able to live his early youth with abandon. By the time this portrait was painted he was back home, and old enough to begin to accept responsibilities.
This particular feeling of look back we can see in his eyes expression, the left one being slightly upper in position, wondering on the life he lived, and somehow looking onward for his future, somehow detached of his youth crazy experience.
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On the other hand, one of his more famous portraits is this one, an more matured person with a different approach, but on a difference of just 2 years. His main inspiration we can say that it is religion, the christian representation of Jesus Christ, the most important one, called after the greek therm of Pantokrator (πᾶν, pan pantos = all and κράτος,kratos= creator), Almighty or All-powerful, Creator. This pose ass well as this status is the supreme status, witch define Duhrer as a person who aspire to the perfectionism and have an very specific focus on symetry, and all the last details has an huge importance. The portrait commemorates a turning point in his life and in the period era: the year 1500, displayed in the centre of the upper left background field, is here celebrated as epochal, and once again a sign of perfectionism. Moreover, the placing of the year 1500 above his signature initials, A.D., gives them an added meaning as an abbreviation of anon domini.
On the bottom part of this image there is an more important detail, the presence of his hand in form of blessing, an kind of Good Lord blessing offered perhaps to us his discipoles.
The lightning choice we can see the influence of the italian art world experience he uses a lot of the renaissance technique, chiaroscuro creating an big depth and contrast and maybe defining his idea of perfectionism, witch realistically can not be achieved, therefore been more like a mask
Other portrait that has my attention it is the Van Gogh self portrait, called Self-portrait without beard, from September 1889, an one of a kind who tells us a lot of his life, his experiences.
As we know Van Gogh experienced a lot throughout his lifetime, many times experienced severe situations like poverty or loneliness, but despite this somehow he managed to present us a real strong person illustrated in his self- portraits. An person who sometimes was having different luxurious elements and behaviour, like hats or tobacco pipe, or working in front of his painting easel.
But in this portrait, we have the real Van Gogh, we have the man who is telling us his story, his life, his critic moment and somehow embrace the idea, his posing still, proofing that he has dignity and expecting the worse, but his eyes are really crying somehow, full of sadness and depress, slightly looking downwards, even the background has a round shape, an sign of his unconsistancy.
This was Van Gogh's last self-portrait, given as a birthday gift to his mother.
Coming to start of the 20th century, photography begin to be used on a large scale, and as was expected at first it was representing an large and cheap way of self expression, of a portrait.
There are a couple of artist who adopted photography and used it in a creative way to create an original style; first the most known maybe is the Salvador Dali portrait took by Philip Helsman, an artist gone from Austria to France experienced the nazist policy, and even prison.
In 1941 Halsman met the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and they began to collaborate in the late 1940s.
This way of collaboration between the new form of art and the classic painting create iconic images, and the portrait famous and really representing Dali, the person who embrace the new ideas and the form of expression different from the normal regular arts, an outcome of an portrait who has an technical perfection on it but more than that it is an real intriguing representation.
Dali is the person who look for different, the philosophic way of representation the outcome with his eyes in a perhaps unreal pose looking like he is digging for an interrogative presion, and the touch on his moustache an sense of artistic touché, like a signature and an feeling of maybe animal instinct feline.
Another distinctive element is the slight presence of his neck and corner of his body telling us to never focus on his body looking but straight to his mind, his thinking.
From this collaboration we have an later representation looking to his art work and his surreal style, this is the 1948 work Dali Atomicus, witch explores the idea of suspension, depicting three cats flying, a bucket of thrown water, and Salvador Dalí in mid air. The title of the photograph is a reference to Dalí’s work Leda Atomica which can be seen in the right of the photograph behind the two cats. Halsman reported that it took 28 attempts to be satisfied with the result. Halsman and Dali eventually released a compendium of their collaborations in the 1954 book Dali’s Mustache, which features 36 different views of the artist’s distinctive mustache. Another famous collaboration between the two was In Voluptas Mors, a surrealistic portrait of Dali beside a large skull, in fact a tableau vivant composed of seven nudes. Halsman took three hours to arrange the models according to a sketch by Dali. A version of In Voluptas Mors was used subtly in the poster for the film The Silence of The Lambs, and recreated in a poster for the film The Descent.
For me another artist from the same era and location, as Paris was the centre of the art world, but with a different background, abstract sculpting, it is the romanian born, Constantin Brancusi the student of the well known artist Auguste Rodin. He ass well as Dali has revolutionised the art world and especially sculpting, but he works and experimented with different arts like photography in this instance.
Being an well known and successful artist in Paris he had access to the best camera equipment and started to use it at first as an documentary object at first but eventually he started to take self portraits ass well.
In this particular case we have an mid `30s portrait of him, in his atelier having an moment of silence, maybe meditation. We can see the idea of perfectionism and symmetry on this image, but also are represented some works of his witch later on will make him famous.
He has this feeling of loneliness, of sadness, even though it is an well known fact that he was really integrated in the social and art life of his Paris, his circle of friends included artists and intellectuals aso Amadio Modigliani and Pablo Picasso( with witch he had the common interest in mythology and the african mask representation), Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp. Even with his large friends circle he feel like an immigrant always rememorize his life in early romaninan village and traditions.
This feeling it is largely present in the artists life as they belong to this world, have an social circle but they always are alone, with their dreams, their up and downs, this is perhaps the opposite of the other artists i analysed, as the others had an sort of more pride and overall feeling of supreme position, Brancusi way of looking downwards and even the fact that his legs are cut in the edge of the picture suggest he is always having an fight inside and the big need of leaving near his roots.
Kander Nadav
Nadav Kander is an well known London based photographer from a background of hebrew family, living and travelling around the world, working in armed air forces, where he come across photography as an technician.
His work varies from landscapes to portraits and camera less experiments, product photography, but the most important part is portraits. Kander's best known portrait, images of Barack Obama photographed for The New York Times Magazine as a cover feature, made him famous, but more important is a series of 52 full page colour portraits published in one issue of The New York Times Magazine. These portraits (from a series titled Obama's People) were of the people surrounding President Barack Obama, from Joe Biden (Vice President) to Eugene Kang. The same issue also included a series of cityscapes of Washington DC also taken by Kander. This is the largest portfolio of work by the same photographer The New York Times Magazine has ever showcased in one single issue, an proof of the importance of his work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP4twN7187g
An article about the Nadav exhibition on National Portrait Gallery explain a bit of his approacing and style.
Aiming High: The Portraiture Of Nadav Kander by Nicole Rae
(http://fadedandblurred.com/articles/aiming-high-the-portraiture-of-nadav-kander/)
,, He has a brilliant eye that very few photographers have and is able to shoot extremely unique images. His portraits are amazing. He seems to be able to capture something in people that you don’t see very often. They are genuine in that they never look posed or overly polished. He explains how he achieves this in the video, saying that he doesn’t talk much at all during shoots. He likes the connection and tension that happens when you first meet someone and lets that feeling work for him. He puts his trust in his instincts, knowing he and the subject can work together to get what he wants without using a lot of words, relying instead on body language. He says, “I really like the connection that human beings have when there isn’t a great knowledge, like when you first meet people. I would find it very, very hard to photograph a friend well, or to photograph someday that I knew well. I think that that tension when you first meet people allows you to communicate without speaking.” In every photography class I’ve ever taken, when working with people, the advice has always been to talk to your subject and make them feel comfortable. That’s when, supposedly, you get the most honest and interesting photographs. Kander, however, is just the opposite and has developed a non-verbal approach, even a shorthand, if you will, that allows him to make incredible images that really capture the essence of his subjects. "
Barrack Obama
This particular image on an classic style of black and white, others in colours one of them had intentioned some kind of green tent, or blue, reflects on Obama, in a different manner. He is illustrated different from the official images, more of a natural feeling, more like a kid of snapshot.
Obama looks more having an feeling of an ordinary member of the public on one hand, even than he is an important person and the first colour president of US, somehow Kander try to take the attention from his position and focus to his person, revealing the man Barrack, rather than seeing it as the President Obama.
An reflection really interesting focussed, of course even on the series Obama`s Peoples as they are on the end peoples as us, but who has that little who makes the huge difference.
We can see the president having an normal haircut, an natural head pose, eyes opened looking straight on a side with no contact to the camera maybe not even noticing the artist presence, but still we know very well that this is an pose as the light source is really obvious in his eyes, telling us that still on the other hand this is what the artist want to achieve.
An natural posing more like stealed of a normal person with a huge responsibilities, this is Obama`s portrait, an portrait in witch if we didm`t know it is Obama the subject we could say that it was just an normal shot of a person, maybe a catalogue shooting or perhaps an casting.
Another interesting portrait is this one who has different reflections and inspirations looking even to the old neo classicism art, the painting Marat Assasinated of Jaques Louis David.
The subject is an well known actor, who is posing as an lying down almost death, in an immortal feeling of science fiction movie, looking through an window, giving an effect of ghost presence or soul lifting to sky in an outfit unreal, an white shirt of the last century inspiration and an jeans/trousers in black, a modern touch, reflecting to the new and old in the same body, but a body with no life.
The hand left a bit suspended in air is telling us that it has an unfinished story to tell or maybe an wish to complete, often an frustrating moment specific to the dying persons, like Marat holds the letter in his hand, another link to the old part.
Gael Garcia Bernal Woman on Tv
Another portrait of the Nadav work has my attention by the way he use and links 2 different classic lightning technics like chiaroscuro and the rembrandt lightning, used in a mysterious way.
The subject it is an american well known comedian, represented in a interesting manner, looking straight to the lightning source with his eye, when his head it is a bit tilted, creating this effect dramatic of highlitning important parts of face anatomy.
Having only one eye covered in light gives us the impression of covering a part of his character, teaching us to expect the unexpected, and even the contrast with the black background is giving the impression of a man mask rather than an portrait.
Chevy Chase
Another portrait from Nadav, this time a woman portrait, having Florence Welch as an subject, an english singer and musician, presented in a manner reflecting to the old renaissance painting of Raphael Maddona, with a green tent, an posure with large gesture a bit trying to discover the woman shape but keeping it in a classic and feminine way.
She is having an lack of confidence in her eyes looking towards the left corner, begging more for an divine action, searching for an help of an authority.
Florence Welch- Florence and the Machine
Platon
Platon it is an London based- photographer with his father being originally a greek national.
He is specialised in portrait work, especially front magazines covers and the commission work for different companies advertising campaign.
Despite Nadav portrait of Obama who has an natural feeling of an famous person, Platon is well known for an portrait of an opposite person in a opposite way. The portrait it is portrait of Vladimir Putin commissioned for an british publication, Time Magazine 2007 , as man of the year section, and represented as an powerful man, an scarring look, and even giving him an status of the Tsar, an status used in the last century for the Russians Kings as they were the supreme power.
This idea of looking to an pearson, and giving him the power of institution he run, it is at least for me wrong, an conception who is not making justice to the old Tsar`s but not even to the new russian leadership, making him totally away of this open world policy, giving the impression of undeserved power, for a man who has an limited time to run the institution, not like the institution who lives as long as the country is still alive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z33oAure9Zk
Searching through the Art section of his website i come across some images, featuring obviously artists in their environment, an former approach which i used it ass well, maybe because i had a lack of inspiration and clue of research, but having an pose more like surreal, but still connected, like being an whole body with their work.
Representing the idea of born, the mother artist is close to his work and somehow trying to protect it, an allusion maybe to the art world and perhaps the lack of proper exhibits of contemporary art work.
Object
American author Naomi Klein book is grossly out of bed to petty concerns that suffocates us, if not all clocks day. By reading it, somewhere on page 200, I wrote briefly of a good friend, "a terrifying reading." Now that we have closed the volume, continue to endorse the statement by then. Shock doctrine ... requires us first as a contemporary history book, dense and rigorously documented. But most of the hundreds and thousands of details that we are made aware, the work of scholars deal, is the analysis of a paradigm whose coordinates we appear to be difficult if not impossible to refuse. It is a work prepared by a journalist whose raw material is the daily media gained in the past 50 years, an impressive amount of information extracted, screened and carefully triturated in an effort worth putting into perspective history of mentalities. It is a good quality editorial longest that I have ever read.
A reading (things) terrible, of course, how could it be otherwise approach cynicism that lies behind most of the economic theories that are presented to us today as technical, purely axiomatic that, above and beyond any debate alternative . When I started it, if I were asked, I would be defined without blinking as a human right. At its end, I understood that right-left binomial born in the days before the French Revolution no longer has any sense, just outside unless we are willing to equate the right, on the one hand and astronomical planetary scale enrichment a few people at the expense of processing millions of other people in humanity surplus. If neoconservatism is all that remains of Joseph de Maistre's right, I personally have nothing in common with this monstrosity. And if left requires access all God's children to eat their fill, a warm and care, then yes, I have always been and are a lefty.
Weapons and caviar
Home Shock Doctrine thesis is that something fundamental has changed in recent years, especially since the fall of communism. Something impact so disconcerting that not only deserves to be understood, even should, as far as at least virtually, to all of us and each one, perhaps in terms of personal survival. If someone would ask me personally how profound this change, I would say that as important as the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in case something ever held. What is it? Collective education impregnated hundred years following axiom: prosperity exist in peacetime, while war brings famine, disease, poverty and destruction. Recent behavior of a tiny economic indicator seems to contradict the wisdom of nations: his name is guns-to-caviar index.
Its calculation is based on the sale of fighter jets and aircraft for managers of international corporations. The idea is simple: you go war, business decline. And vice versa. Almost twenty years, guns-to-caviar index validated what we all know. Naturally, there was always a handful of managers who take advantage of the war itself, but it was about an economically insignificant amount. Since 2003, however, the year of the invasion of Iraq, this indicator has been turned upside down: spending on luxury jets and military planes grew hand in hand. If hermeneutics is correct, global instability does not affect profits for sellers of weapons, but also to other economic sectors: high-tech security, construction, private health, oil and gas. And the interpretation is quite correct: today stock not fall during the wars, but grow!
How is this possible? Through a transformation whose amplitude escapes us, but that is equivalent to 1000 km slippage of tectonic plates, with rats all. Let's say someone, based on the idea that the private sector is more efficient and more cost effective than the public sector would get the idea that in the name of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, it should be privatized. Everything. Not only highways, hospitals, schools, sanitation, but also firefighters, police, intelligence services, IRS, Army. Sounds like a childish dream, lead-would the night? No. It's a nightmare. It has already been experienced in several places. And it's underway. What they have in common: Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship, Argentina during the military junta, Bolivia '80s, Philippines during Ferdinand Marcos, Uruguay's Juan Maria Bordaberry, Poland after Solidarity won the elections, the time China Market Tiananmen, South Africa during Nelson Mandela's presidency, Russia's Boris Yeltsin, Asian Tigers crisis (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea), the war in Iraq, the tsunami in Sri Lanka and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans? One thing: guns and caviar.
Gangsters and economists
If the U.S. city of Chicago would be put in a position to delegate the task of representing personality in history, its citizens would be prey to a profound dilemma: Al Capone or Milton Friedman? First made his fortune selling alcohol during Prohibition and asasinând any threatening its business. The second was far more dangerous: he was an economist and teach at the university. As a scientist, believes that when the economy is distorted, must be properly delivered painful shocks. The premise of his theories was that the "free market" is a perfect science, one in which individuals acting to satisfy their selfish desires create maximum benefit for all. As Marxists, Friedman and his formulated some strict rules to be followed: first of all, governments must remove all rules and regulations in the way of accumulation of profit. Then you have to sell everything that makes up the public corporations can make a profit from them. Finally, to dramatically cut spending on social programs.
Deregulation, privatization and spending cuts. Taxes must go. Rich and poor to be taxed the same percentage. Corporations should be able to sell their products anywhere in the world, and governments to do nothing to protect local industries. All prices, including wages, to be determined by the market. Without minimum wage. It should be privatized health, e, education, pensions, national parks. It is, in short, the catechism of the new ideology. Pure capitalism without unions, without borders, without any competition rule (almost forgot: get rich or die trying!). You do not have to be a doctor in economics to realize that the dogmas Friedmanism oscillates between economic war and economic genocide. By comparison, spirits monopoly established and maintained bullets Al Capone was a true work of charity for thirsty throats.
The question whether the government must give up to protect domestic producers (dereglementând) and the less wealthy citizens (ending social programs), which is dealing with after a few farthings sell national assets? The semantic map. State apparatus "performance", ie reduced to a handful of individuals should behave according to Milton Friedman as a transmission belt to collect taxes from citizens and distribute large corporations. Without public tender. Without the ability to check, and possibly penalize them for failure of contracts. The same people in public service, and shareholder associations, so no conflict of interest. The state withdrew entirely from the economy becomes humble lackey of big corporations, and kappo relentlessly for its citizens. In a speech, the manager of a large corporation said: "Think not that I have anything against the government, that I would somehow disappear. The reality is that just want to be so small that it can go in a bathtub and drowned him. "A government so small-bathed in a pot ...
Torture mass
For more than three decades, Friedman and his fans have perfected the following strategy: Pending major crisis, then selling piece by piece to the States to private economic players while citizens still have not recovered from the shock, then making "reforms" something permanent. If the war in Iraq, the tsunami in Sri Lanka and the hurricane in New Orleans, a process called "reconstruction" began by perfecting original disaster by erasing all that was left of the public sphere and organic communities, passing then to replace them with a kind of new-Jerusalem-the-corporations, all before the victims of war or natural disaster to be able to organize and defend what belongs to them. According to journalist Naomi Klein, shock doctrine resume large scale which makes torture in CIA interrogations. Place "deleting mental structures" for the prisoner / company to reach tabula rasa. Perpetrators fulfill their purpose brain attacking everything that interferes with its normal operation. In Latin America were organized coups were kidnapped, tortured and disappeared tens of thousands of people were fired discretionary rights demonstrators. In Russia, Boris Yeltsin army surrounded the Parliament building and burned it with shells and machine-gun fire. In Iraq, all state employees (military, doctors and nurses, teachers, police) were fired overnight by decree of Paul Bremer, under the guise of-Baath-ificării. Deng Xiaoping in Tiananmen Square killed thousands of peaceful protesters, injuring tens of thousands.
There was a harmony between the "free market" and mass terror. Dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the first political accountability Chicago School theories has resulted in 3,200 missing persons or executed, at least 80,000 people imprisoned, more than 200,000 political refugees. Chilean economy contracted by 15% and unemployment, which was 3% under President Salvator Allende, climbed to 20%. In 1982, despite strict adherence to the doctrine of Milton Friedman, the Chilean economy had the explosion of external debt, hyperinflation and 30% unemployment. It seems that the only thing that saved Chile from collapse was the fact that the dictator never dared to privatize the copper mines Coldeco, which generates 85% of government revenues alone. Years later, in Iraq, the American occupiers confiscated simply oil, which produces nearly 90% of government revenues, in favor of U.S. companies, condemning indigenous perpetual poverty. The exact number of those killed to impose neoliberalism in Latin America has never been calculated, somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000. The vast majority were not members of armed groups, but non-violent activists in factories, farms, universities. They were economists, artists, psychologists and union leaders. In short, anyone represent a vision of society built on something other than pure profit.
In Bolivia, after applying shock therapy, the number of those who pay contributions to social protection has declined between 1983 and 1988 to 61%. But as said a representative of a union of peasants' government statistics do not reflect the number of people forced to live in tents; tens of thousands of malnourished children who receive only a piece of bread and a cup of maté tea per day, thousands of campesinos who come to the capital looking for work and end up begging on the street. "In Poland, shock therapy led to 30% decrease in industrial production in the first 2 years of the reform. Unemployment soared, reaching 25% in some areas. Even when the economy resumed work, unemployment has stayed chronically (according to World Bank statistics, Poland now has an unemployment rate of 20%). Chicago Style To require therapy in Russia, President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the legislative body, suspended Constitutional Court (created by Mikhail Gorbachev) and constitution, sent tanks to patrol the streets, imposed press censorship. In 1989, two million Russians lived below the poverty line, on less than $ 4 per day. In the mid-'90s, after he had administered shock therapy "bitter medicine", 74 million people were living below the poverty line, according to World Bank statistics. Of these, 37 million living in poverty considered "desperate."
What is to allow free movement of capital? Means to expose the disaster which hit the Asian Tigers. In the '90s, these countries provide an economic miracle image that had nothing to do with theories of economists in Chicago. Strictly protected domestic capital pomegranate. They made the mistake, however, to allow access of foreign investors in the capital markets. It was a rumor reached the stock market, one: that Thailand does not have sufficient freely convertible currencies to protect their national currency. Western investors began to withdraw funds, selling chaotic. Because there were differences between Asian countries has grown folly: follow Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea. The situation could recover by providing an external loan, only international organizations came out with a common message: No help Asia! Catastrophe in the eyes of Americans as an opportunity in disguise.
What they had in common Asian Tigers outside breakneck speed with that developed? Refusal "free market", materialized by severe laws restricting globalization. Foreigners were not allowed to buy land and domestic companies. State play a significant role in the economy, maintaining monopoly key sectors. Many of imports from Japan, Europe and the U.S. were simply blocked. For the Chicago School, this reality was unacceptable. For months after challenging capital crisis, the IMF refused to grant aid that could ease the situation. When, finally, negotiations, Prime Minister of Malayeziei, Mahathir Mohamad, has refused to participate in them: "I do not want to destroy the economy of my country do better." Financial apocalypse price already being paid 24 million people have already lost their jobs. Thailand lost 2,000 jobs daily during the "reforms", ie 60,000 per month. In South Korea - 30,000 per month, mostly as a result of IMF requirements to reduce unnecessary spending. In Indonesia, the unemployment rate has tripled in two years. According to the World Bank, 20 million Asians have fallen into poverty during this period. Prostitution and the sale of children recorded a boom.
When the IMF has finished the job, property sale Asian Tigers were nothing. In two years, changed the face of Asia, hundreds of local companies were eliminated in favor of multinationals. A terrible tragedy was exploited to access foreign capital in domestic markets. All that had been built for decades by Korean Thai Filipino, Indonesian, had been cut in pieces, put up for auction and then disposed to remove competition with imports. It is true that the IMF is "stabilized" the economy, which makes this organism is usually, but this balance is throwing millions of people across the board: public sector workers, small business owners, subsistence farmers, trade unionists. The great secret of "stabilization" is that people no longer take water never climb back. Except Malayeziei, other Asian countries are now markets for American products.
The Final Frontier
Among the many mechanisms of subjugation in developing countries, one of the most effective was "debt shock" or "debt crisis". The United States has borrowed many of these countries, then rose as interest rates unilaterally so that to meet the payments, they were forced to take out new loans. The situation was so disastrous that the debt of Brazil, for example, exploded, doubling from 50 to 100 billion in just six years. In the same period, Nigeria's debt increased from 9 to 29 billion. Each time the loans were granted by the IMF and the World Bank provided the borrower to sign a list of axioms considered as the minimum necessary for economic health. This masquerade presented as a technical and beyond any doubt, include ideological claims like "state enterprises to be privatized" and "barriers to entry of foreign firms should be abolished." In other words, you want to save your country? Then sell it.
And if all is to sell your land, then necessarily it to do at the market price, meaning nothing. In Russia, an oil company the largest that has France has sold 88 million USD. Norilsk Nickel, which produces a fifth of the world's nickel, was given 170 million dollars, while its profit reaches $ 1.5 billion annually. Yukos oil company, which controls more oil than Kuwait, was sold for 309 million USD. Now has revenues exceeding $ 3 billion annually. 51% of the oil giant Sidanko went for 130 million USD. Today, the stock is valued at $ 2.8 billion scholarship. A huge weapons factory was traded against 3 million USD, ie the price of a holiday in Aspen. However, these privatizations have enormous discontent economists at Chicago state assets were sold strictly nomenklaturiştilor native prohibiting any access to foreign capital.
What lies behind the rhetoric of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School? An exercise of colonial conquest, under postmodernism. After all, the message is simply a reminder economist parody of the famous statements of Adam Smith, that the market would have natural control mechanisms, the invisible hand who arranges things without any authority having to intervene in any way. I do not know if British ancestor foolishness is greater than that of contemporary America. But for everyone it is clear that deregulation of markets is similar gesture to throw some fish in a sea aquarium where sharks writhing. We fly a mine happy, we have only Tell us that the fish are as free as predators, the reality is that there is never a Carasius auratus fed with a blue whale. Although not without freedom to do here we do not have doubts.
In a world where the white spots are gone unexplored lands, multinationals found themselves without "wild and barbarous nations" that make the charm of colonialism. And then thought to produce. Eliminating laws that protect domestic capital, colonial grabs today what yesterday's colonialists called "empty land" in exchange for glass beads. But today these "empty land" are postal services, national parks, schools, social security services, etc.. The state is now the last frontier, and conquistador multinational him prey to the same aplomb he showed her predecessor who left home to search for gold in the Andes. What do the telephone system in Chile, Argentina airlines, oil fields in Russia, the transmission of water in Bolivia, factories in Poland? All were worth the effort made public and then sold glass beads.
Apogee and decline of an ideology
Milton Friedman died. The ravages ideology "free market" are so obvious, that in many parts of the world is very hard to find a man who has not directly experienced the effects of the shock doctrine. After being stunned repeatedly, many have learned to be careful this time. Once the shock doctrine mechanisms were fully understood, whole communities become harder to take by surprise increasingly more difficult to get confused. Lebanon after the war in 2006 was the first lesson of a nation is no longer willing to accept the poisoned gifts. With damage estimated at $ 9 billion, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora was ready to receive loans from the IMF and the community of states in Europe and the U.S. in exchange for well-known ideological imperative. But Lebanon had a similar experience, gained in the previous war with Israel. The same cycle: destruction - loans - alienation. People remember how happy that the war had ended, the streets were rebuilt. Up to their senses, but everything was sold, borrowed money had built private fortunes, they pay just those who were forbidden access to the facilities new rich.
Lebanese have not wanted to swallow the second time the same scam. And the government must resign. In parallel, Hezbollah movement began rebuilding, stone by stone fireplace with fireplace. Families affected by the bombing received 12.000 USD for spending next year, which is four times more than the U.S. government had refugees from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, as remarked journalists Ana Nogueira and Saseen Kawzally. Version adopted by the political force not covered building five-star hotels, as in Kabul or Olympic pools for police, as in Iraq. To avoid the negative experience of survivors in Sri Lanka, in aid of which were built hotels on the beach. Local labor was employed, not in Iraq, where "reconstruction" was made by foreign workers in a country where unemployment reached 70-80%.
Latin America woke her from lethargy. In November 2006, Rafael Correa, the leftist economist, defeat in elections Alvaro Noboa of Ecuador, one of the richest men in the country. Correa campaign appealed to "overcome aberrations neoliberalism" and declared World Bank officials persona non grata in his own country. In Bolivia, President Evo Morales nationalized the natural gas resources of the multinationals "predatory". Chile and Argentina are led by politicians who declare publicly that they are against experiments in Chicago School made their countries. Both Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and the Argentine Néstor Kirchner, were imprisoned during previous dictatorships. Socialism! We can now think in ideological terms, however, adherence to keeping our real? What is now building in Latin America has little in common with the socialist doctrine. Less centralized as in the 60s, much harder movements demolished if a few leaders beheaded. Breaking ties with the U.S. economic theories when Venezuela, Costa Rica, Argentina and Uruguay announced that they refuse to send students to the School of the Americas. More radical than all, Rafael Correa refused to renew understanding for hosting the largest U.S. military bases in South America.
Something extremely bothersome to Friedman, but for Stalin seems to happen. In Brazil, a million and a half of former farmers who lived in the garbage at city asked unused land to resume his old life. In Argentina, two hundred bankrupt factories were resuscitated workers, they have turned into cooperative owners. Hugo Chávez has made the development of cooperatives in Venezuela a priority. Meanwhile, in the United States, giant Halliburton after the U.S. government treated as a personal ATM, only winning the war in Iraq over 20 billion USD, refusing to hire workers from Iraq, expressing gratitude to the American taxpayer moving and headquarters in Dubai. Rejecting the North American dream of a free trade area from Alaska to Terra del Fuego, Bolivia Bolivian Alternative for the Americas proposed (ALBA), based on barter, in which each country suggests that produces better, instead of what needs independent of global market prices. Instead of leaving them to be decided by traders in New York and London, South Americans prefer to establish themselves. IMF supreme power in the 90s, starting to not have no place on the continent. In 2005, South American portfolio amounted to 80% of loans international body - in 2007, only 1%. With the revenue from oil, Venezuela began to lend to developing countries. Surrounded by turbulent financial waters, Latin America builds a zone of relative economic calm and predictability, that is something that globalization believes it would be impossible.
In the words of Milton Friedman died, leading to his grave an ideology that has worked hard to hide a dirty secret: he had never been anywhere, voted. Although strongly affirm that democracy and free markets go hand in hand, desperately needed to eliminate all those who thought that the fish can not swim in the aquarium with sharks and whales same place. The hypocrisy grosonală "scientist" who designed it personally went to give lessons criminals worldwide economy (Augusto Pinochet and Deng Xiaoping are the most notable name), later claiming that there is no connection between ideas its massacres and torture committed in plain sight. Today, some of Friedman's students complained of genocide and comparing the dock in countries who have exercised political activity. His fellow-citizen, gangster Al Capone, is guilty of several murders committed in cold blood. Professor Milton Friedman Divine Justice accountable for hundreds of thousands of dead and missing, tens of millions of hungry, oppressed and disinherited of the world. Terrible price for some mental constructions which have proved effective when they were never implemented, enriching the already super-rich just astronomical. If ever someone would ask me who I prefer between the two, I opt not regret Capone. It was much less dangerous than an economics professor, and when promised thirsty spirits, kept his word!
Personality of one of the most cited scientists in the world and probably the greatest debater in life, Chomsky dismounted punctual idea that we are facing a crisis pass, similar to that of 1930. Unlike that time, humanity is facing and a crisis of hope, of confidence that things can evolve in the right direction. As an example, it cited lack of social activism of people around the world who are more concerned about not changing for the better the system, but the system tapping into the powerful, influential political and financial.
Chomsky's position is no different from those who accuse rush profit system issued by any moral consideration. As I mentioned on previous occasions, there are many right-wing political leaders consider economic crisis a simple effect of total confidence in the justice market. In fact, it is really very difficult to believe that a market that is driven solely by the principle of economic efficiency can make decisions in favor of the ordinary people who make a living from salary (possibly from the budget), which is the affected by the economic crisis. In this sense brings into question the disappearance of political parties and replace them with party affairs, a superposed classes delegated to make decisions for everyone, but only for some. Again, sounds familiar?
The solution to these problems? I'll allow me to reiterate my own position. Mutation is necessary for capitalism with responsibility, able to reglemeteze balance between economic efficiency and social responsibility. World economic system does not work properly for a while, and political decisions target ceased to fairness and universal citizen representation. This economic crisis does nothing to motivate us stronger in our society to identify problems and find solutions to overcome them.
Decreased interest in usual political citizen is an effect of the fact that the policy failed to give solutions. Moreover, even if the policy offers good solutions, the citizen has so little trust in politics, and they deny that they priori. And as in any important issue resolution must come from treating the causes, not the effects. It is necessary to treat generalized cynicism with ideas, projects, with as much attention to the future. Stimulating civil society. With genuine participatory democracy. We all know about the needs of policy for many years. Perhaps, faced with a watershed moment as this economic crisis, we managed to transform into reality. In Romania, this fall preferable.
Nadav Kander
I find through Kander website a couple of series more linking to my conception of global crises.
One of the image represents the cover of her series an is showing to us an part of an leg sculpture resting on the
The alternative Limb Project
Signs That We Exist
Cameraless Studies nadav
