Laura Bush

Just got an email from my friend Susan well worth passing on; it's an article in Frieze Magazine written by her sister, Nancy Spector, who is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim and Commissioner of the US Pavilion for the Venice Biennale 2007.

The impact of the Bush administration on the art world, I always thought, was confined to its serving as malignant inspiration for any number of deprecatory pieces. We tend to forget that they have their hands on the slender levers of the government's arts funding; and lo and behold, the results are the same rot we've come to expect everywhere.

When I received a gold-engraved card from the White House inviting me to a reception to launch the administration’s new Global Cultural Initiative, I thought at first that it must have been an art-world prank – perhaps a tactical media intervention by the Critical Art Ensemble. But then I realized it was my current role as the commissioner of the US Pavilion for the 2007 Venice Biennale that had earned me this unexpected distinction. The correlation between the Bush White House and culture seemed oxymoronic to me; the title ‘Global Cultural Initiative’ does, after all, have the same vague propagandistic ring and sinister undertones as ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.

Set in the White House’s grand East Room lined with portraits of past presidents, the presentation was introduced by Laura Bush, who reminisced about the influence of culture during the Cold War, citing the Voice of America’s broadcasting of jazz music into the Soviet Union as a catalyst for the dissolution of communism. Under-Secretary of State Karen Hughes, Bush’s personal propaganda tsar, proceeded to outline the multiple-agency programme, stating that ‘art and culture can play a vital role in helping achieve our strategic public diplomacy goals’. She stopped short of explaining what those goals might actually be.

So not only are there goals, to the delighted astonishment of the world, but they can be achieved through jazz. Nobody knows, of course, if Osama bin Laden is a jazz fan. Perhaps if we'd actually, you know, caught the man, we'd know.

Whitehouse.gov photo of Ford's casket at the White House Rotunda

I wish I could get a screen-cap of what I just saw now on CNN --and I have been switching channels to see if I can get a better look at the seating arrangement on the left-hand side of the aisle.

Almost all of the Bush family is sitting in the front of the left-hand side aisle. Jimmy Carter and his wife are in the front row along with Nancy Reagan and Laura Bush. Condoleezza Rice is on the third row behind Bush I, his wife and one of their daughters.

Oh! I saw the Clintons.

As Bush is walking down the aisle with Ford's widow, I caught a glimpse of the Clintons. They are sitting to the left of one of the Bush daughters. Off-center and almost off-camera.

Also interesting ... they put Betty Ford with her immediate family on the right, away from the politically charged seating that was arranged on the left side.

The seating on those 3 front rows on the left side say way too much of the effed-up politics of United States. Talk about nepotism and The South controlling politics in the post-Civil Rights Movement Unites States.

ps : Did I just saw Dick Cheney express an emotion? He actually looked sad!