| Re: Conspiracy theorist or media mogul?, exhibit preview by Wes Lafortune, Visual Arts, July 10 - 16
Was Wes Lafortune’s article an art critique or a political statement? If it was an art critique, how does one critique something he has yet to see? His criticism of Richard Metzger got me thinking: why do we as artists, lefties, politico revolutionaries, critique one another at every available opportunity?
This is the problem any revolutionary movement has, especially "the movement," as it has been termed by Naomi Klein, author of Fences and Windows and No Logo. This is why it is next to impossible to organize and unite people. This is why giant organized protests don’t seem to make much sense, as the agenda is never clear. There will always be critics, criticizing their own.
Certainly, Mr. Lafortune may not be anything like Mr. Metzger, nor does he have to get a kick out of his marketing tactics. He has to concede, however, that Mr. Metzger, through whichever means he has chosen, is making his voice heard by a global audience. Isn’t that the point? Don’t we want alternative voices echoing through mainstream media? At least he is making a public comment about the state of the media.
Michael Moore used corporate sponsors to keep The Awful Truth on the air, and then plugged his sponsors via ex-cons. Ralph Nader is another example – using a public, highly visible political forum, he changed the face of politics and removed the mask of the democrat much to the dismay of many lefties.
The world is a big place, and though small voices can be vehicles of change, it’s the big booming ones that are going to get the attention of this apathetic continent. Why be part of the problem and not part of the solution?
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