Algo de historiografía del arte, siglos XIX-XX

The joy of visual transgression

I'm sitting here, drinking a delicious hot chocolate. This Starbucks Café is quite cosy. The employees even know me by now. There's something, though, which kinda irritates me. This café is full of nothing but technocrats and all sorts of right-wingers. I mean, there's lots of them. The usual gay couple comes and goes, but the crowd is mainly preppy, speaks with the disdainfully assertive accent of the Mexican Uper White (class?) and comes here to sort out businesses and stuff. At times I make as if I were just going about my business, but in reality, I'm listening to their conversations about... excellence! money-making! the stock-exchange! sinergy! the habits of the very efficient people! neurosomething programming! the dirty working classes! I find it so difficult to understand them, really, I guess they're like every other folk, they want to be happy, have their security, and stuff, it's just their brutal approach what sets them apart. Anyway, I also ask myself why being a technocrat right-winger also comes with having a very narrow mind on social issues. I mean, I've learnt that when it comes to morals or capitalism, the elites usually choose the latter, for if there's a moral principle constraining profit-making, it is usually removed from at least mainstream values. But this is Mexico, the right-wing also distinguishes itself from the masses through their superior "values". Postcolonialism to the fullest.

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Anyway, in honour of one of my favourite values, transgression, in this very right-wing environment, I embed in this blog some of my fave pop transgressors!!! Yay!!!

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I'mmmm crucifiiiied!!! The Army of Lovers. Swedish kitch. Gay, very gay. A dance cult hit, there's even PhD dissertations about this act and the song. 1992, before the conservative takeover of it all. I can't imagine anything like this coming out of mighty conservative Anglo_Saxonia and succeed like the Lovers did. For everyone's delight: Crucified.

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Ex communists have come a looong way in Bulgaria. Now, to our very eyes, the King, no, I mean, the Queen of Bulgarian Folkpop, Turbo Folk or Chalga, Azis!!! One of the most admired pop folk singers in Mexican history is Juan Gabriel, who's admitted to being a homosexual, although always sorta sticking to a semi-manly image. Azis is out and about, I mean some people come out, others just explode onto the scene, just like he does. I can't think of any kind of singer like him hitting it big in Western Europe or Mexico, this may be just too much for Protestant or hypocrat Mexican values to bear.

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Last, but not least, the very last Baroque masterpiece, Marilyn Manson's Long Hard Road Out of Hell. The director studied well pictures of XVIIIth-century Hispanic baroque, full of blood, and crossed messages about sensuality, faith, devotion and theatrics. Manson provokes us with his androgynous depiction of himself, takes us down to the hell and allows us to dwell in it. No one's updated or recycled, then destibilised a whole artistic period like Manson in this amazingly brilliant video. Visually stunning. Theatrical. Provoking. Coldly calculated, like any embellishment in any Spanish or Latin American church in the XVIIIth century.

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Are You a Drama Queen (or King)?

You Are a Drama Princess (or Prince)

You're not over the top dramatic, but you have your moments.You know how to steal the spotlight...And how to act out to get your way. People around you know that you're good for a laugh.But at times, your drama gets a bit too much for everyone.Tone it down a tad, and you'll still be the center of attention.

Més folkpop serbi i bosnià, més, més

Željko Joksimović

La meva exploració dels gustos musicals balcànics em porta ara als vídeos d’en Željko Joksimović, una de les persones claus del pop serbi contemporani. Talentós i conegut no només com a cantant, sinò també com compositor i prodigi musical, la seva influència va més enllà de l’àmbit serbi o montenegrí, el Joksimović és molt conegut per tots els països dels balcans. De fet, el seu darrer disc, IV ha venut un munt de còpies a l’ex-Iugoslàvia, i també és força popular amb les comunitats iugoslaves de l’exterior. La projecció del serbi fora de l’ámbit adriàtic va començar a través de la seva participació al concurs d’Eurovisió, al 2004, ocasió en la qual Sèrbia va tornar al concurs des del començament de les guerres balcàniques fa setze anys. La peça Lane moje va agradar molt, arribant a ocupar la 2ª plaça de tot el concurs. Dos anys después, en Joksimović va tornar a l’Eurovisió, aquesta vegada com a coautor de la cançó representant de Bòsnia i Hercegovina, Lejla, interpretada pel grup Hari Mata Hari. La participació va ser exitosa, perquè van quedar els tercers, alhora que la prensa internacional va escollir l’esmentada composició com la millor del concurs. Les cançons del nostre artista són decididament del context pop, però mai hi falten elements folkloritzants o musicalitats pròpies o genèriques sèrbies, generant així efectismes o dramatismes ben situats, els quals donen a les peçes un caràcter no gaire aconseguit a la totalitat de la música comercial d’avui dia.

El primer vídeo és l’èxit d’Eurovisió 2004, Lane moje, amb l’Ad Hoc Orchestra.



El segon audiovisual és una colaboració entre una de les figures més estimades de la música a Bòsnia, Dino Merlin, i Joksimović. En sentir-la per primera vegada, vaig pensar que el títol de la peça era més aviat ridícul, Supermen, tot i això, amb el temps he arribat a gaudir molt i molt aquesta cançoneta.




I en darrer lloc, Lejla, interpretada per Hari Mata Hari, una agrupació força coneguda als països balcànics. Potser l’actuació musicalment més senzilla alhora que visualment espectacular de l’Eurovisió 2006.

Fashion

Why 90's Eurodance rulz

As an Art Historian I have to say I'm very lucky to have to deal with some of the best stuff in Western Culture on a daily basis. I read, write and lecture about paiting, sculpture, architecture, etc., also in order to understand or to interpret such things I have to keep myself up to date with Western avant-garde thought, including Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Postfeminism, and so on. High culture and theory is then my daily job. You know, sometimes it's too much. Very often I find a bit tiresome, too heavy and raw, even though I really love what I do. So, in order to relax and rest from it all, I go back to one of the greatest pleasures life can provide: Eurodance (Music) of the 1990's!!!

I find very often that some people are prone to disregard, ignore or dismiss "pop". Sometimes just to try to sound or look cultured or tasteful. Petulance apart, I know a thing or two about taste, beauty and aesthetics, and let me corroborate, most often than not, the much touted "High Culture" is just a tepid piece of pretentious nonsense. After having studied the elite of the elite for so many years now, I can say how much I appreciate the excitement and fun, the freeing and unpretentious experience of a lot of great Eurodance tracks of the 1990's, pure fun, no major pretention, inventive, involving, highly effective and all-around entertaining. No wonder why so many of those tracks have been recycled in the sad hip-hop-saturated world we're living in nowadays. Also, massive dance events were still quite the rarity those days and the atmosphere must have been really of novelty and excitement.

Being the intense theorist I am, I can also remember a thing or two that are not particularly exciting. During the Golden Age of Eurodance, thousands were being abused, hurt or murdered like animals in the former Yugoslavia. Just as I was dancing the night away and enjoying myself greatly, many youngsters like myself were in refugee camps, fighting behind enemy lines or hurt or dead. That thought hunted me pretty much throughout the mid 1990's and at some point still do so today.

But anyways, let us not fall into too much war-talk and let's go back to the original point: awesome dance Euro music of the 1990's. Whenever I'm sad, confused, angry or all three, I know there's a medicine which never fails to brighten up my day. The memories of 1993-99 are quite vivid and happy. I was a teenager discovering the world. Sometimes it was painful, sometimes, for example, at the dance floor, it was pure joy. The joy of knowing I was alive and about to take on the world, so to speak. I must also admit, that between the ages of 16 and 18, I was g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s, aha, so totally. It was a time of so much hope and expectation, I remember fondly and still revisit it when wanting to recapture the positive spirit of those days.

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Culture Beat -Mr. Vain- I know what I want, and I want it now... I can only think of corpses as the only objects on Earth who wouldn't just get up and dance to this absolute masterpiece of Eurodance. Too bad the producer died so soon, he sure could have come up with other great ideas.

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Sash! -Encore une fois- Clubby, clubby, clubby. I remember people going nuts with this one. Had more hits than Culture Beat, although none perhaps as important as Mr. Vain. Very good memories, though, from Encore une fois.

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