[addition: Mr. Kanders wrote a resignation letter to the Whitney Museum board and is effective as of July 25, 2019, and reflected on their Board website. His wife also resigned her position at the museum.]
You know what is interesting when one now Googles current controversies? Even a NYT article doesn't actually inform the public of all the 'players' connections. Hello Mr. Chomsky! !
According to the Whitney Museum's Board of Trustees website (July 1, 2019), Mr. Warren B. Kanders is not THE vice-chair but one of five Vice-Chairmen on the Whitney Museum of American Art board. If he is indeed an uber vice-chair then that should be disclosed on the website. He has been ‘a’ chairman of the company’s board since 1996.
The other chair-people have notably stayed very silent on the recent controversy.
Artnet (Nov 30, 2018):
While not mentioned in the letter, the Whitney’s vice chairs currently also include, among others, Nancy Carrington Crown, who is married to A. Steven Crown. The cornerstone of the Crown business empire is the defense contractor General Dynamics, which was targeted by activists for providing services to president Trump’s child detention centers on the border and is a major contractor on border surveillance systems.
Mr. Kanders letter: The staff letter implies that I am responsible for the decision to use these products. I am not. That is not an abdication of responsibility, it is an acknowledgement of reality. We sell products to government institutions, domestically and internationally, all of which must be certified to purchase and use these products.
hmmmm!
some links for ya all while I figure out the fuck I am going to say about all this mess……
https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2018/12/06/meet-the-safariland-multimillionaire-getting-rich-off-tear-gas-and-more-in-the-defense-industry/#921e4527b0a6
this link is becoming clearly a mere aperatif..
https://www.channel4.com/press/news/britains-hidden-war-channel-4-dispatches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d2Y1ZSvI6M
https://www.newstatesman.com/node/158297
https://www.theguardian.com/world/bae
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/28/bae.whitehall
https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/article/bae-systems-announces-agreement-to-sell-safariland-business
https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/federal-money-police-gear-goes-company-reputation-fraud-2554841
Mr Kanders is not THAT bad guy. BUT: when you have all that money how very bored does one get? God is everywhere. But-fool themselves that maybe they can achieve such status. I am not suggesting Mr. Kanders is playing God nor ever intends to do such.
Weird isn't it that John le Carré can write such TRUTH but because it is declared fiction he is a successful novelist, not a prison felon. No cease and desist from the British government on the front page of The Observer. But a man declining soirées invitation, such is abundance.
If I get my head around all this I have quite a lot to say. In the interim let me be clear that I don’t have a problem per se with law enforcement simply people who misuse their public office or the tools provided to them.
When Mr. Kanders writes:
The staff letter implies that I am responsible for the decision to use these products. I am not. That is not an abdication of responsibility, it is an acknowledgement of reality.
I acknowledge the reality that not everyone in the world wishes one well. Even the greatest Utopian experiments were a failure. Whether or not police should or should not armed (as in the case of British policing) is another question. Is the case of Menezes an exception that proves no rule? The Whitney Museum issue is that there is a huge disconnect having Mr. Kanders as a powerful trustee and the ethos of the Museum that promotes questioning of authority, tolerance, diversity and understanding. Mr. Kanders may indeed honestly believe in that ethos. But his company Safariland makes it’s money from supporting existing authorities not questioning them.
The connection between Kanders and his companies has been known since at least 2015, so if the Whitney considered his board membership anathema to its mission, they’ve had plenty of time to do something about it. Instead, an institution that’s happy to broadcast itself as a cultural leader has washed its hands of the responsibility of deciding what kind of financial support it deems ethical. Now it seems this decision will be left to the masses and based on the reaction to Forensic Architecture’s film: If there’s a loud outcry about the video, the Whitney can get rid of Kanders and say the public has been heard and justice has been done; if there’s a muted response, they can keep him around and continue with art-world business as usual.
So: here are the facts I have gleaned from the internet:
1. Mr. Kanders is Executive Chairman of Clarus Corporation (owner of Sierra Bullets cited by Forensic Architecture's films in the Whitney Biennale)
2. Press release from Sierra Bullets:
As many of you have recently learned, Sierra Bullets has been acquired by the Clarus Corporation (NASDAQ: CLAR)….
The leadership behind Clarus Corporation have a rich heritage in the sporting market, which is what attracted them to Sierra Bullets. Their other companies such as Safariland Group, Black Diamond, and Pieps demonstrate their commitment to the outdoor industry. Many of you will be very familiar with The Safariland Group and their long history of providing innovative holsters and protective equipment to consumers, military, and LE customers around the world.
3. The tear gas canisters used against protesters in San Juan, Part No. 1016 (photos on the Hyperallergic website) are manufactured by a brand of The Safariland Group, Defense Technology®
Links to some products:
https://www.safariland.com/news-posts/defense-technology-introduces-payload-enabled-aerial-warningsignaling-munitions-promotes-safer-engagement-delivery-irritant-marking-agents.html?q=Tactic%20CS
https://www.safariland.com/news-posts/defense-technology-introduces-oc-flameless-tri-chamber-pyrotechnic-grenade-first-ever-pyrotechnic-oc-option-crowd-control.html?q=Tactic%20CS
https://www.safariland.com/news-posts/defense-technology-introduces-40mm-blunt-impact-projectile-collapsible-gel-rounds.html?q=Tactic%20CS
4. It should be stressed that the ethos of The Safariland Group is "less lethal force".
That's the research a paper such as The New York Times should have done in its article. It took me 45 minutes if that. To play 'devil's advocate' for a moment, the non-self-protective products on sale that Mr. Kanders has direct knowledge of (i.e. those fired/thrown/wielded) are in the minority. However, I find it very difficult to defend a vice chairman of any museum let alone The Whitney one of the world's most renowned, who has links whatsoever to products that can be lethal in any way. Not simply less so.
So question: why is Andrew bothering about any of this? I'm not an investigative journalist! But I am always curious, even more so living in America where so often curiosity never went within 1000 miles of a cat. There is indeed a little Freudian transference there? For sure. I'll just have to write the bloody book and for you to bloody buy it for that elucidation! ;) I feel a little, well 'betrayed' isn't the word by Adam D. Weinberg, I really liked that guy, it'd be hard to find anyone who didn't/doesn't. His enthusiasm for the artists is not fake. Not predatory. Nor social climbing. And although he's not the only guy who makes things happen, in a way he is. It is artistic leadership. Mr. Kanders has been a Whitney vice chairman for a long, long time. So it isn't fair for any 'blame' to be put upon Mr. Weinberg. The world has changed irrevocable since Mr. Kanders first sat in one of those trustees' chairs. If I had learnt of Mr. Kanders business links 4 years ago would I have questioned Adam about this? Yes. I would have. Some view me, and always have done, as a troublemaker. Well, all I can say is: if you don't have a troublemaker bone in your body then you'll never be creative in any field. But if you renounce love then we are all doomed. Not wishing to sound child's chalk in a torrential downpour.
I have a problem with protestors who smash windows just destroying not simply protesting. I didn't really understand what the Gilets jaunes protestors wanted in France? What did they want in 1968? I have a problem when liberalism becomes its own new Faschism no better than what had lived before. I have a problem with the surveillance adage that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
here's a photo taken by me (not as self-promotion) but isn't this unknown gal beautiful. Then again, maybe inside she isn't. There are facts then there are perceptions. That is what art must embrace, all those inevitable contradictions. That make one realize that one is not alone in disappointment and sorrow. Life is just really bloody hard. But at least we are human and there's less risk of being hunted by the other beasts…..
a-part of your…. ….
I complete this posting having just learnt of Mr. Kanders resignation. I have a few more questions. What if (totally hypothetically), the Whitney offered certain artists the chance to replace those who had withdrawn their work though Mr.Kanders had not resigned? The impact on their careers would be immense. Would one denounce artists who embraced this opportunity? Many artists felt their artistic voice would better serve the world by not withdrawing their work from the Biennale, by voicing inside the institution rather than without.
Freedom of speech and freedom of expression issues in making and promulgating art never go away. If the art is allowed to question you, then you should be allowed to question the art. Otherwise what is the point? A colleague of mine was shocked when her teenage son hit out at her-hard for me to comment without knowledge of at least some of the facts. My response was that any child/teenager/young adult who didn’t ‘hit out’ in some way, I would probably worry about their mental health in later life.
I have never been an advocate of that adage ‘spare the rod, and spoil the child’. Weren’t you once a protestor too Angela Merkel? I was recently part of a discussion on Anna Deavere Smith’s work. The problem with America (let alone anywhere else) is surely that the default is always that authority is right so any questioning is thereby wrong: teenagers who rebel need discipline, education. When you start questioning many American institutions you realize the answers don’t make sense because there is often no inherent logic in the first place. A software program only works as well as it’s coders inqusitions. The Titanic may not have needed to sink.
Any art form can seem so very elitist in terms of followers, sometimes deemed offensive for transgressing racial boundaries. I was a supporter not detractor of Dana Schutz’s controversial work at the Whitney’s last Biennale yet couldn’t possibly ‘understand’ how hurt some were as much as I empathized. Should censorship have an end or beginning? Chomsky very provocatively addressed that. In 2006, Ermo Nussenzweig, an Orthodox Jew objected on religious grounds to Philip diCorcia publishing in an artistic exhibition a photograph taken of him without his permission. The judge dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the photograph taken of Nussenzweig on a street is art - not commerce - and therefore is protected by the First Amendment.
The resignation of Mr. Kanders begs many questions that I fear may quickly wither away. There was a moral imperative in his case but when American museum board trustees are usually very rich folk, the questions keep begging. Most big corporations pay very little tax compared to their profits as with many individuals. Almost all, of course, is perfectly legal. In addition, any donations made to a museum are also tax deductible. But how else can a major institution mount shows and support artists and researchers? None of these are new questions but art must be allowed to ‘hit out’. People should be allowed to ‘hit out’ when normality is far from what should be normal. How to allow the latter without destruction, without the harm of others? Technically Nelson Mandela’s ANC used terrorist tactics, so too the Black Panthers. But would change have been possible without either organization?
Perhaps Mr. Kanders should give more thought to playing a useful role in seriously influencing and effecting change in the way authority is always deemed the default, not abdicating responsibility for the end user of his company’s products. I’d find it hard to believe that being around all that provocative Whitney Museum art for so many years, something hadn’t rubbed off.
The above posting needs about 3 re-writes. It's a bit 'thin' self-admittedly…but here are some points I would wish to elaborate upon (cheating by not re-writing;)
* Something Noam Chomsky speaks of is the influence of transnational business power that then becomes (by its very nature) government. It rather makes of mockery of taxation and 'making America great' (even again) when the greatest assets of the United States of America find legal loopholes not to be taxed and their profits not benefiting the American people. How such taxes are used: is it another question?
Chomsky: What's not benign (what's extremely harmful, in fact) is something you didn't mention--business power, which is highly concentrated and, by now, largely transnational. Business power is very far from benign and it's completely unaccountable. It's a totalitarian system that has an enormous effect on our lives. It's also the main reason why the government isn't benign.
* Chomsky also states: But laws are never taken literally, including amendments to the Constitution or constitutional rights. Laws permit what the tenor of the times interprets them as permitting. Which is, for me, where law enforcement and interpreting 'serve and protect' become crucial. A law enforcement officer should be allowed to question whether there ever is indeed a default in the system and whether he/she shouldn't at base be no more than a citizen with privileges. Then the question is begged: is a law enforcement officer ever in a battle zone? Ever in the position of a citizen serving in the armed forces? I hate to say this: but a law enforcement officer is not a combatant. Are such officers therefore signing up to possibly be a sacrificial lambs and lions in a human jungle that is not designated a war zone? Is that the inevitable price you pay for signing up to not being a beast? For not seeking a discernible prey? For serving and protecting?
tbc….
was checking out myself a bit- and forgot I uploaded this very, amateurish version of a Jerry Herman beloved song. Did I upload this for dear departed Amy Winehouse last year (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) and forever years, without her. Can’t imagine why else I would do that…wouldn’t Amy just resonate in that night sky if she sung this. Police kicking in her Camden door sure didn’t help her longevity!
….
* The issue of whether Mr. Kanders should've remained a Whitney vice-chairman and whether or not you believe in the use of the possibly lethal products sold by Mr. Kanders' companies to control urban riots are different debates, though obviously not disparate. And I stress that the majority of the products marketed by Kanders' Safariland are sold to 'serve and protect' law enforcement officers in the field not 'harm and dominate' citizens. I know I am sounding like a 'devils advocate' here. No! I am grateful that Mr. Kanders voluntarily resigned his position of trust at the Whitney. Art is not reality. If art lived in the real world it would be utter failure and boredom.
Even documentary, as hard as it may try, is not reality. Some may view a Museum's artistic mission of creating a better world through understanding and education as 'wishy washy' liberal timewasting bullshit. Sometimes it can be exactly that, as easily as a 'make America great again' mantra can be 'wishy washy' Right Wing 'bs'. Great art should disorientate the viewer/perceiver, but by stealth, not by assaulting one's senses, one's physiognomy. Great artists are indeed great hunters. The difference to 'in the field' being that they will capture your imagination, your soul, your intellect by one's own volition then release you back into the wild hopefully with better life skills to survive than ever before.
oh, I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
