Baz is a Spaz

Can someone please back me up on this: Baz Luhrmann is a total spaz.

Recently in the news - which is mostly consumed with talk of the release of his overblown epic Australia - Luhrmann made claims that Barack Obama would have been "stolen" had he been born in Australia being that he is the offspring of mixed race parents. Well the fact is, Obama was not born in Australia. I think the plight of the indigenous in Australia is not at all comparable with what African Americans have endured. Perhaps the only similarity is that both the US and Australia have shamefully racist legacies when it comes to how "black" people have been treated. Does Luhrmann really care about the stolen generation? His film cost a trillion to make while a significant population of Aboriginals live in abject poverty in Australia. I mean really, his designer wife Catherine Martin flew all around the country sourcing the perfect bush tea cutlery set for the production design. I seriously doubt they were that concerned about righting Australia's wrongs in the process. Moral of the story: if you are after an attempt at quick publicity of the socially responsible kind, espouse shallow generalisations about "blackness" and race relations.

All The Artswipe has to say is this: If Luhrmann had been born in the US, surely someone would have "stolen" that closet from him and outed him by now. 

Regime Change Room

The Artswipe celebrates Obama's election win with a costume change*

What an amazing day when the real world aligns with popular culture. The idea of the black president has been long accepted as a reality in popular culture, as documented at Slate Magazine. The Artswipe has been so used to seeing depictions of black presidents in Hollywood movies that it was always a total reality check when the real president would come on TV and shake his redneck booty. But now times have changed and there's a new sheriff in town. To celebrate Obama's triumph, and in keeping with the Countess theme of the previous post, The Artswipe thought it best to slip into something a little more comfortable. I posed for this portrait earlier today at Darling Harbour.

* Apologies to Charles Browning

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

Ron Rophar

Countess, 2007

A new blog has surfaced in the blogosphere called CoUNTess and it's one of the most interesting ones The Artswipe has seen this century thus far. Taking its lead from The Guerrilla Girls, CoUNTess gets busy with gender statistics to highlight how women continue to be marginalised in the big bad artworld. With only two posts published to date, CoUNTess is bursting with promise. Gender inequality does still exist so we must expose it and then fucking terrorise the oppressor - STICK IT TO THE MAN, LADIES! 

For instance, The Artswipe did a Google experiment to demonstrate patriarchy in action. Male = 449,000,000 hits. In contrast, Female = 393,000,000 hits. What a cruel world, where the Female is not more ubiquitous on the interweb. 

Better yet, when typing "countess" into Google Images, The Artswipe found a great artwork of a countess surrounded by her menagerie. What an inspired solution: when men no longer work out for you, get some pets. By "world renowned master artist" Ron Rophar, this painting is adorned with over 250 carats of genuine diamonds, "a first in the history of art" according to an online press release. Indeed the press release is right by proclaiming it is a "21st century masterpiece". Damien Hurst is such a copycat with his jewel encrusted skulls and shit. 

Now who said you can't dress up feminism with a little bling.