Dear friends
If you are in
or around Washington DC next week - on business,
vacation or whatever - I would be really glad to see
you at the exhibition of my pictures in:
The United States
Congress
Place: Russell
Senate Office Building
Entrance: Rotunda from Constitution Ave.
Time: 20th-27th of February
Host: Presidential candidate, Senator Joseph
Lieberman
Most
of my photos will be in the Senate Rotunda, the huge
dome through which the senators go to their offices
- right below the American flag on the top. Another
part of the exhibition will be hanging upstairs in
the larger, very ornate and beautiful Senate Caucus
Room (if I am not mistaken since my wife and I only
had time to see the Rotunda when we delivered the
pictures yesterday). The Caucus Room was the scene
of the famous Titanic hearings in 1912, the McCarthy
hearings in 1954 and the Watergate hearings in
1973.
Note: the official opening of the
exhibition with all the politicians on Friday the
20th from 6-10 p.m. is a formal
by-invitation-only-black-tie event, but
those of you who are photographed in my pictures (or
come from very far away....let's say, Alaska or
Denmark) I will do whatever it takes to put on the
guest list. (Otherwise try to bring your copy of my
book and try to convince the guards that you are the
same person actually portrayed in the book or the
exhibition! I hope at least some of you living close
by - such as
Lefus Whitley in North Carolina or
Alphonso Makell in Baltimore - can afford
to come with your families.)
|
From the
exhibition: Junkies shooting up "the white stuff" with Congress in the
background |
Believe me, had it been up to me, I
would have turned this "black-tie"-event into a true
"black beggar's banquet" - such as
Alphonso once suggested - hosted here by
the wealthiest, most powerful people on Earth for
all the people in my book. But because of the
controversy surrounding this event (see details
below about the actual occasion and how Saddam
Hussein helped it along) I have no say in all this.
To avoid a Jesse Helms scandal from the
right-wingers I even had to let them censure my nude
photos away so that this - my first exhibition in
the United States - only will become a watered down
version of the larger one I had in
Copenhagen two years ago. But if you
think you already know my pictures all too well, you
should come anyway to see
Annie Hedvard's incredible tapestries
inspired by them. With their strong political
message I am surprised that the organizers - a
Presidential Commission - dares to hang these
Rotunda-size quilts up. They even consider finding a
dark, hidden corner where my slideshow can
run.....counting on, I believe, that politicians are
too busy to see it! Or perhaps - after last week's
poison attack on Congress - that it will take more
these days to chock them :-)
For the same reason, be prepared for
extremely tight security. They literally stripped me
naked before they let me inside.......although - as
my wife laughed - that was perhaps just a personal
matter......her coworkers all teased her on the day
Saddam Hussein was dug up of the hole: "Wow, he
looked just like your husband!"
Anyway, I have nothing to do until my
next show in Princeton on Feb. 27th.So if by chance
you are close to the capital next week, let's hang
out together or with my friends in the Washington
ghetto. You can find me crashing among the many
homeless outside Congress.....well, at least in the
comfort of my not so freezing van ......or reach me
anytime on my cell phone on 917-640-3732.
With
love
Jacob
Holdt
Further information:
Did you
ever hear about Bush signing this important Museum
bill?
The occasion:
The reason for the exhibition is to celebrate
the signing of the bill (H.R. 3491) to establish the
first African-American museum in Washington. If you
haven't heard anything about it.....well, that is no
surprise. For Bush deliberately waited signing the
bill until the day all the media was focusing on the
capture of Saddam Hussein (which, it is now
generally agreed, was no doubt another Bush-staged
event.... the Kurds had already found him days
earlier).
As far as
I am told all the circumstances around the passing
of this law has been very hush-hush since Bush and
the right knows that it does not go down well with
right-wingers and this is an election year. Some are
still railing against Martin Luther King's birthday
observance day. On the other hand, Bush did not have
much of a choice signing it now when both the Jews
have a Holocaust Museum and the beautiful new Museum
of American Indians also is almost finished -
actually the closest to Congress of the whole
Smithsonian complex. No doubt Bush was also
"strongly advised" on this matter by Rice and
Powell! However, my view here might be a bit cynical
since I have all my information only from the black
people in the support committee - people who have
been working ever since 1918 to get this thing to
happen. So perhaps you better get the official, more
rosy version on
http://www.si.edu/nmaahc/.
The exhibition:
This
particular exhibition is organized by the
"Presidential Commission on the Development of the
National Museum of African American History and
Culture". In addition to my pictures there will be
significant pieces from
the
Mark Mitchell Collection, which the
museum wants to purchase, but which Mark Mitchell at
this point wants too much money for. At the opening,
awards will be presented to certain legislators who
worked diligently to get the legislation introduced
and passed.
For myself
this exhibition might also become a testing ground.
I am told that the Commission is considering having
my pictures also in the actual museum once it has
been built along with a digital video version of my
slideshow.
However, I know the feelings of Americans around
these pictures well enough to know how much
controversy and pain my pictures invoke - not least
from my last slideshow in the Smithsonian. So it
will be a long struggle before the pictures actually
end up there permanently.....just as I expect an
incredible struggle between blacks (internally) and
whites about what else to put into such a museum
which is "safe" enough for white school children to
see.
For my own part I don't think Joseph Lieberman
really knows what he is hosting .....(although I
must give him credit for being the only candidate
bringing "race" into the election - apart from
Sharpton and Gephardt's minority set asides - with
his far more explosive idea that Congress should
consider slave reparations!!!) One of the other
candidates, Dennis Kucinich, actually is using my
pictures of poverty in his present presidential
campaign.......and who knows.... ...perhaps THAT is
the reason he so far has ended up absolutely last in
the primaries? :-)
So - the
question here is whether to be seen or not to be
seen. For if Jesse Helms sees my rotunda exhibition
surely the whole round-about could very fast be
changed into something resembling
his rotunda exhibition -:)
.....perhaps not so bad.... who ever heard of
Robert Mapple Thorpe before Jesse Helms
"discovered" this "obscene" artist?
To my Danish
friends:
I får denne indbydelse med da I
jo efterhånden rejser utroligt meget til konferencer
o.lign. i USA - samt for lige at sige at
udstillingen var en af grundene sammen
med en gang influenza til at I ikke fik julepost i
år .......og altså ikke fordi I var blevet slettet
af listen. |