Contemporary Art: Alexandre Lenoir`s Between Dogs And Wolves @ Almine Rech New York

(Drivebycuriosity) - Contemporary Art is full of surprises. On a recent walk on Broadway in Tribaca I discovered an ambitious gallery with a fascinating show: Gallery Almine Rech displayed works by Alexandre Lenoir. The show was called "Between Dogs And Wolves'" (alminerech ).   

 

Almine Rech is a global art power house with branches in Paris, Brussels, London, Shanghai, Monaco, Venice, Gstaad & New York (wikipedia ). Their Tribeca location is the newest in their empire. Alexandre Lenoir is a French painter born in 1992. According to the gallery his "work explores the versatility of the painted image from reworked personal photographs" ( Lenoir).

 

I was impressed by the spacious rooms and large walls that give the viewer enough scope to enjoy the exhibited art works. And I enjoyed the kind of psychedelic style of the paintings. 

On top of this post you can see "Dream house" (2024, Acrylic and tape on assembled canvas, 268 x 393.7 x 4.4 cm, 105 1/2 x 155 x 2 in). Below follow more of the works.

 

 

 

To be continued

US Election: Scylla And Charybdis

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - The election next week will decide who rules the US in the coming four years. The choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump reminds me of Scylla and Charybdis. The Greek mythology told about two monsters who were jeopardizing ships on both sides of a tight passage. Both candidates announced sweeping changes that are threatening the US economy and would hurt consumers and producers.

Vice President Harris had supported President Biden`s anti-business politics that increased the role of government and expanded the regulations, throwing sand into the delicate wheels of the economy ( driveby). No wonder that American economic growth is sluggish. 

The Liberal candidate is suspect to continue the course of the Biden-Harrisn administration. She is also "seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations" writes the New York Times ( nytimes). These tax hikes will slow business and create a lot of additional headwinds for the economy, curbing economic growth again. Higher taxes will raise the costs of doing business and force the affected corporations to hike their prices. So a part of the tax hikes will be paid by the consumers. The affected companies will also invest less and hire fewer people. Fewer investments and recruitments will slow economic growth further and harm consume.

Donald Trump`s former Presidency has a mixed record. He cut taxes significantly which raised company earnings. Trump´s tax cuts encouraged investing & hiring and created a tailwind for the US consume. He also curbed regulation, especially in the banking sector, which had hold back bank lending and daunted investing.  

But Trump thwarted these positive impulses by starting a trade war against China and hiked tariffs on imports significantly. Tariffs are taxes, so higher tariffs work like higher taxes. They raise prices for imported goods and disrupt supply chains & production processes. 

Trump announced that he wants to cut taxes again but also that he plans to severe the ongoing trade war with China - and maybe also with the European Union - by massively hiking the already high tariffs on imported goods from these regions.  

An aggravated trade war could reduce company earnings and slow down investing & hiring significantly. It would also disturb production processes in the US and raise consumer prices, hitting especially low income families. The higher tariffs would be paid by the US consumers who had to pay more for imported goods. 

Tariffs are taxes on imported goods. Much higher tariffs on Chinese products would slow US economic growth and would reduce even the demand for American goods & services because the consumers have to spend more money on computers, furniture, clothing, chemicals and plenty other goods which will curtail their budgets and raise the costs for companies (marketwatch). Even the allegedly protected US automobile industry would lose because they would to have to spend more for steel and many other pre-products.

China and other countries would certainly respond to new American trade barriers and would restrict their American imports as well. If Trump really goes into a full fledged trade war, American companies could lose their oversea markets. Beijing could replace Boeing orders by Airbus, halt purchases of US cars and iPhones and reduce the massive imports of US pork, corn, soybean & maize. According to Bloomberg US multinational corporations - including Starbucks & McDonald`s - have more than $228 billion invested in China (bloomberg).  Many US companies & farmers would lose customers and would be forced to fire employees. Many Americans would lose jobs, income & purchasing power.

Imports from China, including apparel, hardware, furniture and toys, would got more expensive, hurting families with low incomes. Higher prices for many imported products, including Aluminum & steel, will harm US car producers and other industries, which rely on cheap primary products, and suck money out of consumer`s wallets, reducing the purchases of US products. US farmers will lose markets because China might less corn, wheat & fewer pork from the US as a retaliation. The trade war will also disconnect complicated supply chains. As a result the trade war would destroy a lot American incomes & jobs.

History gives a warning. In the year 1930 the US implied high tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods (Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act) which provoked countermeasures by England & France. As a result global trade imploded and the recession became the Great Depression (smoot-hawley).

While many Americans are afraid of Russians, Chinese and other "evil foreign powers", the real danger lurks at home in Washington DC.

 

Economics: Is China A Paradise For Liberals?

 (Drivebycuriosity) - China`s economic policy gets a lot headline these days. The government announced a huge economic stimulus program to revitalize the sluggish economy. Beijing "will significantly increase government debt issuance to offer subsidies to people with low incomes, support the property market and replenish state banks’ capital as it pushes to revive sputtering economic growth" ( cnn). Finance Minister Lan Foan also promised that "there will be more “counter-cyclical measures” this year".

Obviously China´s rulers believe that they are responsible for the course of the economy and they try to control it. China´s economic policy resembles the politics of America´s Liberals who attend to steer the economy since Roosevelt`s New Deal. Both are taking recipes out of the playbooks by John Maynard Keynes and his followers. The so-called Keynesians recommend to rekindle a weak economy by more government spending. They advise that the government takes more loans and pumps the money into the economy, known as deficit spending. The announced Chinese "subsidies to people with low income" resembles also the program of America`s Liberals who want to support the "poor".

And America´s Liberals have more in common with China`s leader Xi Jinping. They want to expand the size and scope of the government massively and decide how large corporations do their business. Since Xi Jinping is the absolute ruler in China his administration intensified the grip on the economy. In 2021 began an ideological crusade against China´s Big Tech companies and their alleged "monopoly power". Beijing claimed that Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and other big Tech companies behave "antisocial" and abuse their huge power at the expense of their competitors and the society. China’s market regulator released anti-monopoly guidelines that target internet platforms, tightening already existing restrictions faced by the country’s tech giants ( cnbc.). The authorities hit Alibaba, China`s Amazon, with a $2.8 billion fine, claiming the company behaves as a monopoly (what ever that means in Communist China). Beijing also forced Tencent, operator of the  hyper-popular messaging platform WeChat, to suspend all new user registrations temporary. Later the government restricted businesses of online food deliverer Meituan and ride-hailing firm Didi. They also turned Gotu and other booming online education firms into nonprofits and castrated their business models.

America`s Liberals are trying the same. They are using two powerful US administrations, the Federal Trade Commission(FTC) and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ), to tighten the government´s grip on business. FTC & DOJ were originally established to practice antitrust, meaning to protect customers against monopolies & cartels. For a long time antitrust enforcement stood for the interests of the consumers   and tried to punish corporations for bad services, low quality & variety and too high prices (consumer welfare).   

Today FTC & DOJ are lead by two progressives: Lina Khan (FTC) and Jonathan Kanter (DOJ). Both belong to the Neo-Brandeisians (after Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1916-1939), a left-wing group, which is supported by powerful Liberal politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Wu and others. 

The Neo-Brandeisians are now in control of the FTC & the DOJ and are working on a fundamental change of America´s economic structure and try to expand the role of the government in the U.S. economy significantly ( pbwt.com dailyjournal promarket reason).  

Since Lina Khan leads the FTC the authority represents a Marxist ideology, explained former FTC-Commissioner & Khan colleague Christine S. Wilson (ftc.gov ). Kahn & Co.try to replace the market process of supply and demand by a continuously regulated environment. FTC chair Khan  argued - in an article for a Marxist paper - that antitrust must be reconfigured toward the redistribution of economic and political power and away from concerns regarding price (lpeproject  realclearpolicy). FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, a Khan supporter, demands that “antitrust should be used to accomplish political and social goals including racial equity” ( thecentersquare  crowell).  

The FTC majority views large companies as evil and prefers "that the government, rather than the private sector, orchestrates the functioning of the economy" wrote former FTC-commissioner Christine S. Wilson  ( .ftc.gov). That is exactly what Xi does in China.

FTC & DOJ already started to sue Amazon, Apple, Meta & Google and other corporations. The mighty authorities claim that these companies are monopolies even though they are already struggling with rising competition (driveby1 driveby2). Kanter´s DOJ is already talking about dismantling Google, a reminder of Xi´s attack on Alibaba & Tencent. The purpose of these law suits is to gain control over America´s largest corporations and to be in charge of their business, like Xi does in China.

But there is one big difference between China and the US: America has courts. While Xi can curtail any corporation as he wishes, Americas regulators have to deal with courts & judges. So far the courts have curtailed the regulatory overreach. FTC & DoJ lost most of their cases and the law suits against Amazon & Google have a long way to go.

China must be a paradise for the Liberals.

Photography: Manhattan`s Billboards 2024

 (Drivebycuriosity) - I am fascinated by New York City, where I live since 2012. The metropolis is full of life. I am impressed by the sheer size of the city and her buildings. Part of the fascination are the huge billboards you can spot all over Manhattan. In the past I posted some image collections ( here  here  here).

I display here some pics I took in the recent months.

 

 

To be continued

Books: Why I have Mixed Feelings With Michel Houellebecq`s Serotonin

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Michel Houellebecq belongs to the most important contemporary authors in France, maybe he is even the most known. I enjoyed his novel "Elementary Particles", that I read decades ago, and his book "Submission", about the Islamization of France (my review ). Houellebecq`s texts are precise and analytical, he performs literary autopsies.

But I have mixed feelings with "Serotonin", his newest work. I still like his style, his precise observations and witty musings, but there is not much of a plot and I am repelled by the leading character, but that could be purpose. Houellebecq likes to provoke.

The title refers to a hormone that lifts the mood, it`s absence causes depressions. The novel is written in first person, told by a 40 something man, educated and intelligent, but self loading, depressive and a misogynist. The protagonist laments about his flubbed live and his ruined partnerships and wallows in self-pity. Hard to read.  

But there are also some really strong parts. Houellebec is a master in describing complex political & economic situation. Being educated as an economist I enjoyed Houellebecq`s musings about the "complex and diverse" European & French agricultural politics. The protagonist was in his past employed at the French Ministery of Agriculture and had to write notes for his superiors "to define, sustain and represent the positions of French Agriculture". 

France had way too many small farmers, who´s meager income depends on selling milk, wheat and such. Unfortunately the farms in oversee, like the US and Argentina, are much much bigger and so much more efficient. Therefore farmers in oversea flooded European markets with very cheap products and threatened to drive the European farmers out of business. The European agencies tried to protect them by blocking agrarian imports with tariffs and quotas. But that protectionism harmed European consumers, who had to pay too much for agrarian goods, and there are much more consumers than farmers. The European protectionism risked also to start a trade war and the exporting nations could retaliate by blocking European exports of cars, machines and so on. Houllebecq dedicates a large part of the novel on the complex conflict and the suffering of the French farmers and seems to take part.

 

                Pleasure To Everyone

Some parts are just brilliantly written and justify Houlebecq`s fame. For instance: "The whole point of bureaucracy is to reduce the possibility of your life to the greatest possible degree, when it doesn`t simply succeed in destroying them; from the bureaucratic point of view, a good citizen is a dead citizen".

He also wrote: "A whore doesn`t choose her customers - that`s the point, that`s the axiom - she gives pleasure to everyone, without distinction,and that´s how she attains greatness". 

Being a lover of lush tropical forests I disagree with the following paragraph, but I find his style fascinating: 

"This forest was badly kept - the density of vines and parasitic plants was too great and must have hindered the growth of the trees; it is wrong to imagine that nature left to its own devices produces splendid plantations  with powerfully well-proportioned trees, plantations that people have compared to cathedrals, and have also prompted religious emotions of a pantheistic kind; nature left to its own devices generally produces nothing but a shapeless and chaotic mess, made up of various plants".   

There were many more smart observations & musings, for instance about General Franco`s influence on the Spanish hotel industry, animal torture in chicken farms, the appropriate way to perform blowjobs, the phenomena of shore fishing, the beauty of Deep Purple´s "Child in Time live in Duisburg", outlandish and very obnoxious gang-bangs and so on and on. His sexual descriptions are very graphic and not always tasteful. But as I said, he likes to provoke

So I indulged into some parts of the book, while I skimmed others. "Serotonin" maybe not the best introduction into Houellebecq`s work - I would prefer "Elementary Particles" or "Submission", but it is better than the average of books I read in the recent years.

 

Art Market: Arshile Gorky @ Hauser & Wirth New York

 (Drivebycuriosity) - The Armenian painter Arshile Gorky belonged to the pioneers of modern art & abstract art. Gallery Hauser & Wirth on Manhattan´s on Manhattan´s Wooster Street (Soho) displays some of his works ( hauserwirth). The show is called "Arshile Gorky, New York City" and refers to the time when the artist immigrated to the US and settled in New York.

 

On top this post you can see "Image in Khorkom" followed by "Untitled (Still Life on Table)".

Above follow "Untitled (Painting)"; "Untitled (Virginia Summer" & "Untitled (Carnival)".

 

To be continued.

Science Fiction: The Three Body Problem Vol. 3 III: Death´s End By Cixin Liu

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - We live in an infinite cosmos, surrounded by countless stars. But so far we did not discover signs of intelligent life apart from out planet (Fermi Paradox ). Cixin Liu speculates about the reasons in his trilogy "Remembrance of Earth". The series starts with the Nebula awarded "Three Body Problem", followed by "The Dark Forrest". This post is about Vol. 3, called "Deaths End" (amazon ).

The author narrates how the cosmos could be controlled by civilizations, that are most older and therefore much more advanced as humankind. These cosmic super powers command about technologies which are far beyond our understanding. Liu bases his tale on cutting edge sciences and uses cosmology, evolution, particle physics, string theory, quantum mechanics, but also game theory, Western & Eastern philosophies and theories of warfare. The complex novels read like Stephen Hawkins turned into an action thriller.

Liu is a pessimist and draws a sinister picture of the universe, the cosmic power games but also about human kind. Most of the leading characters behave against the interests of the fellow humans, starting with the person who invited an alien power to invite the earth and opened the way for the following disasters. These destructive characters get worse and even more irrational, but also more powerful and they are increasingly leading the developments of Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 - reminding me of Kafka`s sinister novels.

The trilogy is the proof that Liu belongs to the leading voices in contemporary literature. Liu deserves the Nobel Award.