The Provocation Column
Gabriela Salazar’s career is probably one of the most unconventional, minimalist, and abstract ones coming from Long Island City. As a New York native, she excelled in collaborations and asking the right questions through her art.
In 2017, New York City Ballet officially modified the choreography, costumes, and makeup of the Chinese Tea dance featured in the ballet The Nutcracker. In October 2018, The Balanchine Trust, which owns the rights to every single ballet by George Balanchine, informed all other ballet companies in the world of the officially approved changes. What drove the Balanchine Trust to make such drastic changes for the most beloved ballet of all time? Which complaints were heard enough that they were forced to change something so dear to so many?
The fashion industry is known for profiting out of cultural appropriation and there is no definite law that prevents this problematic behavior. For example, Marc Jacobs’ September 2017 show featured an abundance of white models wearing pastel-colored dreadlocks. This hairstyle is traditionally worn by black women and members of the Black community. The backlash Jacobs received caused him to say that he perhaps is ‘a bit insensitive’ and that he ‘doesn’t see race.’ Moreover, nothing was done about it other than just an apology from Jacobs and simply moved on to the next pret-a-porter line. Has fashion appropriation become normal in the industry? If so, big brands do not own the rights to that style and lawsuits will eventually bombard them.
IFC’s comedy series Documentary Now, created by SNL former stars Bill Hader and Fred Armisen, features Cate Blanchett who starts as Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović in a new episode of its third season airing March 6th, 2019.
Unfortunately, there are no places on earth where phallic symbols are absent in public spaces. Patriarchy, much like whiteness and maleness, drown this earth with icons and symbols representing masculinity (the toxic one, that is) and annoyingly remind us all who “allegedly” is the ruler of this world; white men. Gender, as we know it, is a social, political, and cultural construction specifically designed to give men the advantage to say “its just natural that we rule!”
