Protectionistas

A Capp Street board member complains that the program isn't paying enough attention to local (Bay Area) artists and shortly after that the head curator is laid off. The next scheduled artist cancels, as does the current artist.

The late Okwui Enwezor left San Francisco because he, too, couldn't stand the unsolicited input of local "builders".

A look at the Capp Street board reveals three people, one of whom -- the Founder + Chair of the Board of Trustees -- begins her bio like this: "Carlie Wilmans has deep roots in the arts, with ancestors who played an active part in the California art scene dating back to the Gold Rush."

(Note to self: Google "california gold rush art scene")

And what have we here, in Canada?

Noted warmonger/stooge/former U.S. president and artist George W. Bush is offered an exhibition of his soldier portraits at the Canadian War Museum and he accepts. Among the first reports is an "Opinion" piece from Globe journalist Kate Taylor, who concludes her article with this: “If you wanted to witness the work of Canada’s Afghanistan veterans, there are professional Canadian photographers who might rise to the challenge of telling portraiture. An American hobbyist’s mediocre political exercise has no place in the Canadian War Museum.”