Deutsche Börse Prize 2015 nominees announced

[jjj]

The Deutsche Börse Prize 2015 nominees announced and this choice seems particularly topical considering recent US legislation in favour of discrimination.

Some pics here

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

The same propaganda campaign already seen in the the World Press awards, where politics dictate winners.

[jjj]

Do you hate everything and despise everybody Slobodan as that's how you come across?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Do you hate everything and despise everybody Slobodan as that's how you come across?

I thought I made it clear: I hate when political agendas get involved in arts. It is too much of a coincidence that two major photography awards go to the same cause at about the same time.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Do you hate everything and despise everybody Slobodan as that's how you come across?

I agree with him. What's interesting about those photographs, apart from a story about the people?

Jeremy

[RSL]

+ many!

[elliot_n]

I thought I made it clear: I hate when political agendas get involved in arts.

Political agendas are ALWAYS involved in the arts.

[mezzoduomo]

.....What's interesting about those photographs, apart from a story about the people?

Jeremy

Not a damn thing.

[mezzoduomo]

....this choice seems particularly topical considering recent US legislation in favour of discrimination.

Well if one wanted to be precise, one would point out that the US legislation (Federal) was signed by Clinton, so...not recent. Among the states, Indiana gets the glare of unwanted publicity for obvious reasons, and Arkansas came close but reversed course.

Arkansas also dodged this bullet: https://fstoppers.com/news/arkansas-senate-passes-bill-make-street-photography-illegal-state-65704

If I'm ever in charge of organizing a bachelor party, I'm going to find me a Muslim restaurant and demand that they cater the event, complete with strippers and booze. If they agree, I'm sure we'll all have a good time. If they refuse, I'll sue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgWIhYAtan4

[Isaac]

I thought I made it clear: I hate when political agendas get involved in arts.

Sunday on the Banks of the Marne, 1938 -- "… in May 1936, the Popular Front, a coalition between the … (Radical Socialist Party) and the Communists, swept to power in France. … allowed large numbers of employees and workers … to discover the pleasures of free time, and to enjoy holidays … For the Communist Party's weekly illustrated magazine, Regards, Cartier-Bresson photographed the joys of camping, picnics by the river and lazing in the sun." ("Henri Cartier-Bresson – Here and Now", page 168).

[BernardLanguillier]

The Deutsche Börse Prize 2015 nominees announced and this choice seems particularly topical considering recent US legislation in favour of discrimination.

I am still shocked that a state in the US would pass a law like the one voted in Indiana - another blow for the word "freedom" as if the joke hadn't been bad enough already - but I have to agree that the photographs here have little remarkable but for the sexual preferences of the people depicted.

Now, this being the point, it probably isn't different from any body of work focusing on a particular sociological group, be it musicians, native indians,...

Cheers,
Bernard

[Chairman Bill]

Sometimes it is less about politics getting involved in art, and more about art getting involved in politics. Artists can have a political agenda, and there's nothing wrong with that. When it's on the side of the oppressed & persecuted, the dispossessed & poor, and is challenging the status quo, privilege, inequality and injustice, then I really don't have a problem with it at all.

[Isaac]

When it's on the side of …

In general -- We don't really have a problem with it when it aligns with our own political agenda ?

[BJL]

Well if one wanted to be precise, one would point out that the US legislation (Federal) was signed by Clinton ...

That federal RFRA, and many of the state ones that follow it, are somewhat different from what the Indiana and Arkansas legislatures originally proposed, though the changes that both governors are seeking may bring them more or less in line with the federal model.  One difference is that federal legislation aims at protecting what I call "consensual religious activities" against government interference, like allowing religiously required use of wine or peyote regardless of any prohibitionist laws.  So, activities where the only people affected are the ones claiming a religious obligation, as opposed to claiming a religious obligation to not serve certain customers while providing the same service to others.
 

If I'm ever in charge of organizing a bachelor party, I'm going to find me a Muslim restaurant and demand that they cater the event, complete with strippers and booze.

None of these laws touch that case, since such a restaurant would not offer such a service to anyone: the debate is about whether a business that routinely offers a service can then decline to offer that same service to certain customers. For example, if a restaurant is open to the public, but the owners claim a religiously based prohibition on associating with people of certain races or people of certain other religions, are they allowed to refuse service to such people?


P. S. I would rather that the original "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" has instead been a "Personal Freedom Restoration Act", because the acts it is intended to protect (ones that only affect wiling participants) are better off being protected without any need for a tie to religion.

[mezzoduomo]

None of these laws touch that case, since such a restaurant would not offer such a service to anyone....

Understood. Thx for the details. 

I should have been more clear. In my example, I'm asking a Middle Eastern restaurant owned and run by Muslims that caters private parties with food...to bring its normal fare to a bachelor party that I'm organizing. I'll supply the venue (my house, for example) and I'll supply the strippers and booze. I'm just asking them to bring standard menu items to a house party that will feature strippers and booze. They did a nice job at my Muslim neighbor's birthday party and I love their food.

Can I now sue if they turn me down because their religious impulses don't allow them to take the job? What if I'm a Jew asking them to cater a bar mitzvah and they say no?

[BJL]

In my example, I'm asking a Middle Eastern restaurant owned and run by Muslims that caters private parties with food...to bring its normal fare to a bachelor party that I'm organizing. I'll supply the venue (my house, for example) and I'll supply the strippers and booze. I'm just asking them to bring standard menu items to a house party that will feature strippers and booze.

From what I have read, my guess is that there could be a legal right for a Muslim, or Mormon, or some Baptists to refuse to enter a place where alcohol is currently being consumed and so on.  On the other hand, I doubt that there is or should be a right to refuse service simply because a customer drinks alcohol etc. at other times -- and that is closer to the discrimination issue under debate lately.  (Check what the old testament does specifically disapprove of; it's not weddings!)

[mezzoduomo]

From what I have read, my guess is that there could be a legal right for a Muslim, or Mormon, or some Baptists to refuse to enter a place where alcohol is currently being consumed and so on.  On the other hand, I doubt that there is or should be a right to refuse service simply because a customer drinks alcohol etc. at other times -- and that is closer to the discrimination issue under debate lately.  (Check what the old testament does specifically disapprove of; it's not weddings!)

Ok, I understand now why my (with booze) bachelor party scenario doesn't really work.  What about the bar mitzvah example? If a Muslim caterer or anti-semitic Christian caterer refused to provide standard, generally available food service to a (no booze) bar mitzvah, does the Jewish family have a case, similar to the case against the Christian baker who refused to bake a standard, generally available cake for a gay wedding?

Thanks for indulging me....

[spidermike]

the debate is about whether a business that routinely offers a service can then decline to offer that same service to certain customers.

As  Brit I am looking at this case with interest and amongst all the discussion it is hard to find a genuine unbiased overview of what the real issues are. It seems Indiana is a bit nonplussed that they are being picked up on this but several other states who have already enacted this legislation have not been - it seems partly that the activists are indeed picking on Indiana as 'one state too far' but also in a majority of the other states, they also have gay rights as a protected group which excludes them from the potential impacts of this bill but Indiana does not.

my guess is that there could be a legal right for a Muslim, or Mormon, or some Baptists to refuse to enter a place where alcohol is currently being consumed and so on. 

We are having similar issues in the UK at the moment where a Muslim supermarket worker has refused to sell alcohol because it is against their religion. Fortunately the religious leaders are  adding a bit os fanity to say that is total bull because the Koran only forbids consumption of alcohol. So if any of these hypotehtical cases came to court a lot would depend on what the consensus is regards what the restriction actually is.
In another recent case a baker with strong Christian beliefs refused to  make a cake for a gay wedding because they looked on this as promoting homosexuality.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3013072/Christian-baker-begins-court-fight-pro-gay-marriage-cake.html

This is complicated by the fact that the bakers have served the customer before, knowing he is gay so it is not a simple discrimination case in that sense. What they objected to was a wedding cake with a gay couple on it  because they believe for religious reasons that marriage is between a man and a woman.

[jjj]

I thought I made it clear: I hate when political agendas get involved in arts. It is too much of a coincidence that two major photography awards go to the same cause at about the same time.

Here's a thought - maybe it's because what they are depicting is currently important.

[jjj]

I agree with him. What's interesting about those photographs, apart from a story about the people?

They are no more or less interesting photographically than most art photography work. They look typical of that genre of photography to me and are not particularly to my taste either. But one's taste not really very relevant, unless you are part of the judging panel.
Not to mention that the point of the photos is the story behind them