The Week in Review

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Awfulness of ‘Installed’ Art

Now, The Week in Review doesn’t know much about art, but it knows what it hates. In theory, banal yet vaguely disgusting skeins of human hair draped around the library during finals would be merely irritating, both to public taste and perhaps to student allergies. What if, however, these tangles were (a) extremely expensive (b) presented in an egregiously self-important manner? Then, bingo, we’d hate it! By coincidence, a very significant artist by the name of Wenda Gu has ‘installed’ something rather like this at Dartmouth. First, 430 pounds of human hair were collected from local salons and two ‘hair drives’—an estimated total of 42,350 haircuts. This week, this mass of follices yielded the green house (small caps his), just one component of an international art project called united nations, so named (without irony) because it is supposed to encourage peace and understanding. How exactly five miles of dyed hair hung up in Berry Library plus two 40 x 13 foot ‘hair panels’ featuring neon-green letters in Baker’s main hall will deflate man’s inhumanity to man is a bit obscure, and really, you’re kind of churlish to ask. (‘Hair-itage’ is a word Mr. Gu enjoys using—no kidding). As for the cost, we’ve heard it’s well over a million dollars; stay tuned for a more exact figure. Skip over to Baker-Berry, and check out this steal at a thousand times the price.

Just a primer for you cultural cavemen out there: unless art is an active nuissance in your life, it’s not considered relevant, at least by the contemporary art establishment. But don’t take it from a crotchety rambler like The Week In Review: in the paper of record this week, we read in paraphrase Nathan Glazer’s idea: how architectural modernism changed from a cause intent on helping poor people into a style intent on bugging everyone. We heard about sculptor Richard Serra who wanted
to criticize capitalist society by forcing his “Tilted Arc”—a dreadful, looming wall of steel—on downtown office workers who simply wanted a restful plaza in which to enjoy their lunches. (Serra saw himself, in Glazer’s words, as “attacking the awful by increasing the awfulness.”)

And now we have an art installation that wants to decrease international belligerence by ‘challenging’ students at a small, rural college to examine their ‘hair-itage.’ Should work! If not, consider blaming The Dartmouth Review.

Insider Laskaris ‘84 Selected as New Dean of Admissions

Maria Laskaris ‘84 will succeed Karl Furstenberg ‘67 as Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, effective July 1. Ms. Laskaris certainly does seem qualified for the job: she is a Dartmouth graduate; she has worked at McNutt for twenty years, the past eleven of which she spent as Director of Admissions; she is involved in campus life in her capacity as a choreographer for the Glee Club and wife of Hopkins Center ballet director Louis Burkot; and she is a reputed office favorite at McNutt.

I Heart Huckabee

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee visited Dartmouth before the Republican Presidential Debate in Manchester, NH. Speaking to a crowd of seventy people, Huckabee gave a speech, answered audience questions, and afterwards shook hands and spoke personally with interested students. He said that the Republican Party should “stand for something rather than fall for anything,” and that the Republican losses in 2006 were not due to the conservative agenda, but rather, a deviation from party norms. As a Baptist minister, Huckabee is unsurprisingly a pro-life Republican, expressing his belief that valuing life, both in gestation and in our day-to-day lives, separates us from the radical Islamic groups. Economically, Huckabee supports the “Fair Tax,” which would effectively abolish much of the Internal Revenue Service and replace it with a twenty-three percent tax on all goods purchased in its place. Huckabee’s plan to solve the Middle East crisis is to “be in conversation” with all the Middle Eastern leaders, including rogue nations such as Syria and Iran. He also made clear that we need to listen to our military leaders, rather than civilian leaders, when waging war. As for Iraq, Huckabee advocated to refrain from pulling out before stability, if not a Western Democracy, is established. “A burning house will set the other houses in the neighborhood on fire,” said Huckabee. Governor Huckabee is currently trailing in the polls, but he spoke with confidence and eloquence as he outlined his conservative agenda. Unlike many other candidates on both sides of the field, Huckabee was unfazed in stating exactly where he stands. The Arkansas Governor clearly has an understanding of how to campaign in New Hampshire, with an emphasis on staging small events like the one at Dartmouth. With a clear message and a willingness to conduct an aggressive grassroots campaign, Huckabee should certainly be considered a dark-horse candidate to win the New Hampshire Republican Primary.

Undergrads Make Actual Contributions to
Scholarship

What? “Research”? What the devil is that?

Gwen Rudie ‘07 led a team of astronomers to recalculate the explosion date of the Crab Nebula, a supernova. Their data suggests that the appearance of a bright “guest star” in the constellation of Taurus the Bull in 1054 A.D. might have been the visible explosion. Their results were released on May 29 2007 at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Emilie Mackie ‘07 teamed up with grad student Emily Cross to explore how the brain reacts to seeing “impossible” images. They did this using a method of neuroimaging called transcranial magnetic stimulation. The subjects then viewed a contortionist who could place herself in seemingly impossible positions.

Creative writing majors: for shame. Hang your heads, beat your breasts, gnash your teeth.

The Week in Review

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