Globalized inspiration

From: Jens Galschiøt
Thu, 04 May 2006 21:57:21 +0200
Subject: Globalized inspiration

To the press and the mailing list,

We have the pleasure to present you a funny story about globalization, art and photo collages.

* Galschiot creates his sculptures in Denmark ˆ The Hunger March consisting of 20 starved copper sculptures and the three metre high Survival of the Fattest depicting an extremely obese woman sitting on the back of a skinny man. She represents Justitia, the goddess of justice.

* The sculptures are loaded into a container and shipped for Hong Kong where they join the manifestations during the WTO summit, December 2006 together with NGOs from the whole world.

* 4 months later Jens Galschiot comes to India to take his holiday with his family. To his stupefaction the big Indian city of Cochin is crowded with posters with his sculptures!

* The background is that the local trade union had sent some poor female tea-pickers to Hong Kong to demonstrate against the dumping of tea prices in Southern India. The women have taken some photos or found a leaflet with Galschiot‚s sculptures and brought them to the trade unionists in the village. Eventually the photos fell into the hands of NGOs that were launching a film festival against President Bush‚s visit to India. They used the sculptures as illustration on their posters. Even the title of the festival, Survival of the Fattest, was inspired of the Danish sculptures.

>>> Complete Article >>>

Neil Young's new album, Living With War

Neil Young's new album, Living With War, a collection of anti-Bush anthems featuring the bluntly worded single "Let's Impeach the President," started in a hotel room. "I went down to the coffee machine and there was USA Today," Young tells Rolling Stone."The cover showed a large military craft converted into a flying hospital. The caption said something about how we are making great strides in medicine as a result of the Iraq conflict. That just caught me off guard, and I went upstairs and wrote 'Families' for one of those soldiers who didn't get to come home. Then I cried in my wife's arms. That was the turning point for me."

"The guitar was playing itself," Young says of his Crazy Horse-style solos on Living With War's ten emotionally raw songs - which are backed by a 100-voice choir. "The singers were all told there was a song called 'Let's Impeach the President' and if they weren't comfortable with that, then please don't come," says Young. "More people came than we called."

Legendary backing singer Rosemary Butler, who sang on Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty," assembled the choir on an hour's notice. "I was calling people at 3:30 in the morning for a session at 10 a.m.," Butler says. "Everyone came. As the lyrics came up on the projection screen people were yelling and crying. We were in an exalted state. Neil knows Southern gospel. Neil gets down. He was having so much fun he was blushing from head to toe."

* Listen to the full "Living with War" album at: neilyoung.com