5 SEPTEMBER

A 'nervous breakdown' of the presidency

"Don't testify. It's either that or an orange jump suit." That's the White House legal advice given to President Trump regarding the Mueller investigation, according to allegations in a new book by Watergate investigative journalist and Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. 

Titled 'Fear', the book details Trump's disregard for the significance of the massive US military presence on the Korean Peninsula, alleging that he questioned why the government was spending resources in the region at all. It also claims Trump wanted to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after the launch of a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017.

Woodward's book is based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and other principals, as well as meeting notes, personal diaries and government documents. He describes “an administrative coup d’état” and a “nervous breakdown” of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president’s desk so he couldn’t see or sign them.

The White House said Tuesday the book is "nothing more than fabricated stories". 

NEWS WRAP

Trump declines Australia/APEC visit

• Could President Trump's decision to decline a visit to APEC and Australia be an opportunity? Senior fellow Charles Edel spoke to SBS this week about how the presence of Vice President Mike Pence at the summit, in place of the president, might actually be beneficial to Australia and fellow attendees. LISTEN HERE.
   

• Why are people burning their Nikes? It's just the latest fracas in race, sport and corporate politics in the United States. Lecturer in American Studies and History Thomas Adams explained the controversy behind quarterback Colin Kaepernick's Nike endorsement and the ensuing boycott to Triple J's Hack program. READ MORE HERE.
   

• The opening session of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court featured screaming protestors escorted from the premises by the Capitol Police and a world-class display of bickering across party lines. Abortion, guns and presidential power are all expected to come up during the hearings in coming days, with the outcome likely to alter the ideological direction of the country's highest court for decades to come. READ MORE HERE.
   

• Former senior White House strategist Steve Bannon joined ABC's Four Corners on Monday night, warning of the stakes involved in November's midterms and the potential for a left-wing insurgency to transform the Democrats, much like the populist Tea Party did to the Republicans during the Obama era. Associate Professor in American Politics Brendon O’Connor spoke to news.com.au about that prediction, along with what a post-midterms Congress might look like. READ MORE HERE.
   
• The New Yorker has dropped plans to interview Bannon during its festival next month, following the threatened cancellations of other guests and outcry on social media. The ex-chairman of Breitbart News was supposed to be a featured guest during a prestigious gathering that over the years has drawn some of the world's most prominent artists and public figures. READ MORE HERE.
   
• Trump spent last week railing about “RIGGED” Google searches and pledging to end what he claimed was the suppression of conservative voices. Writing for the Washington Post this week, honorary associate Nicole Hemmer looked at the history of US administrations attempting to regulate news platforms, and what approach Trump himself might now take. READ MORE HERE.
   
• The best way for Australia to honour John McCain's contribution to the US-Australia alliance would be to set up a parliamentary scholarship in his name, according to non-resident fellow Stephen Loosley. He wrote for The Australian this week on McCain's enduring legacy. READ MORE HERE.

Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.

Colin Kaepernick 
Nike 'Just Do It' campaign
3 September 2018

ANALYSIS

Who is the US representative at next year's Venice Biennale?

Lucas Thompson
Lecturer

After months of speculation, and an unprecedentedly long delay, the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has selected a US representative for the 2019 Venice Biennale. The delays worried many observers, with some even predicting that the United States might be one of the only nations not represented at the world’s most prestigious contemporary art fair. For many art critics, the long delay seemed to stem from Trump’s well-documented hostility toward the arts (including, not least, the fact that he still hasn’t awarded any National Arts Medals), with some suggesting that his administration’s failure to nominate a US representative revealed “a country contented with seclusion”.

The delays seemingly had more to do with widespread administrative holdups than anything else, though as with many other anomalies and broken protocols, it’s tempting to over-read such moments as being reflective of political ideology. In any case, the State Department recently announced that the Washington sculptor Martin Puryear will represent the United States at next year’s festival. It’s a bold and unexpected choice, and one worthy of analysis and reflection.

It’s important to note first of all how important the Venice Biennale is to global art. As the world’s longest-running and most prestigious venue for contemporary art, the Biennale celebrates visual creativity of all kinds by hosting representatives from across the globe, many of which are given separate “pavilions” in the city. The United States Pavilion is one of only 30 permanent ones, having been constructed in 1930 with funding from an American artists’ cooperative. Its broad purpose, as explained in an early catalogue, is to provide: “a broader field [for] American art; to exhibit in a larger way to a more numerous audience, […] thus displaying to the world the inherent value which our art undoubtedly possesses.” The pavilion is thus one important way in which US art addresses itself to the world, and it has always worked as a showcase for the best American artistic talent.

At 77 years of age, Puryear is a veteran of the American art scene. He has received countless laurels for his sculptures and installations, including a MacArthur “Genius” award, a National Medal of Arts (awarded by President Obama in 2011), and a Gold Medal in Sculpture from the National Academy of Arts. His work has been featured in many of the most prestigious US galleries, and is widely exhibited internationally.

Puryear is also the second African-American artist to be featured in the US Pavilion, and his sculptures have often wrestled with the complexities of racial politics in contemporary America. His well-known 1996 piece Ladder for Booker T. Washington, for instance, depicts an endlessly receding handcrafted ladder ― a complex reflection on the perhaps illusory politics of respectability espoused by Washington. Likewise, Shackled (2014), evokes the heinous practices of slavery, with its disorienting pairing of the black iron recreation of the cuffs used on slave ships as part of a minimalist, mammal-like sculpture. Indeed, one influential art critic describes Puryear as having “a decades-long body of work that is an effective foil to the Trumpian zeitgeist,” with its subtle and thoughtful aesthetic engagement with key social and political questions. 

One thing that makes Puryear an intriguing choice for the Biennale is that he has been unafraid to make art that is unflattering to those who commission it. In 2014, he constructed an oversized ball-and-chain sculpture for Brown University, in response to a request for a piece of public art to be displayed on university grounds. His confronting piece evokes the ongoing legacy of slavery, and Puryear’s accompanying interpretive text makes it clear that the university itself was a “beneficiary” of the African slave trade. Puryear’s Slavery Memorial both confronts passersby with the dark history of American slavery, while also attempting to hold Brown University to account for its participation in this same history.

Will he perhaps produce art that explicitly or otherwise criticises his artistic patrons in his Biennale display? Puryear will receive a quarter of a million dollars in State Department funding for his efforts, but is seemingly unlikely to have any qualms about making art in opposition to those who fund it. Indeed, plenty of American representatives in previous years have bitten the hand that feeds, as it were, by producing pieces critical of the administrations who have paid for and commissioned their work.

It may seem like a long way off, but be sure to keep an eye out for Puryear’s contribution to next year’s Biennale, which runs from May to November 2019. Whatever he chooses to display, and however political or otherwise his sculptures end up being, it will definitely be worthy of attention, and may well cause serious discomfort for the administration who put them there.

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 5 September: US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "Foreign Influence Operations’ Use of Social Media Platforms", with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
   

• Wednesday, 5 September: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on NATO.
   

• Thursday, 6 September: President Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Billings, Montana.
   

• Thursday, 6 September: US House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on China.
   

• Monday, 10 September: Australian Parliament returns in Canberra.

EVENT

The US and global economy under Trump: David Livingstone in conversation with Simon Jackman

VIDEO

Steve Bannon says Trump presidency will "grind to a halt" if GOP do badly in midterms

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#BobWoodward

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University of Sydney NSW 2006

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