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If the best way to combat speech you find offensive is with more speech, the same goes for art. Last fall, a South End Art Hop talk occasioned by the display of Bread and Puppet Theater founder Peter Schumann‘s mural “Independence Paintings” drew protests from people disturbed by the work’s visual analogy between Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and Palestinians under Israeli authority.... Read more

BURLINGTON — The conflict between Israel and Palestine has defined and taken lives on both sides for 60 years now. With opposition that passionate and unyielding, the simple act of crossing lines to communicate can constitute treason. Yonatan Shapira, an ex-Israeli Air Force helicopter pilot, discovered this two years ago when a superior at the helicopter charter company where he worked found out Shapira was a refusenik — a member of the armed forces who refused to serve on missions he considered morally questionable.... Read more

BURLINGTON — It appears the South End Arts and Business Association (SEABA) can finally move on with planning Art Hop 2008, now that it’s put out the fires ignited by last year’s event.... Read more

Last month, Arab-Israeli tensions spilled over from the Middle East to the West Bank of Lake Champlain. When a South End Art Hop exhibit depicting the plight of the Palestinians was accompanied by a controversial talk about Zionism and Israel’s future, it unleashed a torrent of accusations and countercharges of intolerance, historical revisionism and Nazi-like bullying tactics — in Vermont.... Read more

A TENNESSEE TALE
I am continually dismayed by the suppression of art and attempts to limit its availability and accessibility. Art is the voice of the artist, the depiction of ideas, of simple beauties, harsh realities, personal beliefs, political statements and interpretations of those beliefs and statements. The creation is entirely at the hand, from the imagination, and in the vision of the artist, just as the impression or perception of it is in the eye of the beholder.... Read more

The Art Hop debate raging this week in Burlington isn’t just about what’s hanging on the walls, but about what’s happening beyond the canvas, at the nexus of art and politics. It’s about walls themselves — walls that protect or imprison us, walls we hide behind, and walls that separate us from one another and from the truth. To shift the metaphor: Art is supposed to cast light in the darkness. But whether this controversy generates enlightenment or just a lot of heat and smoke remains to be seen. As does who will get burned.... Read more

Woody Allen once said that sex is dirty only if it’s done right. Something similar can be said about political art: It creates controversy only when it’s done right.... Read more

Last month, two news stories broke the same day, one meaty, one junky. In Detroit, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the Bush administration's warrantless National Security Agency surveillance program was unconstitutional and must end. Meanwhile, somewhere in Thailand, a weirdo named John Mark Karr claimed he was with 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsay when she died in 1996.... Read more

The bulldozer is a common piece of construction equipment, unlikely to provoke an emotional response. Until one learns about the life, and death, of Rachel Corrie. Then the word "bulldozer" may bring to mind the senseless cycle of violence in the Middle East, the insoluble conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, and the idealistic 23-year-old American woman who tried to stand up for what she believed. And whose body was crushed, like the walls of the Palestinian homes she was trying to shield, beneath a Caterpillar D-9 operated by the Israeli Defense Forces.... Read more

One of George W. Bush's favorite talking points has been that Hezbollah is the "root cause" of Lebanon's current conflict. But a young woman here wants to let people know the problem there goes much deeper than that. Sara Mehalick, 23, will host an 8 p.m. benefit screening of "Palestine Is Still the Issue" on Thursday at the Euro Gourmet Market & Cafe in Burlington. The almost hour-long documentary, Australian journalist John Pilger's 2002 sequel to his similarly titled 1977 film, examines the deadly pas de deux that has lasted for half a century.... Read more