Monday, April 11, 2022
DUMPSTER DIVING
He was notified by a contractor, Jared Whipple, a mechanic from Waterbury...
Connecticut mechanic finds art worth millions in dumpster at abandoned barn
Work by Francis Hines, who wrapped buildings and paintings and died at 96 in 2016, found in dumpster and now destined for sale
Francis Hines attends SLAG Gallery opening on 12 June 2008 in New York City. Photograph: Patrick McMullan
Paintings and other artwork found in an abandoned barn in Connecticut turned out to be worth millions of dollars.
Notified by a contractor, Jared Whipple, a mechanic from Waterbury, retrieved the dirt-covered pieces from a dumpster which contained materials from a barn in Watertown.
Whipple later found out the works were by Francis Hines, an abstract expressionist who died in 2016 at 96 and had stored his work in the barn, Hearst Connecticut Media Group reported.
Hines was renowned for his “wrapping” pieces, in which fabric is wrapped around an object. His art has been compared to that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who became famous for wrapping installations around Europe, including the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Hines wrapped more than 10 buildings in New York including the Washington Square Arch, JFK airport and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, art curator and historian Peter Hastings Falk said.
The hundreds of pieces retrieved by Whipple included paintings, sculptures and small drawings. Hastings Falk estimated the “wrapped” paintings could be sold at around $22,000 apiece and Hines’ drawings at around $4,500.
Whipple showed some of the pieces at a gallery in Waterbury last year and recently decided to sell some of the art. He is collaborating with Hollis Taggart, a New York City gallery, on exhibits in New York and Connecticut, beginning next month. . .
Whipple researched Hines’s work and contacted the artist’s family, who, he said, allowed him to keep and sell the art.
“I pulled it out of this dumpster and I fell in love with it,” Whipple said. “I made a connection with it. My purpose is to get Hines into the history books.”
Do read more >> https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/10/connecticut-mechanic-art-millions-barn-francis-hines
A TEMPER TANTRUM ALL OUT THERE
Carry on George! Galloway’s Twitter followers grew in the days after his temper tantrum.
UK Politician Who Had Shows On Russian TV Channel Threatens To Sue Twitter For Noting His Connections To Russian Media
from the not-how-any-of-this-works dept
George Galloway is a UK politician with, well, something of a reputation. Anyway, recently, he got very, very upset, because Twitter labeled his account as being “Russia state-affiliated media.”
That tweet shows the addition by Twitter of the “Russia state-affiliated media” and then says:
Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.
Twitter started labeling “state-affiliated” media accounts a while back and has explained the process thoroughly, including noting that there is a clear appeals process. Earlier this year, Twitter expanded the labeling of Russian state-affiliated media to attach it also to individuals who worked with those organizations, rather than just the organizations themselves.
Now, if Galloway truly worked for “no Russian media” he might have a reason to be frustrated. But, as people pointed out to him fairly quickly, at the time of that tweet above, his profile actually named multiple Russian media operations that he was directly associating himself with: “Sputnik on RT” and “InQuestion” a daily news program on RT.
Of course, as soon as people started pointing that out, Galloway’s profile magically changed. Poof.
And, while Galloway no longer links to this in his Twitter profile, his own website still highlights his connection to RT:
So, yeah, if you don’t want to be considered Russian state-affiliated media, maybe don’t have TV shows on Russian state-affiliated media that you appeared on within the last month?
Galloway’s response to some of this criticism is that it doesn’t count, because the UK government has “closed down” those Russian media operations, that suddenly frees him from being Russian state-affiliated media (which again, he was presenting on just weeks ago).
So… he was working for Russian state media and it’s bad for you to mention that because he can no longer work for Russian state media?
Somehow, he was then able to find a law firm in Ireland to send a laughably bumptious legal threat letter to Twitter, with promises to sue within a week:
Our client entirely disputes that he is “Russia state-affiliated media” and provides notice of his intention to institute proceedings against Twitter for breach of his personal data rights defamation/libel and harassment.
The application of the label is unlawful both as a matter of data protection law and otherwise unlawful being defamatory/libellous, an intrusion into our client’s private life because it is a serious attack on his personal/professional integrity and reputation and because the application of the label interferes with his right to freedom of expression through censorship
Look, I know that other parts of the world, including Ireland, have more ridiculous defamation laws than the US (which are more protective of free speech), but even in Ireland, a defense to a defamation claim is if the statement is “substantially true.” And it’s hard to deny that Galloway worked for Russian media. If that really has changed within the last week or so, the proper thing to do is to go through Twitter’s appeals process, not flip out and alert a lot more people that you were totally down with being a Russian state media presenter than realized it before.
Separately, Irish defamation law requires that a defamatory statement actually damage the reputation of the person making the complaint. And, as you might notice above, Galloway’s Twitter followers grew in the days after his temper tantrum.
Either way, George, if you don’t like how Twitter operates, your free to use one of its many, many competitors. Oh, I see you’ve already found one:
I hope you enjoy your stay on GETTR, George. Just make sure not to call that company’s main financial backer a Chinese spy, okay? They don’t like that over there in that “free speech” heaven.
Filed Under: defamation, george galloway, propaganda, russia, russian state affiliated media
Companies: russia today, twitter
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