thenation--2020-04-02--The Homeless Need Houses, Now More Than Ever

On a recent evening in Portland , Oregon , Dr. William Toepper put on a paper surgical mask and made his way down a muddy road toward a row of shelters pitched beneath the fir trees .
Smoke drifted up from a small fire tended by two women .
One of them stood as he approached .
“ You doing OK ?
” he asked.1 “ Yeah , ” she said .
“ Got any food ?
” 2 “ We ’ ve got survivor kits , ” Toepper offered , holding out a ziplock bag packed with socks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sanitizer .
“ I ’ ll take one , ” the woman said .
“ I want to survive.
” 3 Toepper , a retired emergency physician , is the medical director of Portland Street Medicine , a group of doctors , nurses , social workers , and other volunteers who provide care to people living on the streets , in camps , or in forests in the Portland area .
Volunteers go on rounds three days a week , providing acute care and basic medical supplies and offering to connect people with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks PSM volunteers have also been sharing information about Covid-19 as part of a multiorganization effort to protect Portland ’ s homeless population , estimated at 4,000 , during the pandemic.4 In the field , Toepper goes by “ Dr .
Bill.
” He ’ s known this woman , whom I ’ ll call Hannah , for about two years .
Hannah is 40 , and she has chronic hypertension .
She ’ s on medication , and she ’ s feeling better , she told us— “ except for all this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , waving her hands .
She was wearing blue latex gloves .
“ I ’ m just stressed out really bad.
” 5 Nearby , a man with a short gray beard poked his head out of a tent .
He ’ d been following news about the coronavirus on his phone .
Earlier in the day Oregon ’ s governor issued a stay-home order , closing some businesses and public spaces that many people without housing rely on .
“ Everything ’ s going to be shut down for two weeks now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Probably more like six weeks , yeah , ” Toepper replied.6 “ How are we supposed to eat ?
” the man said.7 More than half a million people across the United States experience homelessness on any given night , and the population faces acute risks from the respiratory virus .
Many have underlying health conditions , including chronic lung disease , HIV/AIDS , and mental illness , as well as higher levels of stress , which can weaken the immune system .
Even in the absence of a viral pandemic , people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost 10 times the general population ’ s and nearly three times that of people living in shelters .
Access to sanitation facilities , limited under ordinary circumstances , has been further complicated as public spaces like libraries close and service providers suspend operations in response to the pandemic.8 The first confirmed death from Covid-19 in the US homeless population occurred on March 16 in Silicon Valley ; since then , in New York City , at least two others have died , and dozens of people living in shelters have tested positive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ difficult if not impossible in shelter settings , though shelters across the country are taking various measures to try to limit the risk , including opening new temporary facilities to relieve crowding elsewhere .
For those living outdoors , survival often depends on social bonds .
“ It ’ s a social cohort of people , ” Toepper said , culturally and sometimes economically .
“ It ’ s tough to distance when your income depends on sex work or canning [ collecting cans for the recycling deposit ] .
” He continued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overall risk of getting [ Covid-19 ] is lower , simply because of the fresh air .
But once it hits , it ’ s going to be less well tolerated.
” And if it hits , “ the virus doesn ’ t stay in the homeless encampments .
It ’ s a threat to everyone.
” 9 Farther down the row of campsites , a woman named Julie asked Toepper about the shelter-in-place rules .
“ I was wondering if they ’ re possibly going to round us up and put us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the case , what ’ s going to happen to my dog ?
” she said .
“ That is certainly not the plan , ” he assured her.10 Julie asked about the symptoms of the disease , and Brandon Deyo , a registered nurse and PSM volunteer , told her to watch out for cough , fever , and shortness of breath .
“ The hard part is that hospitals are really busy right now because of this , and there are sick people there , so there are risks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ re struggling to breathe , then you should go.
” 11 Earlier , Toepper asked Hannah what her anxiety felt like .
He described his own as like a pit in his stomach .
“ Oh , man , ” she said , “ it goes right to my heart.
” 12 One of the foundational principles of street medicine is that providers meet people wherever they are .
Offering regular care directly can avert unnecessary , expensive trips to the emergency room .
It also helps build trust with people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clinic , even if they ’ re critically ill or injured .
“ When somebody comes into a health care setting , if they ’ re not clean or they don ’ t communicate well or they can ’ t bring their service dog , it can result in quite traumatic experiences , so they avoid it , ” Toepper said .
“ Our experience on the streets is that people are underutilizing health care.
” 13 Over the past few weeks , Toepper has been grappling with a question that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to provide street medicine , which depends on personal contact , during a viral pandemic ?
“ The difficult thing about doing the work is that contamination measures , distancing , PPE [ personal protective equipment ] —it ’ s a little more difficult in some of these chaotic environments , ” he said .
Some of PSM ’ s outreach has been scaled back simply because many of its volunteers work in hospitals and are busier than ever because of the virus .
“ One of us is probably going to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know how that ’ s going to affect us , to be honest , ” he said .
That prospect amplifies the need to protect not only PSM ’ s volunteers but also the people they treat.14 Several dozen street medicine programs operate in the US .
Recently the Street Medicine Institute , which advises local community groups , released recommendations that outreach teams be limited to essential personnel and that they focus on reducing the “ spread of the pandemic , while still providing the best medical care possible to the rough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ implemented new protocols for distributing medications and supplies to people , and he and Deyo wore masks.15 While Covid-19 complicates the logistics of providing care , the pandemic also makes the work more necessary .
In addition to reaching an at-risk population , street medicine can play an important role in public health more broadly .
“ So much of this work , on a practical level , has always been ER diversion , ” Deyo said .
That mission “ is much more amplified in its importance now , ” given the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19.16 Beginning on March 11 , PSM worked alongside the Multnomah County Department of Public Health and others in an effort to reach as much of the city ’ s unhoused population as possible with information about Covid-19 and supplies , including hand sanitizer .
At first , Toepper said , many of the people they spoke with seemed uninterested or suspicious , but over the course of a week , they became increasingly concerned .
Like Julie , many were afraid of being swept up and imprisoned in shelterlike environments.17 Advocates argue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forcibly move people into shelters .
Instead , they ’ re calling for cities to house people in hotels or other private accommodations during the crisis , and they call for significant increases in funding for housing assistance .
“ It has never been more clear that housing is health care , ” said Diane Yentel , the president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition , in a statement .
Advocates worry not only that the pandemic poses risks to individuals without housing but also that the economic fallout could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ package passed by Congress addressed some of these concerns , providing $ 4 billion to assist homeless shelters and outreach workers , $ 1.25 billion for Section 8 housing vouchers , $ 685 million for public housing , and a limited eviction moratorium .
( Governors in Oregon , California , and other states have implemented broader moratoriums on residential evictions . )
18 Workers Are Warriors in the Fight Against the Coronavirus 12 Coronavirus Funds That Will Help the Most Vulnerable More in this series In response to the pandemic , Portland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to limit its regular sweeps of encampments , in accordance with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , which advised that clearing camps could “ cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers.
” This will be a reprieve for many people living outdoors in Portland , which , like so many other cities , has been embroiled in contentious debates about housing affordability and the encampments .
“ The ask from the people living outside is , ‘ If we could just stay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d be better able to clean up , we ’ d do better , we would have less impact on our city , ’ ” Toepper said .
After some initial confusion about whether and how Oregon ’ s stay-home order affected people without housing , Governor Kate Brown recently clarified that her directive is “ not intended to serve as an enforcement mechanism against Oregon ’ s unsheltered population.
” 19 Later in the evening , Toepper pulled up to a street in Southeast Portland where several tents were set up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to tent , calling out , “ Portland Street Medicine !
You guys doing OK ?
Anybody need any medical attention ?
” They were greeted by silence .
“ It ’ s eerie , ” said Toepper.20 They approached a beige RV .
A small dog leaped against its windows , barking .
The woman who came to the door introduced herself as Dee .
She described a long list of past and present health problems , including cancer , multiple sclerosis , and fibromyalgia .
Deyo asked if she ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She said no ; she didn ’ t have Internet access .
She ’ d heard that there was a virus going around but didn ’ t know the symptoms .
“ It sounds like you might be pretty high risk , ” Deyo told her .
When he explained that she should watch out for fever , coughing , and shortness of breath , she cut in : “ You ’ re talking about my life.
” 21 Throughout the evening , Toepper and Deyo passed out water , the assembled survival @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on what people said they needed—Motrin , antacids , sterile saline for a man who ’ d split his finger open and had been told he ’ d need surgery .
With many hospitals postponing nonessential procedures because of the pandemic , it wasn ’ t clear when that could happen.22 The next day , Toepper called me .
He wanted to underscore the fundamental point of street medicine .
It is , of course , to treat medical ailments , he said .
“ But to explain the work by the minuscule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t really capture it.
” Think about the microbiome , he suggested—the bacteria , viruses , and other microorganisms “ that keep us alive and sometimes kill us , but mostly keep us alive.
” Our microbiomes aren ’ t ours alone ; they ’ re shaped by our environment and who we come in contact with .
So are the nonbiological things that make us who we are , he continued .
The pandemic illustrates this interdependence in a particularly stark way .
“ You can ’ t keep a community healthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least-healthy in mind and cared for , ” said Toepper .
“ We are not all living alone , you know ?
” 23

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
This article appears in the April 20/27, 2020 issue.
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On a recent evening in Portland, Oregon, Dr. William Toepper put on a paper surgical mask and made his way down a muddy road toward a row of shelters pitched beneath the fir trees. Smoke drifted up from a small fire tended by two women. One of them stood as he approached. “You doing OK?” he asked.1
“Yeah,” she said. “Got any food?”2
“We’ve got survivor kits,” Toepper offered, holding out a ziplock bag packed with socks, snacks, antibiotic ointment, and hand sanitizer. “I’ll take one,” the woman said. “I want to survive.”3
Toepper, a retired emergency physician, is the medical director of Portland Street Medicine, a group of doctors, nurses, social workers, and other volunteers who provide care to people living on the streets, in camps, or in forests in the Portland area. Volunteers go on rounds three days a week, providing acute care and basic medical supplies and offering to connect people with other services. In the past few weeks PSM volunteers have also been sharing information about Covid-19 as part of a multiorganization effort to protect Portland’s homeless population, estimated at 4,000, during the pandemic.4
In the field, Toepper goes by “Dr. Bill.” He’s known this woman, whom I’ll call Hannah, for about two years. Hannah is 40, and she has chronic hypertension. She’s on medication, and she’s feeling better, she told us—“except for all this crap going on,” she added, waving her hands. She was wearing blue latex gloves. “I’m just stressed out really bad.”5
Nearby, a man with a short gray beard poked his head out of a tent. He’d been following news about the coronavirus on his phone. Earlier in the day Oregon’s governor issued a stay-home order, closing some businesses and public spaces that many people without housing rely on. “Everything’s going to be shut down for two weeks now?” the man asked. “Probably more like six weeks, yeah,” Toepper replied.6
“How are we supposed to eat?” the man said.7 Current Issue View our current issue
More than half a million people across the United States experience homelessness on any given night, and the population faces acute risks from the respiratory virus. Many have underlying health conditions, including chronic lung disease, HIV/AIDS, and mental illness, as well as higher levels of stress, which can weaken the immune system. Even in the absence of a viral pandemic, people experiencing unsheltered homelessness have a mortality rate almost 10 times the general population’s and nearly three times that of people living in shelters. Access to sanitation facilities, limited under ordinary circumstances, has been further complicated as public spaces like libraries close and service providers suspend operations in response to the pandemic.8 Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
The first confirmed death from Covid-19 in the US homeless population occurred on March 16 in Silicon Valley; since then, in New York City, at least two others have died, and dozens of people living in shelters have tested positive for the coronavirus. Social distancing is difficult if not impossible in shelter settings, though shelters across the country are taking various measures to try to limit the risk, including opening new temporary facilities to relieve crowding elsewhere. For those living outdoors, survival often depends on social bonds. “It’s a social cohort of people,” Toepper said, culturally and sometimes economically. “It’s tough to distance when your income depends on sex work or canning [collecting cans for the recycling deposit].” He continued, “My sense is that the overall risk of getting [Covid-19] is lower, simply because of the fresh air. But once it hits, it’s going to be less well tolerated.” And if it hits, “the virus doesn’t stay in the homeless encampments. It’s a threat to everyone.”9
Farther down the row of campsites, a woman named Julie asked Toepper about the shelter-in-place rules. “I was wondering if they’re possibly going to round us up and put us in camps, and if that’s the case, what’s going to happen to my dog?” she said. “That is certainly not the plan,” he assured her.10
Julie asked about the symptoms of the disease, and Brandon Deyo, a registered nurse and PSM volunteer, told her to watch out for cough, fever, and shortness of breath. “The hard part is that hospitals are really busy right now because of this, and there are sick people there, so there are risks,” he said. “But if you’re struggling to breathe, then you should go.”11
Earlier, Toepper asked Hannah what her anxiety felt like. He described his own as like a pit in his stomach. “Oh, man,” she said, “it goes right to my heart.”12
One of the foundational principles of street medicine is that providers meet people wherever they are. Offering regular care directly can avert unnecessary, expensive trips to the emergency room. It also helps build trust with people who might never visit a hospital or clinic, even if they’re critically ill or injured. “When somebody comes into a health care setting, if they’re not clean or they don’t communicate well or they can’t bring their service dog, it can result in quite traumatic experiences, so they avoid it,” Toepper said. “Our experience on the streets is that people are underutilizing health care.”13
Over the past few weeks, Toepper has been grappling with a question that’s both logistical and ethical: How best to provide street medicine, which depends on personal contact, during a viral pandemic? “The difficult thing about doing the work is that contamination measures, distancing, PPE [personal protective equipment]—it’s a little more difficult in some of these chaotic environments,” he said. Some of PSM’s outreach has been scaled back simply because many of its volunteers work in hospitals and are busier than ever because of the virus. “One of us is probably going to get Covid, and I don’t know how that’s going to affect us, to be honest,” he said. That prospect amplifies the need to protect not only PSM’s volunteers but also the people they treat.14
Several dozen street medicine programs operate in the US. Recently the Street Medicine Institute, which advises local community groups, released recommendations that outreach teams be limited to essential personnel and that they focus on reducing the “spread of the pandemic, while still providing the best medical care possible to the rough sleeping population.” In Portland, Toepper implemented new protocols for distributing medications and supplies to people, and he and Deyo wore masks.15
While Covid-19 complicates the logistics of providing care, the pandemic also makes the work more necessary. In addition to reaching an at-risk population, street medicine can play an important role in public health more broadly. “So much of this work, on a practical level, has always been ER diversion,” Deyo said. That mission “is much more amplified in its importance now,” given the need to focus hospital resources on treating Covid-19.16
Beginning on March 11, PSM worked alongside the Multnomah County Department of Public Health and others in an effort to reach as much of the city’s unhoused population as possible with information about Covid-19 and supplies, including hand sanitizer. At first, Toepper said, many of the people they spoke with seemed uninterested or suspicious, but over the course of a week, they became increasingly concerned. Like Julie, many were afraid of being swept up and imprisoned in shelterlike environments.17
Advocates argue that Covid-19 should not be used to forcibly move people into shelters. Instead, they’re calling for cities to house people in hotels or other private accommodations during the crisis, and they call for significant increases in funding for housing assistance. “It has never been more clear that housing is health care,” said Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, in a statement. Advocates worry not only that the pandemic poses risks to individuals without housing but also that the economic fallout could push others into homelessness. The relief package passed by Congress addressed some of these concerns, providing $4 billion to assist homeless shelters and outreach workers, $1.25 billion for Section 8 housing vouchers, $685 million for public housing, and a limited eviction moratorium. (Governors in Oregon, California, and other states have implemented broader moratoriums on residential evictions.)18 Coronavirus Seattle Destroyed Homeless Encampments as the Pandemic Raged Dae Shik Kim Jr. and Guy Oron Workers Are Warriors in the Fight Against the Coronavirus Jeet Heer 12 Coronavirus Funds That Will Help the Most Vulnerable Shirley Ngozi Nwangwa
In response to the pandemic, Portland, along with other cities, decided to limit its regular sweeps of encampments, in accordance with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which advised that clearing camps could “cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers.” This will be a reprieve for many people living outdoors in Portland, which, like so many other cities, has been embroiled in contentious debates about housing affordability and the encampments. “The ask from the people living outside is, ‘If we could just stay put for a little while, we’d be better able to clean up, we’d do better, we would have less impact on our city,’” Toepper said. After some initial confusion about whether and how Oregon’s stay-home order affected people without housing, Governor Kate Brown recently clarified that her directive is “not intended to serve as an enforcement mechanism against Oregon’s unsheltered population.”19
Later in the evening, Toepper pulled up to a street in Southeast Portland where several tents were set up. He and Deyo went from tent to tent, calling out, “Portland Street Medicine! You guys doing OK? Anybody need any medical attention?” They were greeted by silence. “It’s eerie,” said Toepper.20
They approached a beige RV. A small dog leaped against its windows, barking. The woman who came to the door introduced herself as Dee. She described a long list of past and present health problems, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, and fibromyalgia. Deyo asked if she’d been following the news about Covid-19. She said no; she didn’t have Internet access. She’d heard that there was a virus going around but didn’t know the symptoms. “It sounds like you might be pretty high risk,” Deyo told her. When he explained that she should watch out for fever, coughing, and shortness of breath, she cut in: “You’re talking about my life.”21
Throughout the evening, Toepper and Deyo passed out water, the assembled survival packs, and simple medications, depending on what people said they needed—Motrin, antacids, sterile saline for a man who’d split his finger open and had been told he’d need surgery. With many hospitals postponing nonessential procedures because of the pandemic, it wasn’t clear when that could happen.22
The next day, Toepper called me. He wanted to underscore the fundamental point of street medicine. It is, of course, to treat medical ailments, he said. “But to explain the work by the minuscule, tiny tasks you see doesn’t really capture it.” Think about the microbiome, he suggested—the bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms “that keep us alive and sometimes kill us, but mostly keep us alive.” Our microbiomes aren’t ours alone; they’re shaped by our environment and who we come in contact with. So are the nonbiological things that make us who we are, he continued. The pandemic illustrates this interdependence in a particularly stark way. “You can’t keep a community healthy if you don’t keep the least-healthy in mind and cared for,” said Toepper. “We are not all living alone, you know?”23


thenation--2020-04-02--In Memoriam: Michael Sorkin, 1948–2020

In Memoriam: Michael Sorkin, 1948–2020

EDITOR ’ S NOTE : The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service .
For that reason , this article , and all of our coronavirus coverage , is now free .
Please subscribe to support our writers and staff , and stay healthy .
Michael Sorkin died from the coronavirus in an overcrowded hospital on March 26 , and it is a shattering loss .
If some people consider me an urban theorist , it ’ s only because in 1992 Michael conscripted me to write @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Theme Park .
His ideas have had an immense influence in shaping my own .
He was by any measure the most important radical theorist of city life and architecture in the past half century .
New Yorkers old enough to have been readers of The Village Voice in the 1980s , when he was the paper ’ s architecture critic , will never forget the war he waged against mega-developers and urban rapists like Donald Trump .
Or how , in Whitmanesque prose , he weekly sang the ballad of New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At a time when postmodernists were throwing dirt over the corpse of the 20th century , Michael was resurrecting the socialist dreams and libertarian utopias that were the original soul of architectural modernism .
When the people ’ s city was under attack , he was inevitably the first to march to the sound of the guns .
And then… his kindness , his devilish glee , his soaring imagination , his 50,000 volts of creative energy—I ’ m drowning my keyboard in tears .
Michael , you rat , why did you @ @ @ @ @ @ @

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
This article appears in the April 20/27, 2020 issue.
Michael Sorkin died from the coronavirus in an overcrowded hospital on March 26, and it is a shattering loss. If some people consider me an urban theorist, it’s only because in 1992 Michael conscripted me to write a chapter in the collection Variations on a Theme Park. His ideas have had an immense influence in shaping my own. He was by any measure the most important radical theorist of city life and architecture in the past half century. New Yorkers old enough to have been readers of The Village Voice in the 1980s, when he was the paper’s architecture critic, will never forget the war he waged against mega-developers and urban rapists like Donald Trump. Or how, in Whitmanesque prose, he weekly sang the ballad of New York’s unruly democratic streets. At a time when postmodernists were throwing dirt over the corpse of the 20th century, Michael was resurrecting the socialist dreams and libertarian utopias that were the original soul of architectural modernism. When the people’s city was under attack, he was inevitably the first to march to the sound of the guns. And then… his kindness, his devilish glee, his soaring imagination, his 50,000 volts of creative energy—I’m drowning my keyboard in tears. Michael, you rat, why did you go when we need you most?


thenation--2020-04-02--Domestic Violence and Coronavirus: Hell Behind Closed Doors

In many households when men are at home , the women are in danger .
And the longer a man is home , the more persistent the need for hypervigilance and the more drawn out the anxiety .
The anticipation of violence can be almost as terrible as the violence itself .
The pent-up horrors of abusive households are already familiar to millions of Americans .
The arrival of a pandemic and all that has gone with it—the stay-at-home orders , the infected law enforcement officers , the economic uncertainty—is likely making it familiar to millions more .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , I worked as a lawyer in a domestic violence shelter .
My office , a small cubicle inside an already small room , could not be accessed without walking through a common area with a television .
After long weekends and during the holidays , the room would have twice as many new faces , always in the same configuration of grief and consternation : Worried mothers watching their exhausted children stare at the television screen .
Just off the open TV room , a glass wall with a door marked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ residential crisis rooms that you could access only with a card .
Around Christmas , New Year , and the Fourth of July , the rooms had to be shared , and deep into the holidays , even that wasn ’ t enough .
Cots had to be set up in whatever space was available .
Women and their children would trip and toddle over pieces of other people ’ s lives .
When all the cots were occupied , we had to turn people away .
I knew the cruel chronology of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Years before I became a lawyer at a domestic violence shelter , I walked into one the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend .
Now , when pundits , epidemiologists , and politicians repeat the words “ stay at home ” as a strategy or admonition , I imagine the hell that is brewing behind closed doors—the secret violence against the most vulnerable and those with the least recourse .
For the women I represented and the woman I was when I fled abuse , “ home ” is a word fraught with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stretch long for most of us now , the days are unrelenting for those facing violence .
I think of the children who got small sips of normalcy and safety at school , but who are at home now , being beaten and battered or forced to watch beatings and batterings .
The horror of the virus is not simply its own contagion but the virulence of the circumstances it creates .
Financial uncertainty can foment violence in the home .
Women make up a larger percentage of the informal economy , providing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both jobs unlikely to provide paid leave ) ; women constitute two-thirds of tipped restaurant workers , nearly all of whom have been let go .
Studies have shown that conflict evolving from economic stress is a trigger for abusive episodes .
The truth is that angry , bored , and isolated men are more likely to vent their frustrations on the most proximate target , which is often their female partner .
Abusers know the conditions of captivity that this pandemic has produced , and it will likely only increase the intensity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Violence : When the Beautiful Game Turns Ugly If the women make it to a shelter , there is the new lethality of a shared space .
Shelters try their best to ensure safety and health in a crowded environment , but they are communal environments .
In the shelter where I worked , hygiene and safety rules meant certain things were not permitted in the shelter rooms .
Food was one of them .
All meals had to be taken in a cafeteria .
Residents and their children could access snacks like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fruit , and similar items but these too had to be eaten in the cafeteria .
It was a good plan , and for the most part it worked .
But how can domestic violence shelters keep survivors separate in communal spaces to make sure that infection does not spread ?
How can they ensure that the family of four that came in last night are not asymptomatic shedders who will infect everyone ?
Indeed , if someone or a family does get infected , how do they keep them in quarantine and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
A long list of culprits is responsible for making this situation worse .
Even before the pandemic , repeated cuts to Violence Against Women Act provisions left shelters—like the one where I worked—defunct or flailing .
All these are concerns facing the survivors who actually get in to a domestic violence shelter .
Many domestic violence situations require interventions of law enforcement officers who can either arrest perpetrators or transport the women and children to shelters .
The first thing I tried to do in such situations was to assist my clients @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I could also help them file for divorce and petition courts for emergency hearings .
Social workers also provided assistance , helping my clients obtain SNAP benefits and enroll in other social programs that would help them leave the abusive relationship and obtain more permanent shelter .
All of this is in jeopardy .
During a pandemic , police officers , who intervene in fights where guns are pointed and knives are drawn , can no longer reliably provide the pause that usually comes with their arrival .
By March 26 , 300 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and nearly 3,000 , or a full one-tenth of the officers of the entire department , called in sick .
Given the growing number of cases among officers infected , fewer are available to come to the rescue when a victim of domestic violence calls 911 .
With a contagious disease spreading its deadly and invisible tentacles , police departments will focus on reducing interactions within homes and focus on keeping public peace .
Some police departments have already diverted officers to avoid physical contact to retain their workforce .
In sum , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Hubbard House in Jacksonville , Florida , put it , “ The abuser has increased access to survivors and the children while the survivor has decreased access to resources , meaning the survivor can ’ t get out into the community like they normally would to get help.
” Trapped , women and children face emotional , verbal , and physical abuse , in some cases making the actual threat of the virus a secondary concern .
With shelters struggling , courts and court systems largely closed , and police officers redeployed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in danger during these long days of self-isolation and quarantine .
Now , it is up to ordinary people to begin to raise money , space , and resources for the thousands of survivors of domestic violence that will need them .
Those with access to uninhabited rental or event spaces , or really any space , should consider donating them for a short period to shelters facing a surge in survivors .
Others could contact their local domestic violence shelters and ask if they can send food that could be purchased online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could offer online classes or even music performances that could be streamed for children in crisis .
In the longer term , it is useful to consider the beginnings of the idea of the “ domestic violence shelter.
” One of the first , later to be called Transition House , was established in Cambridge , Massachusetts , in 1975 by a lesbian couple who simply opened their apartment to women who needed shelter .
Theirs was an activist and political project , which used radical left politics to coalesce around the agenda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of violence .
That was long ago , and since then domestic violence has been depoliticized and handed over to a nongovernmental organization .
Moments of rapid change provide the material for social transformation .
On Monday , March 23 , 25 senators signed a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services that asked the department to ensure that anti–domestic violence and anti–sexual violence programs have the “ resources and information ” that they will likely need during the pandemic .
The letter , signed by Republicans and Democrats , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no provisions that would actually ensure that these resources are allocated .
This is how things usually go ; setting up domestic violence as a bipartisan issue has meant that neither side is willing to really fight for survivors .
Every politician just wants to be seen as caring about domestic violence .
For feminists who want a return to the radical politics of its initial days , it may be something that deserves more than cursory consideration .
If feminist politicians made domestic violence and funding shelters part of their primary agenda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the one just implemented in France .
There , Marlène Schiappa , the minister for equality between men and women , is overseeing a program that has made 20,000 hotel rooms available for women fleeing violence .
The program acknowledges that a pandemic that forces people into their homes leaves thousands of women and children vulnerable .
During this pandemic , most of us feel at the mercy of a virus for which there is no cure .
The sudden and scary reality of this moment should catalyze compassion for the older and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women who will die because of Covid-19 will not only be those who succumb to the virus .
They will also include those who faced violence at home .
Perhaps this recognition can pry open the hearts and wallets of those who have not cared before , and push them to help those whom the contagion puts in danger even when they stay at home .

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In many households when men are at home, the women are in danger. And the longer a man is home, the more persistent the need for hypervigilance and the more drawn out the anxiety. The anticipation of violence can be almost as terrible as the violence itself. The pent-up horrors of abusive households are already familiar to millions of Americans. The arrival of a pandemic and all that has gone with it—the stay-at-home orders, the infected law enforcement officers, the economic uncertainty—is likely making it familiar to millions more.
This is not just a guess. For several years, I worked as a lawyer in a domestic violence shelter. My office, a small cubicle inside an already small room, could not be accessed without walking through a common area with a television. After long weekends and during the holidays, the room would have twice as many new faces, always in the same configuration of grief and consternation: Worried mothers watching their exhausted children stare at the television screen. Just off the open TV room, a glass wall with a door marked off a corridor that led to eight residential crisis rooms that you could access only with a card. Around Christmas, New Year, and the Fourth of July, the rooms had to be shared, and deep into the holidays, even that wasn’t enough. Cots had to be set up in whatever space was available. Women and their children would trip and toddle over pieces of other people’s lives. When all the cots were occupied, we had to turn people away. I knew the cruel chronology of the holidays from personal experience, too. Years before I became a lawyer at a domestic violence shelter, I walked into one the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.
Now, when pundits, epidemiologists, and politicians repeat the words “stay at home” as a strategy or admonition, I imagine the hell that is brewing behind closed doors—the secret violence against the most vulnerable and those with the least recourse. For the women I represented and the woman I was when I fled abuse, “home” is a word fraught with fear and suffering.
While days may stretch long for most of us now, the days are unrelenting for those facing violence. I think of the children who got small sips of normalcy and safety at school, but who are at home now, being beaten and battered or forced to watch beatings and batterings. The horror of the virus is not simply its own contagion but the virulence of the circumstances it creates.
Financial uncertainty can foment violence in the home. Women make up a larger percentage of the informal economy, providing care to the elderly and children (both jobs unlikely to provide paid leave); women constitute two-thirds of tipped restaurant workers, nearly all of whom have been let go. Studies have shown that conflict evolving from economic stress is a trigger for abusive episodes. The truth is that angry, bored, and isolated men are more likely to vent their frustrations on the most proximate target, which is often their female partner. Abusers know the conditions of captivity that this pandemic has produced, and it will likely only increase the intensity of their wrath. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Related Article Soccer and Domestic Violence: When the Beautiful Game Turns Ugly Miguel Salazar
If the women make it to a shelter, there is the new lethality of a shared space. Shelters try their best to ensure safety and health in a crowded environment, but they are communal environments. In the shelter where I worked, hygiene and safety rules meant certain things were not permitted in the shelter rooms. Food was one of them. All meals had to be taken in a cafeteria. Residents and their children could access snacks like juice and peanut butter, bread, fruit, and similar items but these too had to be eaten in the cafeteria.
It was a good plan, and for the most part it worked. But how can domestic violence shelters keep survivors separate in communal spaces to make sure that infection does not spread? How can they ensure that the family of four that came in last night are not asymptomatic shedders who will infect everyone? Indeed, if someone or a family does get infected, how do they keep them in quarantine and isolation, when space is severely limited? Current Issue View our current issue
A long list of culprits is responsible for making this situation worse. Even before the pandemic, repeated cuts to Violence Against Women Act provisions left shelters—like the one where I worked—defunct or flailing.
All these are concerns facing the survivors who actually get in to a domestic violence shelter. Many domestic violence situations require interventions of law enforcement officers who can either arrest perpetrators or transport the women and children to shelters. The first thing I tried to do in such situations was to assist my clients in procuring protective orders. Later, I could also help them file for divorce and petition courts for emergency hearings. Social workers also provided assistance, helping my clients obtain SNAP benefits and enroll in other social programs that would help them leave the abusive relationship and obtain more permanent shelter.
All of this is in jeopardy. During a pandemic, police officers, who intervene in fights where guns are pointed and knives are drawn, can no longer reliably provide the pause that usually comes with their arrival. By March 26, 300 NYPD officers had tested positive for Covid-19 and nearly 3,000, or a full one-tenth of the officers of the entire department, called in sick. Given the growing number of cases among officers infected, fewer are available to come to the rescue when a victim of domestic violence calls 911. With a contagious disease spreading its deadly and invisible tentacles, police departments will focus on reducing interactions within homes and focus on keeping public peace. Some police departments have already diverted officers to avoid physical contact to retain their workforce.
In sum, as Gail Patin, the shelter director at Hubbard House in Jacksonville, Florida, put it, “The abuser has increased access to survivors and the children while the survivor has decreased access to resources, meaning the survivor can’t get out into the community like they normally would to get help.” Trapped, women and children face emotional, verbal, and physical abuse, in some cases making the actual threat of the virus a secondary concern. With shelters struggling, courts and court systems largely closed, and police officers redeployed or out sick, many women are in danger during these long days of self-isolation and quarantine.
Now, it is up to ordinary people to begin to raise money, space, and resources for the thousands of survivors of domestic violence that will need them. Those with access to uninhabited rental or event spaces, or really any space, should consider donating them for a short period to shelters facing a surge in survivors. Others could contact their local domestic violence shelters and ask if they can send food that could be purchased online and shipped to the shelter. Others could offer online classes or even music performances that could be streamed for children in crisis.
In the longer term, it is useful to consider the beginnings of the idea of the “domestic violence shelter.” One of the first, later to be called Transition House, was established in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1975 by a lesbian couple who simply opened their apartment to women who needed shelter. Theirs was an activist and political project, which used radical left politics to coalesce around the agenda of making the home a space free of violence. That was long ago, and since then domestic violence has been depoliticized and handed over to a nongovernmental organization.
Moments of rapid change provide the material for social transformation. On Monday, March 23, 25 senators signed a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services that asked the department to ensure that anti–domestic violence and anti–sexual violence programs have the “resources and information” that they will likely need during the pandemic. The letter, signed by Republicans and Democrats, is a good start, but it creates no provisions that would actually ensure that these resources are allocated. This is how things usually go; setting up domestic violence as a bipartisan issue has meant that neither side is willing to really fight for survivors. Every politician just wants to be seen as caring about domestic violence.
For feminists who want a return to the radical politics of its initial days, it may be something that deserves more than cursory consideration. If feminist politicians made domestic violence and funding shelters part of their primary agenda, we could even have programs like the one just implemented in France. There, Marlène Schiappa, the minister for equality between men and women, is overseeing a program that has made 20,000 hotel rooms available for women fleeing violence. The program acknowledges that a pandemic that forces people into their homes leaves thousands of women and children vulnerable.
During this pandemic, most of us feel at the mercy of a virus for which there is no cure. The sudden and scary reality of this moment should catalyze compassion for the older and ever-present threat of domestic violence. The women who die because of Covid-19 will not only be those who succumb to the virus. Their number will also include some who face violence at home. Perhaps this recognition can pry open the hearts and wallets of those who have not cared before, and push them to help those whom the contagion puts in danger even when they stay at home.


thenation--2020-04-02--On the Ground and in the Airwaves

On the Ground and in the Airwaves

Maybe , rather than “ The gulf war did not take place , ” as the French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard declared in 1991 , he should have said , “ Two gulf wars took place , ” two completely different but overlapping events : the “ electronic war , ” as he called it , that was vaguely registered around the world , and the war that was experienced by those who were there , whether as residents of Kuwait or Iraq or as participants in the US-led military coalition .
That first Persian Gulf war of 1990–91—or first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and decisively .
The Iraqis were pushed out of Kuwait , where the status quo ante of authoritarian rule was restored , and Saddam Hussein ’ s regime was permitted to continue essentially undisturbed in Iraq .
The Iraq War , launched by the United States in 2003 , of course is another story .
In theory , American involvement ended in 2011 ( though the conflict didn ’ t end ) , but our troops returned three years later , and there they remain .
An ambitious and thought-provoking recent exhibition at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Theater of Operations : The Gulf Wars 1991–2011 , ” curated by Peter Eleey and Ruba Katrib , surveyed artists ’ responses to the two conflicts .
And as is happening more and more these days , the exhibition sparked its own conflicts .
The English artist Phil Collins withdrew his work from the show to protest MoMA board member Larry Fink ’ s ties to the private prison industry , saying , “ Museums and cultural spaces , their collections , exhibitions and programs , should not be aligned with or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war profiteering , ecological catastrophe , debt ownership , devastation , oppression and the pain of others.
” Michael Rakowitz , an American artist of Iraqi descent , decried not only Fink ’ s involvement with the museum , but also that of Leon Black , an investor , according to Rakowitz , in “ Constellis Holdings , formerly called Blackwater… infamous for its role in the Nisour Square Massacre , during which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20 more.
” He pressed the pause button on his video work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turned it back on .
Like the wars themselves , “ Theater of Operations ” also seemed to be not a single show but two almost unconnected shows : One was an exhibition concerning the media wars as seen through the eyes of Western artists—mostly but not exclusively Americans—and the other was a very different exhibition imbued with the experience of people who were on the ground as the wars took place .
Many of the artists whose work was featured in this second show within the show , I should add , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America , or relatively safer Arab states away from home .
The devastation endured by Iraq forced many of its artists into exile .
For those of us who , whether with dismay or indifference , could only read about our country ’ s wars in the newspaper , watch televised reports , or later , access information via the Internet , it was always war at a distance ( as a 2003 video here with that title by German artist Harun Farocki would have it ) .
Yet what could be experienced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different from the experiences available to those on the sidelines of past wars .
As Katrib points out in her catalog essay , the 1990s was a time when “ many Western artists and thinkers…were focused on analyzing the role of the image within the rise of digital media technology.
” Probably she would have been more accurate had she written “ mass media technology ” —a specific concern with the digital was not yet widespread , if I remember correctly ; the dial-up modems , command-line interfaces , and online communities operating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in retrospect , to legacy media than to the hyperconnected digital ecosystem we ’ re familiar with today—but she is right to recall the prevalent fascination with media imagery at the time .
The influence not only of Baudrillard but also of figures such as Paul Virilio and Manuel DeLanda was burgeoning .
They were constant references in art discourse .
Many of the works by American and European artists at PS1 exemplify the concern , at just the time the first gulf war was in the offing , that media had become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opaque contents and obscure effects .
Typical are Michel Auder ’ s found-footage video Gulf War TV War ( 1991 , edited 2007 ) and Robert Morris ’ s work consisting of an overpainted newspaper page ( Untitled , 1990 ) .
Jean-Luc Moulène ’ s pencil drawing 28 janvier 1991 ( 1991 ) is traced from a talking head on his TV screen , and British pop artist Richard Hamilton ’ s War Games ( 1991–2010 ) , a photographically derived painting , shows television as a domestic appliance piping war imagery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information hardly seemed to be making anyone more informed , or it changed the value of being informed , which appeared to have been delinked from any possibility of effective action .
An essential unreality was felt to have seeped in everywhere .
Not all Western artists felt they could discern the realities of war only through a technologically induced haze .
The photographer Judith Joy Ross produced fiercely attentive black-and-white portraits of service members and their families at a farewell dinner for departing troops in Allentown , Pennsylvania , in 1990 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are captioned as taken at “ gulf war rallies ” in Allentown and nearby Easton .
It ’ s not clear to me what kind of rallies these were—in support of the war effort or in protest ?
Maybe that would have been evident at the time , but I suspect that Ross left the ambiguity deliberately .
The portraits ’ tight framing and blurred backgrounds present these people in isolation .
There ’ s no sense of them being part of a community either at the rallies or the dinner .
Nor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one feel that these individuals are in communication with the person taking their picture .
Some of their eyes avoid contact , and when they look straight into the camera , that is , at the photographer , it ’ s as if their thoughts are reflected back into themselves .
They don ’ t appear to expect a response .
Perhaps they are too immersed in the question of their future .
In any case , they seem intensely alone , thrown back on themselves , tragically disconnected , even as we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They are trapped , perhaps , in the American ideal of self-reliance .
Or maybe it ’ s simply that the call to war places everyone who hears it , whether they realize it or not and whether they choose obedience or dissent , in a state of acute moral solitude and unknowing .
A photographer who shared Ross ’ s sense that the image maker might still confront a kind of reality and not just convey images of images with no ultimate reference was Allan Sekula , who is otherwise a very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The show includes his installation War Without Bodies ( 1991/1996 ) , which includes a grid of nine color photographs taken at a “ military air show and Gulf War victory celebration , El Toro Marine Corps Air Station , Santa Ana , California , April 28 , 1991 , ” according to the caption .
The photos , originally published with Sekula ’ s essay of the same title in Artforum that year , depict people at the air show poking their fingers into the openings of a many-barreled artillery gun .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ his finger into the resurrected Christ ’ s wound , placing empiricism before faith .
Sekula ’ s “ war without bodies ” is not exactly Baudrillard ’ s war that did not take place , but it ’ s closer than one might expect from the artist who derisively observed , in response to theories of simulation and spectacle , that “ the old myth that photographs tell the truth has been replaced by the new myth that they lie.
” The moments of tentative touch Sekula pictures appear to represent the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The spectacle of our all-powerful weaponry—another kind of image—may be a source of fascination , but fascination turns out to mean seduction by what can neither quite compel belief nor be dismissed as illusory .
The reuse and reframing of media imagery was not a strategy exclusive to Westerners like Auder and Hamilton .
Artists from the gulf region , too , were intent on getting information through any channels available—and all the more so , I imagine , if they were far from home .
Tarek al-Ghoussein , a Palestinian born @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dhabi , shows a group of Polaroids from 1991 , apparently of his TV screen : blurred scenes of battles and burning landscapes , anonymous troops as well as leaders such as Saddam and George H.W .
Bush .
It ’ s all hallucinatory , intangible , and yet the hallucination is a persistent one , the intangibility terribly vivid .
The Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi , living in London in 1991 , found a photograph , published in the Observer , of the grotesquely charred head of a man burned to death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Kuwait— “ The real face of war , ” according to the newspaper ’ s headline .
This became the source for Azzawi ’ s painting Victim ’ s Portrait ( 1991 ) , exhibited in juxtaposition with the original clipping .
The face is painted in colorful , quasi-abstract brushstrokes against a dark ground , though the blank , empty-eyed countenance remains minatory .
For Katrib , “ Azzawi returns humanity to the soldier , ” but I wonder how true that is .
To my eye , the unseeing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very idea of humanity has been hollowed out .
Many of the works by Iraqi artists shown here , including others by Azzawi , take the form of handmade books , known as dafatir ( singular daftar , Arabic for “ notebook ” ) .
What the form offers is flexibility ; it can include painting , writing , collage , or just about anything else , and it doesn ’ t demand that it all be synthesized in a single space .
Each page or spread is its own space , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Some beautiful examples here are by Kareem Risan , who was an Iraqi soldier in the first gulf war and is now based in Canada .
Reflection and vehemence mix in his pages : “ I utilized the idea of painting in a notebook to deal with important issues that I experienced during my life in Baghdad , the center of events ( the war , the sanctions , and all subsequent events that destroyed the infrastructure of the country and promoted human and social destruction ) .
Dafatir allowed for a visual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The visual depth Risan refers to is built up through time—the medium of the book allowing for a pictorial language that does not cultivate the fiction of a single encapsulated moment as an easel painting does—and of the emotional vicissitudes that can be conveyed by imagery that unfolds in time .
Another Iraqi artist whose dafatir are particularly striking is Hanaa Malallah , who left Baghdad in 2006 and now lives in London .
Her dafatir follow what she calls a “ ruins technique ” —their pages burned and , as it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence rather than representations of it .
Nada Shabout writes in the exhibition catalog that such works offer “ a contemplative space in which to articulate the contemporary moment through an abstraction akin to that of installation , offering a full exhibition through its various pages as a complete , discrete project , and as such provides an alternative interpretation of monumentality.
” In other words , the space between the covers of a book allows for a grand scale in the imagination , if not in literal space like an installation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ intimacy and enlarge it to convey a realm of experience that is at once collective and individual .
Ghassan Ghaib , who now lives in Los Angeles , offers in his Homage to al-Mutanabbi Street 1 ( 2007 ) , a book-object closed in on itself , at once destroyed and preserved , tied shut with barbed wire .
Its explosive content , which we can only imagine , seems to be contained , but only under immense pressure .
I couldn ’ t help feeling that “ Theater of Operations ” as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the gulf wars was far less moving than “ Theater of Operations ” as a show of artists responding to the fate of their lands , whether or not they were living there when these wars took place .
Maybe it ’ s just that the work of artists from the Persian Gulfis less familiar .
The truth is that , probably , the proportion of works in which the artists succeeded in finding a form for their experiences is probably about the same for both and probably not very high in either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems urgent here .
Let time winnow out success from failure .
For now , what ’ s more important is how this show demonstrates the urgency with which artists around the world obeyed their felt need to use their work to come to terms with events to which they were mostly condemned to be mute witnesses .
Living in a time when images had become part of the arsenal of war , they were moved to respond with images of their own or with attempts to plumb the images that confronted them—to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what they ’ d seen , however indirectly , and what they ’ d felt .
It ’ s somehow fitting that the most comprehensive efforts to come to terms with what happened in these wars come through handmade books , an ancient form made new out of necessity .
It would be wonderful to see , sometime soon , a show devoted just to dafatir .
But one would also like to see the contemporary art of Iraq , its neighbors , and its diaspora shown in a larger historical context @ @ @ @ @ @ @ art , striking as it is , comes out of the blue .
We know little of its roots , its trajectory in the decades before these wars tore up the landscape .
War did not destroy this art—artists are too hardy for that—and war didn ’ t create it , either .
Luckily , we were afforded a glimpse of what was going on in the art of the Middle East in another show , “ Taking Shape : Abstraction From the Arab World , 1950s–1980s , ” curated by Lynn Gumpert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scheduled to be on view at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University through April 4 .
Those decades were a period of experimentation , in which artists from all over the world—and not just from the Middle East and North Africa , the subject of this particular show—were enthusiastically attempting to come to terms with their modernities and essaying all sorts of hybrids ( often in the long run barren , as hybrids tend to be , but not always ) between aesthetic forms derived from their countries ’ artistic heritages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alluring .
Abstraction , as it turns out , was a most flexible vehicle for such attempts , able to absorb forms from all sorts of pictorial idioms and oblique recollections of many distinct perceptions , from the incisive dynamics of Arabic calligraphy to the textures of earth and architecture and the unforgettable presences of light and darkness .
I visited “ Taking Shape ” after “ Theater of Operations , ” and it was hard not to see the very optimism that permeated so many of these abstract works through the eyes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the most renowned of the artists included in “ Taking Shape , ” Etel Adnan—a Lebanese-born painter who spent most of her life in California and who is also an extraordinary writer and poet—I couldn ’ t help recalling the critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie ’ s perception of “ the difficulty in reconciling the brutality of [ Adnan ’ s ] writings , which tackle subjects such as war , violence , environmental degradation , and corruption , with the beauty of her paintings.
” One feels her paintings , with their solar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healing for everything that ’ s so violently anatomized in her poetry and prose works , like The Arab Apocalypse ( 1989 ) .
At its best ( I should also quickly mention works by Adam Henein from Egypt , Jafar Islah from Kuwait , Saliba Douaihy from Lebanon , Abdallah Benanteur from Algeria , and Maliheh Afnan from Palestine as among those that made the strongest impression on me ) , the art in “ Taking Shape ” testifies to the artists ’ refinement of perception .
But the range of feeling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hedonic .
It might not be obvious that an untitled 1983 painting by the Lebanese-born American artist Nabil Nahas , with its white drips on a mainly black ground , is a response to his homeland ’ s invasion by the Israeli army the previous year , but the work ’ s seriousness of intent is evident enough without the viewer ’ s having to identify a specific subject .
That ’ s another strength of abstraction : The artist ’ s intention need not override the viewer ’ s response .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Theater of Operations , ” by contrast , and yet the makers of many of the remarkable dafatir in it have very well understood how a work ’ s subject can be constructed , above all , by the manner of its making more than by the referents of its imagery .

Maybe, rather than “The gulf war did not take place,” as the French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard declared in 1991, he should have said, “Two gulf wars took place,” two completely different but overlapping events: the “electronic war,” as he called it, that was vaguely registered around the world, and the war that was experienced by those who were there, whether as residents of Kuwait or Iraq or as participants in the US-led military coalition. That first Persian Gulf war of 1990–91—or first pair of gulf wars—seemed to end quickly and decisively. The Iraqis were pushed out of Kuwait, where the status quo ante of authoritarian rule was restored, and Saddam Hussein’s regime was permitted to continue essentially undisturbed in Iraq. The Iraq War, launched by the United States in 2003, of course is another story. In theory, American involvement ended in 2011 (though the conflict didn’t end), but our troops returned three years later, and there they remain.
An ambitious and thought-provoking recent exhibition at New York’s MoMA PS1, “Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011,” curated by Peter Eleey and Ruba Katrib, surveyed artists’ responses to the two conflicts. And as is happening more and more these days, the exhibition sparked its own conflicts. The English artist Phil Collins withdrew his work from the show to protest MoMA board member Larry Fink’s ties to the private prison industry, saying, “Museums and cultural spaces, their collections, exhibitions and programs, should not be aligned with or funded by investments in mass incarceration, war profiteering, ecological catastrophe, debt ownership, devastation, oppression and the pain of others.” Michael Rakowitz, an American artist of Iraqi descent, decried not only Fink’s involvement with the museum, but also that of Leon Black, an investor, according to Rakowitz, in “Constellis Holdings, formerly called Blackwater… infamous for its role in the Nisour Square Massacre, during which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20 more.” He pressed the pause button on his video work in protest, and the museum promptly turned it back on.
Like the wars themselves, “Theater of Operations” also seemed to be not a single show but two almost unconnected shows: One was an exhibition concerning the media wars as seen through the eyes of Western artists—mostly but not exclusively Americans—and the other was a very different exhibition imbued with the experience of people who were on the ground as the wars took place. Many of the artists whose work was featured in this second show within the show, I should add, are now residents of Europe, North America, or relatively safer Arab states away from home. The devastation endured by Iraq forced many of its artists into exile.
For those of us who, whether with dismay or indifference, could only read about our country’s wars in the newspaper, watch televised reports, or later, access information via the Internet, it was always war at a distance (as a 2003 video here with that title by German artist Harun Farocki would have it). Yet what could be experienced at a distance in 2003 was very different from the experiences available to those on the sidelines of past wars. As Katrib points out in her catalog essay, the 1990s was a time when “many Western artists and thinkers…were focused on analyzing the role of the image within the rise of digital media technology.” Probably she would have been more accurate had she written “mass media technology”—a specific concern with the digital was not yet widespread, if I remember correctly; the dial-up modems, command-line interfaces, and online communities operating as bulletin board systems felt closer, in retrospect, to legacy media than to the hyperconnected digital ecosystem we’re familiar with today—but she is right to recall the prevalent fascination with media imagery at the time. The influence not only of Baudrillard but also of figures such as Paul Virilio and Manuel DeLanda was burgeoning. They were constant references in art discourse. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
Many of the works by American and European artists at PS1 exemplify the concern, at just the time the first gulf war was in the offing, that media had become in contemporary life an ineluctable presence with opaque contents and obscure effects. Typical are Michel Auder’s found-footage video Gulf War TV War (1991, edited 2007) and Robert Morris’s work consisting of an overpainted newspaper page (Untitled, 1990). Jean-Luc Moulène’s pencil drawing 28 janvier 1991 (1991) is traced from a talking head on his TV screen, and British pop artist Richard Hamilton’s War Games (1991–2010), a photographically derived painting, shows television as a domestic appliance piping war imagery into the home. The circulation of information hardly seemed to be making anyone more informed, or it changed the value of being informed, which appeared to have been delinked from any possibility of effective action. An essential unreality was felt to have seeped in everywhere.
Michel Auder’s “Gulf War TV War,” 1981. (Courtesy the artist and Martos Gallery, New York / MOMA PS1)
Not all Western artists felt they could discern the realities of war only through a technologically induced haze. The photographer Judith Joy Ross produced fiercely attentive black-and-white portraits of service members and their families at a farewell dinner for departing troops in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1990. Other portraits she took at this time are captioned as taken at “gulf war rallies” in Allentown and nearby Easton. It’s not clear to me what kind of rallies these were—in support of the war effort or in protest? Maybe that would have been evident at the time, but I suspect that Ross left the ambiguity deliberately. The portraits’ tight framing and blurred backgrounds present these people in isolation. There’s no sense of them being part of a community either at the rallies or the dinner. Nor, for the most part, does one feel that these individuals are in communication with the person taking their picture. Some of their eyes avoid contact, and when they look straight into the camera, that is, at the photographer, it’s as if their thoughts are reflected back into themselves. They don’t appear to expect a response. Perhaps they are too immersed in the question of their future. In any case, they seem intensely alone, thrown back on themselves, tragically disconnected, even as we have to imagine the crowd nearby. They are trapped, perhaps, in the American ideal of self-reliance. Or maybe it’s simply that the call to war places everyone who hears it, whether they realize it or not and whether they choose obedience or dissent, in a state of acute moral solitude and unknowing.
A photographer who shared Ross’s sense that the image maker might still confront a kind of reality and not just convey images of images with no ultimate reference was Allan Sekula, who is otherwise a very different sort of artist from Ross. The show includes his installation War Without Bodies (1991/1996), which includes a grid of nine color photographs taken at a “military air show and Gulf War victory celebration, El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Santa Ana, California, April 28, 1991,” according to the caption. The photos, originally published with Sekula’s essay of the same title in Artforum that year, depict people at the air show poking their fingers into the openings of a many-barreled artillery gun. One thinks of doubting Thomas, thrusting his finger into the resurrected Christ’s wound, placing empiricism before faith. Sekula’s “war without bodies” is not exactly Baudrillard’s war that did not take place, but it’s closer than one might expect from the artist who derisively observed, in response to theories of simulation and spectacle, that “the old myth that photographs tell the truth has been replaced by the new myth that they lie.” The moments of tentative touch Sekula pictures appear to represent the moment when skepticism and credulity momentarily coincide. The spectacle of our all-powerful weaponry—another kind of image—may be a source of fascination, but fascination turns out to mean seduction by what can neither quite compel belief nor be dismissed as illusory.
The reuse and reframing of media imagery was not a strategy exclusive to Westerners like Auder and Hamilton. Artists from the gulf region, too, were intent on getting information through any channels available—and all the more so, I imagine, if they were far from home. Tarek al-Ghoussein, a Palestinian born in Kuwait and currently living in Abu Dhabi, shows a group of Polaroids from 1991, apparently of his TV screen: blurred scenes of battles and burning landscapes, anonymous troops as well as leaders such as Saddam and George H.W. Bush. It’s all hallucinatory, intangible, and yet the hallucination is a persistent one, the intangibility terribly vivid.
The Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi, living in London in 1991, found a photograph, published in the Observer, of the grotesquely charred head of a man burned to death in his tank during the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait—“The real face of war,” according to the newspaper’s headline. This became the source for Azzawi’s painting Victim’s Portrait (1991), exhibited in juxtaposition with the original clipping. The face is painted in colorful, quasi-abstract brushstrokes against a dark ground, though the blank, empty-eyed countenance remains minatory. For Katrib, “Azzawi returns humanity to the soldier,” but I wonder how true that is. To my eye, the unseeing, unresponsive, masklike face suggests that the very idea of humanity has been hollowed out.
Many of the works by Iraqi artists shown here, including others by Azzawi, take the form of handmade books, known as dafatir (singular daftar, Arabic for “notebook”). What the form offers is flexibility; it can include painting, writing, collage, or just about anything else, and it doesn’t demand that it all be synthesized in a single space. Each page or spread is its own space, and yet the sequence is meaningful too. Some beautiful examples here are by Kareem Risan, who was an Iraqi soldier in the first gulf war and is now based in Canada. Reflection and vehemence mix in his pages: “I utilized the idea of painting in a notebook to deal with important issues that I experienced during my life in Baghdad, the center of events (the war, the sanctions, and all subsequent events that destroyed the infrastructure of the country and promoted human and social destruction). Dafatir allowed for a visual depth not possible through a conventional painting.” The visual depth Risan refers to is built up through time—the medium of the book allowing for a pictorial language that does not cultivate the fiction of a single encapsulated moment as an easel painting does—and of the emotional vicissitudes that can be conveyed by imagery that unfolds in time.
Another Iraqi artist whose dafatir are particularly striking is Hanaa Malallah, who left Baghdad in 2006 and now lives in London. Her dafatir follow what she calls a “ruins technique”—their pages burned and, as it were, attacked, like relics of violence rather than representations of it. Nada Shabout writes in the exhibition catalog that such works offer “a contemplative space in which to articulate the contemporary moment through an abstraction akin to that of installation, offering a full exhibition through its various pages as a complete, discrete project, and as such provides an alternative interpretation of monumentality.” In other words, the space between the covers of a book allows for a grand scale in the imagination, if not in literal space like an installation. Such books burrow into a space of intimacy and enlarge it to convey a realm of experience that is at once collective and individual. Ghassan Ghaib, who now lives in Los Angeles, offers in his Homage to al-Mutanabbi Street 1 (2007), a book-object closed in on itself, at once destroyed and preserved, tied shut with barbed wire. Its explosive content, which we can only imagine, seems to be contained, but only under immense pressure.
Icouldn’t help feeling that “Theater of Operations” as an exhibition of Western artists responding to the gulf wars was far less moving than “Theater of Operations” as a show of artists responding to the fate of their lands, whether or not they were living there when these wars took place. Maybe it’s just that the work of artists from the Persian Gulfis less familiar. The truth is that, probably, the proportion of works in which the artists succeeded in finding a form for their experiences is probably about the same for both and probably not very high in either. But that kind of judgment hardly seems urgent here. Let time winnow out success from failure.
For now, what’s more important is how this show demonstrates the urgency with which artists around the world obeyed their felt need to use their work to come to terms with events to which they were mostly condemned to be mute witnesses. Living in a time when images had become part of the arsenal of war, they were moved to respond with images of their own or with attempts to plumb the images that confronted them—to work out and work through the meaning of what they’d seen, however indirectly, and what they’d felt.
It’s somehow fitting that the most comprehensive efforts to come to terms with what happened in these wars come through handmade books, an ancient form made new out of necessity. It would be wonderful to see, sometime soon, a show devoted just to dafatir. But one would also like to see the contemporary art of Iraq, its neighbors, and its diaspora shown in a larger historical context. For most American viewers, this art, striking as it is, comes out of the blue. We know little of its roots, its trajectory in the decades before these wars tore up the landscape. War did not destroy this art—artists are too hardy for that—and war didn’t create it, either.
Luckily, we were afforded a glimpse of what was going on in the art of the Middle East in another show, “Taking Shape: Abstraction From the Arab World, 1950s–1980s,” curated by Lynn Gumpert and Suheyla Takesh and which had been scheduled to be on view at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University through April 4. Those decades were a period of experimentation, in which artists from all over the world—and not just from the Middle East and North Africa, the subject of this particular show—were enthusiastically attempting to come to terms with their modernities and essaying all sorts of hybrids (often in the long run barren, as hybrids tend to be, but not always) between aesthetic forms derived from their countries’ artistic heritages and the Western modernism that seemed so alluring. Abstraction, as it turns out, was a most flexible vehicle for such attempts, able to absorb forms from all sorts of pictorial idioms and oblique recollections of many distinct perceptions, from the incisive dynamics of Arabic calligraphy to the textures of earth and architecture and the unforgettable presences of light and darkness.
I visited “Taking Shape” after “Theater of Operations,” and it was hard not to see the very optimism that permeated so many of these abstract works through the eyes of disillusionment. Looking at the work of the most renowned of the artists included in “Taking Shape,” Etel Adnan—a Lebanese-born painter who spent most of her life in California and who is also an extraordinary writer and poet—I couldn’t help recalling the critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie’s perception of “the difficulty in reconciling the brutality of [Adnan’s] writings, which tackle subjects such as war, violence, environmental degradation, and corruption, with the beauty of her paintings.” One feels her paintings, with their solar hues, might be intended as a healing for everything that’s so violently anatomized in her poetry and prose works, like The Arab Apocalypse (1989).
At its best (I should also quickly mention works by Adam Henein from Egypt, Jafar Islah from Kuwait, Saliba Douaihy from Lebanon, Abdallah Benanteur from Algeria, and Maliheh Afnan from Palestine as among those that made the strongest impression on me), the art in “Taking Shape” testifies to the artists’ refinement of perception. But the range of feeling in the show is hardly limited to the hedonic. It might not be obvious that an untitled 1983 painting by the Lebanese-born American artist Nabil Nahas, with its white drips on a mainly black ground, is a response to his homeland’s invasion by the Israeli army the previous year, but the work’s seriousness of intent is evident enough without the viewer’s having to identify a specific subject. That’s another strength of abstraction: The artist’s intention need not override the viewer’s response. There was not much abstraction in “Theater of Operations,” by contrast, and yet the makers of many of the remarkable dafatir in it have very well understood how a work’s subject can be constructed, above all, by the manner of its making more than by the referents of its imagery.