avalonmonet:

kreetard:

rudermensch:

Sort of related to all of this: I emailed that Pork Magazine guy back with a pretty simplistic critique of how unbearably trite and capitalist his “subversions” were and that his understanding of transgressive art was flawed and stupid and he never wrote back. Which is not unexpected because he’s the kind of person who wants to just be able to make pictures of half-naked women drinking soda in front of swastikas and call it “shocking” and tell the people who don’t like it that they’re corporate square.

Wow, that’s an incredibly cynical theory. the Pork squad are some of the most DIY & local/small business centric people you could encounter. Don’t think this sad, thesaurus-owning dude has done their homework. Hey, rudermensch, did you know that a VAST majority of the magazine & by extension, the pork empire is conceptualized, produced, & shipped by a husband & wife team with help from their kids? What capitalist swine (heh) they are for ditching the idea of a normal 9-5 and pouring themselves into a magazine centered around all the shit they love solely because they wanna share the Shit They Think Is Really Cool. Also, they’re fucking Jewish. As far as I’m concerned, they can throw around the swastika as much as they damn well please. Also also: fuck your attempts to marginalize art that’s fun. All art needs to be art is passion.

Yasss

As a person who’s generally uncomfortable/annoyed with swastikas (because I hate skinheads, dumb punk kids, and hippies/stoners who read one blurb about the history of it and suddenly decide the need to “reclaim” it), I’m a big fan & supporter of Sean’s art and PORK in general. Besides Sean and his wife being really rad and running a business that is basically the punk rock dream, they’re damn smart people and are more than willing to have an engaging conversation about what they do. Someone had a really similar complaint on Reddit about PORK and I highly suggest everyone go read it, because Sean deconstructs a lot of misconceptions about his art. For people who don’t want to read the whole thing, though, I think this about sums it up:

“The use of the swastika in the magazine & in our products has always been within a context of other symbols which have included stars of david, crescent & stars, dollar signs, rolling stones logos, weed leafs, all-seeing eyes, crosses, coke cans & sexy ladies. The point has never been, “here is a swastika! fear it!” it has been in context, in the same way the Robert Crumb used it. Anyone who looks at the big picture of our output can tell immediately that there isn’t some kind of white power, racist, totalitarian agenda. We are about mind expansion, freaking out & as above, so below.”

PORK isn’t racist/anti-semitic and neither is a single person I’ve ever met in the PORK Army. PORK is about cool stuff, cool people doing cool stuff, and sharing it with self-identified “weirdos” everywhere. It’s not for everyone, but it’s not excluding anyone via any “-ist”s either.