http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/category/arts.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.amazon.com/Tobacco-Capitalism-Growers-Changing-Industry/dp/0691149208/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328842300&sr=1-1 http://tobacco.org/news/333576.html Tobacco Capitalism tells the story of the people who live and work on U.S. tobacco farms at a time when the global tobacco industry is undergoing profound changes. Against the backdrop of the antitobacco movement, the globalization and industrialization of agriculture, and intense debates over immigration, Peter Benson draws on years of field research to examine the moral and financial struggles of growers, the difficult conditions that affect Mexican migrant workers, and the complex politics of citizenship and economic decline in communities dependent on this most harmful commodity. Benson tracks the development of tobacco farming since the plantation slavery period and the formation of a powerful tobacco industry presence in North Carolina. In recent decades, tobacco companies that sent farms into crisis by aggressively switching to cheaper foreign leaf have coached growers to blame the state, public health, and aggrieved racial minorities for financial hardship and feelings of vilification. Economic globalization has exacerbated social and racial tensions in North Carolina, but the corporations that benefit have rarely been considered a key cause of harm and instability, and have now adopted social-responsibility platforms to elide liability for smoking disease. Parsing the nuances of history, power, and politics in rural America, Benson explores the cultural and ethical ambiguities of tobacco farming and offers concrete recommendations for the tobacco-control movement in the United States and worldwide. amazon.com Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2012/feb/08/1/auction-of-vast-reynolds-tobacco-collection-begins-ar-1908687/ http://tobacco.org/news/333558.html Talk about a garage sale to beat all garage sales. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s 7,000-piece collection of artwork, pottery, books, antiques and collectibles from its offices all over the world goes on sale Friday through Sunday to benefit the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. Items range from small ceramics for $10 to $20 to large items such as grandfather clocks for $3,000. Reynolds acquired the pieces over more than 100 years and donated the collection to the arts council, which will use the proceeds for grants and programs. "One of our main goals at the arts council is to put it into the community again, so it's priced for that," said Rebecca Parker, who has been cataloging the vast collection since May in preparation for the sale. . . . "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," New said. The sale gives people a chance to buy a piece of local history and support the local arts community at the same time. Much of the collection is antique. There are large sculptures, brass nautical items and a statue of a young man lighting a pipe. There are newer things, too. Many of the oil paintings, prints and photographs appear to date to the 1970s and '80s, Parker said. Winston-Salem Journal pgarber@wsjournal.com (PAUL GARBER * Winston-Salem Journal) Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/08/pleasures-of-tobacco-hockney http://tobacco.org/news/333534.html For every person who smoked and died young I can give you other names, especially in my own profession, who didn't: Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, and a lot more (Letter, 1 February). Are there no doctors who would admit they haven't a clue why this is so? I for one am not sure medicine is a science – human beings are messy and all a little bit different, and I rejoice in that. . . . If Mr Chapman is concerned about children, this week's news that 3 million children in the US are on Ritalin, a drug prescribed for attention deficit disorder horrified me. I intend to stick with my far more natural, delicious, pleasure-giving tobacco. The Guardian arts.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/Xu.php http://tobacco.org/news/332831.html Xu Bing, one of China's most acclaimed contemporary artists, is known especially for his exploration of language. In Tobacco Project he furthers that interest, presenting the culture of tobacco as a far-reaching system of signs and symbols. Using tobacco as both subject and object, the exhibition includes Xu Bing's adaptations of historical texts and graphics: a book made of whole tobacco leaves and printed with an early-seventeenth-century account of Jamestown, Virginia; a poem composed from historical tobacco brand names and printed on cigarette paper; and Chinese cigarettes printed with selections from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (the "Little Red Book"). Tobacco engages Xu Bing on many levels simultaneously, allowing him to raise questions, make new discoveries, and expand the viewers' awareness. Above all, he sees it as a medium of cross-cultural exchange—one that first linked Virginia and the American colonies to Europe and other parts of the world in the age of discovery and which continues to provide a connective thread in the age of globalism. Tobacco engages Xu Bing on many levels simultaneously, allowing him to raise questions, make new discoveries, and expand the viewers' awareness. Above all, he sees it as a medium of cross-cultural exchange—one that first linked Virginia and the American colonies to Europe and other parts of the world in the age of discovery and which continues to provide a connective thread in the age of globalism. In addition, he appreciates tobacco's unique formal properties. Tobacco Project appeals to the sense of smell as well as sight, and Xu Bing is conscious of permeating the gallery with the rich, sweet odor of tobacco. . . . Tobacco Project contains elements of sociology, history, politics, and personal narrative, but ultimately it is an artist's take on tobacco—a subject that fascinates Xu Bing for its history of innovation as much as for its exploitation and self-contradiction. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089519/Smoke-minors-Disturbing-photographs-children-puffing-cigarettes-highlight-ugliness-habit.html?ito=feeds-newsxml http://tobacco.org/news/332327.html Cherubic cheeks framed with gentle ringlets - they are the faces of innocence and beauty. But with cigarettes lingering between their fingers or pipes perched between their lips, their images are repulsive. In an attempt to play the attractiveness and vulgarity of smoking off each other, Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens has captured 15 eerie images of children puffing on cigarettes, cigars or pipes in a collection entitled 'The Beauty of an Ugly Addiction'. . . . She intended to show that the addiction, while often unattractive, can also be the opposite, and can appear regal or sophisticated. The photographer did not use real cigarettes during the shoot. Instead, she relied on sticks of chalk or cheese for props, and used candles and incense to create smoke. The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/12/frieke-janssens-smoking-children_n_1202045.html http://tobacco.org/news/331973.html Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens has produced a series of disturbing and controversial photographs that depict children smoking. In May 2010, the internet spent a good day or two expressing its outrage at a YouTube video that showed an Indonesian toddler lighting up. While the rest of us moved on fairly quickly, Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens was so affected by the video it inspired her to make her own images representing children and tobacco – a series called Smoking Kids. “The video [on YouTube] highlighted the cultural differences between the east and west, and questioned notions of smoking being a mainly adult activity,” she says on her website. “[With Smoking Kids] I wanted to isolate the viewer’s focus upon the issue of smoking itself… there is a nod to less attractive aspects, on the line between the beauty and ugliness of smoking.” CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PICTURES . . . Naturally there were no real cigarettes on site - chalk and sticks of cheese were used instead with candles and incense to produce the smoke. How effective Smoking Kids is as an anti-smoking message is open to debate. Huffington Post Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120111113725.htm http://tobacco.org/news/331963.html A scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an anthropologist from the University at Albany teamed up to use ultra-modern chemical analysis technology at Rensselaer to analyze ancient Mayan pottery for proof of tobacco use in the ancient culture. Dmitri Zagorevski, director of the Proteomics Core in the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS) at Rensselaer, and Jennifer Loughmiller-Newman, a doctoral candidate at the University at Albany, have discovered the first physical evidence of tobacco in a Mayan container. Their discovery represents new evidence on the ancient use of tobacco in the Mayan culture and a new method to understand the ancient roots of tobacco use in the Americas. Their research will appear in the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, in an article titled "The detection of nicotine in a Late Mayan period flask by GCMS and LCMS methods." ScienceDaily Latin America Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/who-made-that-matchbook.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y http://tobacco.org/news/331702.html No one knows what exactly prompted Joshua Pusey, a lawyer and the inventor of the modern toboggan, to patent a folded piece of cardboard carrying matches and a striker in 1892. Though legend suggests it had more to do with vanity than with safety. "I heard that he was a patent attorney and always wearing suits and vests," explains Mark Bean, president of the match division of New Hampshire's D. D. Bean & Sons Company, which has been in the trade since 1938. "And that the box of wooden matches was bulky and awkward to carry around." Pusey called his brainchild "flexibles" quite possibly because, unlike their predecessors, which smokers carried in silhouette-marring match safes, they slid into a dandy's pocket with nary a bump. His contraption soon caught the attention of a company called Diamond. In 1896 it purchased the patent for $4,000, thereby charting its course toward world matchbook domination. . . . As recent antismoking crusades have dried up the remaining ad business, today's beautifully designed books are often inspired by nostalgia (or branding, or a combination of the two). And the rest are plain, undecorated white. "There's an affiliation with smoking that's hard to avoid," says Chris Scherzinger, president of Jarden Home Brands, which bought Diamond in 2002. "Not that I have anything against smokers." PHILLUMENY 101 Monte Beauchamp, an art director and author of "Striking Images," a collection of matchbook-cover art, reflects on the hobby. Why did you become interested in matchbooks? New York Times Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/nov/16/culture-flash-smoking-in-cars http://tobacco.org/news/329534.html But if they're looking for a useful, readymade health warning from the arts, they've got their work cut out. . . . Negative portrayals are rare, unless you count Michael Mann's anti-big-tobacco masterpiece The Insider. Let's not even try to deconstruct the 1980s Star Wars anti-smoking ad in which C3PO catches R2D2 sneaking a fag. . . . TV has made fingerwagging hints that people who smoke are ill-educated (Coronation Street, EastEnders, etc), ill-disciplined (current Aussie series The Slap) or simply evil, such as the Cigarette Smoking Man of The X-Files, or The Simpsons' raspy-voiced, ash-haired Patty and Selma. Then again, would Mad Men work if nobody was allowed to smoke or discuss advertising tobacco? Or if they all had stained teeth and halitosis? . . . As for the visual arts, Alphonse Mucha's elegant art nouveau smokers could have inspired Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's look, but Van Gogh's Skull with Burning Cigarette should be printed on every fag packet. The Guardian culture.editor@guardian.co.uk ( Steve Rose) UK Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/smoking-kids http://tobacco.org/news/329469.html 'Smoking Kids' is a photo series from Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens that confronts the country's recent ban on smoking. The shoot is filled with children dressed as adults enjoying cigarettes. The shoot is designed to spark thought, not controversy. Janssens chose to use kids in order to get attention focused off of the adults themselves and onto the act of smoking. The kids are not dressed as normal children however. They represent adult smokers and are dressed as everything from members of the military to early Hollywood actresses. The artist was inspired to create Smoking Kids after watching a YouTube video starring an Indonesian boy who chained smoked up to 40 cigarettes a day. Trend Hunter Magazine Belgium Sat, 26 Nov 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/173978-bloomsbury-to-launch-the-tobacco-keeper.html http://tobacco.org/news/329418.html The Tobacco Keeper is for anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East. The book written by Ali Bader and translated by Amira Nowaira will be published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing on December 5. Long-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) in 2009, The Tobacco Keeper is an ambitious and exciting novel, written by one of the rising stars of Arabic literature. It spans five decades of turbulent Middle East history, making it essential reading ‘for anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East’ said Baghdad News in a review. The Peninsula Mid-east Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-07/28/content_12997358.htm http://tobacco.org/news/327792.html But nobody in Cuba seems to have any interest in replacing her with a radio or TV. Indeed, she prides her old-school duties for its content and delivery - in a range of voices (a different one for each character) when reading a novel, for example - as well as careful preparation before her sessions. She chats with workers between reading stints to get feedback and take requests. She is one of about 300 of cigar factory "readers" who have been brightening the long and monotonous work day of cigar rollers for over a century and a half. To some the tradition is so unique and valuable that UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization has proposed including it as part of the world's intangible cultural heritage. Most workers spend 10 hours rolling, clipping and trimming tobacco with a few simple tools, for under $20 a month. The day often starts with readings from the Cuban press, poetry and classic novels like The Count of Monte Cristo. Agence France Presse Cuba Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:00:00 GMT http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/20334.aspx http://tobacco.org/news/327692.html At a time when ads featuring imaginary doctors claimed bogus health benefits to smokers, Evarts A. Graham, M.D., chairman of the Department of Surgery at Washington University from 1919-1951, used his smoking machine to establish the damaging effects of tobacco use. Today, seeing an advertisement promoting a brand of cigarettes by a person in a white doctor’s coat would be jarring, but such ads were commonplace in most of the last century. Robert K. Jackler, M.D., the Sewall Professor and chair of otolaryngology and associate dean at Stanford University School of Medicine, has gathered many of those advertisements into an exhibit titled “Not a Cough in a Carload: The Campaign by the Tobacco Industry to Hide the Hazards of Smoking.” The exhibit will be on display in the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center and the Bernard Becker Medical Library beginning Monday, March 1, through Friday, April 30. . . . In 2006, Jackler and his wife, Laurie, an artist, began collecting old magazine ads using medical imagery to promote cigarette smoking. Shortly after, Jackler’s mother, a longtime smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer, prompting Jackler to turn a hobby into a mission. Several hundred ads later, Jackler has created an exhibit and penned a book of the images along with Robert Proctor, Ph.D., a professor of the history of science at Stanford. The proceeds will raise money for lung cancer research. While critics were beginning to refer to cigarettes as “coffin nails,” tobacco marketers used advertisements to depict smoking as socially acceptable. Washington University in St. Louis Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://www.mtairynews.com/view/full_story/16071024/article-Museum-hosts-lecture-on-tobacco-and-culture?instance=secondary_news_left_column http://tobacco.org/news/327598.html With the Autumn Leaves Festival as a backdrop, history buffs and festival attendees gathered in the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History courtyard Sunday afternoon to hear Billy Yeargin deliver a lecture about tobacco and American culture. Yeargin, a professor with extensive knowledge of the history of the tobacco industry, was the guest speaker for the October "History Talks" program at the museum. He spoke at 2 p.m. on Sunday about tobacco's impact on Amerian society over the years. Mount Airy News mevans@mtairynews.com (Meghann Evans Staff Reporter Mount Airy News) Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:00:00 GMT http://www.uoguelph.ca/shakespeare/essays/tobacco.cfm http://tobacco.org/news/327548.html In 2002 the father-son team of Robert and Scott Shakespeare founded Shakespeare's Cigar Corporation with the creation of their first product, The Shakespeare Signature. Although the corporation's name is most obviously derived from the surname of its founders, they have used the name to its utmost advantage by employing William Shakespeare in their advertising campaign. Shakespeare's portrait and words are present in the logo, slogan, and print advertisements, thus suggesting an intrinsic and permanent relationship between the famous playwright and the cigars. . . . In the print ad feature below the cigars are used to create a theatrical space. A portrait of Shakespeare is framed by two cigars, which seem to mark the perimeter of a stage, while the remaining cigars make-up the audience members. The rich colours of brown, red, blue and gold are also suggestive of a theatrical setting, particularly the Globe Theatre. The connection between Shakespeare and tobacco seems odd, especially considering that tobacco is generally not permitted in the theatre. Why then does a cigar company like Shakespeare's Cigar use William Shakespeare to promote its products? . . . Shakespeare's Cigar Corporation is not alone in using William Shakespeare to market tobacco products. Through the naming of their companies, Macbeth Cigars and Hamlet Cigars directly associate their products with the work of William Shakespeare. Similarly, the American company Thompson Cigar has a line of "Romeo y Julieta" products . . . Although it is unknown whether or not Shakespeare used tobacco, the introduction of the product into England temporally coincides with the years in which Shakespeare (b. 1564-1616) was writing. . . . The first tobacco advertisement at the Stratford Festival appeared in the 1957 souvenir program and was a general advertisement for Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited. . . . Despite the Tobacco Products Control Act (1988) most tobacco companies were able to set up what Rob Cunningham refers to as “shell” companies to promote tobacco-company sponsorship of sporting and cultural events. Imperial’s “shell” companies include: Player’s Ltd, du Maurier Ltd., and Matinee Ltd. . . . One of our primary concerns in conducting this research study has been the focused attempts by both tobacco companies and the Stratford Festival to target and attract young people. In his 2000 study “Targeting youth and concerned smokers: evidence from Canadian tobacco industry documents" . Richard Pollay estimates that 90% of regular smokers begin before the age of 19. Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project Canada Sun, 16 Oct 2011 04:00:00 GMT