{"id":570,"date":"2009-05-20T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-20T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/05\/zack_bent_and_the_problem_of_t\/"},"modified":"2009-05-20T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-20T11:00:00","slug":"zack_bent_and_the_problem_of_t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/05\/zack_bent_and_the_problem_of_t.html","title":{"rendered":"Zack Bent and the problem of the Boy Scouts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boy Scouts are not a problem for J<\/strike> Zack Bent<\/a>, who created his 4Culture exhibit – Buffalo Trace<\/i><\/a> – to honor his family’s life in scouting. From the press release:<\/p>\n

Zack Bent’s father was a Boy Scout within the Buffalo Trace Council in southern Indiana. “The tradition of scouting was handed down to me by him. And like the true Buffalo Trace, which was a migratory buffalo path through Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois that acted as road west for early Americans, scouting bears its trace in my life.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bent’s photos and relic-like objects document the wry and absurdly tender process of himself, his pregnant wife (the artist Gala Bent<\/a>) and two young sons diving into the scouting life. <\/p>\n

\"zackbentboy4.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"zackbentboy3.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"zackbentboy1.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"ZackBentgala.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While examining the gung-ho physical culture of the BS, the charm of ineptitude goes a long way. Bent himself comes across as a bungler. That’s him crouched over the footholds in the photo of a fake mountain immediately above, while his wife in the foreground appears to want to be elsewhere. <\/p>\n

There are, however, children involved. What do they learn from scouting?<\/p>\n

1. Homophobia. The organization is on the wrong side of history. If this were the only problem, I’d want its governing board to rot in hell, but there’s more.<\/p>\n

2. Anti-eco greed.  Just before my newspaper folded last March, PI reporter Lewis Kamb documented that Boy Scouts higher ups across the country for decades have conducted high-impact logging on tens of thousands of acres of forestland, often for the love of a different kind of green: cash. (Three-part series here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

3. War mongering. See yesterday’s New York Times’ story, Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More<\/i><\/a>. After reading it, art blogger James Wagner<\/a> had the following, silver-lining thought:<\/p>\n

Should we be grateful for one small favor? I mean, as homos we are fundamentally excluded from BSA membership, which normally means no participation in any of their fun and games or lovely overnights, so at least the Boy Scouts of America and their affiliate, the coeducational Explorers program, aren’t teaching violence, militarism, xenophobia, racism and fascism to our own young people (or at least not to those boys and girls who dare to be out while teenagers). (More here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Back to Bent. He won me over. I think he’s seriously wrong on this issue, but it isn’t his job to be right. The Boy Scouts are at the heart of his experience, which was in his case positive. Not only is he entitled to his memories, he’s able to turn them into doors that invite even the most alienated to walk through.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the uniforms chill me. <\/p>\n

\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boy Scouts are not a problem for J Zack Bent, who created his 4Culture exhibit – Buffalo Trace – to honor his family’s life in scouting. From the press release: Zack Bent’s father was a Boy Scout within the Buffalo Trace Council in southern Indiana. “The tradition of scouting was handed down to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}