Social Media
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You have Started to Smell like Ketchup
Carlos Fentanes
Your ketchup is leaving a bad smell in your pantry. When was the last time you poured ketchup on your food? Was it with Thai takeout or French fries? I bet it was the second. You pulled out a bag of McCain’s frozen fries, tossed them in the microwave, squeezed ketchup on top, and started…
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Why Velázquez Painted Only One Nude — and Why Instagram Still Erases Them
Carlos Fentanes
On the persistence of cultural censorship across centuries Charles Darwin was never meant to become Charles Darwin. His father, a wealthy physician, expected him to follow medicine or the church — safe, respectable, predictable. The young Darwin’s passion for collecting beetles, rocks, and fossils seemed frivolous, even embarrassing. When he boarded the Beagle in 1831,…
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Love Conquers All, another story about censorship
Carlos Fentanes
In 1602, Caravaggio completed Amor Vincit Omnia, or Love Conquers All. It was the kind of work only Caravaggio could create: Cupid, standing with arrows in one hand, seems to tread casually over symbols of human accomplishment—armor, a lute, a lined notebook—suggesting that love supersedes all human endeavors. The painting was an instant sensation among Rome’s…
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Ethics and Art: A Tale of Social Media Woes
Carlos Fentanes
Ethics, the elusive butterfly of the modern age. What is it, and how does it impact us? More importantly, how does it mess with my work as an artist? This concept is as abstract as a DeKooning painting and just as slippery. You can’t grab it and hold onto it for long; it’s free-spirited and…
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Unintentionally Censored: The Artist’s Struggle with Instagram’s AI
Carlos Fentanes
Over the past month, I’ve embarked on a seemingly Sisyphean task: scrubbing my Instagram account clean of any posts that the platform deems non-compliant with its vaguely articulated guidelines on sexually explicit material or something along those lines; I can barely remember what they call it anymore. Each day, without fail, Instagram flags around five…
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Instagram and the Holy Inquisition Algorithm
Carlos Fentanes
Instagram, the arbiter of digital decency, embarked on a censorship tango with my artistic pursuits – a saga that unfolded not once, but twice. The stage was set in the unassuming realm of a Canadian Erotica Themed Art Show: “A Hot Minute” a three ring erotic art show with venues in Victoria BC, North Vancouver…
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It’s Art, not Pornography.
Carlos Fentanes
I was invited to a Erotica themed Art Show in Western Canada, I was very excited, it’s a show that will be held in three different venues at Victoria BC, North Vancouver BC and Calgary AB it’s called A Hot Minute.I was so excited that I tried to post some of my artworks for the…
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Marketing 101 for Artists
Carlos Fentanes
OK, let me try to explain what I am doing now with my Instagram account and other social networks. My ultimate goal would be being represented by two or three galleries across North America and Europe, basically I have been working only with 33 contemporary and PoetsArtists in Chicago and in the last three years…
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Art Submissions
Carlos Fentanes
I’ve just clicked the submit button. It’s the 21st time on this year, 3 submissions per month, one every 10 days. Results? Nothing, niente, nada, in the best cases it’s just a rejection letter, in half of the submissions I didn’t receive anything, sometimes I found out the results on social media. I haven’t been…
