In recognition of his daring, boundary-pushing performance art installation consisting of laying perfectly still inside a rectangular marble box for 19 months, the Venezuelan government has awarded the 2014 National Culture Prize to…Hugo Chávez.
If you need a good weep, check out the video of the official announcement.
Caracas Chronicles 
Outstanding. I’m nonplussed
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Ya están pasados de cursis y ridiculitos.
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I love how they took “Viviremos y Venceremos”, a propaganda line hurried out as a replacement to “Patria, Socialismo o Muerte” when they were busy trying to conceal the fact that the guy had terminal cancer and their key goal was to convince everyone that he was going to live for a long time and slapped it…on the guy’s sarcophagus!!
Plus there’s something fitting about Chávez getting an epitaph in Arial…
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Not only that… but notice the triple exclamation points? It reads like a tween’s text!
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C’mon, Helvetica would’ve been better.
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You mean because Arial is based on Monotype Grotesque?
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If passing out and lying dead qualifies as art, why won’t they give ME a fucking medal whenever I’m drunk?
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You probably give it to yourself … when you vomit.
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Well to be fair, Chavez’s corpse probably developed a wicked bacteria culture during the days he spent on display, instead of being properly embalmed and stuff.
It really is hard not to let your darker side get a hold of you when you read news like this.
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You’ve got to see the good side of this:
maburro and his combo were so obsessed with trying to hide the fact that the corpse was dead that they didn’t embalmed it in cuba where he kicked the bucket xD
The russian embalmers that were hired for the job, took the money, then said “Niet! We can’t do anything about this one, you took too much time calling us! You should have done this right after he died in la havana!”
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Fiction prize goes to Maduro’s work in progress on Serra, apparently.
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LOL… Good one!
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Meanwhile the Venezuelan pavillion at the Venice biennale is locked down.
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My english fails me so I must resort to Spanish : Todos los cursilisimos gestos e histrionicos pronunciamientos del regimen parecen escenificar un guion de folletinesco de Delia Fiallo: llenos de confitada sensibleria , de oscuros complots , de perversos malvados, de beatificos y glamorosos heroes caidos un guion cargado de melodramas lacrimosos y engolados.!! Vernos obligados a asistir a este grotesco y repulsivo espectaculo es un castigo mas para la sensibilidad del venezolano !! .
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Veo que Gabriel Garcia Marquez sigue vivo en Venezuela
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Just another indication of good, healthy democracy.
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And it was awarded for him being the “principle promoter of Venezuelan values.” (no joda!), leaving me wondering if those are the same values that led to a four fold increase in the homicide rate during his presidency.
Not to be considered a comparison in degree, but remember when Barak Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize before he had even accomplished a single thing as President of the U.S.?
These types of awards are purely political. In Venezuela, it is just another sideshow in the ongoing circus… a minor distraction from the difficult and dangerous reality of daily life here.
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