Next: criticism lives and dies at same time (62)
you cannot defeat my linking style
Post #517 • April 13, 2005, 12:25 PM • 11 Comments
Via Necee Regis: the Enchanted Highway, featuring "the World's Largest Metal Sculptures produced by artist Gary Greff." I say unto thee: I am just loony tunes enough to consider the possibility to moving out into the middle of nowhere and building something like this one day. I especially like the pheasants.
Via Ralph Provisero: Zing Magazine interview with Dave Hickey.
[From '72 to '88], it was almost impossible for anything to change, because our culture is composed of a public academic and museum sector that changes slowly, and after the fact, in 30 year cycles, and a private gallery and magazine sector that changes rapidly, sometimes overnight. In the last ten years the academics who have been retiring from American universities are Abstract Expressionists and Formalists hired and tenured in the late '60s, just as these practices lost public credibility. They are being replaced with Deconstructionists who are already out of date, and who will be in power for the next 30 years, talking about stuff that is already over now.
See also: comment #61 of this post.
The fun that Dan Hopewell started continues: Tyler, Todd, Dan 1, Dan 2, Miguel, Kriston, J.T.
2.
April 13, 2005, 8:03 PM
The giant sculptures would be fun to make, and Hicky is (usually) fun to read.
3.
April 13, 2005, 8:12 PM
To the extent that Hockney is correct in saying that the "private gallery and magazine sector ... [change] rapidly, sometimes overnight" he shows that those two institutions are not connected to anything durable. There is not a lot of difference between the academy of the up-to-date (that he touts) and the academy of the out-of-date (that he hates). They are both out of touch.
4.
April 13, 2005, 8:16 PM
Hockney should read Hickey. Should I say it was a typo or just admit my brain does not always function well?
5.
April 13, 2005, 8:20 PM
Maybe Hickey does not tout the up-to-date as much as I think. But it seems that way in the brief exceprt above.
6.
April 13, 2005, 8:56 PM
Continuing theory theme. This is the answer to Jack's call to create our own theories when we peruse galleries. If French thinkers can come up with ideas looking at reality, inluding art, why don't we? I don't want to appear to abstract in my presentation, I will skip the use of derivitive of jargon to French ideas so I do have clear idea what I'm talking about. This is excellent approach to test complexity of contemporary art and make me better understand extraordinary artist like Mr. Damien Hirst.
Pain Art Theory
1. To confuse gallery employees at first, I use my hiking stick with white chalk (any color is fine) attached on the one end. If none of gallery employees look at me, quickly, I will make cross marks on the art objects. Then, I will inform gallery owner I had put marks there and I will ask him if I can put more. The owner of gallery and his/her emploeeys will try to remove me from premises against my will. Sooner than later because of my resistance I will start to feel pain in my body, i.e. in my butt, from kicks of employees or maybe Police. It means, I am not dreaming. Physical pain can occur only in person's conscious state of mind, so the any other type of mind states are eliminated (including dreaming). Also, it means, a bodily art exists to buy and it wears my cross marks. I feel reality through my physical pain
2. After landing outside on the side walk, I will try to come back inside as soon as possible and engage in shouting match with gallery owner about the value of cross marked art piece. This way I can test gallery owner conviction about the value of the art piece. If I feel more pain in my body, it means, I have received more fist blows and kicks, so conclusion could be only one: the money value of art must be high and they try to protect it.
3. I'm in pain, so traditional tools of understanding art like negative space, color, aesthetics etc. are useless and carry no bearings, in my aching mind, on quality of chalk marked art piece. The greatness of art is determined by the level of my body pain. I might come back to gallery and offer to erase the chalk marks as conciliatory gesture but you all know how gallery owners are unpredictable. It is too risky.
The Pain Art Theory can be used by art buyes who want to spend money on the art without having faintest idea of its value. This theory won't put me among Ivy League of French thinkers, but pardon me it is more helpful tool on art buying spree if you are in Chelsea. But my biggest hope is that it may open some doors to tenure position in Art Department of some University.
7.
April 13, 2005, 9:47 PM
Excuse my interruption as usual.
Yesterday I saw a curiously interesting movie, "In the Realms of the Unreal." Although it is claimed that the theater in Miami Beach shows the film, I find that was not the case. I had to go to Ft. Lauderdale to see it. I don't think any theater in Miami shows it now.
I put some images and links here.
For those who have never heard of this outsider artist:
About Henry Darger
In 1973, at a Catholic poor house in Chicago, an 81-year-old retired janitor quietly died. His name was Henry Darger. Just months earlier, he had moved from the rented room where he had lived for over 40 years. When his landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner, cleaned out the clutter room, they discovered paintings: hundreds of brilliant watercolors, some over 10 feet long. The images were disturbing and mysteriously beautiful: little girls frolicking under stormy skies, little girls fighting soldiers, little girls being rescued by fantastic winged creatures. In many images, the girls were drawn naked, with penises.
The landlords soon found the other half of Darger’s life’s work, perhaps the longest novel ever written: the more than 15,000 page, single-spaced typed In the Realms of the Unreal, an epic story of the virtuous Vivian girls and their religious war against the evil Glandelinian army. For most of his life, Henry Darger, a recluse whom others called “Crazy,” had lived in this rich fantasy world. It was a world he had kept to himself.
Today, Henry Darger is considered to be one of America’s foremost outsider artists: an untaught artist working in isolation from the commercial or public eye. IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL, an adventurous documentary feature, explores the fantastic vision and shadowy life of this enigmatic artist.
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The film is shown at Sunrise Cinemas at Gateway. That's the closest from Miami.
8.
April 15, 2005, 12:06 AM
http://www.dyske.com/index.php?view_id=817
here's to linking ...this is Worth a read.
9.
April 15, 2005, 2:05 AM
hey, smarty PANTS. thanks for posting this article--i really enjoyed it. i think it does a pretty good job of articulating what makes the art world feel so unfriendly sometimes (or at least the little part of it that many of us inhabit/visit).
10.
April 18, 2005, 9:14 AM
While were linking to random sites, here is a gem courtesy of the BBC:
My vote for the next Turner Prize
11.
April 18, 2005, 8:06 PM
Looks like a shoo-in to me, Guy.
1.
Jack
April 13, 2005, 7:32 PM
Fun for you, Franklin; lots of sound and fury signifying (next to) nothing for others.