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Roundup
Post #845 • August 4, 2006, 10:30 AM • 12 Comments
Julian Schnabel has taken to decorating hotel lobbies, and whose classification as an artist being challenged? Ron Mueck, by Jonathan Jones, in one of the most snot-nosed art commentaries I've ever read. (AJ)
Pompidou staff are trying to qualify for jobs at FEMA, apparently. Tyler rounds up.
Recall, if you haven't suppressed the memory, sitting in an Art History Survey 1 class looking at slides of St. Peter's in Rome. Now, watch this video. (Reddit)
787 clip art images arranged into an endless loop. (Drawn)
Cool - look what the cat dragged in at the Boston Museum of Science.
"The images in this room are created entirely from mathematical algorithms. If you find them offensive in any way, all I can say is that beauty (or obscenity) is in this case most certainly in the eye of the beholder." Eros ex Mathematica. (Reddit)
Department of skills: Photorealistic vector art. (Reddit)
2.
August 4, 2006, 6:08 PM
I didn't think the commentary was so snotnosed. Is what he is proposing actually possible, that Mueck is a kind of hoax? And, even so, so what.
The St Peter's thing was a little specious, because one cannot really make 3D or do accurate panning just by throwing pictures together, and all they were saying, in the end, is - gee, the web is sure going to let us see a lot of images.
Those photorealistc drawings are amazing. I can't quite figure how they are done, however. I mean, just how the programs help get such effects.
I really am not a fan of those flensed and resinated Chinese bodies. It doesn't seem right. Jeremy Bentham wanted himself to be preserved and put in a glass case at University College in London, so I guess that's OK, but I have a feeling that these are people who had no rights, criminals, or whatever, or bodies that got sold by relatives. What do you think would happen if these were Americans, or minority Americans, for crying out loud? The howls would be heard on the moon. We get on the soapbox about these things all the time but I think we let our humanity slip pretty fast when the opportunity arises.
3.
August 4, 2006, 9:50 PM
Glad to be of service, Marc!
Opie, re: Mueck - no, what Jones is suggesting is not possible. He's suggesting it as a snotty way of discounting his work, on the basis that it's too realistic to be art. That's wrong both in general and specifically to Mueck.
Did you ever sit through that Survey 1 class? Don't you think Photosynth would be preferable? It's not meant to be really 3D - just a sense of dimensionality.
For the record, there are two resinated-body shows touring around. The original is called Body Worlds, and this is the one I saw today at the MoS. The other is called Bodies... The Exhibition, and that's the one with the Chinese subjects of possibly dubious origins. (Miamians can see it in Tampa through September.) What I saw today was quite fascinating.
4.
August 5, 2006, 8:53 AM
I've never been to St. Peter's Basilica, but I've been to the spot on the topmost floor of the Seattle tower that the Microsoft researcher at the end of the video is spouting off from.
5.
August 5, 2006, 12:22 PM
Ah, Julian...found your true calling at last, I suppose.
Mueck, I'm afraid, is hopelessly middlebrow. Success is assured. Stephen Spielberg sounds like an excellent potential customer.
6.
August 5, 2006, 3:17 PM
Franklin, that Vatican video is a piece of headache-inducing geekery. Thanks, but no, thanks.
7.
August 6, 2006, 10:18 AM
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/bors/bors8-4-06.asp
I think your readers will appreciate this little snack, as it mentions one of Miami's young artists.
bon apetit
8.
August 6, 2006, 10:28 AM
Wow. Her work just never gets any better.
9.
August 6, 2006, 10:54 AM
I'll say. The photographs are bad enough. This is just embarrassing.
10.
August 6, 2006, 11:28 AM
I'll pass on the bait, Mickey Mouse (or Donald Duck, or whatever). Not worth the bother.
11.
August 6, 2006, 12:30 PM
Franklin
"Wow. Her work just never gets any better"
you got me laughing
and I agree with you opie "Embarrassing" in deed
Maybe they look better on a blue wall
It's not my cup of tea.
Franklin
my last commet would not post Auto R said it was an ad
but it was a comment.
12.
August 6, 2006, 4:38 PM
The idea of embarrassment, let alone shame, has of course been banished from the scene. Too inconvenient, and not in keeping with the bottom line. That's for people who still insist on things like standards, which have definitely been banished for being really inconvenient.
Otherwise, the guy who spent a fortune for a slowly rotting shark carcass in a tank of formaldehyde would never be able to show his face in public. Instead, he's treated as a major collector, and he's got dealers from here till Christmas ready to pet and stroke him to orgasm, if need be, to get some of his action. That's just one example out of countless such absurdities.
Artists, and certainly dealers, cannot possibly admit to any embarrassment whatever. Not fearless or advanced enough, you see. More to the point, bad for business. Better to be brazen, even offensive. That will always win over or intimidate the confused, insecure and/or clueless, who are considerably more numerous than those who can't be manipulated.
It's a racket, but it works more than well enough, and that's all that matters.
1.
Marc Country
August 4, 2006, 4:17 PM
So, those Eros ex Mathematica images... how was the colour chosen? "Mathematical algorithms", no doubt...
That photosynth technology is amazing, the clip art loop is very clever, and the vector art is jaw-dropping, in a way...
Great roundup, Franklin! I'm not even gonna mention typos this time...