DUH
I went to a number of openings and some shows Thursday night and I'll be writing the reviews up shortly. In the meantime, however, there have been a couple of recent stupidities that bear mentioning.
Jerry Saltz, a writer I admire who has always been nice to me when we've met, who even visited my studio when I was at the School of Visual Arts Summer Residency and said nice things about my work, nevertheless does say dumb things from time to time. He hasn't always been this bad, though -- I think something at New York magazine is getting into his head or something. I post this, then, with genuine fondness and care.
When you hear the name Orozco perhaps you, like me, immediately think of Mexican socialist murals. Unfortunately Orozco is a fairly common Mexican surname and you're thinking of José Clemente Orozco. But chances are, these days, the Orozco being mentioned is Gabriel Orozco, who is one of those artists who basically throws half-digested junk around a room and calls it art. What's he known for? Removing the middle third of a car and putting the remaining pieces back together. I'd be impressed if he could make the result operational, but no -- he's not an engineer or a mechanic, he's just a bozo with a saw. Another masterpiece: Nailing four yogurt container lids to the walls of an otherwise empty gallery.
All of which is stupid enough. But the real dumb part is Jerry's hilariously overbaked praise for this halfwit: Yogurt Caps is "one of the most vexing artworks of the past two decades. Somehow Yogurt Caps transforms the gallery into something both more and less visible. The space becomes about emptiness and fullness, caring and not caring, the drained and the charged, passivity, portals, pissing people off, location, dislocation, irony, sincerity."
Holy shit! All that from four yogurt caps? What happened when Jerry saw Tara Donovan's stacked cups, did his testicles explode? Yogurt Caps may very well be one of the most vexing artworks of the past two decades -- hell, I'll go with centuries -- if you happen to be the kind of person who's vexed by pretentious assholes giving the finger to thousands of years of visual artists who actually put some work into it.
But Jerry's real low point comes a few sentences earlier when he emits this burst of flatulence: "An empty shoe box just sits there, like Duchamp’s urinal but more casual -- still confounding viewers, transcending itself restlessly." Transcending itself? It's a fucking shoe box, Jerry.
Perhaps my stupidity round-ups should have categories. One might be "Artists Who Make Other Artists Ashamed To Be Called Artists". Today's nominee: Man Bartlett and his so-called art performance piece 24h Best non-Buy. Note that the piece is also a Twitter feed, showing that Man is one hip, edgy artist right out there on the bleeding edge of participatory performance. You know, him and eight zillion other people. Anyway. The piece consists of Man Bartlett, visionary, shopping for 24 hours in a Best Buy. But here's the catch: He never buys anything! Fucking brilliant.
Hrag, of course, loves it. Because, really, nothing says ART like an unshaven dweeb in a fur hat aimlessly wandering around a place of business. He should've worn a sign: "Warning: This is what happens when someone with no discernible talent decides to be an artist."
It's not so much that I don't consider performance art to be a real art form. I mean, I don't, but that's beside the point. It just seems to me if you're going to waste your time on something like this, at least attempt to make it interesting. Alain Robert's provocations are equally silly and pointless, but at least they're exciting and a wonderful exhibition of skill. Guys like Alain are great to have around. They keep the world turning a little off-kilter.
But guys like Man Bartlett? Give him a blue shirt and a name tag and let him work for a living.
I was hardly impressed with Saltz before, but after his truly astonishing performance in this Orozco piece, all I can say is stick a fork in him, 'cause he's done. Really, I can't even believe he's that fatuous. It's gotta be some kind of schtick that he figures and/or knows will stand him in good stead with the powers that be. Otherwise, if he actually means and believes such blithering drivel, well...the mind boggles. Maybe I should just take up birdwatching and get away from all this arrant bullshit.
Why werent you invited to miami?
http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=16143
The thing I didn;t get about Orozco is that why werent the yogurt caps also on the ceiling and floor? It would frame the space better - then it hit me - it is a semantic trick, something to do with 3 D's. I love that kind of work because it opens up the space where art and life meet, fornicate and shit on me with visual puns and simple minded one liners that also insult me. Is art consumable? Does good art contain active acidopholis cultures? Do whales eat yogurt? Do dead wales eat space?
I'm a scopophilliac, so I consider conceptual art a form of reverse colonization (to continue with the extended digestive metaphor) I see art every day, except the artists are my neighbors and they throw their art away - sometimes because the semester ends, other times because they appropriated some stuff that broke and assembled it in a pile to be collected. I forget when art pick up day is, but I like taking walks in the rain (more abject) and looking at the work my neighbors are trying to communicate to me.
Because often conscious intention is an illusion - at least unless you talk to the artist - otherwise it is known as a "pathetic fallacy" - in which you ascribe consciousness to a work - animism essentially. "But art communicates," you say - not always though - it requires you know the language. But with the polyglot of language it is hard to decipher - essentially art has been coded by noise - too many voices - bedlam.
But fans of artists who are also artists is an interesting idea - like art-life duality or dichotomy or false opposite or false dichotomy, or yin-yang - isn't all art derivative in some respect? So if you follow - orozco is doing duchamp - the guy who no one can rip off because duchamp was the rip off artist - you cant scam the scammer anymore than you can eat your own stomach. Joke's on you.
SO art is more like echo music, an extended riff, or whale songs, actually, like U2's "where the streets have no name" - the whale is a coat hanger, in that way - a readymade, but also a sound, or an echo, which is actually an invention of mine.
When I invented the echo pedal, I thought of bloggers, who would welcome my insight even as they wrote about idiots like Orozco or made music about Orozco, hopefully with imperialist whale songs in mind.
I wasn't invited because I wasn't invited. Joanne Mattera didn't invite me to the get-together in 2007 and she didn't invite me in 2009, either. I felt mildly snubbed because I thought it grew out of the Art Blogger Show in 2007, in which I had a piece (and which I helped hang, at least in New York). But I didn't feel too left out because, in all honesty, there was no way I was going to Miami for any reason. I can't afford to travel, never really could. And I don't like to anyway.
Sharon's article is like her blog, overwritten and understyled. And her claims are patently ridiculous: "...blogging was poised to change the nature of art discourse"? Puhleeze. And "art bloggers get royal treatment"? That subhead may have been written by the editors, not Sharon, but either way, didn't they see the sign?
The thread below Franklin's post includes Joanne and her explanation for why I wasn't invited, which is fine by me. She's right that I wasn't going to Miami so it's fine she didn't think of me.
Sharon's article did enlighten me on one point: I thought Two Coats of Paint was older than NYC Art, but it ain't. It's actually a few months younger.
As for the rest of your comment, Zip:
Looking at Gabriel Orozco's work isn't a sign of scopophilia. The word you're looking for is coprophilia.
"Visual art bloggers get royal treatment at Art Basel Miami, the world's most prestigious art fair, signaling the triumph of DIY criticism"
I hope some hack editor wrote that, because it's a lot of hype. Of course, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it all depends on what one means by "royal," "prestigious" and, most especially, "triumph."
And yes, the article is overwritten, which again calls into question the quality of the editor.
I wouldn't go so far as to say you always put the cart before the horse, Jack, but you certainly have a habit of switching them around. You blame collectors for the sorry state of contemporary art and editors for poor writing. While they certainly share some responsibility, collectors and editors are only as good as the raw material available to them. Meaning it's the artists and writers who proffer the poor content from which the lousy choices are made.
Admittedly there are plenty of good (better) artists and writers out there which are overlooked by collectors and editors. But it's not simply a matter of being good; it's also about being known, seen, and consistent. It's the business side of art and writing which is almost as hard as the basic skills for each job.
In short: I can complain about Sharon's writing, but she probably pitched her story to the editor; meanwhile the closest I've come to actually trying to get published is sending e-mail to the Arts editor at the Village Voice telling him his current art critics are boring. Not, you might say, the best way to apply for a job.
I have a friend who is slightly over forty years old. He's a spectacular drummer, absolutely one of the best I've ever seen, including professional musicians. He's always been amazingly talented and he's worked hard to be as good as he is for the nearly thirty years we've been friends. He cut his teeth on progressive rock -- Rush, Yes, ELP -- and whatever you might think of their actual music, no one can touch them for technical ability.
One day he was telling me about going to see a Rush tribute band, a band which for one year was the official, blessed by the original tribute band. Great guys. So my friend is saying how he saw them and the drummer isn't that good. He can't play the really complex stuff, his timing's off, and so on. My friend wants to know why that guy is up there playing and not him.
"I bet," I told my friend, "he shows up on time for rehearsal."
Because that's the problem: My friend is the best drummer I know (and I know some good ones) and could even be one of the best drummers on the planet, but it doesn't matter because he's unreliable. He's always late, his personal life is all over the place (not that it's always his fault), he's hard to get along with. Drummers are traditionally the most...developmentally challenged, let's say, musicians in the group. But my friend takes it to a whole new level.
That's what it comes down to. Woody Allen says eighty percent of success is just showing up. Thomas Edison says it's one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. My Glee Club director, Professor Ondrick, used to say, "There's no substitute for the work, not even genius."
So I really think, yes, collectors and editors could do better. But it's up to those who make quality work to get it out there in front of them, and I suspect we could all be doing a better job of it. I know I could.
Oh, hey, this Friday the usual suspects are getting together for yet another backslapping session. I guess I'm not one of New York's best-known bloggers, which is okay if it means I don't have to hang out with those chuckleheads. Note that the sponsor of the panel "reaches across traditional boundaries", except, I guess, the one separating the in crowd from the losers.
Chris, an editor's job is to edit, as in prune, cut, trim whatever is superfluous. No, the editor can't make a so-so writer into a literary or stylistic marvel, but that was not what I was referring to--my point was that the article in question reads like it was probably barely touched by editorial hands, if at all. The editor does have a responsibility, to make the best of what he or she is handed to work with before it sees print. I don't think that was done here, certainly not done optimally.
As for collectors, especially the ones with big bucks and even bigger pretensions, I have absolutely no respect for any such person who goes out and buys crap, because such people have every advantage, opportunity and option imaginable, and if they still can't do better than buy rubbish, promote it and perpetuate it, they are absolutely part of the problem, a major part. You don't have to agree me; unlike so many "major" collectors, I make up my own mind.
Chris, an editor's job is to edit, as in prune, cut, trim whatever is superfluous. No, the editor can't make a so-so writer into a literary or stylistic marvel, but that was not what I was referring to--my point was that the article in question reads like it was probably barely touched by editorial hands, if at all. The editor does have a responsibility, to make the best of what he or she is handed to work with before it sees print. I don't think that was done here, certainly not done optimally.
As for collectors, especially the ones with big bucks and even bigger pretensions, I have absolutely no respect for any such person who goes out and buys crap, because such people have every advantage, opportunity and option imaginable, and if they still can't do better than buy rubbish, promote it and perpetuate it, they are absolutely part of the problem, a major part. You don't have to agree me; unlike so many "major" collectors, I make up my own mind.
Sorry about the duplicate post, but your system drives me nuts.
As for that mutual-admiration society get-together, you make it sound as if it's even remotely surprising. Did you actually expect anything different? I mean, look, the art establishment crowd (whether truly "in" types or wannabe's) may be a lot of things, but unpredictable is not one of them. And by the way, you should really cut the cord on that Fag blog; just let it fag away, so to speak.
Tell me what drives you nuts about it and I'll see what I can do to make it better. I'm thinking of redesigning a number of things. Most of the site is only mildly customized; I haven't messed with it too much because I've concentrated more on content. But if there are interface issues, let me know. It seems fine from my end.
I think in the case of Sharon's article if the editor cut out redundancies and stylistic expansions there'd be at most a paragraph left. There's only so much anyone can do. Part of why I'm not a published writer may be because I wouldn't expect any interest in such a content-free article.
As far as agreeing with me, it's good you don't. I'd worry about you if you did.
As far as the mutual admiration society, I'm only surprised that they'd have another meeting so soon after the one in Miami. How many times can everyone get together and toot each other's horns? They're going to catch something if they're not careful.
As far as Art Fag City, I've ignored it for four years now and it hasn't gone away yet. Let's see how this new strategy goes.
Listen, if a supposedly serious, "major" critic like Saltz can get away with the incredible hogwash in that Orozco review, maybe we should all just give up and not even worry about the ubiquitous art world bullshit anymore. It's not like they don't know it's BS; it simply makes no difference. It's all a big game, and the joke is really on us for taking it so seriously. The real players are laughing their asses off at people like us, because we're not getting anywhere, and they are. They don't care if it's bogus, as long as it keeps paying off.
You may be right. I may give up eventually. For now, though, I'm feelin' mah oats.
A dab of body butter might help with that.
Now I feel all icky.
Re: Bartlett. A hand written thank you note is a "drawing" - a work of art? I really need to start saving all the notes I write. Studio inventory I can sell when I, too, am famous for 24 hours.
On a different note, the tweets about the "best non buy" thing were killing me. Especially when said tweeter felt the suspense of wondering whether the artist could make it a night without buying anything. I mean, really-that so difficult?
My life is quite a work of art.
Say, completely off-topic, but does anyone know of the website/art blog that posts excerpts from NYC galleries' press releases and mocks them? I came across it a while ago, but now I can't find it.
I've never heard of such a site. If you find it, let us know.
Josephine, are you thinking of Art Baloney Blog?
I'm proud to note, checking my stats, that the author of the Art Baloney Blog saw your link, Tom, came here, and has read at least this page. And perhaps coincidentally, made fun of a press release for a show I just reviewed.
Oh cool. I've done my part to evolve the internets toward The Singularity. (Is there a Tech Baloney Blog out there?)
Chris, we are always happy to discover dung piles, wherever they are.
Tom, if there is a niche to be filled, fill it.