To me it seems as though a lot of this… this work is people who are scared to live a life in the first place. Incredibly unradical people who play a game of a radical life within very safe confines of some Kunsthalle or other museum in Germany or France.
- Gavin Brown, gallerist, The Gavin Brown enterprise, about artists related to “relational aesthetics”.
The quote comes from a film by Ben Lewis called “Relational Art: Is It an Ism?” (2004).
What I like about the film is that it’s (sometimes) funny and doesn’t fuss around.
What irritated me though was that beyond the humor I kept feeling a bitterness I despise. So when we discover in the film that Ben Lewis used to make art (with vegetables) and then decided he wasn’t good at it and stopped, Lewis’ slightly too aggressive attempts to ridicule the artists he talks about become, well, put into context. I would love to see the rest of theArt Safari series to see if it’s juat the case of this episode, or is this the “intelligent irony” we should expect in every episode. (correction: I just realized I had seen an episode with Sophie Calle. And it’s pretty much the same thing).
But then… I found this famous article of his about the art world – “Who Put the Con in Contemporary Art?” which basically claims it’s all an evil world, a clique that only wants profits. And although I agree with some of the statements he is making, it’s the tone that really discredits him. (The joker became the prophet!) Especially given he is publishing on the site of… the Saatchi Gallery!
The paintings, (which in my humble opinion are rather unrelated to the topic of relational aesthetics), are by Peter Doig, at the Gavin Brown enterprise.(They are here because of solitude, reflection, one’s place in the world as an artist and a person. And skiing.)
The photo is by Ryan McGinley.
The San Francisco LAB just closed their 25th-year-anniversary exhibition called PastForward, where they made an open call to young artists to respond to works of the established ones who came out of The LAB. The result seems to have been quite exciting – you can take a look at some pictures at this site (with some great jazz playing on the site – which unfortunately can’t be turned off…).
My favorite work, especially given the distant perspective (I’m in Warsaw now) is the Viewing Platform by Ellen Babcock:
Perfect for any vernissage! (And after all, what would contemporary art be without the vernissages!) It plays with an essential trait of contemporary art: centrality. You are taller, you see further, and as if by chance you are hence appreciated. You become the spectacle. Very tiring indeed. And fun, if you forget the impossibility of an intimate contact with the remaining works. I know, the people become the work, and still…
I would love to create a portable version of this. Like a small podium with railings that you could carry around the opening (wheels?), or rent, or receive if you are a VIP guest. Or just have one of my own, though the most enjoyable part might be having several people on this higher level, among the crowds. And believe you me, at the exhibition openings of the main Warsaw art centers, it would come in handy.
– Here is what the curatorial note says:
Ellen Babcock responds to Lauren Davies with a sculptural installation
that addresses Davies’ engagement with representations of the natural world. Based upon Babcock’s visit to a tiny museum in Twillingate, Newfoundland – a visit Davies herself had made prior to Babcock – the sculpture teases out the differences between the two artists’ approaches to the tropes of natural history display. Encountering a stuffed polar bear in the museum, Davies responded with a gently mocking mixture of humor and pathos meant to remind us of the absurdity of the way taxonomies simplify and freeze the fluid mysteries of life. Babcock, on the other hand, found the quasi-encounter visceral and beautiful. While she sees Davies as opening up a space for the Real in an iconoclastic rejection of the traditions of natural display, Babcock looks for vestiges of the Real in the moment of encounter when disbelief is suspended.
This is what would be nice: for all this splatter, all this hazy spirit pollution, to suddenly (or progressively) make sense, and turn into a landscape. Okay, I admit it, there is a world which I am pretending to ignore. There are those one loves and others which are close enough to be deeply missed, at times. I admit, there is a light which remains and manages to outshine any particular chaos, any specific too-lateness. For a while, it remains with the body, or the view of the body, or the afterview, and then it moves away, into the back of the mind’s eye, and turns into an excuse to remain hesitating, instead of letting it all go.
But no. All this is happy-tuning oneself, it does not sustain. That is precisely why I miss the feeling of landscape: it sustains. While this? It feels more like posing steps on stones in a stream, where no single stone is certain, yet together they make an unexpectedly serious path. (Maybe not “serious”. Maybe “defined”. Or “path-like”. Or is it that looking for adjectives misses the point: that it’s the path that’s unexpected, not any quality it might have).
And at the bottom, in the water, remains all this, all that stuff that somehow never unbecame me. And lingers on as if too hazy to be rejected, too ridiculously gone. So if it’s gone, what is it, I ask.The first three paintings are by Andrew Hollis, and the last two – by Gemma Gallagher.
I was fortunate to meet the wonderful, lovely and talented Ms.Julia Pott while she was living/working in New York City this past spring. Julia is such an inspirational artist and person, I’m so lucky to have spent time with her while she was here. She’s constantly busy with new drawings, new branding ideas, and new animation projects, I sometimes wonder when she sleeps! She is truly focused on her craft and her career is taking off quickly because of her extreme passion. Just when I think this little cupcake couldn’t get any sweeter she is now working with theKyrie Foundation donating artwork to pediatric brain cancer research. They are having an auction in November in Kansas City to raise money towards their $50,000 research grant. Any and all artists are invited to donate their artwork, seems like such a small token for such an amazing cause don’t you think?
Here’s some of Julia’s Work for your viewing enjoyment! It’s so adorable and amazing! Julia’s Etsy Shop Julia’s Website
and her amazing boyfriend Robin Bushell also a great animator!
How do artists make a living?
Besides the selected few who actually make a living from their work, how can an artist afford to be an artist?
The bottom line is: should art pay for itself? Should it be efficient in an economic sense?
Most practicing artists either have money from their day jobs, or from their families.
The funny thing is: the first group seem heroic, and the second – fakes.
Why? Why is there so much resentment towards people who decide to spend the money they have on doing something they love?
Is it because we, as the public, feel betrayed, as if they stopped playing the game with their audience? After all, if they don’t care about (our, or government – which comes out to the same) money, aren’t we left aside?
(What’s wrong with being left aside? Hm. Of course, this modernist idea can come in handy. But I’ve been writing about it elsewhere.)
Come think of it – would we feel it wrong for a rich person to buy an expensive car? A big house? So why do we want him to feel guilty for spending the money into something we might actually appreciate? It turns art into a hobby, you say? So what?
Below, completely unrelated (at least not that I know), is the work of Paulo Ventura.
Now that there is no essence, we ask: how is it to see through you? What sort of filter are you?
Now that there is no common subject, no us, we say: what is this sum of subject and object?
Now that the body is not enough, and that it stops us as ridiculously as ever, we say: what is so common about this object? What is it about it that is so transparent, and what does this absence, this oppressive absence, taste like when accepted?
The paintings are by Johan Schaefer, the photos - Khristian Mendoza.
and the look-what-I-found-upon-returning-to-the-hotel-room photo was taken by the great Cormac Hanley (an interview with him is here, although I must add that his admiration for Michael Mann goes strongly against my conclusions after seeing his last film)
From Chicago’s pride, the Millenium Park, comes a cruel, yet fascinating, story of public art gone wrong.
BOTH of the public sculptures it opened recently, one by the Van Berkelatelier, and the other by Zaha Hadid, got damaged by the all-too-loving public. Looks quite nice from above, doesn’t it? If you go to ground level, it’s even more inspiring. Here’s a look at Hadid’s work:
The entire structure, made of aluminum, is covered with cloth. Now let’s take a look inside this spaceship.
Get the picture?
Not so difficult to imagine people stepping on the cloth.
One of the key statements of the manifesto of a group of artists presenting the exhibition Unusually Rare Events is that the artist does not need to think about the spectator when creating the work. Agreed. However, when creating a public work of art (mind you, to some extent any work of art is public), he might want to consider that his work will possibly not only be appreciated like this:
but also like this:
And those, of course, are the “nice” visitors.
The question arises: should we stay with “public-proof” solutions? Hire teams of guards to keep the aura going? Or maybe consider every mark and hole as part of the (pardon the pun) holistic concept of the work of art?
Now I wonder how these marvellously designed shoes by Zaha Hadid feel: Not to mention the London Aquatics Centre, to be one of the main venues of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
