Doing Dumb Stuff?

Stills from video "I will not make any more boring art", in which Baldessari writes that phrase repetetively

 "John Baldessari, the 79-year-old conceptualist, has spent more than four decades making laconic, ironic conceptual art-about-art, both good and bad. His style is familiar and recognizable, wry and dry: It usually incorporates a photo or grid of pictures, often black-and-white and grainy, with the vibe of a seventies issue of Artforum; text of some kind; a found object placed casually; a video or maybe a newspaper clipping or some other element taken from popular culture. The approach is hugely influential, setting the precedent for interesting artists like Cindy Sherman and David Salle. In a sense, Baldessari imagined a large circular room with a hundred entrances and exits. Thousands of artists could go through, and did. After a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s retrospective, you’ll see that Baldessari’s children have overrun Chelsea.

And that’s the problem. Even a former student like Salle admits that “at least three generations of artists” doing “dumb stuff … is largely John’s fault.” Baldessari’s interesting niche bewitched too many people, creating a hackneyed academy of smarty-pants work that addresses the same issues in the same ways, over and over, just the way Baldessari and others of his generation did 40 years ago."

 -Great article on John Baldessari (ostensibly inspired by the new exhibition at the Met) by Jerry Saltz

True?

Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, John Baldessari

Video Killed the Art Star

I have not had a TV since I moved out of my parent's house to go to college. At this point, it is a lifestyle choice, one that saves me from countless hours mindlessly flipping through channels and watching a rerun just for the sake of having something to watch. This has been a good decision for me on the whole. Add to this the ability to watch certain programs of choice via the internet, and I'm totally set. However, there are exceptions.

It began when I first realized how awesome the PBS series Art:21 is. How awesome is it? AWESOME. Then I kept hearing people mention a documentary called Herb & Dorothy, about a pair of art collectors called the Vogels (also PBS). Now, as you might have picked up from the clip above, there is a reality TV show called Work of Art, planned along the lines of Project Runway, for artists and Jerry Saltz is one of the judges. Certainly there is a movement from seriousness to frivolity in my exceptions but I would love to check it out--despite the ridiculous nature of a reality TV show based around art challenges. It airs tonight at 11 pm on Bravo. Or, for those sanctimonious fools without televisions, it is expected to be available on Hulu tomorrow.

More details on contestants here.

Whitney Biennial 2010: "Taste is like your..."

Robert Grosvenor, Untitled (images via Vernissage TV)

The Whitney Biennial reminds me of a lovely old Swedish saying my mother used to tell me, "Taste is like your ass--divided." Somehow I saw 2010 Whitney Biennial and came out with the exact same reaction as Jerry Saltz (his piece in New York Magazine is probably the best)- and yet to a different conclusion. He left the Whitney Museum with a "giant burst of happiness for the infinite creativity of America" and I left with a vague sense of blahness that not even some stellar pieces could enliven.

Piotr Uklanski, Untitled

There was work on display that surprised and challenged me, and that I loved. Piotr Uklanski's gigantic cloth wall was stunning. Charles Ray did images of flowers. They were simple and good--and how refreshing among all the pieces to see work that didn't feel the need to be deep or explore issues to prove itself but just to be. Robert Grosvenor's work incited a visceral reaction in me, with its combination of textured red and glossy steel that I wanted to touch. It was simple and approachable. And I was startled by the range of great video installations that needed more time than I had the evening I went to see them.

Charles Ray, Installation View

On the other hand, some of the more popular works left me unimpressed. The Bruce High Quality Foundation's hearse video was OK, but pedantic (and personally I would be happy never to see another car of any make or model in a gallery again). Nina Berman’s photographs of Ty Ziegel, a severely wounded marine sergeant, are certainly well shot, but I think people mistake how affecting their content is for the artist's contribution.

Bruce High Quality Foundation, I Like America and America Likes Me

I agree that having a smaller show was nice; I agree that not having a theme might reflect a more authentic plurality of artistic practices than what a curator might impart; I agree there is room for less bombastic exhibitions. This year's Biennial is all those things. If those are the effects of being on a budget, then hail and well met. I even agree that there is no way to produce a biennial that would be so good everyone would agreed it showed the best of American art. But certainly the best American art is less blah, as many pieces were, and more compelling?

But I take that back. The danger of the Whitney Biennial is that as the biennial of American art, people feel they are supposed to come away with pronouncements about the state of the visual arts in America. This exhibition itself is less presumptuous, yet its "cross section of contemporary art production" hardly escapes the unmanageable expectations of people, including my own. Let's just say you can expect to see a varied, interesting exhibition whose viewing will probably contain a few passionate reactions and a few shrugs.

Fodder from the Reader

Via SwissMiss

Taking another day for the old novel, which is still going full steam, I'm happy to say. However I did get a chance to do a little web browsing, and voila! interesting things abound:

• Hyperallergic has a lovely post contrasting museum art versus street art in terms of how we experience it, with bonus points for working in Proust.
• Innovative trend: artistic funeral urns?
• The Dull New Global Novel from the NYT Review of Books. The title says it all.
• Abstract Expression had a mother? Apparently those macho men have some secrets...
• Jerry Saltz's webpage
• Jhumpa Lahiri and Chuck Close make President Obama's advisory committee via Culture Monster
• The Royal Shakespeare Company is doing a residency at the Armory this June, maybe even one-upping my beloved Shakespeare in the Park

Unrelated thought: 'Write what you know' is rubbish advice. The whole point is to imagine and create, not replicate in dronish detail. If we did that, there would be no magical creatures, no fantasy, and no sci-fi. Not to mention relatively few happy endings, if only because it's hard to know where things end in life. You can't wrap up a person's life after the good parts like a story.


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Art Isn't Dead

DUH.

I'm hoping the embed option for this video actually starts to work. If not, check it out at New York Magazine's website. Jerry Saltz did a tour of 24th Street to show that Chelsea is still functioning and thriving. Going to Gagosian might not prove that, but it will provide some nice clips of the work by Murakami I was discussing yesterday. He starts the video with the other show in the gallery, which I didn't love. To his credit, he focuses on the less annoying works.

Shiny metallic purple = 80s much?

The video is meant to accompany an article that says the gallery system isn't dead--galleries are existing and new artwork is being shown and made. I like Jerry Saltz and I like his writing. I would like to take a class at the Bruce High Quality Foundation he talks about. But in this video he highlights a few very well established and commercially successful galleries that are still showing art. But of course.

Ravels in Review Friday

Here we are again, two weeks into June and no sign of the rain letting up. Rain, rain, rain....

Anyhow, what did we talk about this week? Looks like we were all over the place.

• I gave a lone bad review of Summer Hours.

• No consensus was reached over a top 200 artist list by the Times. (No Surprise there).

• My idiocy became prominent at Stars Like Fleas on MoMA Monday Nights.

• Some old lady stole a notebook of Picasso drawings in Paris, or something like that.

• My formula for how to destroy a cocktail party or create change looks like art critic Jerry Saltz's Facebook page.

This constant rain is especially annoying as I was going to go get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park this morning. Now I have a conundrum. Not only if I should wait in the rain, but is the performance going to get rained out? Alas, our frailty is the cause of such concern, as Viola would say, and I think I'm go find an anarok and trudge out there.

How to Destroy A Cocktail Party, or Create Change

If I were to give you instructions on how to destroy a cocktail party at the Venice Biennial, I would give you a list like the Top 200 Artists and let the hourdes of opinionated art lovers devour each other. Why is Rauchenberg at number 13 compared to Francis Bacon's number 12 spot?, etc. To offend even further, the artists at the party probably didn't make the list! You then might smile oilily and ponder aloud why so few woman are on the list? Chaos would ensue.

If you wanted to stimulate such a phenoma online, look no futher than Jerry Salt'z Facebook page, where the art critic for New York Magazine post a short message to his friends questioning the scanty representation (4% !) of women in the permanent collection of pre-1970 art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Thousands of people responded on Facebook. Normally, discussion of top artists is mere cocktail party banter and the Guerilla Girls have seen their heyday, but in this case the social forum of Facebook took things one step further. Here is a discussion more like an online protest against MoMA.

The screen shot captures Jerry posting the following:

Your comments over the last 2 weeks have been truely amazing. MoMA gave its initial response. Next, I'm sending myself to Venice (yes, I pay my own way, D’oh!). Around June 17 we'll re-engage & ask for a response from the Curator of the Perm. Coll. of P. & S. Ann Temkin. We won’t talk about the entire museum or new buildings. We will say it is time to install A LOT more work by women on 4 & 5 NOW, no matter what.

MoMA had noticed the thousands of comments on Saltz's Facebook page and the outcry there was enough to galvanize an official response via Facebook!

MoMA had responded to Jerry, per the below, thus opening a dialogue:

Jerry Saltz (New York, NY) wrote on June 3, 2009 at 1:49pm

This is to all of you from MoMA (you all need to ask yourselfs if this is enough; we also have to ask how we also have to ask how many TOTAL works of art MoMA counted to arrive at its figure; and what gallereis were excluded):
Hi all, I am (Kim Mitchell) Chief Communications Officer here at MoMA. We have been following your lively discussion with great interest, as this has also been a topic of ongoing dialogue at MoMA. We welcome the participation and ideas of others in this important conversation.And yes, as Jerry knows, we do consider all the departmental galleries to represent the collection. When those spaces are factored in, there are more than 250 works by female artists on view now. Some new initiatives already under way will delve into this topic next year with the Modern Women's Project, which will involve installations in all the collection galleries, a major publication, and a number of public programs. MoMA has a great willingness to think deeply about these issues and address them over time and to the extent that we can through our collection and the curatorial process. We hope you'll follow these events as they develop and keep the conversation going.

To which Jerry adds:

Jerry Saltz (New York, NY) wrote on June 3, 2009 at 2:01pm

A note to all of you: Now is NOT the time to "get tired" or back off. You all have MoMA on the line, right here, right now! Even if you contributed to previous conversations, you owe it to yourselves to say something HERE. Keep it SHORT, direct, and respectful. Artists, this is your chance. Even those of you just 'listening in... Read More.' Now is the time. I promisde you MoMA will not PUNISH you (if they do, tell me); it will RESPECT you for speaking up. All 4900 of you need to STEP UP NOW, otherwise ...

So a comments section on a Facebook page has gotten the attention of MoMA, and opened a dialogue. This strange public campaign headed by Jerry Saltz, art critic by day, Knight-on-Charging-White-Steed by night, is going to discuss including more works by female artists in the permanent collection and is now trying to plan a letter. God help them, the thousands of them trying to decide on what exactly to say, which sounds near impossible, and, to be cynical, I would be shocked if MoMA actually did anything but talk with them.

Still it is an amazing use of social media as its most vocal, and it is amazing to think what is often idle, angry talk could generate something positive. I hope something comes of it. And all this from the man who doesn't have a blog because it would be too much work...

Francis Bacon at the Met

Painting

Francis Bacon, the British painter (not Renaissance thinker Sir Francis Bacon), has always stuck out like a sore thumb in the history of painting. A sore gangrened thumb at that. When everyone else was painting abstractly, he remained resolutely figurative. Where people went to art school, he taught himself by going to museums. And when most people shy away from the sheer horror and grotesqueness of his jailed male figures surrounded by meat, he delved into it.

Triptych, 1974-77

The artist broke a record for contemporary art sales when a triptych of his sold for $86 million dollars last year, and he was the subject of two retrospectives at the Tate during his lifetime, and another last year. (He died in 1992.) Now the retrospective is moving to the Met (of all places). It opens tomorrow--and I look forward to seeing it. Jerry Saltz wrote an excellent article on Bacon in this week's New York Magazine because of the new exhibition, asking the question "Was Francis Bacon really the greatest painter of the twentieth century, or just a fascinating mess?" "Greatest painter of the twentieth century" is quite a title, and not one I'm sure I'd grant Bacon, although he was a good painter who created resonant, interesting works of great color. (If you want to see what a fascinating mess he was, Saltz touches on his life history.)

Figure with Meat

Bacon is a tough artist to understand: His paintings create such a visceral reaction in the viewer that I think it can be difficult to look beyond the subject matter. Margaret Thatcher famously described him as "that man who paints those dreadful pictures." People commonly assume that such repetitive grotesque angst can't be real, that he's hamming it up. (Excuse the pun--and just be glad I haven't tried my cleverness on his last name yet.) Saltz feels it becomes gimmicky, and so did quite a few people I was talking to the past Sunday. Yet the artist is at his best with these bruised mutants encased in flat rooms of color.

So what do you think, a yay or a nay for Bacon?

See Two Coats of Paint for more information on the exhibition itself.

Little Boats Sinking

For a great discussion of what is or should be happening in the art world according to Jerry Saltz, check out Hrag Vartanian's coverage of the lecture he delivered entitled "This is the End; The Rising Tide that Floated All Boats has Gone Out and All Boats are in Danger of Sinking."

Another Kippenberger at MoMA video?

Some might say I'm cannibalizing my own content value by showing you another, better (in some respects) video of the Martin Kippenberger exhibition. My video is here, by the way.

This video tour is by New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz. I knew something like this was in the works. When I was doing the a little video reconnaissance, I bumped into Saltz, a camera guy, and a MoMA employee. I followed part of their filming through the exhibition and really enjoyed listening to Saltz. Also, watching him stand next to the sculpture Martin, Into the Corner, You Should be Ashamed of Yourself was quite fun.

So in terms of video, let's see how things stack up.

Jerry Saltz's Video V. Art Ravel's Video

Non-shaky camera v. Some very wobbly bits
Clear sound levels v. Awesome soundtrack
Access to exhibition v. Difficulty getting images
Knowledge of artist v. Charmingly fresh perspective (?)

My gorilla effort may not have the polished production of New York Magazine's; in fact, it barely has transitions. Even so, I think between my music and my lovely self, it's a fun romp through the MoMA show. Perhaps I'm biased.

*Commenters who prefer my video will be sent a brownie.

Yoga Invades MoMA

Pippilota Rist's video and sound installation Pour Your Body Out at MoMA is a engrossing and delicious experience. Lights fill the white walls, and people lay back to watch the film with their shoes off. (The smell of feet is the only disquieting element.) This kind of exhibition could be enjoyed lounging, hungover, and--according to Jerry Saltz at New York Magazine--doing yoga.

To increase engagement with the installation, artist Cheryl Donegan arranged an impromptu yoga demo at MoMA that had museum goers doing triangle poses. If only I had been there! I second Donegin, that audience participation at the exhibition and at theanyspacewhatever exhibition at the Guggenhiem could have been greater, especially at the latter exhibition.

Museum goers are so used to feeling like an audiences that it can be hard to break out of that mold and touch the art and think about space playfully. Saltz describes the experience, in jealousy-inducing terms, thus:

On Friday night, I arrived to find the darkened atrium teeming with hundreds of people; Rist’s wonderful droning, chanting soundtrack filled the air with drowsy delirium, and her images of gigantic naked floating bodies, lush undergrowth, and water filled the walls. A few minutes before the appointed starting time, a dozen or so people, almost all women, shed their coats to reveal work-out clothes. At 7:00 p.m., the tall, fit, and charismatic Auder, outfitted in a gold-lamé leotard and striped leggings, announced that she was leading a free yoga class.