One of Cologne Dada's exhibitions was held in a space that could only be entered through a men's lavatory. It was promptly closed as an outrage against public morality on the grounds that one of the works--a 1920 Ernst collage titled The Word/She Bird--was pornographic. Ironically, the offending nude was the figure of Eve lifted directly from a 1504 print by Albrecht Dürer.I've recently come across two very different texts about contemporary art history. The first one is about Max Ernst, the second, about the development of works that question(ed) the limit between art and life. The second topic is much closer to my interests, but surprizingly the
of it on Amazon). Here, he manages to combine well-written criticism with great insight and sense of humor. Somehow, now I feel much closer to Ernst than to the whole gang of "disappearing ink draughtsmen".The work was not meant to be visually ingratiating, so it is sheer historical misjudgment to dismiss Ernst as "the worst leading painter in the twentieth century's most visually miserable major artistic movement," as one of my fellow critics recently put it.And another bit:
New York has been spared the all-too-familiar scenario of pious poster bearers, outraged politicians, defenders of artistic freedom citing the First Amendment, and the learned presence of art historians, theologians and perhaps psychologists explaining to viewers of The Charlie Rose Show that the Holy Boy, in the nature of His humanity, must more than once have tried his Mom's patience. But I doubt Ernst would have been pleased by the somber spirit of cultural duty and aesthetic appraisal with which his art is being approached at the Met. No one loved a good public dust-up more than Ernst and his Dadaist comrades, who used art to assail a society they held responsible for the pointless slaughter of millions in World War I.
a screenplay has a short window of opportunity once it goes out, and that if it doesn’t sell, writers need to learn to let go and move on. They can’t live off the hope of that one script forever. Instead, they need to keep producing new material. Keep writing — don’t sit around and wait for the sale or the next assignment."Assignment". That is so amusing. I sincerely adore this attitude. Is there ever going to be some harmony, some cohesion between the film industry approach and the fine arts/theater one? (Is it all about the money?)
The Swap-O-Matic is intended to be both a solution and critical response to the gluttonous culture that we live in today. Its core function to support the reuse and recycling of consumer products through swapping among participants.So far, there are about 70 participants ("swappers"). They have a web page where they can see what items are currently in the machine, what were the most quickly swapped items, and the "top swappers". The items range from necklesses and shirts to a Chinese gas mask or a glue gun.
Like so much Art Tech of recent years, video environments resemble world's fair "futurama" displays with their familiar nineteenth-century push-button optimism and didactism.- Allan Kaprow, "Video Art: Old Wine, New Bottle" (1974)
Jeff Koons, Puppy (1998)
- Lin Hixson (yes, director of the British group Goat Island), from More Permanent Than Snow, in: Live: Art and Performance
One of my tasks as the director of Goat Island when making a performance is to foreground the not seen and background the seen. To do this requires:
1. the formation of attention
2. slowing the traffic of the mind
3. an enclosed encounter area
4. spaces between
5. not dance, not theatre, not visual art, not performance, not literature, not music, not anthropology, not ritual, not playgrounds, not teeth, not bats, not moons.
A museum in southwest France is exhibiting "raw" but often powerful art by the self-taught which was never intended for a public showing.
The museum is so relaxed that visiting pupils sometimes take a picture back to their school to study it at leisure.
"Here, visitors are totally free -- there's no dictatorship of conformism, no security guard beside each painting -- here you can touch the art," said organiser Pascal Rigeade.
(Yahoo news, via Art2day)
A quick visit to the museum's site convinced me that a) it's worth discovering and b) many represented artists are not quite self-taught (many Fine Arts graduates!). Which brings an interesting question: whyever do we need to know where the artist earned his skills? Unless the education/cv is part of the work (as is often the case with "autobiographical work"), this sort of thinking seems a naive transposition of business thinking: "where does he come from and what can we expect from him in the future if he works for us". Well, in this case, he doesn't work for us. Especially, since at the Musee de la Creation Franche the works were meant not to be shown to others. So we better take it or leave it.
Of course, it's another story if we curious were someone's ideas/style derives from. It might be better to ask the artist directly though (if s/he knows!). Here is a nice example of what you could here at the museum:
Joaquim Baptista Antunes (alias Baptistantunes) was born on in Sertã, a poor Portuguese province. He was the son of peasants and became a shepherd and then, at the age of 15, a waiter.He rebels against religious conformism and popular superstitions, which makes him the black sheep in the fmaily. He starts drawing in the eighties (b.1953). During a travel to New York, he discovers Chagall and Picasso. His talent is discovered by the Portuguese surrealist Mario Cesariny, who convinces him to start painting. He receives a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation, moves to Paris in 1987 and quickly enters the "L'Oeuil de Boeuf" gallery.
***
Generally speaking, the works at the Museum have clear common characteristics: they are strong, colorful, with often simplified, accentuated forms.
They make me think of tribal art, children's art (no wonder Dubuffet is one of the local heroes), and on the other hand, of "deconstructive games" where the more often than not figurative subject loses its autonomy and appears as partially desintegrated, or literally integrated into the surroundings.
Art*o*mats are retired cigarette vending machines that have been converted to vend art. There are 76 active machines in various locations throughout the country.The sad part is that "the country" means the U.S. I'm waiting for a similar initiative somewhere nearby...
Our mission is to encourage art consumption by expanding access to artists' work. Art*o*mat® has created an opportunity to purchase original artwork while providing exposure and promotional support for artists. Art*o*mat® combines the worlds of art and commerce in an innovative form.If anyone considers this form as too commercial or silly, I would recommend trying to make a living (and a name) as an artist for some time.
In the late 1990s Jota Castro brought his career as a diplomat at the United Nations and the European Union to a close and decided to devote himself totally to the field of art. Through his different professional activities, Castro gained in-depth knowledge of the world of politics; moreover, he considers his studies in law and political science as his real training in art. Conjuring up trivial humor, politically incorrect sarcasm, and a wide range of references, Castro's sculptures, installations, and performances point up certain mechanisms at work in society, whose imbalances and weaknesses are skillfully highlighted by the artist.Castro is indecent and politically incorrect, but always in the right way. He knows how to provoke and how to create simple, strong messages. (Sometimes too simple?)
a performance called "Discrimination Day" that is meant to present the recurrent excesses of what the French call the délit de faciès, literally "facial crime," i.e., being stopped by the police because of the color of one's skin.Becoming an artist for Castro means using the political skills to their fullest extent. That's why he sometimes chooses to curate other artists' work, as in the case of the Emergency Biennale about Chechnya he co-organized in 2005 (here is a blog that accompanies it). Jota Castro once more doesn't choose an easy subject, and decides to explore it (by inviting other artists, such as Francis Alys, to work on it) in a straight-forward, cut-the-slack kind of way (see pics some of some examples). Does it make a difference? Hard to tell. I haven't found any testimonies yet that would say how life-changing witnessing Castro's events/works was. Maybe that's not what it's supposed to be about. Or maybe we still haven't achieved a sufficient level of artistic communication. Or maybe we're just cold people with no empathy. No, let's say we're not. For the argument's sake.
My role as an artist became clear to me when I understood that the artist is a man as any other, that he decides he has things to say and things to do, and that he doesn't have time to lose. He feels that his times need interprets and he recognizes himself [se reconnait] in the world that surrounds him.- Jota Castro
Students make their own MOMA audio-guidesThis is an attempt at decentralization which I am particularly fond of. There is something quite intimate, delicate and powerful missing in the way contemporary art is being communicated. Things are starting to change, though very slowly. Funny, how technology can give a helping hand. Another proof that art is lazy? I mean, couldn't anyone make cassette audio-guides before? Of course, the distrubution was worse, the quality not so good, but still, it was available. Does that mean we had to have it all right in front of us, on a dish, to start actually using technology? Or am I too young (and ignorant) to remember that there were such initiatives, only they faded away? What would be the lessons to learn here?
Students at Marymount Manhattan College's Department of Communication Arts are recording their own audio commentary on the Museum of Modern Art's exhibits. They're also inviting others to make their own homemade audio guides to MOMA, which they'll collect and post online.
"I am an old man now
In sixty years you can do a lot of work.
I did a lot of things in sixty years,
my paintings, my photography, my objects.
I change all the time.
I have periods were I do one thing
then for a few years
I do something else.
I am a free man.
I do not work for a padrone, or a boss.
I am indifferent to things
that do not interest me.
But never would I attack them.
Especially in the creative arts.
Because I say anybody who does creative art
is a sacred person.
I do not care what he does.
Whether he paints academic pictures
or he is modern
or different
from anything else.
He cannot do any harm.
Whereas a bad politician
or a bad doctor
or a bad cook
can kill you!"
As Wajcman (p.11) notes, “qualities associated with manliness are almost everywhere more highly regarded than those thought of as womanly.” In this case, discourse practices that construct weblogs as externally-focused, substantive, intellectual, authoritative, and potent (in the sense of both “influential” and “socially transformative”) map readily on to Western cultural notions of white collar masculinity (Connell, 1995), in contrast to the personal, trivial, emotional, and ultimately less important communicative activities associated with women (cf. “gossip”). Such practices work to relegate the participation of women and other groups to a lower status in the technologically-mediated communication environment that is the blogosphere, and more generally, to reinforce the societal status quo.- Susan C. Herring, Inna Kouper, Lois Ann Scheidt, and Elijah L. Wright, Women and Children Last: the Discursive Construction of Weblogs
"It is clear that I often craved to bring sculpture into a more direct involvement with the common experience of living.
At such times I felt there must be a more direct way of contact than the rather remote one of art.
Initially this may have been no more than an attempt to move beyond the narrowing horizons of artistic sensibility.
It bothered me that art so soon became a style with little creation added to its production.
Why should the artistic imagination be so contained, or be unequal to the broadening scope of our world awareness?"- Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), A Sculptor's World (1968)
