I participated in the BYOA art show last week at X Initiative (Former DIA) space in Chelsea. I contributed this painting:
A friend invited me to participate in the show, and to act in a videotaped performance piece there as well. It was fun to hang out with some friends, make some new ones, and get out of various time warps and black holes I’d been stuck in for a stretch there.
The BYOA show was a 24-hour show only, totally uncurated. It was just like, show up, hang your stuff, drink beers, and then take it all down the next day. Jerry Saltz, nymag art critic, was there. He wandered around, looking at stuff and opining.
Weird: Jerry Saltz was not alone. He was followed and surrounded (both, literally) by at least 20 onlookers at all times. The majority of these followers seemed to be Asian. Weird.
Actual scene: I’m hanging out with some friends, finishing a borrowed Bud tall boy, talking about my friend Mark’s penis sculpture which eventually got stolen later that night. So then, Mark alerts me that Jerry Saltz is dangerously close to my painting and may be talking about it. I then approach the group and literally muscle my way into the crowd. Jerry is just starting to talk about my painting. He goes, “Now this painting…whose is this? Is the artist here?”
I’m there, so I say, “Yes.”
Jerry looks at the painting for a second and says, “This one, it’s just, this is just very generic.” He looks back at me and continues, “Yeah, I’m sorry, it’s just generic. I’ve seen the space before, I’ve seen the marks before, there’s just nothing unique about it. It’s just…very generic.” He grimaces, half-smiling, and says, “Sorryeeeeeeee?”
I say, “No it’s fine, that’s ok. But that’s it? That’s your criticism? It’s just generic? That’s all you have to say about this?” (Note: I’m SURROUNDED by amateur Asian videographers throughout all this.)
He says, “Yes, I’m sorryeeeee?”
Then we talked a little more and addressed the fact that we were no longer facebook friends, and we should rectify this. We did a fist bump, and all was right with the world. And now we are indeed facebook friends again, Jerry and I.
So then, a few days later, I come across this article from artsjournal. Nutshellage: Jerry Saltz has been busily piling on unctuous praise for Jeff Koons lately, and another art critic named John Yau stepped in and wrote this other article going: Wait, why do we need a big critic to tell us that Jeff Koons is awesome again, isn’t that what douchey collectors do when they buy his stuff? Then Saltz writes on facebook, “How very dickish of John Yau.” And then (THEN! such drama!), Saltz posts this open letter on facebook, doing his best to keep it real, while inviting criticism of his own criticism.
Back in reality, Jerry Saltz is just some dude making a living, doing what he knows best, and selling books and magazines in the process. Now, tripping over oneself to love on Jeff Koons is idiotic, but then again, so’s my day job. In general, Jerry says, “I like this, I don’t like that, and here’s some sort of poetic rationalization.” And we’re like, “Yeah, I guess Jeff Koons is ok. Or, wait a minute…,” and then we flip to the movie review section and we’re like, “Hurt Locker!” and the whole Koons thing is gone like Tuesday’s turpentine.
So THEN (at last) Saltz’s wife, NY Times art critic Roberta Smith, writes a razor-sharp critique of NYC Museums, basically saying that gigantor assembly-line, uber-generic artists like Jeff Koons are not the artists to pay attention to. My favorite paragraph:
What’s missing is art that seems made by one person out of intense personal necessity, often by hand. A lot but not all of this kind of work is painting, which seems to be becoming the art medium that dare not speak its name where museums are concerned.
Ssssssssssnap!!! Sorryeeeeeee?
