But really, the show was all about this guy, Dakis Joannou:

He’s the guy on the right. He is a really really rich industrialist and art collector. Big fan of Jeff Koons apparently. He also likes Maurizio Cattelan a lot, as evidenced by the sculptures on the left, and the epic Cattelan sculptures included in the show, one of which Roberta Smith rags on hard in her excellent excellent excellent review of the show. She is first of all such an amazingly clear writer, and second of all, she really makes an effort to understand and communicate the context, which is so essential for drawing meaning from contemporary art – both the meaning of the work itself, and the meaning of the way it is presented.

Tasty pull-quote:

Sure, “Skin Fruit” includes several outstanding artworks by significant talents, and there are a few genuine surprises. But whether the artists are 1980s stars like Mike Kelley and Cindy Sherman or relative newcomers like John Bock, Nathalie Djurberg and Dan Colen, nearly all are well-known quantities in New York, widely supported by other museums and high on many collectors’ must-have lists. Nearly all emanate from one stratum of the art world: the one where the money is. Is this the most effective way for the New Museum to use its time, space and energy? That’s the question of the art season.

For an interesting dose of context, note the yacht to the left, owned by Mr. Joannou, and custom-painted by Mr. Koons.

Overall the show was ridiculous. Jeff Koons jammed in as much big-big-big work as humanly possible into the not-huge New Museum galleries. There were some amazing pieces though. A Paweł Althamer sculpture actually had a real guy strapped to a real Roman-style cross, struggling and shaking and not enjoying himself at all. Sounds kinda stupid maybe, but is stunning in real life. And…damnit, this Koons piece to the right, “One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank,” is actually awesome. We’ve probably all seen it before one way or another, but it’s still kinda sick. Apparently, it’s salt water in the bottom half of the tank, fresh water floating on top, and the ball sits right in the middle of the two layers. I had never noticed this before, but the ball says “Dr. J.K.” Hardy harr!

Also, Tauba Auerbach’s painting was impressive as usual. It wasn’t this one (to the left), but a similar idea. Her website is cool, btw.

One last thought: “Skin Fruit” is really the title? Really, Jeff Koons? We made lots of skin flute jokes on hockey team road trips when I was 12. No one on the team had actually had consensual sexual relations yet at that point, but we all obsessively shared ridiculous metaphors and what-if sexual scenarios. But never did we come up with something so clever as “Skin Fruit.” What a crisscross. Thank you, Jeff Koons. Thank you.

First of all, the Condo painting was just ok, alas.

The show is totally the talk of the town of course. Everybody has an opinion on it. Weighing in, we have Holland Cotter from the NY Times, Jerry Saltz from NY Magazine (both basically positive), and some dude named Sebastian Smee (seriously?) really hating on it, hard.

On the whole “the show that everyone loves to hate” trope, I’m kinda like, who are these people who vociferously HATE a huge curated art show? Do they want their $18 back because all the art is “bad,” or are they just upset that they’re not included in it themselves, or what?

Here’s the deal: With the Biennial, the Whitney’s task is to put forth someone’s idea of what is significant among all that is being produced by American artists. That’s a pretty subjective task, and I think we all know that no one likes exactly the same stuff as anyone else. Now, the reality is, the Whitney Biennial is this institutional construct, and it just IS this thing that functions as a kind of benchmark. If you don’t like it, propose an alternative, or make one and tell us about it. But just to say it sucks? Seriously? That’s all you got, Sebastian Smee (seriously)?

I like these cats the best: they just want to talk shit on 303 gallery and shoot guerrilla photography while wearing awesome shoes. Yee-uh.

Here are samples of some of the work that was memorable, one way or another:

It’s worth seeing. Go see it. And look out for the Bruce High Quality Foundation installation. Word.

Condo is awesome. I went to his studio last year with a friend. He wasn’t around, but his assistant was there. It was ridiculously chaotic. His studio was in a townhouse on the upper east side. There were medium-size paintings leaning up against the walls all around, and a couple of guitars were laying about, one of them still plugged into a guitar pedal and an amp. The main painting he was working on was leaned on the arms and back of a wire chair. There were definitely fumes and smoke hanging out there. I’m most excited about seeing his work there.

My friend works as an occasional assistant to Josephine Meckseper, who is also in this biennial. She gave a good talk about her contribution to the Guggenheim’s “Contemplating the Void” show. It’s cool, and you can still see it: the Guggenheim invited a couple hundred artists to imagine whatever they’d like, in their wildest fantasies, to occupy the main atrium of the museum. The projects ranged from the installation of a complex spiral of reflective mylar, to a gigantic clitoris, to an oil rig (Meckseper’s idea). Here’s a photo of the curators of the biennial:

Their names are Gary Carrion-Murayari and Francesco Bonami. I’m open to what they’ve done. Maybe it’ll be cool? More to come on that, clearly.

Ai Weiwei, one of the artists involved in the protest.

This artist Ai Weiwei already has a battle scar (see above) on his head, which he received during a random beating by the Chinese government last year. Adding to the disturbing-ness: the artists who got beaten up had actually signed long-term leases on these spaces, and had invested significantly into renovating these properties to make them liveable. And to cap the stack, the artists then rallied and marched towards Beijing to protest, and were subsequently stopped by police long before they could actually make it into the city. So, China really offers all the worst elements of both communist oppression and capitalist exploitation, which is awesome, considering that they are going to be running the planet shortly.

Which reminds me, I just saw New Hope City, a rock opera/play by the band Pass Kontrol. It set up your standard dystopian future, a la Brave New World/1984/Blade Runner/Total Recall/Aliens/Avatar/Matrix, in which one gigantic corporation makes life easy by suppressing all creativity and real perception. All the artists and other people who don’t fit into the corporate system in New Hope City end up on the outskirts of the city in a kind of shanty town full of creatives. They enjoyed their lives there, but they were constantly under threat of being attacked by masked representatives of the overlord corporation running the city.

It actually ended up being a lot of fun, as the guys in the band were definitely having fun within this loose framework. Here’s a review. When I saw it, I was kinda like, eh, it’s fun, but I dunno how original…good promo for the band though. But this China story is basically the same story, but in real life, wtf. So, I take back my original half-dismissal. You should see New Hope City. For sure. It’s playing one more weekend, 2/25-2/27 at the Bushwick Starr. Tix here.

And are some photos of Jerry talking about a painting of mine the other day, and adjusting his glasses to address the camera-laden masses:

Speaking of shadowy figures fucking with us, I snapped this photo today on Bleecker and Mulberry. And I think the message applies equally well to both me and to ol’ Jerry, let’s be honest:

]]> http://www.bkmfa.com/2010/02/jerry-saltz-dicks/feed/ 0 http://www.bkmfa.com/2010/02/on-jerry-saltz-and-dickishness/ http://www.bkmfa.com/2010/02/on-jerry-saltz-and-dickishness/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:44:29 +0000 bk_mfa http://www.bkmfa.com/?p=46 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?

]]> http://www.bkmfa.com/2010/02/on-jerry-saltz-and-dickishness/feed/ 3 http://www.bkmfa.com/2010/02/nothings-shocking/ http://www.bkmfa.com/2010/02/nothings-shocking/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:25:37 +0000 bk_mfa http://www.bkmfa.com/?p=26 The other night, I went to the opening of the NSFW (“Not Safe For Work”) show at the offices of Gawker. (Full disclosure: my girlfriend co-curated the show with her sister.) Here’s a picture from the show:

photo by Nick McGlynn

Looks fun, and it was fun. Great art, ok wine, fabulous people, etc. The central concept of the show was lurid sexual imagery of the kind that is not suitable for you to check out on your computer while at work – Not Safe For Work – and the show becomes a clever recontextualization of this heretofore web-only abbreviation. You can see the artists’ work here: Steve Ellis, Emiliano Granado, Heather Morgan, Justine Lai, and Randy Polumbo. If you want to see the work in person, the show will be at Fountain Art Fair on Pier 66 in nyc as well, March 4-7.

Great work. But I wasn’t shocked. My point: I don’t know if I can be shocked by a painted/photographed/sculpted image anymore. Even photos of various desecrations, maulings, murders, annihilations, dismemberings…I feel like I’ve seen a lot of gory stuff. Even this?

Gotta be honest: not shocked.

Related digression: You late-1990s New Yorkers remember the Sensation show at the Brooklyn Museum, way back before the turn of the millennium, right? Our then-mayor called the work in the show “sick stuff,” without ever having seen the show of course, and lines to see the show were then blocks and blocks long. And the work was audacious and a little shocking to many. I don’t know if I was actually shocked, but definitely moved. I was younger, maybe shock-able? What separates me now, blogging and such, and me back in 1999, fiddling with my Star Tac antenna, besides a few grey hairs and a some battle scars from late night struggles with cynicism?

A theory: 9/11. That was the ultimate shock art event. Of course, killing 3,000 people is not traditionally an artistic act, and I, like Stockhausen, am not suggesting that whomever carried out those attacks was a great artist worth name-checking or admiring.

However, the event of 9/11 was, and remains, THE ULTIMATE EVENT. There is no more dramatic single performance than what those guys did on that day, to most living Americans at least. And that event rendered everything afterwards kind of, well, cute. Not only did it destroy thousands of lives, engender two specious and disastrous wars, and arguably drag the US into potential Roman-Empire-style decline, the World Trade Center attack destroyed the possibility of anyone making a real, paradigm-shifting event for a very long time.

So, my question is, can art shows create riots now, in the USA. Maybe if you starve a dog like that Costa Rican artist? Is anyone shocked by Lady GaGa’s outfits? Or any outfit or painting, really? What am I overlooking here? Because I’m feeling like, since 9/11, it’s kinda like whatever you know what I’m sayin. Eh?

I got into a discussion with a friend about David Reed’s work last night. The uh-huh consensus is that he is limited in scope, but within the realm of hardcore formalism, he’s a total genius. After coming to an agreement on that point, this friend, whom I respect and love, then confidently asserted that there is nothing philosophical to the work beyond its amazing formal qualities and challenging aesthetics.

A day later, I’m not sure about the truth of that last sentence, although I’ll admit that last night I nodded, smiled and softly agreed. Because it is kind of agreeable, and it’s sort of true. On the face of it, that argument makes sense, but it turns out, now I feel like there is something wrong with it because there is something challenging about Reed’s paintings that feels like real depth to me. This Bridget Riley quote brings me closer to the meaning of this kind of work – it’s from a lecture she gave in 1996:

‘When Samuel Beckett was a young name in the early Thirties and trying to find a basis from which he could develop, he wrote an essay known as Beckett/Proust in which he examined Proust’s views of creative work; and he quotes Proust’s artistic credo as declared in Time Regained – “the tasks and duties of a writer [not an artist, a writer] are those of a translator”. This could also be said of a composer, a painter or anyone practising an artistic metier. An artist is someone with a text which he or she wants to decipher.

‘Beckett interprets Proust as being convinced that such a text cannot be created or invented but only discovered within the artist himself, and that it is, as it were, almost a law of his own nature. It is his most precious possession, and, as Proust explains, the source of his innermost happiness. However, as can be seen from the practice of the great artists, although the text may be strong and durable and able to support a lifetime’s work, it cannot be taken for granted and there is no guarantee of permanent possession. It may be mislaid or even lost, and retrieval is very difficult. It may lie dormant and be discovered late in life after a long struggle, as with Mondrian or Proust himself. Why it should be that some people have this sort of text while others do not, and what ‘meaning’ it has, is not something which lends itself to argument. Nor is it up to the artist to decide how important it is, or what value it has for other people. To ascertain this is perhaps beyond even the capacities of his own time.’

Reed’s internal text has something to do with the primal meaning of touching and mark-making. And when abstract painting becomes self-aware and is okay with the fact that the making of brush marks is a mannered movement, it can ask questions about the boundaries of the meaning on mark-making on a flat surface. Reed and Jonathan Lasker both make these kinds of marks, and they’re both kind of awesome. There is some philosophy of touch, some kind of metaphorical marking-up behind all of this. It’s true: this kind of work is a formal parlor game that ultimately means nothing, and that will not save us from imminent cannibalism and self-destruction. But, it helps pass the time in a lovely, stimulating way, no? And it can be exciting to see a new way of thinking about making a picture, when the whole idea seems so exhausted.