Maybe I'm the last person to have heard about this, but it's a startling case. The story goes like this: Members of the lacrosse team at Duke University were having a party. A black woman who had been hired as an exotic dancer for the party has alleged that two white members of the team (46 of the 47 team members are white) brutally raped her in the bathroom. She was held down, choked, and assaulted in a number of ways I'll be kind enough not to mention. Racial slurs, everything. Just bad, bad news.

The blogosphere, if we must call it that, has taken this on. I recommend this site "www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/03/29/duke-rape-case-round-up/" for an interesting discussion of various aspects of the situation.

Now what might all this have to do with art, you hum? We'll get to that.

Another site "www.wral.com/news/8360977/detail.html" carried this bit of information:

At an annual campus rally against sexual violence previously planned for Wednesday night, about 300 people wearing purple and white ribbons marched across Duke's campus. Protesters handed out flyers to marchers bearing the photos and names of the lacrosse team, and taped them onto garbage cans in front of the student union.
"Rape is not sex. Rape is violence," Geoff Lorenz, 22, a senior from California, told the crowd. "May our sea of purple and white demand a change on this campus."

First of all, we should all be sending roses to Mr. Lorenz for not only knowing what he knows, but also knowing how to deliver a soundbite to a reporter.

Despite the brutality of the crime, the fact that students at Duke (not too far from where I grew up, mind you) are pissed off and that a 22 year old male knows what point needs hammering home - well, this I take to be pretty good news.

A statement like "Rape is not sex. Rape is violence." is starting to sound like phenomenology rather than politics. And that's a great thing. It shows that long fought for ideas are starting to take root - starting to become part of our social custom.

Now for the art angle:
The change in the meaning and social relationship to rape is a big, big deal. Mammoth. I can't think of anything bigger. The internet? Probably not.
But there is a less significant issue of prejudice in the world that is persistent and consistent. Little has changed, when it should be a much easier thing to deal with - that's the under-representation of women artists in museums and galleries.

The art world, regarding its sexism and its racism, could use some good lines with the potential to make the transition from ideal to idea. The flavor of phenomenology goes a long way toward making a more permanent difference.

The option to be prejudiced is still out there hanging on white walls, ocassionally remarked upon - but we've yet to implement a plan that would make exhibition spaces socially accountable. A good line, a white bike - these are what we need more of. And considering what we're up against (the art world is quite small and not prepared to defend itself), we should be able to get this changed.

For some appalling statistics, visit www.brainstormersreport.net/

Your suggestions are, as always, welcome.

Posted by Seth Cameron at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

For the uninitiated: Speed Limit is the current exhibition at REDHEAD, our project space here at LMCC. The show is participation based, meaning, if you want to be in it, you can be in it. The project of the exhibition is to create a history of womens' art. It began on February 24th, 2006 and it will continue through the end of May. All other information you can find at www.redheadprojects.com.

Now for some blogging: There is a piece in the show by Tamar Hirschl that invites the audience to answer the question: If women ran the world would we have so much war, violence, and conflict?

It's an interesting question, I think, when taken from a feminist perspective. Answering 'no' could be taken to imply an inequality between the sexes, namely that women would be superior rulers. Answering 'yes' implies ambivalence. It wouldn't make a difference, so why should we bother changing?

We can be a little more lawyerly about it and say 'no', but specify that this is not a moral evaluation, but an evaluation of sociobiological tendencies. After all, we haven't specified that we think war, violence, and conflict are bad. We could suppose there is a fundamental difference between the sexes, but not one with moral weight. This takes us down the bumbling paths of Plessy vs. Ferguson, where the infamous phrase 'separate but equal' was born. It also takes us into that strange territory where we attempt to separate that most obnoxious pair of twins, gender from sex.

On the other hand, we could answer 'yes' with the caveat that 'running the world' is not purely for the benefit of preventing war, violence, and conflict - but has far more ramifications. Our leaders help us establish (and depart from) a moral center. In democracies, the idea is that our leaders are a reflection of the will of the people. Men being reflected as women - this somewhat mandated empathy - could have very large implications for the way men treat women.

Ken Lowy has also proposed that while he could see war fading a little with more women in power, he thinks violence and conflict would persist. This would be true even if women were the only sex (as evolutionary biologists have told us is a very legitimate possibility).

I think Ken is right, even if women were the only sex - its the plurality of people that gives rise to conflict, not sex. Sex, as well as race, sexuality, and bad manners have been convenient scapegoats for the fact that civilization is not a perfect answer, but an unwieldy compromise.

Now, a little more about the show: I proposed this exhibition as an experiment, which means I had a hypothesis. The hypothesis is: The history of women's art isn't anything in particular. I guessed that there would be no consensus.

I think the exhibition has been running long enough to take stock of that hypothesis. So come by, check out the show, and let me know what you think. Is there such a thing as womens' art?

Posted by Seth Cameron at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a blog from The Walker:

http://blogs.walkerart.org/index.wac

Posted by Perry Garvin at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Please join us for a lecture at the Scorched Earth editorial office by Pamela M. Lee

Sunday March 26th 2:00 – 5:00 pm

41 Ludlow Street on the lower east side of Manhattan.

please e-mail any questions to: scorchedearth@underthebricks.com

Seating is first come first served

Pamela M. Lee

Some Kinds of Duration

Written on the occasion of the L.A. MoCA exhibition, "Afterimage", "Some Kinds of Duration" explores the formative value of drawing for the practices of 1960s art making generally known as "Process Art." Considering the drawings of Richard Serra, Robert Morris and William Anastasi, among others, the essay extends its analysis from the work of the period to consider the relationship between drawing and temporality more generally.

Pamela M. Lee is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University. She is the author of Object to be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark (2000) and Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s (2004) both from the MIT Press. She is currently working on Forgetting the Art World: Globalization and Contemporary Art.

Scorched Earth is a twelve issue Magazine in which the question of drawing‘s place in theory and practice is addressed in dialogue with artists, critics and historians.

All twelve issues of Scorched Earth will be printed and published after approximately one year in its full Twelve-issue cycle. During the upcoming year, Scorched Earth will maintain a storefront at 41 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The storefront is used for panel discussions, lectures, occasional exhibitions, and more generally as an editorial center, The Editors of Scorched Earth are Gareth James, Sam Lewitt and Cheyney Thompson.

Posted by at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Where are the ladies at? The lady bloggers that is. Come on, females... Why have you been so silent?

Posted by Perry Garvin at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A current NYC show on women in art:

http://www.airnyc.org/

Posted by Perry Garvin at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Speaking of hipster wanking, Bill Wasik, editor at Harper's magazine and inventor of the flash mob has written a series of fascinating articles about the development of the flash mob, what he learned, etc.
It's one the best analysis of hipsterdom I've seen, and it raises some interesting questions about the future of public art, activism, and marketing.

http://harpers.org/MyCrowd.html

My question:
When everyone is so aware of institutionalization, yet incapable or unwilling to do without it, is it really still valid to think in terms of sustainable institutions? In terms of art organizations, museums, etc. wouldn't it make more sense to operate toward disappearance? Complete our goal and evaporate?

To perhaps make this more relevant - what about art institutions downtown? What about the potential of some kind of cultural activity at ground zero? Is there really a benefit to thinking about it being integrated into the site - or should culture operate oppositionally toward that site - against permanence. And if so, how does an institution, much like our own, do anything to encourage this kind of activity?

Posted by Seth Cameron at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Anonymous has proposed we aim this blog toward hipster wanking. We will now proceed to forget anything interesting happened before 1980. Well, McFly, I think you're a chicken.
Perspective is still an idea, and just because it's old, it isn't irrelevant. For instance - I loathe Relational Aesthetics, as you seem to. But a little history makes dismissing it so much easier. There was another time in the history of Western art when people tried to bridge the gulf between art and life. Back then, we called it Art Deco. Rirkrit Taravanija, I would say, is just William Morris without good taste.

I agree with you in spirit. I'm all for being relevant. And I'm all for being irreverent. But don't tell me we have to listen to the same music.

Posted by Seth Cameron at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

Acting like a bulletin board is fun and all, but why would this interest anyone outside our orbit. If this is ment to be a “marketing ploy” shouldn’t we start topics of discussion that might have a relevance to others; actual show reviews + dialog in the mood of art forums scene and heard, or interviews and general criticism such as a polemic on the institutionalization of the wrong gallery, or how relational aesthetics has become popular for conservative museums and galleries since it is really just boring safe stuff that is easy to control posing as subversive—with a real attempt, not just throwing out a general “how to you feel about this”--like stuff on artkrush…or not just art, but actual observastions one people, places and things like the event / date choices on the rings of the Sequoia at the Natural History Museum, why note that Columbus found a river in 1494 instead of finding the new world 1492, or about the fact that Eddie the Polar Bear has OCDs from living in Central Park and how his neighbors are two gay penguins …this should be interesting to the internal office as well. Maybe even throw out drafts of ideas and have people pick them apart. And who cares about Benjamin, Barthes etc, this is all old hat, why don’t we just post that picture of Durer’s illustration of perspective techniques and talk about the death of modernism—blah. Frankly a well crafted theroy on whether or not the island of Lost is hell or not is more interesting.

Or tell me a story like the time you were riding with John Fahey and he handed you a tape to play and on it was the sound of Fahey making a white noise hiss and then how you asked him what the fuck he was doing and he told you about the time Antonioni asked him the same question during the Zabriskie Point post-production and as a result Fahey punched him out.

This and two bucks will get you a subway ride.

Posted by anonymous at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"ignorance of your own culture is not considered cool"

The Residents

Posted by anonymous at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's a hobby of mine - finding lyrics to popular songs that work well as paraphrases of significant art theories. A couple of examples:

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction as paraphrased by The Cure:

I've been looking so long at these pictures of
you that I almost believe that they're real.
I've been living so long with my pictures of you that
I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel.

The Presence of Absence as paraphrased by The Association:

When we met I was sure out to lunch.
Now my empty cup is as sweet as the punch.

Other examples?

Posted by Seth Cameron at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by at 5:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre

Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire

Posted by at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by anonymous at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Neo-Hegelian dialecticism subverts a true comprehension of the art object (object as opposed to subject) because it reifies in tautological terms the work's punctum. If punctum (being an alternative to that castigated term "center") has been all but dismissed except as a literary funbag, then can we truly come to terms with an ambiguous nexus of Meaning Production?

Posted by Perry Garvin at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Steffani rocks a backflip. Office style.

Posted by Perry Garvin at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There is a wonderfully bizarre short film of Buñuel's that he made in the '60's called "Simon del desierto." It's the story of the 4th Century Syrian Coptic, Simeon Stylites, a crazy holy man (forgiven the redundancy) who couldn't find enough ways to abase himself. He tried tightening a rope around his waist for months until his flesh rotted and maggots crawled out of him; he tried burying himself in sand up to his neck and becoming a literal talking head. And for ten years he lived chained to an iron ball in a tiny round room not much bigger than the ball itself so he could never lie down.

Finally he figured it out: he would erect a column out in the desert (but not too far out) and live on top. Hence "Stylites" - of the column. The first column Simeon tried was just 9 ft high so he could stand above the crowds that gathered to listen to his lunacy. But closer my god to thee and all that, so he got people to build him taller and taller columns until he he was up there Jack in the Beanstalk high at 65 feet. He was content enough to live up on the small flat top of this one column for 36 years out in the elements and under the stars. His mother and sisters would climb up every week or so to bring him food and sweep off his neat pile of dried shit. A few times a year someone came up and trimmed his beard. (Rather like one imagines Seth living, without the maternal shit sweeper.)

Of course, copycats put up dozens of columns - still being excavated throughout the Syrian desert. And of course, Simeon became one of the most revered Catholic saints. And, of course, he was a great obsession of Buñuel, who brought perfect hallucinatory cinematic pitch to the condensed life story. Perhaps truth, perhaps liberty with death, but Buñuel was determined to write his own Simeon hagiography. He was keen to have the devil finally seduce Simeon down off his column and move in with him in hell - which, in the film, turns out to be ... a New York disco.

Which brings me somewhat closer to home: the perch, you ask.

When I first saw images of Austin Thomas's perches, I perversely thought of Simeon Stylites. I liked the idea of installing a stump-legged vantage from which the dominion of LMCC might be defined, surveyed, and condescended to. It would be a soapbox for exhibitionism, a stand-in for the question of what to exhibit, what to show. Men around the office were beginning to talk about growing beards at the time too. And the Stylites all had beards of extravagant filth and entanglement.

I also wanted something in the office that would make me think of landscape: here we were in the barren desert of Wall Street. To stay sane we had no choice but to make it into some kind of landscape we might understand, something other than the monetary wilderness in which we would be pitching our tent. (N.B. This anticipatory rhetorical trick with the tent is called prolepsis.) So again I thought of the Stylites. They and other "desert fathers" essentially invented the idea of landscape. Before they went out making places of pilgrimage in no-man's-land, the world of walking was not scaped: it was wild. It was the unmarked void between villages and cities. The ascetics shunned society, yet once outside they were still only in the land, not of it. Doesn't this describe our condition in Lower Manhattan?

Unfortunately, I was bored by this idea by the time the perch arrived. I had gotten much more interested in decorating. (As inspiration for the office, I was rereading Edith Wharton's "On the Decoration of Houses" - which I highly, highly recommend. It's as imperiously high-handed as Seth and equally as funny in its fatuity. One of my favorite lines: "Doors must always swing in to the room.") Still, arrange the furniture though I might, I found no room for plateau vistas, however dwarfish. Up to the tenth floor, my little perch.

Oh, one last thing before bed if you're still listening: the title of this entry (blogs have titles!?) comes from one of my favorite Buñuel stories. He was a marvelous trickster, something I thought we'd have more of at LMCC - practical jokes, kick me signs taped on people's backs, etc. But no.

Anyway, one night Buñuel took his great friend screenwriter Luis Alcoriza to dinner at one of the best restaurants in Mexico City. Alcoriza was distracted by a stunning, elegant woman eating alone. She kept staring at him. This seemed to annoy Buñuel to no end. To rub it in, Alcoriza excused himself, met the woman and promptly took her home. He helped her out of her gown and she stretched out on his bed. Across her stomach, the perfectly flat stomach of a hot, hot young prostitute, was written "Buenas noches, Bunuel."

Robertino can only wish he'd pulled such a trick on Bease...

Posted by at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

The tent can go to bed. Any comments on the perch?

Posted by Perry Garvin at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Another piece of bogus blather, 'something's there.' As though we could equate death, burning, and mass protest with the signification of the Mohammed cartoons. As though what we say about art is any kind of reflection of art itself.
Art and its talk are parallel streets. Assuming they meet is because we haven't walked down the road. The sun doesn't set. The lines do not converge.

But the point is taken. We ought to move on. I'll recommend again, Thomas Nozkowski. But I'm open to suggestion.

Posted by Seth Cameron at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Boys. Please. This little antiphony of maw mawing reminds me of a vivid image from "Everybody's Autobiography": "Picasso used to say during the war will it not be awful when Braque and Derain and all the rest of them put their wooden legs up on the chair and tell about their fighting?" Put down your wooden legs. It's a damn tent. Which sure as hell isn't going to protect anyone from anything life-threatening. A tent wouldn't have helped Lear on the heath. So what is it about? It's not Augustine, it's not Robert Lowell, it's not Coplans, it's not On Kawara. Why must it make much confessional claim? But it is a kind of notching in the wood, a series of marks and signs from a life. It is like a country quilt. Its (not it's) eloquence is mumbled; it's a simple thing. When the sneering starts, something always tells me something's there.

Posted by at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The store receipt with its combination of text, numbers, graphics, and color in one discrete rectangle is an abstraction of the self (I buy this, therefore I'm that), residue from a capitalist transaction (the fecal remains of an alienated exchange), and a typology (infinite graphic variations are produced within the category of "receipt"). So making art out of quantities of them makes sense because it's a form of self-portraiture, capitalist critique (if done in certain ways), and conceptual art in the mode of the Bechers and their legion of adherents.

The problem with making a tent out of receipts is that it's too literal. Tents shelter humans from life-threatening climes. A tent made out of receipts won't do that, so therefore it is a metaphorical object. Metaphorical of what? "Receipts as proof that we exist"? (seth's idea) Placing them in the arrangement of a tent does not enhance that perspective. How about the self insulated from the vagaries of capitalism through a veneer of documents produced by that same threatening force? That's a real stretch.

People like the tent because it is "Cool Shit Art" in the grand (and ultimately empty) tradition of Tim Hawkinson. Cool Shit Art works like this: 1) take a cool object (a tent is cool. it looks cool, it's simple, it does cool things, it can be packed real small) 2) take another cool but unrelated object (a bunch of receipts for example. wow - look at all those receipts! I've usually seen one or two receipts at a time but hundreds? Collected over eight years? That's cool.) 3) combine them in a technically challenging way (stitching together all those receipts must have taken a long time! What patience! And it's so fragile. It's fragility increases it's vulnerability which increases its value (valued at $10,000 by the way)). The two cool but unrelated categories will rub up against each other in an unexpected juxtaposition that will serve to make the object twice as cool. But twice as dumb. Twice as dumb because Cool Shit Art is only about the initial impact that can be leveraged off of source materials that otherwise could have a lot of charge. Yes, receipts are powerful symbols but Cool Shit Art does not examine why they are powerful, they just go on the assumption that they are powerful. This is not introspective, critical examination of the world. Instead it's pointing at an object, winking at one's compatriate, and moving on.

Posted by Perry Garvin at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

So what do you make of what I referred to as "the implication of it's form" and how I believed it "is not justified by the actualization of it's form?"

I'm referring specifically to the copper frame. I could easily imagine the tent being supported by a manufactured support from the type of tent it is modeled after. I could even imagine a homemade version, which is what we have here - but the homemade version I could imagine would derive from the design concepts of the manufactured variety, and would make comment on them. This frame has, to my mind, too much character, too much insouciance. It points to itself, but has nothing in particular to say.

Now, as for the diaristic aspect. Receipts as proof that we exist. There is, I think, something legitimate to this as a concern. Who isn't a little freaked out about their social security number getting out? What seems significant here is that the receipts face out. The 'who' finally finding his/her 'whoness' when (s)he's surrounded by his/her records, but can't see any of them.

Why receipts rather than other numerical identifiers of personhood? This I can't quite put my finger on. Receipts as a category I don't think are particularly more compelling than, say, hospital records, social security cards, telephone bills, etc. What some receipts have that are interesting, is the ability to turn purple in the sun. A built-in disappearing act. I haven't taken a close enough look to see whether this tent would change significantly in the sun. But if it did, that would further compound the crisis of identity the piece is aiming at.

Now, as for what it is doing in the LMCC office. The piece looks a little stranded. There isn't enough space around it to give it proper contemplation room, and there is too much space around it to make it feel part of an environment. Also, it's a very strange thing to see a sculpture on carpet. I think it would benefit from a low riser.

Posted by Seth Cameron at 2:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's been only one post written and deleted from this blog and it's an entry that I wrote.

It was an off-hand criticism of a work of art that had been installed into our office about 2 weeks ago. The work of art is a tent made of receipts that the artist had collected for eight years. Hours after posting my thoughts about it, I was asked to remove the post because it was offensive to the artist. Offensive because LMCC had asked for it. Offensive because to critique a gift is rude.

So in a concilliatory gesture, I took the post down pending further staff discussion on the role of the blog and whether or not it should be a forum for self-criticism.

I'm glad that Seth has made what would have been a private LMCC conversation a public one. Because I agree with Seth. And I agree with his well-founded (though poorly articulated) fear that this blog will exist as nothing more than a flacid marketing device rather than a critical tool if self-examination is not encouraged.

So. Rather than us discuss Thomas Nozkowski, let us discuss the tent. The tent made of receipts. 8 years worth of receipts.

Posted by Perry Garvin at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay. I admit it. You caught me. The New York Times did not invent blogging. I made that up. I also made it up that Roland Barthes invented Scientology, that consciousness is a dish best served cold, and that their is a King James Version of a book that, we all know, is the divine and unalterable word of God.

Now, as for corporate blogging. Whether they do it or not, they should. And no, they shouldn't let their employees write freely about anything they want (and LMCC perhaps should not either, which is the subject of this conversation). They should fake like they do. Do you trust positive customer reviews on Amazon? I don't, because I assume the same principle could be at work.

Now, as for lying. Perhaps there really wasn't a post removed. Maybe I made that up too. It is beside the point. The point was, if there had been an imbecilic post, and if we are going to do something stupid like allow everyone at LMCC to write whatever they want, I should have the opportunity to post next to it. I even have a certain responsibility to do so. Re-post it, and I will respond. I can't make fun of something that isn't there.

The more interesting question is whether this should be an open forum for the exchange of imbecilic ideas. Perhaps not. Perhaps this should be a blog about all the wonderful things we do at LMCC (A closed forum for the imparting of imbecilic ideas). It would, as a fact, be obvious to anyone (that is, anyone who could tell I was lying about the New York Times, Roland Barthes, and Scientology) that it is being written as a marketing device of the old style.

The model is Pindar. Look him up. Or better yet, just check the name in your Microsoft Word spell-check. Shall I do it for you? "Pander" is the suggestion. This is what we would be doing, and some of us have the ability to read through this type of crap to arrive at the information we are looking for: dates, locations, etc.

On the other red, red hand, we could try something a bit more sophisticated. We could use this blog as a way to make LMCC seem like an interesting organization. We could, for instance, talk about art. Strange idea, isn't it? Suddenly the issue of whether or not it is 'real' doesn't matter. All that matters is that what we say is compelling of more thoughts.

Pindaric writing on art is boring and would certainly not encourage anyone to actually read our now overly self-obsessed blog. Do you remember how Jerry Saltz wrote about the Matthew Barney's perpetual sideshow at the Guggenheim? It made me want to vomit plastic.

ASIDE...
Speaking of Jerry Saltz. He's written something of the Charline Von Heyl exhibition at Friedrich Petzel. It is a testament to the continuing inability of critics to write anything interesting about abstraction. They resort to streams of incoherent adjectives, like a thesaurus on speed. It is also a testament to Jerry Saltz's continuing belief that writing about art is writing about fashion. He boldly, and ridiculously, contends that 'representation' and 'abstraction' are left-over terms of a bygone era. I would offer him an alternative word for the chopping block: conceptual. I have yet to find a work of art in the world completely devoid of a concept.

MOVING ON...
Presenting LMCC as a united front, where every program we do is beyond criticism, is a waste of time. That is what press releases are for. The potential of a collaborative blog is democratic, which, if we're keeping up with our social contract theory, requires speaking convenient lies to power. We could, as we might be doing now, fake it. It doesn't matter at all. What matters is the content and delivery of our ideas. Democracy, it turns out, isn't a bad way to accomplish this.

We could, for instance, have a conversation about the receipt tent now sitting in our office. We could discuss, back and forth, how the implication of it's form is not justified by the actualization of it's form. We could talk about other works that attempt to comment diaristically, and for the most part ironically, on the realization of a 'self' through capitalism. We could talk about the sub-genre of sculpture currently plaguing the art world known as "tent art". Hell, we could talk about Henry Moore, and that most inexplicable idea called "negative space." There are, after all, far darker things underneath our beds. This is to say, there are plenty of things to talk about that fall under the category of "things about art worth talking about."

We could be an interesting model of an arts organization. We could be publicly self-critical. Is this shooting ourselves in the foot? It is if we believe being self-critical to mean the fruitless extolling of our individual tastes. This is not what being critical means. The word, "critique", means "to call into crisis." This is not panning or praising, but accepting that talking about art is a patient always in need of extensive surgery.

Now, I would like, if we could, to agree to extract ourselves from the black hole we've gone down (which is largely my fault), and get down to the business of talking about art, the institutions who need it so desperately to survive (that being the hydra known as critic/collector/dealer/curator), and what it is we have to do with it.

I'll offer a topic:

THOMAS NOZKOWSKI at Max Protetch

I think they are academic paintings parading as naive, which leads me to the conclusion that the work believes
1. Naivety to be akin to sincerity
2. That sincerity in art is virtuous
3. That virtue in art is a thing worth dealing with

I disagree, because I don't think art and virtue have anything to do with each other. Banking is immoral. Activism is moral. Art is, by definition, artificial, and therefore something else entirely.

And I would be interested to know what others think about the show and the issue of sincerity in art.

Posted by Seth Cameron at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Oh Seth. You have got to stop smoking those cigarettes. The filters are filtering out too much.

The New York Times did not invent Blogs. They have been around in other forms for many years. A few software engineers (programmers) found a way to make it easier for people to do, and because it is now so easy, everyone and their mother can have a blog. But having a blog doesn’t make it worth reading. Just like having a copy of PhotoShop doesn’t make you (no, not you, the proverbial you) a digital artist. Most people can write, most people are boring; most blogs are amusing for about 5 minutes, and then boring. Really, really boring.

Companies excited by blogs? Not on your life. They hate blogs. They shut down those blogs. The last thing a corporation wants is to let their employees have a voice. If they did that they’d have to listen, and most corporations are not democratic. They are dictatorships. We are lucky enough to work at an arts organization where free speech and opinions are not asked for, they are demanded. We are in the minority, kind of like living in New York City.

You’re final graph (as in para…) mentioned a post that was censored (or so it seems) for being, as you put it ill conceived. HA!! This is why I don’t let anyone post anything on my blog. I don’t want to read what other people think about what I wrote (that’s not entirely true, but it makes for good copy). And all the posts seem to be for cialis anyway.

But you refuse to write a response just because the original post is missing? Are you afraid? I say post your response now! Just because none of us have read it does not make it less worthy. In fact, it makes it more interesting because we will have no idea what you are ranting about. And this should make it more interesting for you because you could write just about anything. DO IT! The fact that you have not done it makes me very unhappy, I am, like you, not pleased. DO IT so I can get a good nights’ sleep again. For god’s sake, do it now. Or the terrorists win.

(I am only posting as anonymous because I don’t have a proper log in. But you all know who wrote this. And go and find my blog and try and post something, I dare you. I double dare you. But don’t make it about cialis or a mortgage. I have those already)

Posted by anonymous at 9:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

The King James Version

The King James Version of the Bible, according the indubitable source Wykipedia, was translated from the Ben Chayyim Masoretic Hebrew Text (Old Testament) and the Textus Receptus (New Testament) by 54 scholars. These scholars worked in groups of five or six, each of these groups focusing only on a few books. Later, representatives of each group met to review the work as a whole. It has been bandied about that Shakespeare had something to do with the translation. Here’s some news. He didn’t.

The KJV took 54 people about seven years to complete. And it is about 80% exactly the same as William Tyndale’s translation, which had been published almost a hundred years prior.

The Multiple Drafts Theory of Consciousness

Daniel C. Dennett, the philosopher and cognitive scientist, published a book in 1991 titled “Consciousness Explained.” In the book, he puts forth a theory of consciousness wherein our consciousness is not ‘one thing’, but rather, ‘a bunch of things’ under continual revision without deference to time. His metaphor is the internet, where ‘multiple drafts’ of an academic paper can be floating around simultaneously, being revised even if a newer version is already out there. We never wind up with the finished product. It all depends at which moment we hit the search button.

A Deserted Island With Wi-Fi

One day someone at The New York Times Magazine needed a cover story, so they invented blogging. The idea was simple: let’s get isolated suburban kids to plug their diaries into the internet. Think of it. Parent’s might accidentally stumble in on their children’s most private thoughts. High school dropouts might become international literary phenomena. The news industry could collapse under the weight of a deluge of conspiracy theorists. It was a big day. Everyone was extremely excited. The internet, after all this time, was going to change the world over night.

Enter the Corporate Blog

Companies were excited too. “With all this free personality technology floating around in the world, it would be easy to make our megalithic profit generating machine seem less like a megalithic profit generating machine and more like a family.”

The Eighth Day

And so it came to pass that blogs, with their quirky mix of confession box and TOTAL ANONYMITY, became just like everything else that has ever been written down, words. Tiny vessels of fiction designed to persuade their readers to think about something, or to believe something, or to respond to something. Bloggers are not isolated suburban kids, man-eating corporations, theological translation committees, or Shakespeare. They are (gasp) authors.

Authors Wanted: Dead or Alive

According to Roland Barthes, Authors are not human beings, but actually the souls of aliens that infect our human bodies (generating disease and psychological disorders) as part of an evil plot by Xenu, an ancient alien overlord.

They don’t have hands or feet or morals. They just have words. And, again according to Barthes, in order to combat their potentially infectious properties or contend with their potentially enhancing properties, we must become like them – beyond the body. We must WRITE BACK.

Writing Back: How to be a Guerrilla Warrior in the Land of the Soul

The multiple drafts theory of consciousness says that our brains don’t even know the truth. Gertrude Stein, despite any other intellectual improprieties, was right: there’s no there there.

So what is to be done? If we aren’t going to find out “the truth” (otherwise known as whodunit) why do we bother to write back and forth at all? A few theories:

1. There is nothing else worth doing.
2. Right now, I happen to believe something, and despite the fact that I know I will potentially change my mind, I feel overwhelmingly compelled to have you believe this something as well. And likewise, I would be interested to know how what you happen to believe at this moment differs from what I happen to believe at this moment as that could be the catalyst for me changing my mind, which in my previous experiences has been a rather rejuvenating experience thus easing the tendency I have toward despair brought on by my belief that
3. There is nothing else worth doing.

THE POINT BEING

There was a post to this blog that was removed rather than responded to. The post was, to my mind, ill-conceived, and I would have appreciated the opportunity to have my alien soul fight it out with the alien soul that posted said ill-conceived post.

That opportunity has been taken away from me. And I am not pleased.

Posted by Seth Cameron at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Perry Garvin at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's an office sport for you. Chair Crashing. Pretty extreme stuff.

Posted by Perry Garvin at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Drawing inspiration from the DIVA video artists, I want to suggest that we create and post a series of Office Sports videos. Some suggestions to start us off:
-Bare-knuckle fist fights in the glass panic room
-Hurdles over the rows of gray filing cabinets
-Dead lifts with office desks that are stacked with Candler Water Jugs
-Shoot the person wearing the wolf skin rug
-Drag race on office chairs down the Liberty Street hill

Posted by at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So the desk across from me is finally filled - months after dear Jessica Sucher's departure. His name is Adam Kleinman, and he's the new Associate Curator. Used to work at Artnet, which is located just blocks away from our office. We'll see how long he can put up with life at the Swing Space quad where he'll be right in the cross-fire of Steffani and my bickering.

Posted by at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Melissa dances in her chair:

Posted by Perry Garvin at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes I kick flows at work.

I wanna spit a little
not spittle but it's hot on a griddle
fo rizzle i be fakin' out suckas
turning grills into grizzle

steppin' to p
is like steppin' to pee
dribble down your drawers
cuz you scared to see me

Creepin' up with my gat
like a cat, stylin, I spat
to the ground when I found
your skills to be droopy like a hound

The ladies they quiver
like alcohol to a liver
I break they hearts cuz I ain't no giver
but a taker, breathin' life into femmes who from dames they transfigured.

peace out, suckas!

Posted by Perry Garvin at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBacks (0)

So, we did the DiVA thing, last week. This is us (LMCC) hanging out and having some drinks downstairs below the 3 floors of digital art installations.
At one point, a small piece of paper gets thrown at us from above, and Sagert's boyfriend briefly flips out, ready to "kick some ass".
Turns out it was LMCC's very own Hendrik Gerrits that threw the paper, and a good laugh was had by all.

The beauty of Anders Bergstrom's camera work is that he tells the complete story despite not showing the actual paper being thrown. You can tell when it happens by Rob's reaction, then pan to Sagert's BF, and finally we look up to see goofball Hendrik poking his head out and laughing down at us.

Posted by Ken Beasley at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From our Director, Tom:

"Boy, I see our blog experiment is going really well.
Only Perry's entry four days ago!"

Posted by anonymous at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In response to Hendrik's comment... the only person i was looking for was the guy who wrapped his face in bacon. i love bacon. he and I would have been a match made in pork heaven.

Posted by at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The DiVA Art Fair hit Lower Manhattan and I and some folks from LMCC meandered on over to see what the fuss was about. I was interested in their after-party because it's something that LMCC (me and Sagert) produced last year. As it turned out I ended up spending all my time in the booths and no time in the party. But. Let me ask this year's party organizers this: did they have Orlan cutting the rug with me like in 2005. No. Is that good? Probably.

Posted by Perry Garvin at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)