Category: art

Branding Man

I know a lot of you have been asking yourselves, “Hey, what’s been going on with Greg and the Belgian Waffle?” No? Too bad. Cuz I’ll tell you.
The Burning Man curator known as LadyBee and I have been going back and forth in email over whether Uchronia’s creators co-opted Burning Man as a backdrop for their own alternabrand-enhancing PR, whether the 1,000+ photos on flickr tagged with Uchronia constitutes a brand now, or whether Arne Quinze and his co-designers are just sending out 50,000 books and DVD’s to “people in important or influential positions who help shape the socio-economic landscape and can make a difference” anonymously and with no expectation of personal benefit.
Now, as you can imagine, an MBA, ex-consultant, ex-banker would have a hard time taking a credible stand against marketing, branding, or PR, but that’s not my point, and it hasn’t been. I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong with marketing per se, but I give Burning Man the institution full credit for not launching Black Rock Consulting, but instead sticking to their non-commercially exploitative guns.
But it’s naive of me to have thought as I have all these years, that Burning Man somehow exists apart from the society it sought to leave behind. Just as the environmental and resource impacts of the playa can’t be overlooked–they do still share a planet, an atmosphere, and a Wal-mart distribution infrastructure with the rest of society, after all–the notion that what happens in Black Rock City stays in Black Rock City is a fantasy. And all the bartering in the desert won’t change the fact that Burning Man is a brand and an institution in itself now, and it has associative value that the Uchronians identified and skilfully leveraged–and they did it in a way that has Burning Man veterans defending them.

quinze_core77.jpg
image via core77

While LadyBee has been pretty engaging, if resolute in her defense of the Uchronians, [“of course Arne puts them on his resume – and why shouldn’t he? He designed and built the thing. All our artists do that. If it strengthens his portfolio, fine. What marketing scheme do you think they’re going to unleash? Selling imported radiators to burners?” (Arne Quinze’s co-creator Jan Kriekels has a radiator company)], and she backed off a bit from her first email [“subject: greg – get a clue!”], the Belgian she roped into our exchange started with a really petty, thin-skinned personal attack.
Burning Man’s foundation is the idea that everyone could and should make art or express herself creatively. BRC is built on that creative exchange. Great. But Burning Man also has a curator, and a grant-making and evaluation process, which they use to dole out a portion of gate receipts to art proposals. It’s an institutional system that bears a remarkable ressemblance to the non-playa-based art world.
Uchronia itself was funded completely outside that institution, as LadyBee explained in an email to Burning Man’s staff [who’d apparently had some questions about the project, too.] And its team included between 45 and 60 “volunteers,” who, it turned out, were employees of the creators’ companies, and who worked at full salary, plus expenses, on the project. By that definition, Star Wars was a “volunteer” project, too.
Again, this is all totally cool, but it seems to me that if what happens at Burning Man doesn’t stay at Burning Man after all, and there are curatorial decisions being made and business transactions being done, then these people could respond a little better to criticisms, alternative interpretations, or a response that’s anything less than sheer, uncritical gratitude and ecstasy.
When Christo “gave” the “Gates” to the world, he kept trotting out his figure for how much he spent–$20 million, he said–while the boost the project gave his own art sales and holdings–in a private, pre-“Gates” interview, Jean-Claude claimed they had $400 million–was almost never mentioned.
The “Gates” was what it was, and Uchronia is what it is. But one of the things it is is a page in a portfolio for a “creator of atmosphere” who sells his own brand of edgy counter-cultural buzz to corporate clients like Compaq, Diesel, and Rem Koolhaas.

Called That One

The last mention of Lee Siegel on this blog was also the first. Since about three hours after he published that dumbass comment about Twombly, I’ve basically taken pains not to read his criticism. Life was just too short. And judging from the whorls of justified complaint and outrage in his online wake, I think it’s just as well.
For all the serious crit and insights into Siegel’s folly, the best response, though, has to be Dan‘s comment on Grammar.police, which came during a thread on Twombley’s Whitney show: “I frankly don’t think we can fully appreciate Twombly’s carpeting choice unless we understand that he is gay.”
Jed Perl, on the other hand, has duped me into reading him again and again, even though I usually find him to be a cranky and retrograde wet blanket. I guess I can’t fully appreciate Perl, even though I understand his taste in tapestries.
Advantage: Blogofascists [grammar.police via man]
Previously: Fatuous Writing Makes Art Lovers Head Explode!
How Conceptual Art Is Like A Renaissance Tapestry

Gerhard Richter’s Stained Glass Window For The Cologne Cathedral

gerhard_richter_stained_glass.jpg

It took over 600 years to complete [from 1248 t- 1880], so it should surprise absolutely no one that it takes the Cologne Cathedral [or Kölner Dom] over 60 years to fix a broken window.
Gerhard Richter has been commissioned to recreate a 20m tall window for the Cathedral’s south transverse; the original was blown out during World War II, and the design was lost. The new Richter window will consist of 11,500 handblown glass squares about 10cm each, in 72 different colors; the design was inspired by Richter’s 1974 presciently pixellated painting, 4,096 Colors, which has been overlaid onto window’s original Gothic mullions and tracery.
The top donors to the window’s fabrication costs [estimated at 350-400,000 euros] at the end of the year will receive a signed thank you memento from Richter, as well as invites to the Spring 2007 dedication. [I’d certainly hope so.]
Cologne Cathedral at wikipedia. also, see and read details in German at Koelner-dom.de [via artnet]

AEI’m So Confused

Six years drinking at the open bar of power is enough to get anyone a little woozy, so it should be no surprise that the shots fired at MoMA from the right by two pundits from the American Enterprise Institute were so sloppy and off the mark.
In their Wall Street Journal oped, [“Creative Accounting: MoMA’s Economic Impact Study”] the two think [sic] tankers, Kevin Hassett and Phillip Swagel not only question a recent MoMA-sponsored study that claims the Museum will have a $2 billion economic impact on the NY city/state economy over three years, they attempt, apparently, to discredit the charitable tax deduction system that underpins the entire nonprofit sphere [cultural, charitable, and otherwise], they seek to peel off cultural institutions from any type of economic consideration at all by deriding the very attempt to translate into financial or political spheres the “soft” value of “culture and enlightenment” [which, when “unsentimental,” “hard-boiled economists like [them],” say it, is not a compliment].
Fortunately, for Culture, at least, their case is so wilfully misleading, illogical, and shot through with flawed comparisons and assumptions, that it’s still several minutes away from being called even “soft-boiled.” It’s glaringly wrong enough to make you wonder what the econ-major interns are doing at Journal and the AEI, because they’re definitely not factchecking articles for publication.

Continue reading “AEI’m So Confused”

Modernism: Any Color As Long As It’s White

Olafur Eliasson, Your Engagement has Consequences, 2006

For a couple of months now, I’ve been really pre-occupied by this discussion of the color white and its association with modernism. It’s between Olafur Eliasson, curator Daniel Birnbaum, and Mark Wigley, the dean of Columbia’s architecture school and author of White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture, and it’s in the latest exhibition catalogue of Olafur’s work [which was maddeningly unavailable in the US for a long time, except at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. It’s a stunning, eye-opening book, no pun intended.]

DB: How did modern architecture become white?
MW: Well it only became really white after the mid-century.
DB: It was not in Stuttgart? [at the Weissenhof siedlung, an architectural showcase/manifesto featuring work by Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and other pioneering modernist architects]
MW: No. The polemical exhibition of modern buildings in 1927 had a kind of off-white. It takes a long time to become white white, like that of a Richard Meier building today which is completely unlike the white of classic modern architecture. The pioneering buildings had more like an eggshell color, so there is a way in which modern architecture whitens over time. One could argue that it does so as a reaction to the black-and-white photographs. The eggshell color looks white in black-and-white photos and all of the other colors on the buildings, green, brown, and so on, tend to go very dark. So a first result of the photographs is that you don’t realize that there are many colors. One of the main points of the White Walls book was to say that modern architecture was not white but multi-colored. In that system of many colors, white was playing a crucial role as a kind of reference point. So of course I was interested in the ideological construction of the idea of white as a default frame of reference. The famous black-and-white photographs make white famous, and then the buildings try to look more like the photographs and become really white and all the other colors are removed. So that somebody can make a building that is really super white today and people would think that it is modern.
OE: You mean the photograph representing the actual spaces?
MW: Yes. If you look at the photographs of the Weissenhofsiedlung exhibition houses they look absolutely white but Mies van der Rohe’s building was a kind of pink. [emphasis added]

Rem Sleepless, Or Discussion Is The New Performance Art

Much like the 24-hour interview-a-thon itself, Claire Bishop’s report from the Serpentine Pavilion starts out hilariously–my original title for this post was to be “LOLOLOL”–and ends with unexpected substance and insight. Whether her declaration is the first, I don’t care, but Bishop nails it when she tags “the incessant production of talks and symposia” as “the new performance art. Authenticity, presence, consciousness raising—all of the attributes of ’70s performance—now attach themselves to discussion. In this environment, it would seem that Obrist and Koolhaas are the new Ulay and Abramovic.”
This had me laughing out loud:

Like trying to watch all five Cremaster films in one go, there eventually came a breakthrough when the experience was no longer painful. Mine arrived when I realized that our interviewers were suffering, too. Koolhaas’s opening gambit to laidback design legend Ron Arad couldn’t conceal his resignation: “I have always felt sympathy and respect for you, but never the inclination to talk to you. Now I have to ask you questions.”

Speech Bubble [artforum.com]
Previously: On watching Cremaster 1-5. In order.
Serpentine Eats Its Tail
Unrealized Projects, an agency, a book, a NYT article

I Think I’ll Wait For The Book

Here’s the schedule for this Friday’s 24-hour interviewathon at the Serpentine Gallery pavilion. Mega-interviewer Hans Ulrich Obrist and perennial interviewee Rem Koolhaas will be tag-teaming on a whole slate of “culture industry” types.
If you can’t imagine ending your night–or starting your morning–at 4AM with a Damien Hirst interview, then your best bet is probably the opening session–Friday at 6pm: Ken Adam / David Adjaye / Brian Eno / Zaha Hadid / Charles Jenks / Hanif Kureishi / Ken Loach / Tim O’Toole / Yinka Shonibare–and a nice supper.
Serpentine Gallery 24-hour Marathon Interviews [timeout.com via kultureflash]
Previously: HUO interviews, vol. 1

Some Iceland Photos: Richard Serra

I went to Iceland a couple of weeks ago, and I just put some photos up on flickr from the trip.

This one is of Afangar, a sculpture/installation by Richard Serra. The tops of these squared off basalt columns are level, but one column is 4m high, while the other is 3m. The distance between them, then, is determined by the slope of the land.

Serra placed nine pairs of colums around the periphery of one half of Videy, this island in the Reykjavik harbor, and some of them are quite close together; others, like these, are far apart.

The main feature as you walk, though, is bird droppings. When I first visited Videy in 1994, it was November, and except for a couple of Icelandic horses, I was alone on the island. This time, though, the place was teeming with sea birds, and the faint trail through the grass was chock full of tern turd. When you’d inadvertently get too close to an invisible nest, the birds would get really agitated. One nest was right next to the trail, and we didn’t see it until the mother flew out from underfoot and startled us. A lot of the Serra columns on the leeward side of the island are topped with a crown of guano, but the windward side is pretty clear.

It surprised us to see Olafur Eliasson’s Blind Pavilion from the 2004 Venice Biennale perched on top of the hill above the ferry dock, though. Apparently, they installed it there in early 2005 as part of his show at the National Museum. It looks like a gun turret up on there, though.

I Could Read This Stuff All Day

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William Egglestone

This is just a snapshot. I would not even have considered showing this. If you ware going to post pictures you need to make sure it is of something unusual or with a personal vision. Otherwise you are going to loose the interest of your audience. George Spelvin [Nikon D200, Nikon D70s backup, 17-35 f/2.8, 80-200 f/2.8, 4GB Microdrive (2), Photoshop CS, Epson 2200]

Great Photographers on the Internet [theonlinephotographer via kottke]

Dialing Drawing Restraint: The Audio Guides Of Matthew Barney

Drawing Restraint, the exhibition of Matthew Barney’s complete series of works of the same name, opened this week at SFMOMA. It originated last summer at 21C Museum for Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, which was the occasion for the production of Drawing Restraint 9, Barney’s latest film, a collaboration with Bjork.
SFMOMA is the only North American venue for the exhibit, which runs through Sept. 17th. Many of the DR9-related sculptures were presented this spring at Barbara Gladstone in New York, but most of the series hasn’t been seen for quite a while, and definitely not all together.
As if that weren’t enough, the show features a “Matthew Barney Learning Lounge” for deciphering the artist’s work. There’s also an audio tour, of course. But along with Acoustiguides and podcast/mp3 versions, SFMOMA has also made the Drawing Restraint audio tour available to visitors via cell phone.
So if you dial 408-794-2844…whaddya know, it works. Here’s a little directory to the ten audio segments. To heighten the effect, immerse yourself in a vat of petroleum jelly while you listen.
20# Drawing Restraint intro, 4th fl landing, looking at DR14, created by scaling the walls of the museum, then worked his way under the bridge to draw, suspended.
21# DR1-6 videos, objects, and drawings. discussed by Nancy Spector, also videos of DR10-13
22# Path, Notes on Hypertrophy,, etc., drawings that followed the early studio DR works.
23# DR7, 1993, discussed by Nancy Spector
24# Ambergris, explained by Barney: “the idea that the diet of a whale contains things it can’t digest.”
dr90_cetacea_barney.jpg25# Holographic Entrypoint, based on a flensing deck of a whaling ship, discussed along with the Ise shrine by Benjamin Weil
26# Occidental Guest cast from a room used in DR9, with film spoilers by Barney.
27# Occidental Restraint, 1,600 gallons of molded-then-collapsed petroleum jelly, discussed by Nancy Spector, then Barney talking about the connections between whale oil, petroleum, and the cast plastic.
28# Cetacea [left], part of the Field Emblem, discussed by Benjamin Weil.
29# DR8, glass tables containing delicate drawings: “Look closely at those drawings. Quite a few are erotic in nature.”
See exhibition details and download options for Drawing Restraint, which runs through Sept. 17 at SFMOMA [sfmoma.org, thanks to jason]
Ping Magazine covered the 21C Museum and has pictures of the Barney exhibition there. [pingmag]

Like A Glittery Minted Coin At The Everglades State Fair

Q. The Times could set a much needed precedent by creating a culture-news blog that profits from the eyes of an editor, rather than the current norm in blogdom, which is for semi-informed scribblers to post unedited ramblings, and often to claim bragging rights for scooping the dailies. An online column devoted to culture would bring the authority of the Times newsroom to the increasingly fast pace of the Internet. Such a feature could– [&c. &c. and I relish the opportunity &c. &c. demonstrate my expertise &c. &c.make a meaningful contribution to your firm. &c. &c. Some examples of my work are can be found here. &c. &c. ]
-Jason Edward Kaufman

If you’d like to pitch a job or story idea to NY Times culture editor Sam Sifton, send him an email at Talk to the Newsroom.
And you can ask him any questions you have about culture coverage in the paper [hey, self-informed scribbler Theresa Duncan got one!], too. The answer will be, “Um, we’re already doing that like a junebug on a frying pan,” but still, it’s fun to ask.

Aaaarrrrrttt!

I’m skipping Art Basel this year–got a trip to Iceland and all–with the result that I hear my foreigner neighbors watching TV all day across the courtyard. They may not be able to comply with a “reserved parking” sign, but they can sure cheer the hell out of a soccer game.
Anyway, I’m sad to be missing this art critic match-up tomorrow, which should be exciting, even if it ends 0-0. I know the concept of seeking out poor people–or critics, same thing–at Basel seems counter-intuitive, but take a chance on this one:

“Artworld Evolution, or Future Babylon?” A freeform conversation with art journalist Marc Spiegler and critic Jerry Saltz of the Village Voice.
Between a booming market, rapid internationalization and radical expansion, the artworld’s border lines have become ever more ambiguous. But with collectors and artists curating shows, fairs functioning like biennials, gallery spaces playing kunsthalle, critics not criticizing, and auction houses hyping young stars, all the old roles and assumptions have gone wobbly. So, who will shape the future of art-making and who will shape the future of the art-market? And is there a difference between the two? Q&A follows.

Hmm, is the NYT liveblogging this?
June 14: Art Lobby, near the cafeteria in the Art Unlimited Hall, 17.30-19.00

Go For The Cornell, Stay For The Brancusi

brancusi-nortonsimon.jpegNickyskye on Metafilter:

Joseph wrote me love letters in which he couched his sexual interest in metaphors. I was told he used the image of a bird for penis and nest for vagina. His letters were full of birds and nests.

Just when you think there are no stones left to unturn in one woman’s firsthand account of being used–as a child, by her mother–to procure art from the pedophilic Joseph Cornell, there’s one more eye-popping anecdote. She took her only remaining Cornell to the art dealer, Richard Feigen, to sell, in order to finance a trip to India:

Mr. Feigen said that he too had been in India, to meet with the Maharaja of Indore who owned several sculptures by Brancusi, including the elegantly simple, bronze one called Bird in Space. The Indian government would not allow the Maharaja to export this valuable piece of art, so Mr. Feigen took a risk and decided to package the sculpture as a brass lampstand so it could exit India, which it did. He said that it was his first major art deal and that the sculpture sold for one million dollars.

The perfectly symmetrical irony, of course, is that Brancusi’s Bird In Space was the subject of a famous court case when it was first exhibited in the US in 1926. Customs agents, not believing the work was art, had attempted to charge import duty on the machined metal object.
In 2004, The Art Newspaper wrote about the Maharajah’s Bird In Space:

What happened to the Maharajah of Indore’s Brancusi birds?
In 1973 the Tate wanted to buy Brancusi’s black marble “Bird in space” through dealer Richard Feigen. The sale fell through because the trustees believed the work had been “smuggled” out of India.

Seems like the trustees were right. The National Gallery of Australia had no such qualms, because it bought two of the Maharajah’s three versions of Bird In Space, even though “the original limestone bases had been destroyed in India.” Brancusi, of course, considered the bases as integral to the works themselves.
That brass lampstand, by the way, ended up at the Norton Simon Museum, a 1972 purchase.
Flights of Fancy: Joseph Cornell and his muses [metafilter via tmn]