He wrote:
Obviously with today's ubiquitous cameras every young girl is a Dora Mar or a Cindy Sherman...
This is most likely just one tiny example in the trend of uber-millions...
He wrote:
I wholeheartedly agree with you regarding the unabashed narcissism oozing out of the photos in question. Truth be told... most contemporary art has (for the past 20+ years) had an overwhelming narcissistic bent; arguably some more than others. Obviously this can be traced back to Pablo, Dali, Mick Jagger, etc. and of course your good friend Julian who ploys and coys around in his PJs as if he's a humbled "broken" genius merely channeling the wonders that mere mortals can not ordinarily receive without the service of the "artist."
If advertising (i.e., modern communications) has taught me anything is is that any and all messages sent are paid for. Meaning if it is purposefully transmitted as "communication" then there is an agenda behind it. Granted, some agendas have altruistic concerns... we can generously place religions, political ideologies and fact based information into this camp. But an "unconclusional" transmission is ineffective. We are at a stage where non-sense has accrued sense and therefore (as evident in TV commercials) it is now the degree of cleverness in exploiting the non-sense that resonates over-and-above the usual "sense."
This has always been the purview of comedy. But remember, the old saw concerning 20th century art... "My kid cousin could paint that!" The realization that it makes no sense to treat the non-event as an event renders it non-sense and thus it is "comedy;" and as such begs for the response wherein in order to "make sense" of the experience... which is simply a primitive way of "mastering" the transmission... the non-sense quotient needs to be angled such that a "fraud of sense" has been perpetrated. Further, when one "see through it," then the ""joke circuit" is complete.
Remember, most people enjoy "modern" art not because they get it... but because it is amusing to "observe" the degree to which the "experience of new art" is entertaining, redundant, abhorrent, sublime, etc. In short, as Rembrandt observed... "all is vanity." Of course this is ultimately true because each artist regardless of what they do or make are at-the-end-day championing their opinion on what art is and more importantly about what "their" art is.
As I've indicated in previous conversations... the disconnect from participating in a "human endeavor" and the fervent embracing of the self-promotional is the hallmark of 20th century "art-as-entertainment." This as opposed to "art-as-philosophy," or "art-as-thought-enhancing-process" (e.g. Rothko, Motherwell, Messiaen... or even Richter to a point).
Now, what I found to be a correlation in those aforementioned photo sites was not the subject matter nor subject treatment... but rather the accumulative skill set. Again, truth-be-told... Michelangelo, Louis David, Carravagio, Titian, Tintoretto, Velazquez, Van Dyck and Rembrandt (among many others) were the supreme precursors of "film stills." They are most obviously "illustrating" scenes from religious, literature and history prior to the convenience and accuracy of the camera. The moving picture understandably is the winner in that game.... on a superficial level.
Much as current bio-pics can "out-experience" a magazine article, book or stage play; but the moving picture most times renders the viewer castrated, passive and unengaged. Only a painting or a fine photograph can "take on" the mantle of "otherness" and actually possess a "presence." To-be-sure, there are paintings that have a much higher palpable "object presence" than many living organisms.
So... I agree that since a craft is replicable... and since ideas are repeated in ad finitum... that the surest way to render one's output "bullet-proof unique" is to inject oneself completely into the work. Performance artists since the 60s knew this. Unfortunately, this combined with free market promotion/advertising has rendered art as tool that has come to be a celebrity spring board.
When the resonance of one's energy/soul/presence can only "attempt" to come to the fore through an acceptance of and participation in the non-sense act then there will be a myriad of "monkey-sees, monkey do-s." Therein again is why there is so much concentration on the so-called "edge," the exaltation of supposed taboo acts and behaviors (dangerous or questionable sexuality, occult, civil disobedience, etc.).
I've been studying a book on contemporary Chinese art. Very western approaches... very contemporary... and not so shabby. Of course there is a shitload of redundant redoing of European and American art ideas from the last 100 years. There is even one artist that literally makes installations almost as if they were using our Club Moral (see more on that in next post) Antwerp installation as a bible/blueprint. Seriously. Of course the only change being that the artist runs around naked through the installation covered in dripping paint.
Also, thanks for the Lurie link...
Agreed... very strange murder threat afoot and drawing, etc. Of course we'll eventually find out that both of them were in cahoots as a weird promotion of something or other... at the very least it has put Lurie back in "some" limelight albeit not a powerful beacon of a limelight as of yet. That's the other lesson... even weird and outright bad PR is better than being an unknown. Of course I being the prince-in-waiting for the mantle of most unknown/underknown/and never known wouldn't really know anything about "self-promotion."
I wrote:
I opened those Fickr links. I have to say that the work doesn't engage me at all. It's too self-conscious. Unlike Cindy Sherman, who transformed herself as an actor in the stills, these women seem to be the star of their own little world. I guess that is so much a refection of the time we live in. The images are too nice looking...too much process. I prefer to work in a more straightforward way.
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