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A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
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AugustaNuberty
07/06/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
This 'review' reminds me of when the frat boys used to pee on our outdoor sculptures in college, we worked hard on them, but whatevs, snarkiness always wins out I guess. Although it does make you as cynical, if not more, than the most cynical pieces in the show...
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Foster Kamer
07/06/09

Both AugustaNuberty and pononimo: I think you guys missed my comment up above. I enjoyed some of it. And I think you, Augusta, definitely proved the point I made...

But how does one get into the position to be able to put someone sleeping in a museum and call themselves an artist? Do you have to be embedded in the art scene? Well-established? Anyway. Maybe this makes me a conservative yokel without any kind of appreciation for the more intelligent "pleasures" of life. Or maybe it just makes me someone who went to a museum and "didn't get it."

..in a most salient fashion. Why account for it when you can just write me off as a "frat boy"? [True story: I'm a college dropout! He's uneducated. No wonder he can't appreciate it!] Also, if you read through the rest of the comments, you'll note the stuff I did enjoy. But what's wrong with being cynical about art? I feel like if you're unendingly sincere about it, you're probably getting hosed by the artist.

Meanwhile, Ponomino: I'm not a journalist, and I'm not trying to be. Nor am I trying to be an art critic.

The best comment so far came from The Boulevard of Broken Queens, who asked the more interesting question..."is it satisfying your idea of an art experience? does it fufill your personal criteria for an art object" these, apparently, were not. therefore, they do not qualify as art for you, or rather only qualify as objects which were indicated to you as art.

That's accounting for art. And for the $12 I paid to support it, whether I enjoyed it or believed in it. I obviously believe in it enough to shell out money for it, though, so as far as sincerity goes: back the fuck up.
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maevemealone
07/06/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
The Trecartin video is like if Nell gave birth to Steve-O. I somehow watched the whole thing...
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MincnglyWhrdL'mer
07/06/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
"I'm often advised by people who know more about art than me that much of the point of this is to ask: is it art?"

that was the only false note in the piece for me - IMHO, it's just never an interesting question anymore, not after postmodernism. because now it's always art if someone says it's art, so the more interesting question is, "is it satisfying your idea of an art experience? does it fufill your personal criteria for an art object" these, apparently, were not. therefore, they do not qualify as art for you, or rather only qualify as objects which were indicated to you as art.

I like the puppy idea, and can the giraffe be reworked to look like maurizio cattelan's "not afraid of love"? because I'd like to see that.

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Solomon Grundy
07/06/09

@The Boulevard of Broken Queens: Hm, making the trite objective question subjective doesn't actually make it any more interesting, it just makes it more apiece with our collective descent into relativism. You'd be hard pressed to find a universalist in the contemporary artworld making broad, objective claims about what qualifies as art as such, well other than some bombastic recent Yale grad grandstanding annoyingly.

But I do think your version of this pseudo-dilemma is more up to date than the original poster's.
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MincnglyWhrdL'mer
07/06/09

@Solomon Grundy: but for me, the collective descent into relativism after postmodernism IS the interesting thing - all these parallel opinions, none of them leading to an absolute but some of them leading to groups and consensuses.
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Cheap Shot
07/06/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
I'm starting to think that Gawker writers are using fake names. Foster Kamer?
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Foster Kamer
07/06/09

@The Boulevard of Broken Queens:

the more interesting question is, "is it satisfying your idea of an art experience? does it fufill your personal criteria for an art object" these, apparently, were not. therefore, they do not qualify as art for you, or rather only qualify as objects which were indicated to you as art.

If you didn't already have a gold star, I would've given you one for this. Nicely done.
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TedSez
07/05/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
Jesus wept.
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twobighands
07/05/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
The sort of jokes where someone makes absurd suggestions for contemporary art installations -- since all contemporary art is a fraud anyway, according to the humorist's logic -- are getting painfully old.

But, hey, yours are actually pretty funny.
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Foster Kamer
07/05/09

@twobighands: Ah, but here's the thing: some of it wasn't a fraud. Mark Essen's videogame was kind of brilliant, in that it was more entertaining than any other video game I've played in the last two years, and also, it could give an epileptic a seizure, and almost seemed designed to do so. The Ryan Trecartin was great in a way I'm incapable of describing, despite it's utter lack of watchability past the point of being compelling. The Cyprien Gaillard film was great - same thing - but how does a YouTube video with music take skill? Same with the sleeper and the emptying of pockets (which I enjoyed). There were other things there I didn't get to posting that were fantastic, namely, much of the photography. The real problem (that I'm burying in the comments) is that it's hard to see Contemporary Art as "art" because the accepted definitions of it are so much more traditional than most other mediums (films, books, TV, video games, etc). So I guess the question is: is "art" in the contemporary sense now defined and lauded as only the most eclectic versions of a medium? I hope not. Art should be for the people, not the assholes. That doesn't mean artists should kowtow to mass appeal, but that doesn't mean they should be able to get away with a spiral staircase on a motor, either.
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raincoaster
07/05/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
Is the fact that we've commented on your comment-free post in itself art?

WHERE'S MY GRANT MONEY, Y'ALL???
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Foster Kamer
07/05/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
I mean, if you guys didn't watch the Ryan Trecartin video, you absolutely should. You will have nightmares.
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Helennellieforsythe
07/05/09

@Foster Kamer: I made it to 7 seconds.
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Foster Kamer
07/05/09

@Helennellieforsythe: It's like a deleted scene from Party Monster that was too fucked up for Michael Alig to live through.
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Pope John Peeps II
07/05/09

@Foster Kamer: It was strangely amazing and hypnotic though. Like a really dumb piece of theater pushed so far into the ironic that it becomes interesting. Nice editing and sound though.
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raincoaster
07/05/09

@Foster Kamer: I watched it. But I've watched what happens when Deliverance-country hipsters take meth, so it felt soothingly familiar in a way.
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Calraigh
07/05/09

@Foster Kamer: To be honest, it's exactly how I felt while watching Transformers . Except without the vaguely suicidal tendencies afterwards.
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lobstr
07/05/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
i went out of my way to see the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain and this one entire huge hardwood-floored room had nothing but a small pile of rocks in the middle, arranged into a circle. There was a plaque on the wall that read "the artist intends to return the material back to their original surroundings", which caused me to *chortle* as I picture this dude shovelling the rocks back into a pit on the side of a country road somewhere laughing and periodically yelling the word "suckaz!!!" .. yes modern art is a huge ruse.. but that in itself is the art!
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MincnglyWhrdL'mer
07/06/09

@lobstr: that would be richard long. he gets paid an awesome amount to take long walks in the countryside, making sculptures from natural materials and then photographing them before they discentigrate, and he also brings the materials into the galleries in post minimal (I guess) sculptural arrangements. they're incredibly twee and precious and I despise them.
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Private Hangnail
07/05/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
Way back when at the old New Museum on Broadway they had an installation piece that actually digested food. You could see the whole process of digestion; they put the food in and the machine produced feces. It was pretty foul. Later that day I went home and took too much Ativan and had to go to the hospital. Art can be terrible.

Years later, I went to the new New Museum and saw a whole bunch of really dreadful installation art. It made me glad because it reminded me of that episode of Absolutely Fabulous in which Edina buys art because she's worried about death. It wasn't so much that the art itself was funny, it was that as I wandered around the museum all I could think about was a line that Edina screamed at Saffron as she waved her arms like a bird: "I have arms, Darling, I have arms!"

Also, Foster, I would never correct your grammar. Only because my own is so nebulous.
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MincnglyWhrdL'mer
07/06/09

@Private Hangnail: that would be one of the cloaca machines, by Wim Delvoye. theer are at least eight of them now, and he sells the shit they make instead of the machines, because why sell the goose when you can sell the eggs?

he also tattoos pigs.

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mwynn13
07/05/09

In reply to A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
I'd go see the puppies and the kid with the blowtorch.
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mwynn13
07/05/09

@mwynn13: As separate exhibits, I mean. That sounded potentially disastrous.
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raincoaster
07/05/09

@mwynn13: I would DEFINITELY go to see the puppies.
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