Author: jkordy

Exit Through The Gift Shop – Banksy


(Image: Exit Through The Gift Shop, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from russelldarling’s photostream)

Finally got to check out this Banksy film. Except it wasn’t about him. Wasn’t even that much about street art in general. It’s mostly about this guy named Thierry Guetta a.k.a. Mr. Brainwash. Mr. Brainwash you see, is more famous than Banksy and his work sells for more than even Banksy’s does. He even had a huge street art show in LA called Life is Beautiful. Banksy used to be friends with Thierry, but not anymore. that was before Mr. Brainwash decided to become a famous artist! It’s so easy! Anyone can do it! Just take an iconic image and be ironic with it. Make sure it’s a little rough around the edges, uses lots of spray paint, is in yo’ face, and just has that “street art” style to it.

Now, doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Maybe… …Banksy is just tired of all these real life street-art wannabee’s, it’s so easy to pick up a spray can and mindlessly deface property, and is showing us, through an intricate and elaborate set up, just how ridiculous the celebrity art world can be. Sure, maybe it’s easy to criticize, as he is cashing in, and plenty of people consider him a sell-out, but that doesn’t negate the fact that a lot of his work is actually quite good and a cut above much of what is out there. I definitely enjoy the often site-specific, always thought-provoking and with a distinct unmistakable style Banksy offerings.

As far as a review goes maybe Film just isn’t Banksy’s medium? Too much emphasis on the message and not enough un-fabricated not-mr.brainwash content. I really would have enjoyed more of “Thierry’s” raw footage, and maybe an intellectual delving into the forces driving street art and the artists behind it.

Portraits

These are some of the best and most wonderful portraits I’ve seen all year. It is quite a collection. Is that Marina Abramovic in there? Yes these photos are part of Marina’s performance at the MOMA. A professional photographer takes a portrait of every single person who participates. I think that gives me second thoughts about participating, but the results are stunning and well worth extended study.

Quote

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”

— Mark Twain

Multiple Perspectives in 2D

I really like this exploration of trying to bring Picasso like multiple perspectives into the digital realm. Patrick Proctor at ITP is experimenting with bringing in multiple video feeds into one image and playing with the different ways of presenting this multi-faceted information coherently. It’s a simple but effective examination of this effect.

Bullshit Artists

(Image: on Flickr – Photo Sharing!, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from antiparticle’s photostream)

I was just reading this, you should too:
New York Observer – The Bullshit Artists
http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/bullshit-artists

My thoughts on “BS Artists”:
Laurie Anderson once said “People say, ‘C’mon, just say what you mean,’ which to me seems like such a bizarre thing to say. I’ve always felt that if I could say it, I would just write it down on a piece of paper and stand on the street corner and hand it out.”

I don’t deny the fact that there is a lot of bullshitting going on in the art world, but I think the reasons for it are more complicated than just lazy, greedy or stupid artists. Sure, some of it, maybe even a lot, can be attributed to these factors. But, I think a lot of it is also due to the fact that in order to be competitive as an artist, you are often forced to create sound-bites for your art.

Often times if your art is any good, it will cause confusion, be hard to explain, perhaps hard to even put into words. After all, as Anderson’s quote states, if the best way to express your ideas had been words to begin with, than you probably would have just written them. You would have pursued being a novelist or a poet! Instead here you are expressing yourself in your chosen medium, you finally figured out a way to communicate something that is not necessarily easily expressed through words and the first thing that happens is that someone comes along and asks “Tell me, what does it mean? What is this about?”

And so you struggle, eventually you build up a repertoire of interesting sound-bites that either satisfy or serve to further obfuscate your meaning. But at least the person asking you has something they can use to tell their friends or to market you. I’m not saying there doesn’t have to be vigorous intellectual thought and practice behind a work of art, and a lot of art especially conceptual art, truly is about a specific highly intellectual pursuit that can only be explained using big words that to the untrained ear sound suspiciously like BS but a lot of art can also simply be about aesthetics and beauty.

A sculpture might be a highly intellectual exploration of nothing more than the shape and the space it occupies, or an exploration of orangeness. Point being, the aesthetic aspects of an artwork may sometimes be the very inexpressable thing the artist is exploring. Thus they may be at a disadvantage when their dealer or gallery needs a soundbite, especially if their work is not backed by a solid intellectual and historical foundation.