Power Plant brochure with painting by Daniel Richter |
It takes me forever to go to art shows. I recently went down to see the current show at The Power Plant and because I'd already heard everybody else griping about how bad it is, I ended up liking it much more than I thought. In fact, I actually got caught taking pictures of Daniel Richter's work and had to erase them in front of the gallery attendant. D-OH! I'm not easily mortified, but that did it. Later I realised that the shot I wanted is the exact same one they used on the cover of the free brochure. So here's a picture of that instead, as it looks sitting on my window ledge.
Enough anecdote...on with the art review! Daniel Richter's paintings caught me off guard. I spent a full five minutes in battle with myself, saying "these are horrible, and everyone knows it" while at the exact same time digging them quite a bit. They are scratchy and ugly and too big for their britches. They are animistic, apocalyptic doomsday carnivals that remind me of Euorpean science fiction and revolution. The one on the brochure, titled, "Das Missverstandnis" (now that I have the spelling right, I think the translation is "The Misunderstanding" ... any help with this would be appreciated), depicts a motely crew of feathered, costumed folk, come up from town to pay some sort of strange homage or serenade to a big tree full of birds. Yet all the while a predatory, knowing, radioactive cat is stalking the scene and giving us art viewers the nod. An interesting note on Richter is that he used to paint abstraction, and recently, suddenly, took on rendered space, representational form, and content. It's an unusual transition. There is an image of one of his abstract works from 1999 here. |
Cloaca, image stolen from artnet.com |
The main event, of course, is Wim Delvoye's "Cloaca", a big machine that has been exhibited all over the world, and takes food (in this case table scraps from a fancy downtown Toronto restaurant) and, through a complicated process that replicates human digestion, produces small, demure portions of poo. One of my friends who saw it early in the run complained that it was too clean and sterile. I believe the exact words were : "much too clinical for an ass-licker like me." But by the time I got down there the damn thing stank badly and I was kind of impressed. I could barely stand in the room for the time it took to tour of the mechanism, and fled before I'd seen quite as much as I wanted. The gallery attendant (a different one) was very generous with information, and shared with me that when she goes home from work, people sitting next to her on the streetcar wrinkle up their noses and go "sniff sniff." Geez, thanks, Wim. I liked the sad cyborg aspect of this work, but I think the digs at both corporate culture (see the Mr. Clean w/bowels icon and "buy feces now" slogan) and art world preciousness are add-ons, making up a shaky, ironic patina that fails to function as subversion, but gives the piece a detrimental sheen of political correctness. |
Haha, "Vim" is a detergent brand in Belgium. His name is "Wim". I didn't know you can't take pictures in the power plant. I took lots last time, didn't get caught. Not from Richter though, didn't like those paintings at all. You missed an n there, it's "Missverständnis".
No comments on the Republic O' Love?
whoo. Thanks for the corrections Anonymous. The Power Plant brochure missed that "n" as well, but they did spell Wim right.
I didn't see The Republic of Love. By the time I got done talking to the Cloaca sitter the gallery was closing and I had to leave.
My immediate response to the Richter paintings was quite negative, that only lasted a minute, then I was sucked in and really enjoyed the paint.
I'm in agreement with you, Sal, about the Wim Delvoye pooper. The corporate shit references were boring and unnecessary to the final work. I also had problems with his choice of scale. I thought the machine should have been bigger.
I saw his life size cement truck at the Pompidou. It was a marvel! Life size, decoratively carved from some sort of hardwood. I didn't know about his gothic machinery series, so it was one of those big art surprises for me. (one of the benefits of avoiding art rags is that you can stumble upon work and see it for the first time)
As for Republic of Love, I'm sad to say that the show ended up feeling like the kiddy's table at a wedding, but I'm not inclined to blame the artists for this unfortunate hanging.
That was my fave Daniel Richter painting too...it reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."
Glad I got there early enough to miss the extra "stank" on the poop machine. Main event highlights of the show for me were Shary Boyle's new little sculptures, in Xandra Eden's Republic of Love show.
When I was 11 or 12 I wanted to make a "model digestive system" with surgical tubing, plastic bags, colored water, clamps, etc. I couldn't get it past the drawing stage. I guess the Delvoye piece appeals to me on that level.
I kind of hate, though, that his work keeps raising the bar for what it takes to be a "player" on the international art circuit. You have to be a businessperson and hustle capital to get these big projects to fly. The "gothic machinery" I've seen, too (in Paris a few years ago--a backhoe). Very nice indeed, but how much does he pay artisans to do the carving? It's not an "integrity of the artist's hand" issue with me--I don't care who did the work--it's that the art world expects to be "blown away" with some labor-intensive, capital intensive thing.
And there's no guarantee of success for all the cash outlay (i.e., debt). For an unknown or starting out artist, the angle of entry to the exhibiting world is as narrow as an Apollo capsule's: one degree this way and you bounce up into space to drift forever, one degree the other way you burn up in the atmosphere. It sounds like I'm whining, but this is more in the nature of a sociological observation. Like requiring professional athletes to take drugs to compete, creating this kind of pressure on a creative person is kind of unhinged.
I interviewed Vim and don't know if this matters too much in regard to Tom's captialistic hustle comment but this guy is an obsessive compulsive with barely two-dimes to rub together. He's so fixated on his art and incorporating his pooh that I think he's beyond making his art any other way.
He's just obsessed with his pooh machine, like a kid is with a really good science project. As for the wood carvings, the workers were paid the going rate, which is likely cheap in US-dollars or Belgium Euros, but he didn't exploit the carvers. He paid them what they asked for.
Vim was also the most unpretensious artist I've met. I've never laughed so hard during an interview as I did with Vim. He's exceptional. Maybe I'm making excuses for him though.
Any thoughts on the merit of this work , the value of exhibiting a poo machine at this time. Doesn't it bug you? Isn't it decadent? Aren't you offended?
Just for the record, I wasn't suggesting he was exploiting his carvers, merely that one's expected now to be operating on the factory (or superhuman production) level to be in the game. I think obsessive-compulsives are uniquely equipped in this regard--either the system makes them unhinged or they're that way to start. Although I wouldn't have described Delvoye's work that way. It seems more like dreaming up a "big idea" and then following up on it, no matter how much work it takes. A backhoe made of Gothic carving is one-liner, kind of surrealist gimmick, until the thing is actually made, and then the viewer is kind of forced to say "Oh, my God." Then dealers and curators say, "give me something as eleborate as that backhoe."
Robert C, I guess you are offended by the machine? Is that why you're asking? I'm not offended by it, in terms of decadence. I don't see how this art is any more decadent than any other art.
I suppose it could be seen as decadent in that it's shit in the end, and it took so much work to produce a machine that could actually produce shit. I suppose that is a decadent gesture on the part of the artist, but it's also very clearly a critique of the art system, of high and low brow cultures, which whether we like it or not, is still a going concern in art.
Cloaca doesn't strick me as striving for originality as much as it questions originality. What I do like about this work is: 1. it's immediate visually, physically, intellectually; 2. it's an impressively made machine; 3. it's science and art in the most direct way; 4. it takes the piss out of theory-based art in many respects, primarily that it is so immediate (point 1), 5. it satisfies anyone who thinks contemporary art is shit. Personally I don't think contemporary art is shit, but like any observer of art, that critique is always close at hand.
Those are some things I like about it.
I was kind of offended, or more accurately disinterested, before I actually saw the piece. Now I feel like there is a lot of lame stuff that has been tacked on to what is fundamentally a pretty interesting project about technology and humanity (I think that the "art is shit" message, and the corporate jokey stuff are completely incidental to the project, and actually detract from it quite a bit). The piece is discussed as if it is a machine for producing poo, but the unremarkable end product is really not the point, it's the technological process that forms the content of the work, the fact that it is possible to replicate the human digestive system. And it's interesting that while the contemporary trend is to feel disembodied in relationship to technology, it actually takes up a lot of space and requires a lot of fuss and expertise from a lot of people to artificially replicate even the most base of human functions. This cobbled together apparatus, chugging along in it's clumsy fragility, emitting a bad strange smell that is half medicinal and half biological from it's big jars full of beige slop is a weird yet effective testament to how elegant and efficient our real bodies really are.
As to the grand scale art project - that's been bugging me too (though not in this instance). Ambition, confidence and rigour in art can take many forms besides big budget operations that require a cast of thousands to implement.
museo de skat
I very much respect and agree with the point that Tom is making about the grand art gesture and the real world of access to materials, funding etc. Peter Schjeldahl has written about the phenomena of festival art and its demand for spectacle. Personally, I love the stuff! I love a circus! I love a spectacle! I love triple Crown horse races! I love Olympic curling events (for the mystery, I suppose)! I love that artist who made a full room's furnishing with billions of glass beads! I want to glue billions of glass beads to everything in my house! Don't have the funding for the grand gestures, but I have all the other qualifications. I can do it while I'm watching PGA games on television!
I don't think I'm quite describing any ambition, intelligence or rigour here for you Sal, probably just a good model for the pathologies that Tom was referring to.
BiAnimale (best if said out load, like "Biennale")
I'm offended. And I love poo. I just can't get past how decadent it is in these times to have a big empty space filled with a machine that takes food from restaurants and makes poo out of it for spectators. I guess the Power Plant is satisfied that all else is right with the world. No hunger problems on our globe! What luxury! Lets have a party!
As to the point that Cloaca critiques originality, high and low brow art systems but yet takes the piss out of theory based art and satisfies those who think art is shit - well, there might just already be enough methane in the world.
I am sorry, I don't mean to seem rude but the critical appendage that comes with this exhibit is lengthy and garbled and I agree Sally, it is detrimental in fact, it nails the coffin in the way I think about this work. Apologies to all once again, for getting so worked up.
No apologies necessary, Robert C! I must say, however, that I feel exactly the same as x-lola, in that I don't see this as particularly more decadent than any other big contemporary art project. As far as the food goes, it's really not that much ... enough for only one person per day. This complaint reminds me of the 1980s Jana Sterbak "Meat Dress" controversy. People complained that all this meat was being used in an art object instead of feeding people. But nobody ever seems to suggest that painters should spend their money on food for other people instead of on art supplies.
LM are you talking about Lisa Lou? Damn, I f88king loved that beaded kitchen of hers.
A friend just emailed me this link to a fun interview with Delvoye.
It probably is Lisa lou. I never saw the kitchen (until just now when I did a search) but I did see a beaded picnic in Frankfurt's big contemporary gallery several years ago.
|
Power Plant brochure with painting by Daniel Richter
Enough anecdote...on with the art review! Daniel Richter's paintings caught me off guard. I spent a full five minutes in battle with myself, saying "these are horrible, and everyone knows it" while at the exact same time digging them quite a bit. They are scratchy and ugly and too big for their britches. They are animistic, apocalyptic doomsday carnivals that remind me of Euorpean science fiction and revolution. The one on the brochure, titled, "Das Missverstandnis" (now that I have the spelling right, I think the translation is "The Misunderstanding" ... any help with this would be appreciated), depicts a motely crew of feathered, costumed folk, come up from town to pay some sort of strange homage or serenade to a big tree full of birds. Yet all the while a predatory, knowing, radioactive cat is stalking the scene and giving us art viewers the nod. An interesting note on Richter is that he used to paint abstraction, and recently, suddenly, took on rendered space, representational form, and content. It's an unusual transition. There is an image of one of his abstract works from 1999 here.
Cloaca, image stolen from artnet.com
- sally mckay 5-15-2004 7:56 pm
Haha, "Vim" is a detergent brand in Belgium. His name is "Wim". I didn't know you can't take pictures in the power plant. I took lots last time, didn't get caught. Not from Richter though, didn't like those paintings at all. You missed an n there, it's "Missverständnis".
- anonymous (guest) 5-16-2004 3:46 pm
No comments on the Republic O' Love?
- Robert C (guest) 5-16-2004 6:44 pm
whoo. Thanks for the corrections Anonymous. The Power Plant brochure missed that "n" as well, but they did spell Wim right.
I didn't see The Republic of Love. By the time I got done talking to the Cloaca sitter the gallery was closing and I had to leave.
- sally mckay 5-16-2004 7:11 pm
My immediate response to the Richter paintings was quite negative, that only lasted a minute, then I was sucked in and really enjoyed the paint.
I'm in agreement with you, Sal, about the Wim Delvoye pooper. The corporate shit references were boring and unnecessary to the final work. I also had problems with his choice of scale. I thought the machine should have been bigger.
I saw his life size cement truck at the Pompidou. It was a marvel! Life size, decoratively carved from some sort of hardwood. I didn't know about his gothic machinery series, so it was one of those big art surprises for me. (one of the benefits of avoiding art rags is that you can stumble upon work and see it for the first time)
As for Republic of Love, I'm sad to say that the show ended up feeling like the kiddy's table at a wedding, but I'm not inclined to blame the artists for this unfortunate hanging.
- LM (guest) 5-16-2004 10:42 pm
That was my fave Daniel Richter painting too...it reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."
Glad I got there early enough to miss the extra "stank" on the poop machine. Main event highlights of the show for me were Shary Boyle's new little sculptures, in Xandra Eden's Republic of Love show.
- Pete Dako 5-17-2004 4:54 am
When I was 11 or 12 I wanted to make a "model digestive system" with surgical tubing, plastic bags, colored water, clamps, etc. I couldn't get it past the drawing stage. I guess the Delvoye piece appeals to me on that level.
I kind of hate, though, that his work keeps raising the bar for what it takes to be a "player" on the international art circuit. You have to be a businessperson and hustle capital to get these big projects to fly. The "gothic machinery" I've seen, too (in Paris a few years ago--a backhoe). Very nice indeed, but how much does he pay artisans to do the carving? It's not an "integrity of the artist's hand" issue with me--I don't care who did the work--it's that the art world expects to be "blown away" with some labor-intensive, capital intensive thing.
And there's no guarantee of success for all the cash outlay (i.e., debt). For an unknown or starting out artist, the angle of entry to the exhibiting world is as narrow as an Apollo capsule's: one degree this way and you bounce up into space to drift forever, one degree the other way you burn up in the atmosphere. It sounds like I'm whining, but this is more in the nature of a sociological observation. Like requiring professional athletes to take drugs to compete, creating this kind of pressure on a creative person is kind of unhinged.
- tom moody 5-17-2004 5:33 am
I interviewed Vim and don't know if this matters too much in regard to Tom's captialistic hustle comment but this guy is an obsessive compulsive with barely two-dimes to rub together. He's so fixated on his art and incorporating his pooh that I think he's beyond making his art any other way.
He's just obsessed with his pooh machine, like a kid is with a really good science project. As for the wood carvings, the workers were paid the going rate, which is likely cheap in US-dollars or Belgium Euros, but he didn't exploit the carvers. He paid them what they asked for.
Vim was also the most unpretensious artist I've met. I've never laughed so hard during an interview as I did with Vim. He's exceptional. Maybe I'm making excuses for him though.
- lola-x 5-17-2004 6:30 pm
Any thoughts on the merit of this work , the value of exhibiting a poo machine at this time. Doesn't it bug you? Isn't it decadent? Aren't you offended?
- Robert C (guest) 5-17-2004 7:36 pm
Just for the record, I wasn't suggesting he was exploiting his carvers, merely that one's expected now to be operating on the factory (or superhuman production) level to be in the game. I think obsessive-compulsives are uniquely equipped in this regard--either the system makes them unhinged or they're that way to start. Although I wouldn't have described Delvoye's work that way. It seems more like dreaming up a "big idea" and then following up on it, no matter how much work it takes. A backhoe made of Gothic carving is one-liner, kind of surrealist gimmick, until the thing is actually made, and then the viewer is kind of forced to say "Oh, my God." Then dealers and curators say, "give me something as eleborate as that backhoe."
- tom moody 5-17-2004 9:06 pm
Robert C, I guess you are offended by the machine? Is that why you're asking? I'm not offended by it, in terms of decadence. I don't see how this art is any more decadent than any other art.
I suppose it could be seen as decadent in that it's shit in the end, and it took so much work to produce a machine that could actually produce shit. I suppose that is a decadent gesture on the part of the artist, but it's also very clearly a critique of the art system, of high and low brow cultures, which whether we like it or not, is still a going concern in art.
Cloaca doesn't strick me as striving for originality as much as it questions originality. What I do like about this work is: 1. it's immediate visually, physically, intellectually; 2. it's an impressively made machine; 3. it's science and art in the most direct way; 4. it takes the piss out of theory-based art in many respects, primarily that it is so immediate (point 1), 5. it satisfies anyone who thinks contemporary art is shit. Personally I don't think contemporary art is shit, but like any observer of art, that critique is always close at hand.
Those are some things I like about it.
- lola-x 5-17-2004 9:47 pm
I was kind of offended, or more accurately disinterested, before I actually saw the piece. Now I feel like there is a lot of lame stuff that has been tacked on to what is fundamentally a pretty interesting project about technology and humanity (I think that the "art is shit" message, and the corporate jokey stuff are completely incidental to the project, and actually detract from it quite a bit). The piece is discussed as if it is a machine for producing poo, but the unremarkable end product is really not the point, it's the technological process that forms the content of the work, the fact that it is possible to replicate the human digestive system. And it's interesting that while the contemporary trend is to feel disembodied in relationship to technology, it actually takes up a lot of space and requires a lot of fuss and expertise from a lot of people to artificially replicate even the most base of human functions. This cobbled together apparatus, chugging along in it's clumsy fragility, emitting a bad strange smell that is half medicinal and half biological from it's big jars full of beige slop is a weird yet effective testament to how elegant and efficient our real bodies really are.
As to the grand scale art project - that's been bugging me too (though not in this instance). Ambition, confidence and rigour in art can take many forms besides big budget operations that require a cast of thousands to implement.
- sally mckay 5-17-2004 11:23 pm
museo de skat
- bill 5-17-2004 11:48 pm
I very much respect and agree with the point that Tom is making about the grand art gesture and the real world of access to materials, funding etc. Peter Schjeldahl has written about the phenomena of festival art and its demand for spectacle. Personally, I love the stuff! I love a circus! I love a spectacle! I love triple Crown horse races! I love Olympic curling events (for the mystery, I suppose)! I love that artist who made a full room's furnishing with billions of glass beads! I want to glue billions of glass beads to everything in my house! Don't have the funding for the grand gestures, but I have all the other qualifications. I can do it while I'm watching PGA games on television!
I don't think I'm quite describing any ambition, intelligence or rigour here for you Sal, probably just a good model for the pathologies that Tom was referring to.
- LM (guest) 5-18-2004 1:38 am
BiAnimale (best if said out load, like "Biennale")
- selma 5-18-2004 1:46 am
I'm offended. And I love poo. I just can't get past how decadent it is in these times to have a big empty space filled with a machine that takes food from restaurants and makes poo out of it for spectators. I guess the Power Plant is satisfied that all else is right with the world. No hunger problems on our globe! What luxury! Lets have a party!
As to the point that Cloaca critiques originality, high and low brow art systems but yet takes the piss out of theory based art and satisfies those who think art is shit - well, there might just already be enough methane in the world.
- Robert C (guest) 5-18-2004 3:00 am
I am sorry, I don't mean to seem rude but the critical appendage that comes with this exhibit is lengthy and garbled and I agree Sally, it is detrimental in fact, it nails the coffin in the way I think about this work. Apologies to all once again, for getting so worked up.
- Robert C (guest) 5-18-2004 3:22 am
No apologies necessary, Robert C! I must say, however, that I feel exactly the same as x-lola, in that I don't see this as particularly more decadent than any other big contemporary art project. As far as the food goes, it's really not that much ... enough for only one person per day. This complaint reminds me of the 1980s Jana Sterbak "Meat Dress" controversy. People complained that all this meat was being used in an art object instead of feeding people. But nobody ever seems to suggest that painters should spend their money on food for other people instead of on art supplies.
LM are you talking about Lisa Lou? Damn, I f88king loved that beaded kitchen of hers.
- sally mckay 5-18-2004 6:35 am
A friend just emailed me this link to a fun interview with Delvoye.
- sally mckay 5-18-2004 7:07 am
It probably is Lisa lou. I never saw the kitchen (until just now when I did a search) but I did see a beaded picnic in Frankfurt's big contemporary gallery several years ago.
- LM (guest) 5-18-2004 9:46 am