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Report from the Slo-o-o-o-o-ow Dimension
Here's why I don't go to openings much these days in that so, so slowed down, meditative realm of ancient medieval stone carvers we call the art world. This is New York City we're talking about, as opposed to some monastery on a remote island in the Mediterranean. In the 12th Century AD. Dialogue of actual conversations from the last month reported more or less verbatim. The artists are from my everyday peer group, as opposed to Current Huge Market Entities sheltered from the world by handlers or whatever. Art Opening One:
Artist 1: "So what are you up to these days? Haven't seen you in a while."Art Opening Two:
Moody: "Oh, making work, and I spend a fair amount of time on a blog I'm doing."
Artist 1: "Oh, I didn't know about that. I'll have to check it out."
Artist 2: "How long have you been doing it?"
Moody: "Four years."
Artist 2: "Wow, that's a long time."
Moody: "Yes it is." (Long pause.) "In fact, [Artist 1], I wrote about your work on it. And posted a photo, and put up a link to the gallery where you showed. It was some really perceptive commentary, ha ha."
Artist 1: "You did? When was that?"
Moody: "About two years ago."
Artist 1: "Wow, no one told me about that. I'll have to check it out."
Artist 3, introducing Moody to Artist 4: "[Artist 4], this is Tom. He makes work, and has a blog. (Pause) He mentioned you on it."I just have to add, it's really tough to be bouncing around cyberspace at the speed of thought, looking at great work and having conversations about it with people all over the world, and then have to enter the slow slow decelerated zone of meditative contemplation where the inhabitants either don't use the Internet or pretend not to. I mean, yuck. The point of this post is not to whine about being underexposed but rather to bitch--again--that from my limited experience great tools are not being used in a field that would benefit enormously from them. And yes, it's possible that both these artists use google and know exactly what's been said about them online, and are really good poker players, but how productive is that? Sorry to explain away my joke but I want to be clear on these points.
Moody: "Yes, I posted a photo of you performing. You looked great in it, of course."
Artist 4: "And you didn't email and tell me about it?"
Moody: "I figured everyone googles and it would come up that way."
Artist 4 looks at feet.