Thanks for your comments, Brian.
My off the cuff response is that "misguided" is another epithet aimed at the gallery's and the artists' motivation and the focus should be taken off that somehow and put onto the work.
The press response and most of the blogospheric reaction has been aimed at the people, not the art.
I honestly, perhaps naively, think that with Johnson's and Saltz's premise--that the gallery did two shows "against artists' wishes"--revealed to be based on not one, but two, factual errors they would have to stop looking behind the rather ingenuous press release for snarky motivation and actually take it at its word.
Then the evaluation would begin with, "Is this like the work by Cady I know?" "How is it the same?" "How is it different?" "Would I feel the same way if I didn't have a critical and emotional stake in Cady?" "Could I possibly review this as if Cady never existed?" "Is it true what the gallery says about Cady's influence on Kelley Walker, Banks Violette, etc.?" "Can I see that influence from this show?" "Is it fair to judge that influence from this show since the show came after them?" "Is it possible these Cady approximations are more influenced by those artists than by Cady (the zeitgeist of now as opposed to '86-'96)?" "Is the culture of re-enactment (Civil War, Jeremy Deller's striking miners, etc) relevant here? Can the art world stretch that much or are notions of aura and cults of personality too entrenched?" "Is Cady Noland still relevant?"
Instead, talk of lawsuits and finger wagging at the gallerists. So much less interesting.
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My off the cuff response is that "misguided" is another epithet aimed at the gallery's and the artists' motivation and the focus should be taken off that somehow and put onto the work.
The press response and most of the blogospheric reaction has been aimed at the people, not the art.
I honestly, perhaps naively, think that with Johnson's and Saltz's premise--that the gallery did two shows "against artists' wishes"--revealed to be based on not one, but two, factual errors they would have to stop looking behind the rather ingenuous press release for snarky motivation and actually take it at its word.
Then the evaluation would begin with, "Is this like the work by Cady I know?" "How is it the same?" "How is it different?" "Would I feel the same way if I didn't have a critical and emotional stake in Cady?" "Could I possibly review this as if Cady never existed?" "Is it true what the gallery says about Cady's influence on Kelley Walker, Banks Violette, etc.?" "Can I see that influence from this show?" "Is it fair to judge that influence from this show since the show came after them?" "Is it possible these Cady approximations are more influenced by those artists than by Cady (the zeitgeist of now as opposed to '86-'96)?" "Is the culture of re-enactment (Civil War, Jeremy Deller's striking miners, etc) relevant here? Can the art world stretch that much or are notions of aura and cults of personality too entrenched?" "Is Cady Noland still relevant?"
Instead, talk of lawsuits and finger wagging at the gallerists. So much less interesting.
- tom moody 6-03-2006 1:35 am