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More in a continuing series on artist websites. With these three, spatial relations are key:

Charles Goldman is a poet of unobserved and what might be called Zenovian space--as in Zeno's Paradox of the arrow that never reaches its target because it's always covering half the distance. Replicas of all the stairs leading to the artist's apartment, a raised platform recreating in miniature the meandering path of a walk through the city, a single line caroming around within a painting's borders like the traffic cloverleaf from hell are a few examples of his spatiotemporal investigations. In 1000 Feet of Tin Foil, 2000 (below), he hammered that many square feet of standard foil into a perfect sphere measuring ten inches in diameter. I also like the slightly larger pictures and text on this gallery-produced page, even though it's not as elegant as his personal site.

Elise Ferguson draws and paints symmetrical, tiled patterns recalling parquet floors or 50s-ish linoleum, which spill over into three dimensional space in eccentric, unpredictable ways. Sitting flat, like laminates, or cut jigsaw fashion, the patterns are one of many rogue elements in installations merging the Rosalind Kraussian "sculpture in the expanded field" discourse with the irrational or de Chiricoesque. Groupings of cylinders, boxes, pedestals, and cast (carved?) tree stumps, often incongruously including replicas of simulated fruit, mediate among the interior, the exterior, and the psychological, in work that is craftsy, private, smart, and funny in a very dry way. Below is Installation View, 2001:

Alan Wiener's boxy sculptures of Hydrocal (or aquaresin) are fringed with organic-looking tabs, the runoff of plaster oozing through molds. Instead of trimming the tabs, Wiener uses them proactively, as joints holding the pieces together. In the untitled piece from 2002 below, receding rows of toothlike tabs devour the viewer's gaze whole. Wiener's website is good--see also his matter-of-fact photos of cinderblocks from around the world--but I wish it wasn't in Flash so I could save an image or two without having to use a capture utility. [Update: his page is no longer in Flash--the cinderblock photos are gone, though.] His Feature gallery page fortunately allowed this.



- tom moody 2-27-2003 8:44 am [link] [1 comment]



This is from the White House press briefing transcript from yesterday. Check it out now before it gets revised. The subject is Bush buying UN votes with trade and immigration concessions, so he can have his war. On the CSPAN videotape, you can clearly see and hear the normally deferential press corps burst into spontaneous laughter at Ari Fleischer's BS: "Think about the implications of what you're saying," he smugly tells a reporter. "You're saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable. And that is not an acceptable proposition." In the middle of the last sentence everyone in the room starts laughing. For a split second it looks like Fleischer thinks they're laughing with him; when he realizes they're not, he ends the briefing and marches out of the room with everyone still guffawing. This should happen more often.

Q Ari, just to follow up on Mexico. Is it true that the administration is willing to give Mexico some sort of immigration agreements like amnesty or guest worker program, to assure the Mexican vote, as the French press is pointing out today and is quoting, actually, two different diplomats from the State Department?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, it's exactly as I indicated, that we have, on this issue, a matter of diplomacy and a matter of the merits. We ask each nation on the Security Council to weigh the merits and make a decision about war and peace. And if anybody thinks that there are nations like Mexico, whose vote could be bought on the basis of a trade issue or something else like that, I think you're giving -- doing grave injustice to the independence and the judgment of the leaders of other nations.

Q -- the French press is quoting actually two different diplomats from the United States State Department that -- they're highlighting that the United States is giving some sort of agreements or benefits to Colombia -- and other non-members of the Security Council --

MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't seen the story. And you already have the answer, about what this will be decided on. But think about the implications of what you're saying. You're saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable. And that is not an acceptable proposition. (Laughter.)

Thank you.

(Thanks to cursor.org)

- tom moody 2-26-2003 8:03 pm [link] [5 comments]



Daniel Wiener makes a new kind of Pop art, twisting the language of cartooning and toymaking into convoluted psychic landscapes. He got exhibited and written up quite a bit in the early to mid '90s, before the New York art world had one of its (not infrequent) mass attacks of stupidity and let him slip away from the scene. ("But it's sculpture!" I can hear the dealers whining, "It's hard to se-e-e-lll!") Check out his page here and see for yourself how unfair this was. Especially recommended are the Quicktime and Flash animations (e.g., Bluecraters), wherein Wiener's Sculpy and Hydrocal creations come to life, like a cross between Oskar Fischinger and Gumby cartoons. It's awe-inspiring work.

- tom moody 2-24-2003 7:48 pm [link] [8 comments]



Whoops! Somehow I let the second anniversary of this weblog slip by--it was February 21. Thanks to Jim Bassett, the brains behind Digital Media Tree, and all the webloggers and posters on the Tree, for the feedback, tech advice, and good natured argument over the last 2 years. As I've mentioned before, I do seem to be one of the only artists in the New York art scene with a weblog, and I wish there were a few more of us. It would be nice to have discussions going on across pages, with pictures, rather than waiting to see if Artforum or the New York Times is going to say something (stuffy) on a particular subject.

There has been interest in this page outside of New York, I'm happy to say. I've had links, comments, and emails from Japan, England, Germany, Norway, and other places I'm sorry if I'm forgetting. Even if New York has limited interest in an internal cyber-conversation, I'm happy to be giving my biased translation of New York to the ouside world.

Since it's an anniversary, I offer a few of what I consider highlights from the past 48 months (most are actually since Nov. 2002, but whatever). The following pieces drew comments, public or private, or drew no comments but I'm still proud of them:

Review of Gerhard Richter at MOMA

Thoughts on Monotrona, Cory Arcangel, and Old School Video Games

Report on Digital Painting Panel at Artists' Space (and comments)

Review of One Hour Photo from an art world perspective, which started as a few notes the day after I saw the movie and ultimately jumped to its own page.

Review of Scott Hug's K48: Teenage Rebel: The Bedroom Show (and related posts discussing it in connection with Laura Parnes' Hollywood Inferno video).

- tom moody 2-23-2003 8:09 pm [link] [3 comments]



While I'm retooling my response to Jim Lewis's Slate piece on William Eggleston, too-hastily posted a few days ago, I'm putting up a color photo I think we can safely say Eggleston didn't pave the way for, acceptance-of-color-wise or any other way.

LISELOT VAN DER HEIJDEN, "Road to Victory," 2003, color photoprint.

I missed van der Heijden's 1996 show at Momenta Art, which would have provided a context for this singularly strange image (though I kind of like the mystery of it). You can buy a raffle ticket and get a chance to win this gem at the gallery's annual benefit.

- tom moody 2-23-2003 12:38 am [link] [5 comments]



Knob Twiddlers 2, 2002, rotated 90 degrees


Machine I built and photographed many years ago, "sampled" for artwork at top.


Detail, Designers Republic CD cover for The Infiniti (aka Juan Atkins) Collection.


- tom moody 2-21-2003 6:59 am [link] [4 comments]



NY NEWS

You may have read about the the proposed defilement--sorry, redefinition--of Central Park by Christo "Unstoppable Force" Javacheff, better known as Christo. For two weeks in 2005, he and his wife Jean-Claude are going to put wavy orange banners all over the property that will flap kitschily in the breeze. Not content just to harass the city's artistic and intellectual rank and file with cattle pens and marksmen on rooftops during the recent protest, Mayor "Call Out the Cops" Bloomberg is now encouraging this egomaniac to hang his laundry all over the park. (Think I should write for the Daily News?--no, they probably supported the cattle pens.) For a better, more thoughtful critique of the project, I recommend Alex Wilson's excellent essay, which also gives a good capsule history of the park and puts Christo in the context of his betters, Frederick Law Olmstead and Robert Smithson.

I just learned from Cursor.org that Art Spiegelman (Maus, Raw) left the New Yorker because of editor David Remnick's baby blanket handling of Bush & Co. Very cool. Spiegelman's wife Francois Mouly still works there, though. I wouldn't mind too much if she vamoosed; I've never been crazy about the illustrations she picks as art director. Anyway, now Ted Rall will have to find someone else to accuse of powermongering in the cartooning world.

- tom moody 2-21-2003 1:36 am [link] [8 comments]



I keep thinking about Jim Lewis' Slate piece on William Eggleston, which I posted about earlier. It bugs me that he called Eggleston the Father of Color Photography, who paved the way for acceptance of color in the work of Nan Goldin, Mitch Epstein, Richard Prince, and Andreas Gursky ("though not [acceptance of their] work itself"). First, because these four artists are completely unrelated to each other, and to invoke them as Eggelston successors and then de-invoke them in the same sentence makes my brain hurt. Second, because the Father pronouncement subscribes to the "great men" theory of history, and overlooks other developments around the time of Eggleston's "breakthrough" show in 1976 that were also bringing color to the fore. Third and last, because the essay emphasizes the casual, snapshotty side of Eggleston's practice, making it seem like that, too, was hugely influential, when in fact it's the artist's formalism that's the most interesting thing about him. I put up a longer version of these thoughts but it's currently in the shop getting a theoretical tuneup. Check this page later, and I should have everything more carefully worked out. In the meantime, please see my essay on One Hour Photo (a movie now out on DVD!) where I mention Eggleston in passing as a "vernacular formalist" and touch on some of the things I'm thinking about in my response to Lewis. [OK, my rant is out of the shop and it's here.]

- tom moody 2-19-2003 10:10 pm [link] [1 comment]





- tom moody 2-18-2003 5:20 am [link] [11 comments]



Here's the inside-the-beltway perspective on yesterday's protests from Josh Marshall. While quite good on many issues, he's part of the elite urging us on to war without having any connection to it, in terms of having to fight, or having a loved one fight, or seeing the devastation we'll be wreaking firsthand:
I haven't had much time to catch up on the news today. But clearly these worldwide anti-war protests are a big deal. I'm not sure what they'll accomplish, however, beyond telling us what we already know: that the idea of an American invasion of Iraq is very unpopular around the world [and here, dude], and growing more so. We can debate whether this matters, whether 'they' are right [they are], whose fault it might be in the US [George Bush's], how 'we' should react [by bringing our troops home], and so forth. We can debate all that. But the underlying point seems undeniable. The protests aren't the evidence, just a symbol. Look at the polls in other countries.

I'm sure he's thinking, "If only those millions would read Kenneth Pollack's book, they'd all be convinced that pre-emptive war is good."

- tom moody 2-16-2003 8:43 pm [link] [19 comments]



I attended the big New York antiwar protest today. Started at the Public Library in a "feeder march" that never made it to the main rally at 49th and 1st Ave. The cops were ready with barricades and equestrians, keeping the enormous crowds moving uptown on the big avenues and not allowing people to move crosstown on the east-west streets. I made it as far as 3rd Ave and 53rd, then heard I would have to walk all the way up to the 70s to cross over to York, and thence downtown to the rally. Word on the street was that the barricade "pens" at 1st and 49th didn't seem very full, because the bulk of the protestors had been kept away from the rally for "crowd control" reasons. To revert to the Sixties lexicon, I can only say "Oink Oink." The spirit of the crowd was very humorous and upbeat despite the obnoxious police presence. Lots of families and well-mannered, creative people think this war is a crappy idea!

A few more photos are here (click on thumbnails to enlarge).

- tom moody 2-16-2003 12:59 am [link] [8 comments]



I'm in a mild state of shock: my review of the Xtreme Houses book was censored by amazon.com! Here's what I wrote:
Archiporn subverted, January 14, 2003

Within the comforting scheme of the shelter mag "livestyles of the cooler than you" compendium, this book slips in a lot of pointed politics. Atelier van Lieshout, for example, upends notions of private property and public propriety with its communal settlements and sexual recreation centers; its mini-state of AVL-ville, in the port of Rotterdam, was apparently so threatening to the commonweal that it was forced to shut down. Many of the architects are ardent recyclers who make buildings out of such castoff consumer materials as shipping containers and automobile tires. Just as artist Michael Rakowitz taps into the heating ducts and hidden crevices of cities for his temporary dwellings for the homeless (when landlords' backs are turned), Xtreme Houses uses the glossy book format to slide agitprop under the radar of the big business/publishing Monoculture. For those who would confine politics to specialized journals and photocopied broadsheets, this may be disturbing. Also, the book is not typographically cute or "webby," as one writer stated. It has text on the left, pictures on the right, and clear captions; Wired magazine circa 1994 it's definitely not.

During the vetting process, the editors changed the phrase "sexual recreation centers" to "inapropriaterecreation centers" (sic). Not only did they alter the meaning, they added a misspelling and a typo! In case you're wondering what I was talking about, here's the relevant passage from page 96 of the Xtreme Houses book:
[In Atelier Van Lieshout's] buildings, often the bed provides a starting point, as in La Bais-o-Drome, a mobile home dedicated to "loving." At its core is a voluptuous bed littered with ultra-soft pillows and beside it a minibar stocked with mood-enhancing drink. In a similar project, Commune Bed (1998), AVL produced a bed large enough to hold a full scale orgy. Lining the sides of this bed were holsters carrying a selection of pornographic magazines, an assortment of sex toys, plus an array of drink and drugs to help cajole things along.

Compostopia features a large bed with the capacity to sleep at least ten people, but here the bed looks very utilitarian and implies rest rather than recreation. As well as providing sleeping quarters, the Compostopia construction comprises a small vegetable garden, a makeshift gym, washing facilities, a compost toilet, the produce of which can be used to feed the garden. In Sportopia, a variation of this assemblage, a cage was added for the practice of sadomasochistic sex. Here the effluent from the toilet can be recycled by channeling it into the cage to satisy any visiting coprophiliacs. The basic structure is made from scaffolding poles allowing it to be easily erected at any location and in many different combinations.

The irony here is that the book flew under the radar of the big business & publishing Monoculture but my review didn't.

Update, 2012: I resubmitted this review with compromise language and the revision was accepted:
Atelier van Lieshout, for example, upends notions of private property and public propriety with its communal settlements and semi-ironic "sexual recreation centers"; its mini-state of AVL-ville, in the port of Rotterdam, was apparently so threatening to the commonweal that it was forced to shut down.

- tom moody 2-14-2003 7:49 pm [link] [add a comment]



I think it's time to reread Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics, a 1967 book that attempts to explain why our country periodically just goes completely batshit. Hofstadter, a historian at Columbia University, investigated such 18th and 19th Century phenomena as anti-Masonic scares and nationwide Catholic-bashing in an attempt to contextualize the McCarthy era, which was just ending as the book was written.

It seems that 9/11/01, "our national nervous breakdown," as Hunter Thompson calls it, has brought on another paroxysm of the paranoia and hatred that is the dark side of our democratic, freedom-loving society. I mean, we're supposed to hate the French now? And the Germans, with whom we supposedly buried the bayonet 58 years ago? Just because they challenged the aggressors currently running our little show? I say, to heck with that. These countries--our allies--are absolutely right to question our insane rush to war.

Hey, I'm mad about 9/11, too; it makes me all the madder that the men and women in power, weak but pretending to be strong, are trying desperately to change the subject, and settle some old scores. Rumsfeld is a War Loon--the whole crop of them are: Perle, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice, Bush. These people scare me to death, much more than the Iraqis, who WERE NOT the instigators of the World Trade Center tragedy.

- tom moody 2-14-2003 6:48 pm [link] [add a comment]



Cartoon roundup. Homestar Runner is a funny, web-only Flash animation series created by two 20something brothers in Atlanta. It's sort of in the Power Puff Girls mode but the characters and voices are much weirder. Its original fanbase included a lot of Christian kids because it uses clean language, but its popularity is spreading so major media may soon be involved (if they're not already). An essay about the cartoon is here. The episode "Where's the Cheat?"--or as one of the characters says, "Where the Cheat is at?"--is recommended. Also, if Virginia Woolf and Joseph Conrad were alive today I'm sure they'd be checking out this collection of Dragonball Z animated gifs.

- tom moody 2-13-2003 9:52 pm [link] [4 comments]



Fiction writer and off-and-on art critic Jim Lewis has an essay on William Eggleston's photography on Slate. The essay's informative but contains some theoretical bugs; there's also a whiff of art world mythmaking hanging over everything that I wish wasn't. I annotated the article with some annoyed comments in boldface here. The following is a sample paragraph (my apologies to Lewis, if he ever reads this, for the pissed off tone; I just reacted and don't feel like doing heavy revision):
In a way, Eggleston did for color photography what the Dutch Masters of genre did for painting in the 16th and 17th centuries: He took it out of the hands of the wealthy institutions that had sponsored it (fashion magazines and advertising agencies in the one case, the church in the other) and turned it into an expression of the everyday. [Oh, come on! As if every American didn't own a color camera in 1976. The problem was that curators thought color was too everyday--a point Lewis makes earlier in the essay. What's with this "wealthy institutions" stuff? This is a strained art historical metaphor.] It is not so far, after all, from the vulgar to the vernacular: Eggleston bridged the gap, and in doing so delivered color back into the hands of art. [Surely Eastman Kodak, if anyone, took color from wealthy institutions and put it into the hands of ordinary people. What Eggleston did, supposedly, was then legitimize that banal enterprise as capital-A art. Except he didn't really--his printing, scale, and attention to detail made it a different level of activity than snapshots dropped off at the drugstore. Also, "bridging the gap between the vulgar and the vernacular" is about as meaningful a pursuit as "bridging the gap between the naked and the nude."]
At my last place of employment, an abstract silkscreen print by "William Eggleston" from the early '70s hung in a hallway--a series of vertical stripes a la Morris Louis. I'm pretty sure it was the same William Eggleston--I remember hearing that he did that type of work at one point--but I can't find any info about this phase of the artist's career on google. Can anyone post or send me a link, or other data about this?

- tom moody 2-12-2003 12:48 am [link] [8 comments]



A friend suggested I get a studiocam, which gave me the idea to do a series of "every artist his own documentarian" studio action photos. They are currently down while I reevaluate whether they are "good nerdy" or "bad nerdy" vis a vis my image. Below is the piece I was working on in the photos.



- tom moody 2-09-2003 9:50 pm [link] [5 comments]



Scott Hug's exhibit "K48: Teenage Rebel: The Bedroom Show," which I mentioned in a previous post, was extended until February 16, so I was able to see it. The theme is "a teenager's bedroom," and the artist (who's in his 30s) is living in the room while the show is up. In addition to floor-to-ceiling posters, photos, and artwork, there's a CD player surrounded by piles of discs, two TVs going most of the time, a dilapidated bed, desk with computer, knickknack covered bureau. Some of it's art (by Hug and others), some of it's kitsch collectibles (heavy on the '80s), some of it's documentation of the NY club scene. The show is so visually dense that you just stand there for a long time gawking. I picked up a checklist but immediately gave up even trying to identify work that way. As soon as Hug was free he was a helpful guide. Here's a microscopically partial list of stuff he showed me (or I picked out myself): video of charged moments from teen films (with Molly Ringwald, Tatum O'Neal etc, and lots of shooting and screaming); Teen Steam, an '80s exercise video featuring a young, big-haired Alyssa Milano; photo of boys from Annandale High School (Northern Virginia--go Atoms!) and related portraits by Lucien Samaha; Hug's polaroids of Electroclash stars PFFR, W.I.T., Kid America, and assorted Williamsburg scenesters; collection of Star Trek TNG cards in ring binder; large plastic Imperial Walker; hermetic neo-alchemical drawing by Jesse Bransford; framed psychedelic computer abstraction by Claire Corey; Italian Escape from New York movie poster; BB gun leaning in corner; photo of shirtless kid holding semiautomatic weapon in liquor store; photo of naked kid holding erect cock; clunky hand-painted portrait of Michael Jackson; weirdly-colored plastic Mickey Mouse manufactured in Russia; brand new C3PO action figure; lots of really crude, fucked up-looking collages; collection of plastic horses and Tracy Nakayama nude girl (on bureau); back issues of Hug's magazine K48. Supposedly there was a Rachel Harrison piece in there, but you'd be slow to identify it in an installation that resembled her own kitsch jamborees of yesteryear, multiplied by ten (but much rawer than her rigorously mathematical mind would allow).

A highlight of my visit was watching a video called The Kid's Show--an actual, slickly produced pilot for the USA Network that was one of the more uncompromising things I've seen on commercial video. The content was so dark and strange (albeit sidesplittingly funny) that it was immediately rejected by the network 3 years ago--I'm not sure Comedy Central, or anything short of MOMA, would take it now. Imagine a cross between ZOOM, Bowling for Columbine, and '70s countercultural skit movies and you're in the general neighborhood--what's "censorable" about it is that kids are speaking some very adult lines. Highlights include a segment called "You Can't Film Here," where a Cookie Monster-like hand puppet awakens the slumbering rageoholics in a succession of very scary New York doormen, a montage called "Funny/Not Funny" with turkey decapitations and reverse motion clown vomiting juxtaposed with violent cartoons, and one of my favorite bits, "Beat Kids," where a cute moppet in blond braids does Tom Green-style interviews with men and women coming out of public restrooms. Wagging a microphone in their faces and smiling guilelessly, she asks questions like "Did you have a good time in there?" and "Did everything come out all right?"

I disagree with the New Yorker that Hug's show is mainly, or merely, nostalgic. The old Dan Hicks song "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?" comes to mind, in that most of the stuff in the show, representing the perpetual state of adolescence acted out in Pop Culture America, never actually recedes far enough in our memories to become sentimentalized. And what, besides increasingly marginalized "upper class" arts such as the ballet and symphony, constitutes an "adult" activity in this country, anyway? 30somethings queue up for Episode II: Attack of the Clones and anyone who's worked the temp circuit in NYC has possibly had the misfortune of sitting next to a 50 year old singing along with "Another One Bites the Dust" on his Discman. By building up layer upon layer of layer of pop references, "K48" makes it difficult to draw any kind of line concerning where an artist's irony (adulthood) leaves off and the "real thing" (kid culture) begins (you could do it object by object, of course, but that would take a very long time). Hug intensifies a condition that for most of us is just a constant fact of life.

And I disagree with the various NY Times critics' characterizations of this work as "fluffy" or lacking ideology. A useful addendum to Roberta Smith's piece on the youthquake of fun, handmade art in NY would be a compare-and-contrast on this show and Laura Parnes' recently-closed "Hollywood Inferno" video, which didn't quite fit Smith's thesis. While Hug is dealing with (among other things) how youth culture is marketed and continues to colonize our imaginations to our graves, from Parnes' perspective, we never actually get to be young because the emblems of sex, rebellion, and escape are commodified and sold to us from birth. Either way, resistance to the monoculture is futile, the best you can hope for, as an artist, is to do "your" thing and then say yes or no when the USA Network decides to embrace it.

- tom moody 2-08-2003 8:51 pm [link] [8 comments]



Tom Moody Fudge Factor 2002

Fudge Factor, 2002, ink on paper, linen tape, 35 1/2" X 27" (this recent piece of mine--done in MSPaintbrush with a lot of overprinting and collaging--has been flipped and rotated for easier browser viewing--sorry if the file loads a bit slowly).

I was talking to an artist in her 40s about abstract art, and she was saying that the next generation doesn't get it--that abstraction's a historical curiosity at this point, because it's not seen as having content. Or that the content issues discussed from the 1940s to the 1980s with respect to it (existentialism, phenomonology, Freudian psychology, semiotics) mean nothing to younger artists.

Yet earlier I was talking to an artist in his 20s who is interested in rave videos and psychedelia. That's abstraction, isn't it? Presumably most of the isms I just mentioned could be applied to the orgiastic, visionary, opting-out-of-politics-as-usual spirit of the music underground. The part of abstraction that younger artists aren't talking about, and no decent artist of any age should be talking about, is the idea that a work's formal qualities are ends in themselves. That's a historical, Greenberg-era aberration. And as for anyone who thinks art has to have a neatly extractable soundbite message to be meaningful, you need to get a life.

- tom moody 2-07-2003 7:05 pm [link] [7 comments]



A couple of tidbits in the press caught my eye this week. The first is from New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman: "I've had a chance to travel all across the country since September, and I can say without hesitation there was not a single audience I spoke to where I felt there was a majority in favor of war in Iraq. ...I don't care what the polls say, this is the real mood." (Of course, he goes on to say that the President needs to work harder to sell his "audacious" but wonderful plan to run Iraq as a US colony, but whatever.) Second is Camille Paglia's neo-paganist perspective, from an interview in Salon: "As we speak, I have a terrible sense of foreboding, because last weekend a stunning omen occurred in this country. Anyone who thinks symbolically had to be shocked by the explosion of the Columbia shuttle, disintegrating in the air and strewing its parts and human remains over Texas -- the president's home state!" I'm not sure popular resistance or omens will deter a man bent on Armageddon, though.

In view of this, I'm really sick of the press continuing to use the terms "hawks" and "doves" to describe the positions on Iraq. Doves sounds wimpy and unrealistic post 9/11 and hawks sounds decisive and tough. As far as invading & colonizing Iraq are concerned, the camps should be "the War Party" and "sane people."

- tom moody 2-07-2003 6:25 pm [link] [12 comments]



My pessimistic prediction that there would be no New York Times review of Laura Parnes' show turned out to be wrong. Holland Cotter wrote about it last Friday. Just to give you the high spots, he contrasts Parnes' dark sensibility with the "fluffy stretch" we're supposedly having in the art world (which I still maintain is a figment in the brain of his Times colleague Roberta Smith), does a brief plot rundown on the piece, mentions the Columbine photo, and concludes by discussing Parnes' use of appropriated dialogue. He's ultimately too professionally courteous to name the source of some of the choicest bad lines. Cotter says it's a "crypto-conservative art critic," but who else but Dave Hickey could spout some of the nonsense recycled in Parnes' video?

In a memorable scene, an oily screenwriter played by Guy Richards Smit tries to pick up a young actress with this bit of pop philosophy:

"There are two types of people in the world. Those who like the Beatles and those who like the Stones. You see, Beatles fans actually care about the lyrics, but Stones fans just want to rock."
To which the Generation Z-plus girl responds:
"I have no idea what you are talking about."
I actually know a thing or two about Hickey, having endured his lousy eye and glib prose as an artist in Texas. Thinking I was rid of him, I moved to New York just as he was vaulting onto the national stage. He's essentially a quasi-beat fiction writer type that drifted into the art world, befriended artists, but never really "got" art. His attempt to be the go-to guy for "beauty" I wouldn't even call crypto-conservative, it's just conservative, even though his politics are strictly tenured radical.

Hickey's greatest achievement, I suppose, was twisting the theories of continental critics such as Deleuze & Guattari to make his own Critique of Institutional Critique, in the book The Invisible Dragon--that was damned clever! But if he's the new Clement Greenberg, who's his Jackson Pollock? After years of backslapping support for artist/country singer Terry Allen, he jumped on the Robert Mapplethorpe bandwagon, then more recently shifted his attention to West Coast abstractionists Tim Bavington and Yek Wong. He talks about Yek in terms of "sunshine art," which has something to do with LA, and surfaces that hold up to scrutiny in harsh daylight, I think. This is important?

Hickey does have his uses as a reactionary, though. One of my proudest moments as an artist was learning that he described a photocopy collage-painting of mine, in an unpublished interview, as "way too abject for me." He also mocked its "Teletubbies coloration." Now that rocks! I want those words--from the winner of a MacArthur Genius Grant, mind you--carved on my mantlepiece. Or perhaps tattooed on my left nut, to use a "rebellious" Hickey-sounding phrase.

- tom moody 2-05-2003 7:19 pm [link] [5 comments]



Filter House (work-in-progress), ink on cut paper, product packaging, map pins, 96" X 63" X 6"

- tom moody 1-31-2003 8:18 pm [link] [8 comments]