I found this Florida-based independent artist-run store, Resist Today the other day whilst tooling around the interweb. Though I'm not fully sold on all of their products (lots of the layered imagery we've been seeing so much of), I really liked the tone and some of the information on their blog.
I found this wonderfully pithy essay by Robert Fulford over at the National Post that muses on his ideas of the ethics of art and those who appreciate it (he calls it his religion). Instead of a didactic treatise that devolves into a gobblygook stream of art-speaked laced adjectives, it’s a rather light treatment of the topic.
Fulford even writes, “we also can't claim that immersion in the arts will create a lively mind. Art education has produced armies of learned bores […] As for those who create art, we get it all wrong if we imagine their work makes them admirable in private life. Rebecca West, a great journalist of the last century, remarked (rather like Antonio Salieri discussing Mozart in Amadeus) that "the power to create a work of art, like a good complexion, is frequently bestowed on the undeserving."
The essay is lively and funny and as I mentioned, it eschews the trope of artspeak for straightforward dialogue. Avoiding the trap of boglike art rhetoric is an idea increasingly gaining purchase. Close to home that idea is embraced over at Urban Art Warfare’s Artist Vs. Artist editorial. Though I tend to like the idea, especially where UAW promises: “there will be no cheesy artsy bullshit questions in any interview conducted on our site. And to answer the question your probably already asking yourself…why are both artists doing the interviews? Because the questions at hand can often be as informative as the answers that follow.” I must make the caveat that the proliferation of often seemingly ridiculous or ripped-off terms in art writing is an attempt to be specific in a diaphanous field; to give form and substance to new ideas. Plus, words like fluxism and onotological are fun to write.
Embracing the un-specific or the seemingly ridiculous also seems to be the provenance of Jacksonville-based artist Brian Gray. Gray recently launched his own site: theouterbox.com, “a central location on the web where the outsider artist, urban art, graffiti, tagging, bombing, and illustrative artist can share their work with the public and inform/educate the masses about what we do.”
From my perspective, I always like to see what he finds on etsy.
*note: the pictured image is from Gray's submission to the Jacksonville Mural project over at the Art Center. Yes, his is the most accomplished piece in the effort.
** if you are interested in the entire Fulford essay (don't worry, it is short) click on the title link.
Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake were a bicoastal pair of wunderkinds whose work (collaborative and separate) was tapped first by the powers-that-be in the NYC artworld (they were both featured in the Whitney Biennale--in different years), and next by Hollywood.
However, as a couple they descended into paranoid delusions of persecution which ultimately claimed both of their lives last summer. So why talk about this couple now? Because Vanity Fair just did an in-depth story on Jeremy Blake, which only awakened question of Theresa Duncan in my mind. Probably because death, especially by one's own hand is the ultimate act of deliberation; it is wholly undo-able. Unlike other debacles where one can rise again, and wipe off a scandal-tainted smudge, there is no returning from a bottle of pills or the undertow off of Rockaway Beach.
The above video is from Blake's piece, Winchester 2000 (based on the house built by the heiress to the Winchester fortune, a house she never stopped building out of penance for all the lives Winchester rifles had take--this topic was also of huge interest to Duncan) while if you click on the title link, it will take you to an animated movie (40 mins), The History of Glamour, that Duncan made in 1999.
Though both pieces are video works, they are hugely disparate: Blake's is like a collage come to life that bleeds in and out of conciousness; while, Duncan's piece though visual, relies on a witty and insightful narrative that elegantly skewers fame and the idea of glamour itself...long before the Devil dreamed of wearing Prada.
Both pieces are elegant elegies, even if they were made at the hight of happiness. The pieces are suffused with undertones of sadness and dissonance that in light of their creators' choices seem fitting...if nothing else.
copyright Natalie McCray 2008 Here's a preview of the work that will be on display tonight. Why do I get to see it? Because I am cool like that. No, because my friends are often kind enough to share their work with me.
To reiterate: 200 First Street in Neptune Beach (near Shelby's Coffee) 5-9 p.m. Original works and limited-edition prints. TONIGHT
The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect any professional relationships (though I may steal good ideas from friends from time to time).
Although this blog is based in Jacksonville, Florida, I attempt to stay abreast of current (art-related) events throughout the world.
I do not posit that my opinions are correct, nor are they always well thought out. However, they generally have a distinct slant. I hope, if nothing else, that you enjoy reading them, and possibility contributing your own.
