JAPAN: VACUOUS CRAP
The Kanazawa 21st Century Gallery of Contemporary Fart, er, Art vs Kenroku-en the sublime. Ding! Seconds out!
Well, says it all, doesn't it? Why do they bother? Nothing in the whole gallery remotedly touched me. There is a sort of 'artist' who specializes in vacuous crap, de-void of any sort of quality. Actually, 'crap' is too good a word for it. Crap breaks down into something useful. Gerhard Richter. Awful. The 'explanatory notes', as usual in this sort of place, an artform in their own right, a type of 'literary' genre which in no way connects with what you're (not) seeing. Self-conscious juvenile cliched angst from stupid Americans. Japanese 'Look-At-Me-I'm-So-PoMo' Installation Art. I'm beginning to dread the word 'installation'. This one's a recreated seascape in the obligatory blackbox downstairs. Yes? I think of endlessly changing, endlessly self-re-creating Portreath in North Cornwall, the tide sweeping us tourists up the beach stage by stage till we're all perched cheek bu jowl on the few remaining rocks. Now there's life, movement, endless variety. This installation is dead, lifeless. It stinks, literally and metaphorically. "Yes, but part of Art's role is to displace context." Go for a swim at Portreath, that'll soon displace your precious 'context'!
Ah, Anish Kapoor. 'The Origin of the World', 'a huge black hall (sic) will appear in the air from the sloping wall'. It's a vagina. Well OK, the scale and the fact that it's sloping make an impression. But it's perfectly symmetrical in shape and in the space. 'The Origin of the World' (ie the vagina) is not symmetrical, dear Anish, have you looked at one recently? Anyway, it's an old advertising trick: wanna impress the client? Blow it up real big, that'll knock his socks off! Further, it's supposed to express 'Nothingness'. Bit of a cheek to talk about 'Nothingness' in this land of sunyata, so desu ne? Oh Sariputra...
Anish he say
Universe full of black hole
I say, well, fuck that!
(Could be considered a perfect Haiku as it's 5-7-5 syllables, but the Japanese don't actually measure 'syllables' in Haiku, they measure 'onji' which is not the same thing)
Then more 'decontextualisation'. A courtyard with what looks like a small swimming pool. You follow an underground passage and come out under the pool, which is actually 10cm of moving water over a pane of glass. To people on top it looks as if you're under the water, to you it looks as if you're under the water, too. Fine. The creator schlepps this sort of thing around the white cube circuit for probably squidrillions of dollars (I'm not saying the creator gets squidrillions of dollars, but installing this kind of thing costs a lot of money and takes a lot of space). Category 'playing with preconceived ideas' etc.
But we're literally just over the road from one of the most famous gardens in history, Kenroku-en, dating from 1676. Has the artist LOOKED at Japanese gardens, the use of the different elements, the way the water is directed, the rocks, bridges, trees, Koi carp? And if Leandro Erlich has looked, then he has not SEEN. They are subtle beyond belief, beyond understanding. Your pool, dear artist, doesn't reference this at all. It's a simple, one-horse idea and all it references is YOU. I was more moved when visiting the Sea Aquarium at Minehead (I think), where you walk under the aquarium and see sharks and manta rays lazily flap around and over you. It brings back such deep ancestral memories of when we breathed water
After Japan
I'm not taking any crap
from so-called 'artists'
Well, says it all, doesn't it? Why do they bother? Nothing in the whole gallery remotedly touched me. There is a sort of 'artist' who specializes in vacuous crap, de-void of any sort of quality. Actually, 'crap' is too good a word for it. Crap breaks down into something useful. Gerhard Richter. Awful. The 'explanatory notes', as usual in this sort of place, an artform in their own right, a type of 'literary' genre which in no way connects with what you're (not) seeing. Self-conscious juvenile cliched angst from stupid Americans. Japanese 'Look-At-Me-I'm-So-PoMo' Installation Art. I'm beginning to dread the word 'installation'. This one's a recreated seascape in the obligatory blackbox downstairs. Yes? I think of endlessly changing, endlessly self-re-creating Portreath in North Cornwall, the tide sweeping us tourists up the beach stage by stage till we're all perched cheek bu jowl on the few remaining rocks. Now there's life, movement, endless variety. This installation is dead, lifeless. It stinks, literally and metaphorically. "Yes, but part of Art's role is to displace context." Go for a swim at Portreath, that'll soon displace your precious 'context'!
Ah, Anish Kapoor. 'The Origin of the World', 'a huge black hall (sic) will appear in the air from the sloping wall'. It's a vagina. Well OK, the scale and the fact that it's sloping make an impression. But it's perfectly symmetrical in shape and in the space. 'The Origin of the World' (ie the vagina) is not symmetrical, dear Anish, have you looked at one recently? Anyway, it's an old advertising trick: wanna impress the client? Blow it up real big, that'll knock his socks off! Further, it's supposed to express 'Nothingness'. Bit of a cheek to talk about 'Nothingness' in this land of sunyata, so desu ne? Oh Sariputra...
Anish he say
Universe full of black hole
I say, well, fuck that!
(Could be considered a perfect Haiku as it's 5-7-5 syllables, but the Japanese don't actually measure 'syllables' in Haiku, they measure 'onji' which is not the same thing)
Then more 'decontextualisation'. A courtyard with what looks like a small swimming pool. You follow an underground passage and come out under the pool, which is actually 10cm of moving water over a pane of glass. To people on top it looks as if you're under the water, to you it looks as if you're under the water, too. Fine. The creator schlepps this sort of thing around the white cube circuit for probably squidrillions of dollars (I'm not saying the creator gets squidrillions of dollars, but installing this kind of thing costs a lot of money and takes a lot of space). Category 'playing with preconceived ideas' etc.
But we're literally just over the road from one of the most famous gardens in history, Kenroku-en, dating from 1676. Has the artist LOOKED at Japanese gardens, the use of the different elements, the way the water is directed, the rocks, bridges, trees, Koi carp? And if Leandro Erlich has looked, then he has not SEEN. They are subtle beyond belief, beyond understanding. Your pool, dear artist, doesn't reference this at all. It's a simple, one-horse idea and all it references is YOU. I was more moved when visiting the Sea Aquarium at Minehead (I think), where you walk under the aquarium and see sharks and manta rays lazily flap around and over you. It brings back such deep ancestral memories of when we breathed water
After Japan
I'm not taking any crap
from so-called 'artists'
posted by waveringbats at 10/18/2005 08:26:00 am
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