RANT on The Whitney Biennial 2014

View of hauntteddd!! n huntteddd!! n daunttlesss!! n shuntteddd!!, 2013 by Charlemagne Palestine. Twelve-channel sound installation on stairwell landings at the Whitney Biennial 2014.

            Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen people make about art are judgments and (more unfortunately) entire practices based on empty formalism. My observation is neither a strikingly new revelation nor a particularly contemporary phenomenon, though many art critics have voiced a deal of dissent against the same ol’ same ol’-ness of art nowadays. Making such an observation, however, is important because of how fast information travels now and how “market-oriented” the art world has become (that is, with a more deceptive semblance of a greater inclusiveness of those who are allowed to participate in the game vs. the no non-sense closed-off-ness of monarchical patronage… or something). Because information travels so fast, formal trends easily bleed into ideological, political, and other nuanced concerns; monetary value easily becomes confused with aesthetic, political, philosophical values, and so on. None of these are always very easily distinguishable from each other, but it is important to make an effort to see where one aspect might influence the other and why these occur together now, or then or later, or not at all. It is important to see critically. Sometimes it is easier to consume simply what is fed to you rather than question what it is you are being fed—that is why art and cultural critics are necessary, more than ever now.

            Given the necessity of critical thought in such a fast-paced, info-driven, instant-gratification consumer-demand-driven world (whew), I always find it incredibly disappointing—most of the time infuriating—to witness laziness in a show organized by a major institution. I may not always agree with every aspect of an exhibition put forth by the big names in NYC, but no matter how boring or safe I think a show may be, I rarely think they do not deserve their status. However, I may have experienced my first majorly long lasting feeling of such profound questioning at this year’s Whitney Biennial. Sorry, but no. No no no.

            I will keep this short and simple: the three main floors of the Biennial were jam-packed warehouses of a bunch of “contemporary SHIT” through which I had to sort, with immense effort, so that I could pick out some of the actually good art work. I am sure not all of it was pure shit, but the curatorial work came off lazy and offhanded—the installations were not in any of the works’ favor. Throwing together a bunch of text-based political work in one room (along with maybe 6 other crazy looking STUFF) then a room devoted to Bjarne Melgaard’s godforsaken cocks and penises (can’t leave that bad boy out of this contemporary biennial, can you?), maybe some other weird looking new media installations and videos, recycled ab-ex paintings… Oh and of course throw in some doodles by a dead (white male, now already legendary, oh he was too young) author—nevermind the many many living and talented artists devoting their lives to making real art!

View of hauntteddd!! n huntteddd!! n daunttlesss!! n shuntteddd!!, 2013 by Charlemagne Palestine. Twelve-channel sound installation on stairwell landings at the Whitney Biennial 2014.

           

The best stuff:

     1)  Single Stream (2014) by Pawel Wojtasik, Toby Lee, and Ernst Karel. 23 min single-channel video.

         I may be biased—maybe this has become my new cinematic aesthetic because of A Dream of Iron (2014)—but the visual experience of this work speaks more than words could every fully articulate about trash and recycling, waste, labor, and capitalist, mass-producing, consumerist society. The imagery and sounds are actually quite beautiful—it opens and (almost) closes with a flurry of “snow” (trash) and a pretty twinkling of fairy dust sounds (discarded / sorted metal against metal). The array of colors in an endless stream of WASTE made me hold my breath many times (the sounds and images are slow-mo in parts), like a flow of rare gems or ecstatic confetti, all the way down to the blue aluminum of the Bud light bottles.

     2)   Hauntteddd!!! n huntteddd!! n daunttlesss!! n shuntteddd!!, 2013 by Charlemagne Palestine. Twelve-channel sound installation on stairwell landings.

        Unpretentious, not full of empty shit. It was what it was and did not pretend to be or to do more. It was creepy but cute in a humorously angsty contemporary young art kind of way—walking down the stairs, never-endingly suspenseful old-school horror movie sounds flowed from the speakers installed at every landing, fully decked with its own entourage of stuffed animal/characters—some were Mickey, Hello Kitties, anonymous monkeys and long bits of colorful fabric allowed to hang from the gatherings. The creepy fun-house aspect kept it simple (I think), and the work provided nice breaks from the insane warehouse experience of every floor.

Honorable mention: Untitled (I Was Looking Back To See If You Were Looking Back At Me To See Me Looking Back At You), 2014 by Michel Auder. Three-channel video installation, 15:12 mins.

            A nice experiential rendering of NYC—slow setting moon, visible behind buildings, streams of car lights through dark streets, creepy zoom-in shots of undressing and fucking neighbors. A lot of recognition and familiarity, but too simple? Maybe I need more time with it.

View of Untitled (I Was Looking Back To See If You Were Looking Back At Me To See Me Looking Back At You), 2014 by Michel Auder. Three-channel video installation, 15:12 mins.

            I have also noticed that the ones I picked out as “the best” were allowed relatively isolated locales within the otherwise chaotic biennial. The issue appears to be more of a curatorial one, which is unfortunate, because it throws potentially good work into a large dump of a whole bunch of SHIT (have I said that enough times?). Good work definitely got lost from my eyes, which are bad (deteriorating eye sight, which I often like to moan about) and also impatient (possibly because they are bad). Whether the problem is my own laziness, I feel there is a degree of curatorial responsibility which the Biennial’s organizers failed to uphold—I do not feel very hesitant in questioning the Whitney’s role in placing value on “good” or “hot” or “notable” contemporary art. If we are going to include “trends” inevitably as a part of making such value judgments, going to Volta (or if you want a more bland and established Chelsea route, Armory) will give you a better look at “crazy” and “new” “investible” art than a so-called contemporary art museum. If you’re going to go that way, why bother with a museum? Galleries, art fairs are where the money’s at.

View of Yooah Park's Couples Series Installation at Volta NY 2014.

shout out to the REAL ART CRITICS

Aftermath of Thomas Albrecht's Performance at Grace Exhibition Space, Body / Mass, Feb 7, 2014

Preliminary remarks:

I decided to forego the no-capitalization policy I have tried very stubbornly to uphold. I wanted to create a more casual and approachable aspect to my writing, and also attempt to eliminate hierarchy that capitalization sometimes bestows on words, concepts, names, etc. But it seemed that the content was as casual or unapproachable to many, as well as just making it difficult to read for those who are not comfortable reading long teenage personal diarrhea on the web.

And the real stuff:

A few recent observations about the “art world” and “artistic discourse”:

1.     No matter where you go, a social community is inevitably social; i.e. there will be hierarchies and dynamics that define the relationships between those involved—creator, distributor, manager, promoter, consumer, etc. etc. but those relationships, depending on the climate of the locale, may be more fluid than others, more open to negotiation and flux.

-       I used to contrast my frustration of feeling “locked out” of the “high art” scene in Venice, Chelsea of NYC, etc etc with the free love of the “community” in the not-so-financially supported Bushwick environment, but people are people and relationships will end up becoming the shitty, standard, fixed, unproductive nonsense that perhaps “art as commodity” has become unless we are aware of it from the beginning and take action to protect what is good about the freedom, the raw energy, the support of people who share common visions, feelings, spirit of a time/generation.

-       Let Bushwick live at the edge of art and gentrification; never let it fall fully into either one…

2.     I made several decisions in the past few years to slowly step out as “creator,” first, from being an object-maker to one who speaks about objects, then to someone who “manages,” helps, induces “creators” and others who speak about objects. So the latter you can throw together a bunch of “professions” such as curator, editor, manager, promoter, and I took the liberty of throwing in there “lawyer,” or at least someone who went to school to learn about boring rules that some old white farts made and keep making, and use that boring shit for purposes that matter to me: art.

-       I keep telling people, it’s OK to run around naked on the street or temporarily “steal” epic art from museums without a permit, I will get them out of jail. I’m not really kidding. Do what you need to do in the name of art, or in the name of shitting on art, and I will do the dirty work of clearing the old white farts out of your way.

Aftermath of Nyugen E. Smith's Performance at Grace Exhibition Space, Body/ Mass, Feb 7, 2014

3.     This is kind of 2.5… But I have sadly rediscovered the importance of CRITICAL art writing—you know, the kind that actually requires thinking and not reading and regurgitating pre-existing material, whether they be theory or press releases.

-       When I was told to write reviews, and when I tried to tell myself to write reviews of art later, I thought my words didn’t matter. The idiots who try very hard to get published will get published and I don’t want to fight with idiots to gain exposure over them because I am too smart for that kind of survival soul-selling bullshit… is what I told myself to make myself feel better about not being able to write a book of philosophy or poetry or new theory on the state of art in OUR generation, since I am still young and all.

-       BUT after removing “art criticism” as a serious obligation from my own plate, I noticed more and more bullshit regurgitation passing as “criticism.” I cannot stand it!

Sadly, what pushed me to the point of this, verbal response, is working on the other side: being a promoter of the creation, and not the “press” or “consumer” or “critic.”

I wrote and edited most of the English-language press kit material for a film recently, including the synopsis and press release.

A review was just published after the film’s screening at Berlin. What do I see? Copy, paste, and rearrangement of what I had written and edited a thousand times in the press kits.

You think I don’t recognize my own words, buddy? Or maybe you think because there is no name on there, a press release just magically appeared. Oh, I guess that’s what you think an “intern” stands for… so many anonymous and over-qualified writers and thinkers working as “interns,” producing promotional texts for “critics” and “journalists” to regurgitate as their own original evaluation of an artist’s work.

Fine.

But to actually recognize someone rearrange MY WORDS, then publish it as a “review” made me realize that, shit, that is what everyone else does all the time.

Geraldo Mercardo Performing at Grace Exhibition Space, Body / Mass, Feb 7, 2014

Where is real art criticism? Where are all the critics, REAL thinkers at?

Stop publishing bullshit, because real thinkers are not damn machines that can churn out real words in real time. Creative thinkers don’t work on Facebook time, Twitter time, or at least in depth anyway. Pay writers for giving thought to their work, not for reproducing bullshit.

Give real writers and thinkers a good chance to contribute to artistic discourse. The kind where relationships happen on a genuine level.

BRING BACK ART CRITICISM!

more nights with weird art people

it's easy to fall out of touch with a world--you need only to allow yourself to hang out by cliffside and fall away--half-accident, half-voluntary, with a hint of relief that you are no longer committed to it. the fall-out sheds friendships as well as responsibilities tied to all those things, like love. no pain, no stress, but no pleasure either. just null. then try to get used to the limbo, or find another world temporarily, then hang out at cliffside, repeat.

some are born drifters, some aren't. when people asked me what i wanted to be when i grew up, i told them "artist" on one day, "writer" on another. a long, toxic, ecstatic, tumultuous romance with both has created strings so numerous, vast, stubbornly clingy that they can no longer be called strings but a net, a world that never lets me free--gives me the illusion sometimes, yes, but invisible chains are perhaps the most powerful of all.

sometimes i find it's easier to deal with something by not dealing with it at all. detach the problem from the real source and tack it onto an external but also subjective one. my own pain is more tolerable when it is removed from me and visible from a distance--just like the sublime, nietzsche's tragedy, when i can contemplate it, like a tortured sculpture.

so i can hate and blame the people there--artists are full of shit, art is a bunch of bullshit, why care about writing, why care about art when… 

but when a fall-out is never a true one, when you already have bound yourself to a world--willfully or not--the fall-in, the shameful but intoxicating return is more painful than the accidental feigned escape. 

probably because love sometimes resembles pain when it takes you by surprise.

and for me, the regular returns to art come as love for people, too.

when i love the people living art, i have no choice but to fall back in love with it.

this time art is more forgiving and more generous than ever, because the people do not exist separately from it, but they are it. because every moment is their work.

through a performance art community in brooklyn, i encountered the necessary urgency of a writer, that necessary fuel to placing words on paper and to putting them out.

that drive--i had forgotten, it has been too long--in which i feel no choice but to speak and share. not an "i guess i could," but "i need to or i will go insane."

a writing classmate once described this as a feeling of "responsibility."

i think that is right too--

i sit and listen to a handful of artists tell horror stories about their performing, and throughout most of the talk, a guy next to me ceaselessly (or so it seemed) muches from his bag of tate's white chocolate chip macadamia cookies and later pulls out and drinks from a bottle of red wine he brought with him. and the play of shadows against the wall, passersby gawking and shouting through the glass windows.

or another time another handful of people (some the same ones from the other occasion) fix their attention on an electro music duo at an artist's closing party and suddenly a woman, face invisible under multiple long black wigs, clad in a fur coat and a pair of disposable underwear, bursts through the door waving a white cane. when she bounces, squats, dances to the irregular sounds and yells out to people at random intervals, "what the fuck ya lookin' at?!" the countenances of others do not express surprise.

that sort of thing.

and i'm thinking, someone's got to document this.

can an "isolated" study of that woman's persona do full justice to her as a performance artist? or others gathered there?

or to even think about whether all of them would consent to their being labeled "artist," or otherwise…

the initial elation feels higher, especially when a realist cynic is propelled into space.

all this will come down--

but i had to, 

i had no choice but to,

speak

out loud.

in defense of a legal education

if you had told me six months ago that i will be applying to law school, i would have laughed at your face. i have long held a bias against lawyers--i was raised by a liberal mother with an "unconventional" career path (at least, only few would perceive being an artist as a standard 9-5 deal), i attended liberal institutions where people often called lawyers soulless liars, and my closest blood relative (upon whom i do not look very favorably) is possibly the most famous lawyer in korea.

on top of that, i have always lived by a (perhaps childish) rebel principle. i have to do everything differently from others. my ideas have to be fresh and unique; if a lot of people wear a certain kind of color, i wear the opposite. i come from a korean household, whose culture insists that lawyers, doctors, or multi-billionaire business people are the embodiments of success. i don't agree with such a narrow definition of success. although i have toyed with the idea of med school for my dream of becoming a surgeon, i never wanted to do any of those things just because they spelled success to certain people.

i always loved reading and writing. i was that kid at dinner who was reading a different book everyday, who had to be told to put her book down because we have to eat. i wrote story after story in volumes of notebooks which i illustrated. i loved (still love) pictures and language. in high school i studied three different languages in addition to the two i knew. i went on to study art and literature in college, then wrote criticism about art while doing translations.

i found immense satisfaction in studying the way languages work, how they're used, how miscommunications occur. all this i did through writing and reading fiction, essays, criticism, theory, etc. but i often got the sense that a lot of it felt detached from the real world. it's fun, and sometimes revelatory, but so what? i come back down from the cloud and things remain the same.

then i found a new toy: law. i am ashamed to admit that i would skip over news about certain policy changes, court rulings, etc., because i thought, ultimately, the world is going to shit anyway so why should i care? but one day i realized that what lawyers do is just another way of manipulating language in order to achieve ends, sometimes with very high stakes and very direct consequences.

think about it: nothing is stable. we have things we call "facts" because they resemble states of "being" that are "generally" thought as stable enough for us to give them a name. but many of us know that regardless of what the dictionary says, what one understands by a certain word or phrase might mean something quite different from what another thinks. that's why we communicate--communication through language is the constant method by which we put "our" definitions to play with others', constantly reaffirming and/or readjusting through negotiations. these definitions come from our own experiences of understanding things in the world. and honestly, there isn't always a clear-cut right or wrong in beliefs. how else could it be? we each think with a brain located in separate physiological units.

legal language asserts a standardized system of language that (i think) is theoretically supposed to serve as the common ground by which we communicate so that we can coexist in a fairly orderly society. however, legal language is not and cannot be a democratic common ground--by a strict definition of democracy anyway. language requires interpretation, from which no legal language--no matter how seemingly straight forward--is exempt. thus, on the level of practice, the use of legal language is essentially a fight between groups of people about ontology and beliefs. a certain belief (interpretation) will be held as correct (the "definition"), depending on who holds more power among those who can speak this language.

but do the masses of people who are able to speak this language (through legal education) necessarily represent all the different kinds of ontologies? here, i am thinking about art: when policies and decisions are made about art, does the law recognize the different understandings of art? the discourses taking place? what its role is and what it should be? do the legal speakers, practitioners, advocates, decision-makers?

probably not. if some do, probably very few, because the idea of "specialized" professions gives the false illusion that certain realms are irreconcilable, when sometimes, it is just a matter of translation--moving between different languages. people shy away from these imaginary walls and try to stay within their "own boundaries." but when people shy away from legal discursive activities, they also relinquish their power of speech as well as their system of beliefs. this is all very cliche and frequently thrown around american ideals, but seriously, do many legal practitioners know that richard prince's appropriations are art, not just because of their purported monetary value?

luckily powerhouse artists like prince can afford attorneys who can win their cases, but what about others? sure, this is not just an art thing--many people can't afford lawyers--but i have a feeling that there aren't enough people who can speak and manipulate legal language in addition to being attuned to the current dialogues, developments, and beliefs in artistic practices--that is, the "definitions" of art.

my aspiration is to be a translator, a role which requires an understanding of both languages. so i have decided to learn a new language--this is my defense for pursuing a legal education.

passive suffering, phantasmatic heroes, and revolution

i am currently reading a book called the empire of light by a korean novelist named kim young-ha. as far as i know, his work has not been translated into english, but he is one of the few fiction writers besides murakami haruki whose collection of work i have read almost in their entirety. many of kim's novels and stories make surreal and fantastical departures while also grounding them in recognizable realities of fairly everyday people. 

one backdrop to which the author likes to return is the politically tumultuous south korea of the 1980s. some plots they take place immediately in the 80s--following student activists during the democracy movements--, others take place in contemporary times--following the lives of formerly passionate and young activists who now lead ordinary lives as obedient citizens. 

the empire of light weaves the stories of several characters in present-day seoul: a north korean spy, who snuck into the south in the 80s and joined a secret communist club while attending a prestigious s. korean university; his wife, a former student activist whom he met at the same club (but doesn't know he is a spy); their teenage daughter, a s. korean detective, who attempts to catch the protagonist.

for over a decade, the n. korean protagonist lives a typically normal s. korean life. he runs a small movie-import business, marries an unsuspecting s. korean woman, starts a family. he has friends from college whom he still sees. one friend also used to be an activist during her college days, but is now a teacher at the protagonist's daughter's school. one day they discuss writing fiction and the friend brings up a film starring dustin hoffman about a man who vengefully seeks out the criminals that raped his wife. the friend asks, "i wonder why we [koreans] don't have a culture of revenge?"

i thought of very uniquely "korean" untranslatable words and part of a graduate peer's thesis about "han." 

the most untranslatable words in korean are all similar in nature: 

억울하다 (uh-gool-ha-da)

분하다 (boon-ha-da)

원통하다 (wun-tong-ha-da)

한 (han)

the top three are adjectives and the last, a noun. they all basically describe the helplessly painful sense of having been wronged. it's an internal suffering caused by an external source but about which the sufferer can do absolutely nothing. it's bearing of a burden that eats away at him/her for a long time, sometimes for the rest of his/her life. japanese have a similar concept too, as seen by their female spirit stories. the movie may be called the grudge, but the feeling is less vengeful than that. it's a more resigned, victim mentality. in korean horror myths, many bearers of han are women too--forced to conform to passive and subordinate positions, they (especially the young who did not even get to live till their peak) must hold everything inside. the only way their han--and their spirits--can be released is through speech and a listener, which is not possible during their lifetime. that is why the concept of han manifests itself through horror stories about spirits in limbo. the sufferer may speak only after death--while alive, one must "bear it." this kind of mentality is very characteristically korean.

standing up for one's rights and taking action against injustice, i feel, is a very american concept. active and aggressive heroes leading the people are familiar images in historical texts and art. on the other hand, i think of yoo gwan-soon, a popularly evoked figure of the independence movement in korea. the images of a strong woman surround her myth, but i would argue that her image as a revolutionary martyr plays a significant role in the making of her legend. she suffered and died too young, and for a greater cause--the independence of her nation from the japanese empire. this combination--active leadership and heroically obstinate suffering--elevates her to a fantastical realm. especially in such a culture bound to a history of confucianism and buddhism (note things and release them, no attachments or dwelling), the revolutionary myth of yoo occupies a position so far removed from reality that the practicality of such a hero to our lived circumstances becomes unimaginable.

this, of course, applies elsewhere too. it is easier to accept our circumstances and bear/endure them, rather than take action. especially now, when the system of injustice and oppression are so complex, intricate, and elaborate and pervades every nook of our lives, where does one even begin? it is easier to surrender to a world which renders it increasingly difficult to live outside of its rules. even the internet--often perceived as a free, alternate realm of possibilities--has become systematized according to structures similar to the "tangible" world. in fact, it is no longer separable from the "real world." big corporations and other forms of power dominate the way in which we navigate space, find information, and tell us what we should like, know, do--they impose (and many of us accept) their standards of normativity and definitions of a "good citizen." 

the glorious legend of che guevara becomes reduced and flattened to mass manufactured t-shirts.

i feel as though even the heroes who emerge in our present times become legends and myths so quickly that we have no time to incorporate them into the reality of our lives; they almost immediately become divine symbols (steve jobs?).

can we have real heroes today without the fantastical glory, the otherworldly aura that remove them from practice? maybe, like walter benjamin's loss of the aura, we need superficial glorification of personalities and figures to make up for a loss of "old times." we reminisce and mourn. is there hope for action?

everyone's favorite: identity politics

view of question bridge: black males, a work in progress by hank willis thomas, chris johnson, bayeté ross smith, and kamal sinclair at jack shainman gallery.

i saw an exhibition yesterday at jack shainman gallery, of work by hank willis thomas and question bridge: black males, a collaboration with thomas, chris johnson, bayeté ross smith, and kamal sinclair. the show displayed one of the most explicit engagements with racial and "identity politics" i have seen as of late. this is probably because, well, after the multiculturalist fad of the 90s passed over, the topic is no longer "trendy." still following a 2000-year-plus tradition, the art world still believes in "universality." "good" art will appeal to "all" on a "fundamental" level. since the internet, digital realm, and ecological concerns dominate our current era (i'm thinking of the u.s. and other globally "first world" countries), those topics have become "our shared" experience. addressing the problems of a black and white dichotomy, the experience of "being a black man" (and gay), evoking w.e.b. dubois and ralph ellison's invisible man are so passé in this post-racial world. just like artists avoid the label "feminist" like the plague.

addressing racism is difficult today because it operates under the table: official laws and politically correct american culture forbids discrimination according to race, gender, sexuality, but it still happens, masked by a myriad of seemingly rational and racially (sexually, etc) irrelevant excuses. 

here is an excerpt from my thesis on the perpetuation of racist stereotypes and imagery in comedy:

This act of self-affirmation through negation has been a necessary tactic for the Eurocentric paradigm in American mass culture, a legacy that has been thoroughly demonstrated by the history of 19th Century minstrels shows, performed in both black- and yellowface. The demand for racially reductive and sub-human images of the non-normative (non-white) population displays itself more subtly in contemporary times. Acceptable instances of such demeaning laughter are now restricted, as when comedians give overtly exaggerated indications of their intention to make politically incorrect jokes. 

Margaret Cho and Bobby Lee—both popular entertainers among Asians and non-Asians alike—exaggerate “Asianness” in their acts to draw the audience’s attention to the absurdity of American racist assumptions. Cho is famous for the mimicry of her mother’s broken English; Lee plays an array of stereotypical Asian characters—whether they be Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or their confused hybrid. These grotesquely exaggerated performances give direct signals to the audience that racial stereotypes are precisely the point of their acts. The performers’ Asianness grants especially the non-Asian audiences further permission to laugh. 

Yet the source of laughter is at times ambiguous. Should non-Asian viewers doubt the appropriateness of their laughter, they need only seek laughing Asian audience members. The legitimatizing function of the Asian audience’s laughter is especially apparent in recordings of the comics’ live performances; the edited footage intersperses images of Asian audience members laughing at the racially offensive jokes. But do we not laugh at that in which we perceive a degree of truth? Does the non-Asian audience laugh at what it believes to be a truthfulness of the enacted stereotypes themselves or at false societal beliefs of perceiving them as truthful? As scholar Howard Winant has written, “Today racism must be identified by its consequences." Cho and Lee, at times, reproduce the very stereotypes they attempt to skewer.

for the purposes of my thesis on psy's "gangnam style," i focused on asian (american) entertainers, but of course, comedians like chris rock have made their careers out of racist and homosexual jokes, many of which are self-deprecatory.

and as stated above, the very existence of even the most overtly and consciously absurd racist jokes indicate the fact that these sentiments exist. our laughter is twofold. we laugh because 1. we recognize the absurdity of those jokes (ex. "hey, jackie chan!") but also because 2. we recognize a "truth" in them, whether we actually believe them ourselves or know of others who do.

cedrick smith at dillon gallery

i have a guest over from korea, hk. he is 17 years old and is exploring nyc mostly on his own while crashing at my place. he arrived last sunday. i was free and i decided to take him to central park to begin an introductory tour of the city.

the weather was unbelievably beautiful--it was the warmest welcome for someone who had just come from a country going through the most humid and sticky season of the year. but halfway through our getting lost in the park (after living in nyc for 15 years i still get lost consistently there), we encountered something i did not want to be part of hk's intro to nyc: racism.

to conceal racism from a tour of nyc is, of course, to deceive. but perhaps i was trying to do unto him what i wished others had done for me when i first arrived from korea. no one had warned me that i could be the target of hatred and mockery just because i looked a certain way to some people. although i'm not sure any warning would have helped at all, maybe it would have better prepared me for the actual experience. but i maybe i hoped, stupidly and naively, that someone had protected me from unexpected blows.

i did not want hk to have this unpleasant experience, not while i was with him. but we ended up running into a street acrobatics show--the kind that goes through a dance and tumbling routine. i had seen the same group perform in union square once. they follow a fairly lengthy script which relies heavily on racist jokes: black men freezing and ducking at the sound of police sirens, pretending to run away with the volunteers' bags, etc. besides self-deprecatory "black jokes," they also like unsophisticated asian jokes (i have also seen them crack a mexican joke, something about being poor).

the time i saw them in union square, they picked me as a volunteer, one of maybe five people over whom one performer jumps. he cracked a horrible joke at me, the kind i imagine only a 10 year old living in a suburban white town (connecticut? midwest? south?) saying to the only asian kid in school. or pre-pubescent white boys in a riverdale prep school saying to me, the only asian person "from" asia.

the joke? emitting a series of incomprehensible sounds that the speaker believes is some faithful mimicry of chinese or a generic "asian" language. when one of the performers did this to me in union square, i called him out on it and gave him a fuck you, interrupting their carefully planned routine. (i was then kicked out and replaced by a quieter asian woman). when i was with my guest at central park, i remembered this about the troupe too late. after a few minutes of watching, hk got dragged in as a volunteer because they "have to have at least one asian guy" in a mix of female volunteers. i saw links to the feminization of asian men by this gesture. maybe i was reading more into it than the guy meant, so i let this pass.

but the jokes got worse and worse. hk got called "jackie chan" and "jet li" at different times. when the main performer stacked his volunteers close together to prepare for the jump, he told hk (who was standing behind a young italian woman), "get closer, get closer. you can thank me. when else would you have a chance like this?!"

fortunately, i don't think my guest got the joke--that asian men can only "dream" of getting with a white woman because 1. asian men are undesirable 2. white women are the pinnacle of attractiveness and 3. since undesirable asian men cannot get with the extremely desirable white women, they must resort to dating the less desirable women "of their own kind."

leaving aside the fact that the "joke" is not funny at all.. i find it notable that these kinds of jokes are very american. the "joke" is only understood by americans--when tourists like hk come across racist jokes, often it takes a bit of time for them to register as "racist." the notion of race is an invention, and although racial discrimination does exist in fairly homogenous countries such as korea, american construction of race is very elaborate. the racial stereotypes, myths, "characters" are much more detailed so that they pose as widely understood "truths." 

i have also noticed that foreigners "from" abroad don't care so much about racism but the hyphenated americans (asian american, african american, latin american..) do. this is probably because foreigners find this an inevitable part of living/staying in the u.s. and well, if it becomes unbearable, they can go back to their own "homes" where they will be the racial majority. for second, third, fourth generations, the u.s. is their home. they have more at stake, and constantly being differentiated from the "norm" based on a ridiculous fiction called "race" (ambiguously tied to appearance and "origin") on one's own turf will trigger stronger reactions.

as outmoded as the shainman show seems, identity politics are still very much relevant. in fact, it may be even more now, because stereotypes are so deeply seated in our conscious/unconscious that they come off as invisible and non-existent.

i will leave you with a link to a slightly controversial and interesting blog: http://blackgirldangerous.org/new-blog/2012/11/27/how-to-know-if-you-are-white

only in nyc

august slumber

every "field" operates according to a certain kind of calendar or sense of time. in fashion, for example, they work in "seasons," related to the weather and lifestyles of consumers. the "new" is always being planned a year in advance and "fall lines" arrive in stores in the early summer, when summer clothes are already sold out or on sale. different concepts of time can be seen in products like the old-school "planner" (who uses those things nowadays anyway?). there is the regular calendar which begins with the december of the previous year then ends with the january of the following year (or december of that year, depending on the company). then there is the "academic" calendar for students that begins in august and ends in july or august of the following year. 

no longer part of an academic institution, i have been hovering in the strange limbo typical of a recent graduate grappling with the anxiety of an uncertain future and worries about "the next move." these anxieties have to do with practical matters (get a job? where? how?) and often they are fueled by the lack of a "given" time structure. i have to find my own temporal structure, which will reflect what i "want to do" with myself/my life. the difficulty lies in picking and choosing whose calendars fit what i want to do (a ginormous issue in itself) and creating a new one tailored to my own identity, vision, etc.

that was a round about way of saying that it didn't really occur to me that august in the art world is very slow--and, well, dead. i knew, of course. but having this knowledge in one's own head differs from how that knowledge is experienced on a practical and visceral level. my current sense of time is rather monotonous--no high/low seasons, but only the same kind of day after another, after another. the only factors that cause fluctuations--and require some planning--are the opening hours of galleries and museums, certain short-lived events such as performance nights and special openings.

in a way it is nice--it's like receiving a blank sheet everyday for me to mark up anew. but the real new york art world schedule, which i have tried to incorporate into my own sense of time, doesn't quite work the way i pass my days. it is not monotonous like mine, but has its seasons like any other calendar. certain months are "vacation" time (end of july to august, and december), then some months are the "big" moments when art people return to the city and there are a million openings every week (september is a major openings month). some months host a multitude of art fairs, others (in alternating years) have biennials, triennials, or annual exhibitions organized by major institutions.

it's not all that different from an academic or other work calendars, actually. but there are small elements (knowledge?) that one will only come to embody if one lives immersed in that life and realm for a prolonged period of time--constant training until that knowledge is no longer considered separate information but becomes instinct. 

and i could feel myself floating in this no-person's-land when i asked a gallerist friend why everything was closed one saturday and she told me about summer hours. annoyed, frustrated, i felt like a hungry ghost that can only stare at what it can't have. but trying to "gain entry"--what does that even mean? i must have some sort of fundamentally unattainable, absurdly impossible, and completely fictional notion of "belonging" to the art world. and that is probably right. i set my own definition of legitimacy (the creation of which i angrily attribute to "the art world") and thereby deprive myself of it. it's like complaining about others' racist behaviors when i am only reaffirming their racist beliefs precisely by taking them for granted. 

and this is also just a very roundabout way of excusing myself for being slack. i haven't been out as often lately to see shows and another excuse: much of what i have seen haven't strongly inspired my writing about them. but maybe that's just what august does to people and that's why many people abandon the city to lounge around some place with more green or water. i should stop feeling guilty and let myself sit in my air conditioned room all day with a good novel. i am a master fabricator of excuses.