On Pop Culture and "Art" + "Blurred Lines"

Brief thoughts about pop culture spilling into “art” and vice versa:

Installation view of The Last Brucennial. Foreground Sculpture: HUSK, 2013 by Parker Shipp, Video:AMERICAN REFLEXXX, 2013 by Alli Coates and Signe Pierce

            Many people have probably witnessed some of the debates about gender equality and representation when the two music videos for Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” came out last year: one with topless women as props, a more PG version with semi-clothed women as props. Either way the women served as props for the men’s videos (nothing new here)—I’ve seen some argue that they can’t believe this sort of blatantly disrespectful sexism is still used (successfully) as a part of popular promotional tactics (are they that surprised?) and others argue that the videos are actually empowering to women because they are so overtly utilizing the device of female sex appeal (I am not too sure about this side of the argument).

           Another related debate resulted after Robin Thicke performed the song with the infamous Miley Cyrus during MTV’s Video Music Awards, where the discussion involved not just the demeaning and destructive double standards of female performers (look at Cyrus, that horrid mess) but also issues of “race” and the ethically questionable appropriation of “black” culture (really nothing new either) by “white” culture. (In my own opinion, the performance was quite offensive, especially because it sought to justify and legitimize a very cookie cutter Disney-turned-trash girl trying to “twerk” by using black female bodies asprops).

            In any case, “Blurred Lines” seems to have come to symbolize (in a relatively short period of time) debates about gender and also race.

Installation view of The Last Brucennial. Top: I FEEL... LOUD, 2014 by Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos, Bottom: Feminist Performance Art, 2013 by Christen Clifford.

           Since then I have seen and heard many references to the debates via simply turning on the song at particular moments—mostly in media, or more casual talk-show or YouTube show-type settings. But recently I’ve been encountering references in “fine art.” One was in AMERICAN REFLEXXX,2013, a video by Alli Coates and Signe Pierce at The Last Brucennial organized by Vito Schnabel and the Bruce High Quality Foundation (great show by the way... if you haven't seen it, see it! Up until April 4th). In that work, a man?, wearing a reflective mask over his face (no features, just a smooth metallic surface) walks around the streets in high heels, a short, tight-fitting dress, and a long blond wig. “Blurred Lines” is creepily slowed down in a nightmarish way as s/he struts through the midst of sometimes quite brutal jeers and insults about how “nasty” it is that a man is walking around like that, dressed as a woman (guesses are made by the size of feet, at one point).

            Another work is Jordan Wolfson’s animatronic sculpture, (Female figure), at David Zwirner Gallery. In this one, a machine wearing a mask, high heels, short, revealing dress, and a long blond wig, dances to a slightly slowed down (equally creepy) excerpt of the song. This “female” wears a mask with features of a goblin, though, and dances against a mirror to which s/he is attached by a (strip club?) pole.

            Clearly, both works use “Blurred Lines” to comment on female sexuality and the meaning/meaninglessness of popular signifiers. I don’t feel like going into detailed analyses of either, but I wanted to make the observation about how quickly the debates in popular culture made its way into aesthetic commentary.

            Or maybe not so quickly, since word/data/info travels so fast now.

            Oh, and… noticing billboard ads around the city for random things, but showing “artists” in their studio against a backdrop of colorful Ab-Ex-type paintings. Or I noticed, during the whole Banksy craze a few months back, ads along this route, but “street artists” standing against colorful graffiti. Big companies’ target audiences now include the billions of “aspiring artists” in metropolises, it seems. And their ads reflect what they think their target audiences think is “good art.” Maybe. Just thoughts…

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.