14 November 2011
26 October 2011
New Art Dealers Alliance = NADA (HAHA)
"... the only non-profit fair in Miami that is free and open to the public."
"Each NADA gallery will be provided with the opportunity to host a virtual storefront at www.Paddle8.com through which they may accept offers and process transactions on works using Paddle8's proprietary online platform, which leverages technology to facilitate the viewing, curating and acquisition of art."
[via e-flux bulletin]
"Each NADA gallery will be provided with the opportunity to host a virtual storefront at www.Paddle8.com through which they may accept offers and process transactions on works using Paddle8's proprietary online platform, which leverages technology to facilitate the viewing, curating and acquisition of art."
[via e-flux bulletin]
27 September 2011
17 September 2011
Overheard ...
... at The Shortlist espresso bar, Abercrombie St. Darlington, 15 09 2011:
Vietnamese-Australian female: "Do you like abstract art?"
Indian-Australian male: "I can't stand abstract art. [...] Stop just putting things together in a weird fashion and saying 'oh, because it's weird it's art.'"
My faith is restored in the younger generation.
Vietnamese-Australian female: "Do you like abstract art?"
Indian-Australian male: "I can't stand abstract art. [...] Stop just putting things together in a weird fashion and saying 'oh, because it's weird it's art.'"
My faith is restored in the younger generation.
14 September 2011
There is something hyper-self-conscious afloat ... as is only natural, They have taught us well ...
This is an excerpt from an e-newsletter sent by the 'Culture Jammers' at Adbusters about their Occupy Wall St. campaign:
"What will happen this Saturday when thousands of us descend on Lower Manhattan and start walking towards Wall Street?
If the police try to stop us, how will we respond? ...
If the police block us temporarily from occupying Wall Street, then let's turn all of lower Manhattan into our Tahrir Square. Let's sing our songs in the lobby of Goldman Sachs and in Chase Manhattan Plaza; let's wave our signs outside the SEC and the Federal Reserve; let's convene our people's assemblies around the Charging Bull statue at Bowling Green … and if need be, let's set up our encampments in nearby Battery Park and other places until we're ready to walk into Wall Street again …
Anything can and will happen this Saturday. That's the beauty of it! Ultimately, the only thing that matters in how many of us turn up eager to be a part of a spontaneous creative swarm and determined to bring the financial fraudsters to justice.
Bring signs, flowers, food and a revolutionary mood … and a commitment to absolute nonviolence in the Gandhian tradition."
Well, I guess this must be emblematic of the state of politics today. Maybe all we have today in terms of a possible politics is this kind of self-conscious, hyped-up (like a rock concert, no? Don't miss out!), copy-paste, 'meme'-like tactic? I applaud Adbusters for giving it a go. But I can't help feeling there's something strange going on here; 'Let's do it!', response-based indoctrination is all I can sense in these 'wild' words. Is so-called 'revolutionary' action really so self-conscious, I daresay, even pretentious?
Does this sort of 'occupation' really aid in bringing supposed 'justice' (already a term heavily loaded with neoliberal dogma) to those whose lives are really effected by the 'financial fraudsters'? Who are they representing by such an occupation? And, pray tell, who are these 'financial fraudsters', actually?
And who reads Adbusters? Exactly the kind of hipster 'activist' types who like to go to music festivals purporting to be 'green' or 'charitable'. We really need to get off this band-wagon and start to really consider what our actions mean and how we ourselves are implicated in upholding the rule of Capital.
Blame, or the blame-desiring machine that campaigns like this one produce, is one which is equally and to a comparable measure produced by Capital, in fact you could imagine Capital as the author of blame. Who can we blame for the shit we are in? It is certainly someone's fault (not mine!). We only have to find them and out them and things will be better. This is a lie. That someone does not exist, even in the form of a corporation. Blame is a lie that eases the depressive truth that we are all implicated.
The real question of today is how to move from this depressive junction of totalitarian 'safety' measures, States Of Emergency and fear-of-life, and toward a space where we may again have some agency in our lives.
This is not about individual moral responsibility - we are all responsible, together - it is about being aware how all our actions and choices, and the way we interact with others, maintain a certain power-relation that is exactly the one that campaigns like Occupy Wall St. claim to want to dismantle. A big question: How can we take responsibility for our actions whilst also being the victims of them?
It is not the 'financial fraudsters' who we must blame (what, do you want to replace them with some other, 'better' people, who aren't 'fraudsters'?), for they are also trapped within the violence of financial capitalism. It is Capital itself that we must disown. It is Capital, and the violence integral to its existence that we must renounce.
This will occur only slowly and through a progressive reconsideration of how we actually want to live our lives, not how we are told to live by a generation of old rich men in whose interest it is that we never question the world they have given us and never demand anything more than to graciously follow their footsteps into the positions of so-called 'power' they have brainwashed us into desiring.
Meanwhile, the rich men are probably sniggering nostalgically from their 31st floor offices at how naive this little bit of youthful 'unrest' really is.
"What will happen this Saturday when thousands of us descend on Lower Manhattan and start walking towards Wall Street?
If the police try to stop us, how will we respond? ...
If the police block us temporarily from occupying Wall Street, then let's turn all of lower Manhattan into our Tahrir Square. Let's sing our songs in the lobby of Goldman Sachs and in Chase Manhattan Plaza; let's wave our signs outside the SEC and the Federal Reserve; let's convene our people's assemblies around the Charging Bull statue at Bowling Green … and if need be, let's set up our encampments in nearby Battery Park and other places until we're ready to walk into Wall Street again …
Anything can and will happen this Saturday. That's the beauty of it! Ultimately, the only thing that matters in how many of us turn up eager to be a part of a spontaneous creative swarm and determined to bring the financial fraudsters to justice.
Bring signs, flowers, food and a revolutionary mood … and a commitment to absolute nonviolence in the Gandhian tradition."
Well, I guess this must be emblematic of the state of politics today. Maybe all we have today in terms of a possible politics is this kind of self-conscious, hyped-up (like a rock concert, no? Don't miss out!), copy-paste, 'meme'-like tactic? I applaud Adbusters for giving it a go. But I can't help feeling there's something strange going on here; 'Let's do it!', response-based indoctrination is all I can sense in these 'wild' words. Is so-called 'revolutionary' action really so self-conscious, I daresay, even pretentious?
Does this sort of 'occupation' really aid in bringing supposed 'justice' (already a term heavily loaded with neoliberal dogma) to those whose lives are really effected by the 'financial fraudsters'? Who are they representing by such an occupation? And, pray tell, who are these 'financial fraudsters', actually?
And who reads Adbusters? Exactly the kind of hipster 'activist' types who like to go to music festivals purporting to be 'green' or 'charitable'. We really need to get off this band-wagon and start to really consider what our actions mean and how we ourselves are implicated in upholding the rule of Capital.
Blame, or the blame-desiring machine that campaigns like this one produce, is one which is equally and to a comparable measure produced by Capital, in fact you could imagine Capital as the author of blame. Who can we blame for the shit we are in? It is certainly someone's fault (not mine!). We only have to find them and out them and things will be better. This is a lie. That someone does not exist, even in the form of a corporation. Blame is a lie that eases the depressive truth that we are all implicated.
The real question of today is how to move from this depressive junction of totalitarian 'safety' measures, States Of Emergency and fear-of-life, and toward a space where we may again have some agency in our lives.
This is not about individual moral responsibility - we are all responsible, together - it is about being aware how all our actions and choices, and the way we interact with others, maintain a certain power-relation that is exactly the one that campaigns like Occupy Wall St. claim to want to dismantle. A big question: How can we take responsibility for our actions whilst also being the victims of them?
It is not the 'financial fraudsters' who we must blame (what, do you want to replace them with some other, 'better' people, who aren't 'fraudsters'?), for they are also trapped within the violence of financial capitalism. It is Capital itself that we must disown. It is Capital, and the violence integral to its existence that we must renounce.
This will occur only slowly and through a progressive reconsideration of how we actually want to live our lives, not how we are told to live by a generation of old rich men in whose interest it is that we never question the world they have given us and never demand anything more than to graciously follow their footsteps into the positions of so-called 'power' they have brainwashed us into desiring.
Meanwhile, the rich men are probably sniggering nostalgically from their 31st floor offices at how naive this little bit of youthful 'unrest' really is.
04 August 2011
Let me guess ...
... it's about being 'tangled' up?
GEMMA SMITH: Tangle Paintings
Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney, 5 August - 3 September 2011
And ... the compromised position in which the artist finds herself in relation to pretty much everything?
With titles like The Knot, Tight Tangle, Jumble, Big Tangle and the enigmatic Crossposting, it must be exactly that.
Thank God Art let's some people express the world's problems in such a profound way.
GEMMA SMITH: Tangle Paintings
Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney, 5 August - 3 September 2011
And ... the compromised position in which the artist finds herself in relation to pretty much everything?
With titles like The Knot, Tight Tangle, Jumble, Big Tangle and the enigmatic Crossposting, it must be exactly that.
Thank God Art let's some people express the world's problems in such a profound way.
11 July 2011
Automatic-writing-rant
08.07.11
Contemporary Art is boring. It is in crisis. Why the fuck would anyone want to stand in these white, fluorescently lit rooms and look at these abstract, voice-less objects that only 'speak' with the help of a curator-puppet or a whole lot of dense reading material dumped on the innocent spectator, who is expected to, thus, comprehend some deeper meaning or profound message via these anal assemblages of ego-obese objects that no-one needs. Please, spare me this farce of market success dressed up as criticality, this is not art. Spare me the vapid bullshit spurting like projectile vomit from the mouths of "Younger Than Jesus" art school graduates and "curatorial turners", I don't care about your credentials
Contemporary Art is boring. It is in crisis. Why the fuck would anyone want to stand in these white, fluorescently lit rooms and look at these abstract, voice-less objects that only 'speak' with the help of a curator-puppet or a whole lot of dense reading material dumped on the innocent spectator, who is expected to, thus, comprehend some deeper meaning or profound message via these anal assemblages of ego-obese objects that no-one needs. Please, spare me this farce of market success dressed up as criticality, this is not art. Spare me the vapid bullshit spurting like projectile vomit from the mouths of "Younger Than Jesus" art school graduates and "curatorial turners", I don't care about your credentials
05 June 2011
Everything we always wanted to know? ... Really?
I want to know why we are still talking about Hans Ulrich Obrist. Could this book answer my question ... ?
This modest book contains a foreword by Tino Sehgal, an afterword by Yona Friedman and interviews by Jean-Max Colard, Robert Fleck, Jefferson Hack, Nav Haq, Noah Horowitz, Sophia Krzys Acord, Brendan McGetrick, Markus Miessen, Ingo Niermann, Paul O'Neill, Philippe Parreno & Alex Poots, Juri Steiner, Gavin Wade, Enrique Walker.
The press release says: "Everything you ever wanted to know about Hans Ulrich Obrist but were afraid to ask has been asked by the sixteen practitioners in this book."
Hmm, Hans, I actually don't want to know more about you, and I wouldn't be afraid to ask if I did.
I would like to know, however, why of sixteen 'practitioners' there is only one woman involved in 'knowing about' Obrist? Are women that much more 'afraid' to ask than men (93.75%)? (Also, what is a 'practitioner'?)
Haha, pompous men are funny! I don't know what Caroline Schneider was thinking (... well, perhaps I do ... don't forget, if you want to 'know' more about Obrist and/or curating you have to buy this book ... oh, so tempting, Caroline ... I really need yet another self-indulgent account from men talking about themselves and other men whilst being promoted by women ...)
Also, I want to know why I am still talking about Hans Ulrich Obrist?!
This modest book contains a foreword by Tino Sehgal, an afterword by Yona Friedman and interviews by Jean-Max Colard, Robert Fleck, Jefferson Hack, Nav Haq, Noah Horowitz, Sophia Krzys Acord, Brendan McGetrick, Markus Miessen, Ingo Niermann, Paul O'Neill, Philippe Parreno & Alex Poots, Juri Steiner, Gavin Wade, Enrique Walker.
The press release says: "Everything you ever wanted to know about Hans Ulrich Obrist but were afraid to ask has been asked by the sixteen practitioners in this book."
Hmm, Hans, I actually don't want to know more about you, and I wouldn't be afraid to ask if I did.
I would like to know, however, why of sixteen 'practitioners' there is only one woman involved in 'knowing about' Obrist? Are women that much more 'afraid' to ask than men (93.75%)? (Also, what is a 'practitioner'?)
Haha, pompous men are funny! I don't know what Caroline Schneider was thinking (... well, perhaps I do ... don't forget, if you want to 'know' more about Obrist and/or curating you have to buy this book ... oh, so tempting, Caroline ... I really need yet another self-indulgent account from men talking about themselves and other men whilst being promoted by women ...)
Also, I want to know why I am still talking about Hans Ulrich Obrist?!
03 June 2011
RISD arms Class
Taken from Art & Education e-newsletter. All bold and underline rendered so by me, italicised phrases correspond to Bifo.
RISD arms Class of 2011 with Artrepreneur Kits, Including Etsy Fellowship and Square
"For the second consecutive year, Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] is arming its graduates with "artrepreneur kits." This practical parting gift includes tools and resources to help these highly creative thinkers to maximize their potential for innovation and explore entrepreneurial possibilities."
Franco "Bifo" Berardi writes in The Soul At Work (Semiotext(e) 2009):
'Within Semiocapital, then, the production of value tends to coincide with semiotic production. Pressed by economic competition, the production of accelerated and proliferating signs ends up functioning like a pathogenic factor, congesting the collective psyche that is becoming the primary object of exploitation.' (p.134, trans. Francesca Cadel & Guiseppina Mecchia)
RISD continue, "Square, Inc. is again providing Squares and activation codes for graduating students, which enables credit card payments to be processed anywhere via a small square card reader that plugs directly into a mobile phone input jack. In 2010 RISD was the first college to distribute the newly-launched hardware/software combination."
Berardi writes:
'The non-hierarchical character of network communication becomes dominant in the entire cycle of social labour. This contributes to the representation of info-labor as an independent form of work. But this independence ... is in fact an ideological fiction, covering a new and growing form of dependency ... This new dependency is increasingly apparent in the automatic fluidity of the network: we have strict interdependence of subjective fragments, all distinct but objectively dependent from a fluid process, from a chain of automatisms both external and internal to the labour process which regulate every gesture, every productive parcel.
Both simple executing workers and entrepreneurial managers share the vivid perception that they depend on a constant flow that cannot be interrupted and from which they cannot step back save at the price of being marginalised... Cellular phones are probably the technological devices that best illustrate this kind of network dependency. The cellular phone is left on by the great majority of info-workers even when they are not working. It has a major function in the organisation of labor as self-enterprise that is formally autonomous but substantially dependent.' (pp. 88-9)
"Also," say RISD (there is always more!) "Behance, the world's leading platform for creative professionals, is giving graduates free six-month accounts to Prosite, its newly launched online portfolio site. This simple yet sophisticated platform offers unlimited hosting and unlimited project space, with no programming skills required, for 11 USD per month. Behance is also including an Action Journal for each grad."
'Grad'? Great! Rad! But remember, STUDENT DEBT IS IDEOLOGICALLY IMPOSED
RISD President (!) John Maeda is right on the money, he 'notes': "A new kind of art+design-led leadership is needed to innovate in the current global economy ... Artists and designers bring their intuitive, creative thinking to a broad array of fields, and with our Artrepreneur Kit, we are providing them with just a few of the tools and resources that can help launch their work into the public spectrum and help them make a living, in whatever way they choose."
RISD arms Class of 2011 with Artrepreneur Kits, Including Etsy Fellowship and Square
"For the second consecutive year, Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] is arming its graduates with "artrepreneur kits." This practical parting gift includes tools and resources to help these highly creative thinkers to maximize their potential for innovation and explore entrepreneurial possibilities."
Franco "Bifo" Berardi writes in The Soul At Work (Semiotext(e) 2009):
'Within Semiocapital, then, the production of value tends to coincide with semiotic production. Pressed by economic competition, the production of accelerated and proliferating signs ends up functioning like a pathogenic factor, congesting the collective psyche that is becoming the primary object of exploitation.' (p.134, trans. Francesca Cadel & Guiseppina Mecchia)
RISD continue, "Square, Inc. is again providing Squares and activation codes for graduating students, which enables credit card payments to be processed anywhere via a small square card reader that plugs directly into a mobile phone input jack. In 2010 RISD was the first college to distribute the newly-launched hardware/software combination."
Berardi writes:
'The non-hierarchical character of network communication becomes dominant in the entire cycle of social labour. This contributes to the representation of info-labor as an independent form of work. But this independence ... is in fact an ideological fiction, covering a new and growing form of dependency ... This new dependency is increasingly apparent in the automatic fluidity of the network: we have strict interdependence of subjective fragments, all distinct but objectively dependent from a fluid process, from a chain of automatisms both external and internal to the labour process which regulate every gesture, every productive parcel.
Both simple executing workers and entrepreneurial managers share the vivid perception that they depend on a constant flow that cannot be interrupted and from which they cannot step back save at the price of being marginalised... Cellular phones are probably the technological devices that best illustrate this kind of network dependency. The cellular phone is left on by the great majority of info-workers even when they are not working. It has a major function in the organisation of labor as self-enterprise that is formally autonomous but substantially dependent.' (pp. 88-9)
"Also," say RISD (there is always more!) "Behance, the world's leading platform for creative professionals, is giving graduates free six-month accounts to Prosite, its newly launched online portfolio site. This simple yet sophisticated platform offers unlimited hosting and unlimited project space, with no programming skills required, for 11 USD per month. Behance is also including an Action Journal for each grad."
'Grad'? Great! Rad! But remember, STUDENT DEBT IS IDEOLOGICALLY IMPOSED
RISD President (!) John Maeda is right on the money, he 'notes': "A new kind of art+design-led leadership is needed to innovate in the current global economy ... Artists and designers bring their intuitive, creative thinking to a broad array of fields, and with our Artrepreneur Kit, we are providing them with just a few of the tools and resources that can help launch their work into the public spectrum and help them make a living, in whatever way they choose."
21 May 2011
Marcelle Alix présente Marie Voignier
PERFEKT
Portrait de l'artiste [Marie Voignier] et de la galeriste [Isabelle Alfonsi], 2010
photo: Aurélien Mole
direction artistique: Marcelle Alix
Portrait de l'artiste [Marie Voignier] et de la galeriste [Isabelle Alfonsi], 2010
photo: Aurélien Mole
direction artistique: Marcelle Alix
11 May 2011
Heathrow loudspeaker hell
"For security reasons baggage left unattended will be removed and destroyed."
This is not a joke, they actually say this every ten minutes. Imagine if you substituted 'baggage' for 'Passport Control'!
"Will British Airways passenger Margaret Thatcher please return to south security."
This actually happened.
This is not a joke, they actually say this every ten minutes. Imagine if you substituted 'baggage' for 'Passport Control'!
"Will British Airways passenger Margaret Thatcher please return to south security."
This actually happened.
04 May 2011
After Nirvana ?
"_____ __ _______ is delighted to present In Bloom, an exhibition by ________ ______ and _________ _________. For In Bloom, ______ and _________ present a series of expressive oil paintings of jugs.
/
The jugs were not painted from life, and are formed simply of bold, gestural brush strokes that sit over the abstract backgrounds.
/
_________ is interested in the use of text as a framing device for artwork, specifically in respect to its limitations and potential to interfere with understanding.
/
_______ were preoccupied with the issue of authenticity, a quality that is indeterminate or even abstract.
/
In Bloom is intended to be extemporaneous and fresh: a show for springtime."
Dead
/
The jugs were not painted from life, and are formed simply of bold, gestural brush strokes that sit over the abstract backgrounds.
/
_________ is interested in the use of text as a framing device for artwork, specifically in respect to its limitations and potential to interfere with understanding.
/
_______ were preoccupied with the issue of authenticity, a quality that is indeterminate or even abstract.
/
In Bloom is intended to be extemporaneous and fresh: a show for springtime."
Dead
Starting to believe their own lies ...
"CSM* Lifestyle Not Education"
- Canvas bag spotted being carried by a young woman on Old Street, London, Tuesday 3 May 2011.
Lucky, lucky students. What we really need these days is lifestyle.
- Canvas bag spotted being carried by a young woman on Old Street, London, Tuesday 3 May 2011.
Lucky, lucky students. What we really need these days is lifestyle.
09 April 2011
06 April 2011
05 April 2011
4411
Spammer Lauren Payne sent me some great advice today, 4 April 2011:
It made me think: What should I use my coal for?
I need something that'll 'actually work', after all.
What do you do with yours?
It made me think: What should I use my coal for?
I need something that'll 'actually work', after all.
What do you do with yours?
22 March 2011
Home truths
"Can't be bothered with this."
- Overheard on Saturday 19 February 2011 in the Tate Britain's Contemporary Acquisitions gallery (Supported by BP), where the 'Gerard Byrne: 1984 and Beyond' exhibition was held
- Overheard on Saturday 19 February 2011 in the Tate Britain's Contemporary Acquisitions gallery (Supported by BP), where the 'Gerard Byrne: 1984 and Beyond' exhibition was held
10 March 2011
02 March 2011
"Capitalism's Terminal Crisis"
Norwegian model Kat Hessen is the role model of the future.
At the Marc by Marc Jacobs Autumn/Winter 2011-12 show in New York City all is explained.
Before:
After:
Behold! Capitalism's Terminal Crisis is inside us. As Kat teaches us, what choice do we have but to carry on in the face of adversity?
At the Marc by Marc Jacobs Autumn/Winter 2011-12 show in New York City all is explained.
Before:
After:
Behold! Capitalism's Terminal Crisis is inside us. As Kat teaches us, what choice do we have but to carry on in the face of adversity?
17 January 2011
"Damien Hirst's Diamond Skull on view in Florence at Palazzo Vecchio"
"The work stands in the great tradition of the 'Memento Mori', where an image or an object serves to remind us of our mortality," professes the Palazzo Vecchio press release (via e-flux bulletin), which also calls Hirst's For the Love of God a "tour de force".
In the future will archaeologists dig up this old relic and finally understand why the age of capitalism annihilated human life as we know it?
"They were so obsessed with status symbols that they were encrusting their own skulls with diamonds," they'll say, "no wonder they all got blown up in their own nuclear waste, they couldn't see past the shiny lights of their own craniums."
In the future will archaeologists dig up this old relic and finally understand why the age of capitalism annihilated human life as we know it?
"They were so obsessed with status symbols that they were encrusting their own skulls with diamonds," they'll say, "no wonder they all got blown up in their own nuclear waste, they couldn't see past the shiny lights of their own craniums."
07 January 2011
01 January 2011
moonmessage010110 is over (Part IV)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
