Jimmi Hendrix once said that he doesn't fuck with politics because politics are "the art of words". That's what I don't understand about these cultural elitists in the art world. What makes an educated art historian's opinion on what is tight, any more credible than the average stoner who likes pretty colors and big flashing arrows pointing to a piece's thematic elements? Here's an answer given in one of the media's favorite mediums: Stereotypical discourse and generalization.
Cultural Elitist: This piece is marvelous because it conveys the abstraction of thought of the Post-Expressionist Period!
Stoner: This piece is dope because the colors are sick, and that decrepit elephant is trippy!
Cultural Elitist: (Feeling his educational background in jeopardy of irrelevance)Do you even know why you like this piece? Do you even know the artist's name?
Righteous Stoner : Kick back man, I think its a sick piece of art because I think it looks dope, just because I don't know the subconscious reasoning behind why I like it doesn't make me wrong. At the end of the day you're just another consumer Professor!
What gives the scholarly opinion of art relevance is terminology. Words and phrases describe artistic periods, methods, movements, and themes in order to provide definition to art. Businessmen, politicians, and ignorant isolationists of all types don't typically participate in art. On the other hand, beatniks, hipsters, and starving artists don't typically participate in political discussion either. This is the hypocrisy between the mainstream and grub street transients. Political figures stress their pragmatism and cut-and-dry policies free of abstraction, yet contradict the notion entirely in campaigning and political posturing. McCain takes a swipe in an ad, at a comment Obama makes. Completely taken out of context and applied to another issue, the McCain campaign has created its own meaning out of the piece (Obama's comment). Conversely, our cultural elitist condescends the uneducated patron for his lack of mastery on artistic verbiage to describe his interest in a piece. The meaning the two draw may be the same, yet their contentions are over WORDS. What is good art? Quite a political discussion!
It's pretty pathetic how things come full circle socially. Society has globalized, but at the end of it all, we're still a bunch of nomadic tribes finding our niche. The Internet has made the export of art INFINITE in possibilities, yet here we are with the same ancient, dichotomous pursuit of the distinction between right and wrong, dope and wack. Institutionalizing art has exacerbated this divide, between those who seek truth, and those who seek why it is the truth. Simply put, organizing modern art into prerequisite categories has confined the art world to its terminology. The average Gap wearing, Pepsi drinking, modern American kid is not interested in art for the most part. However, his ignorance to art is not necessarily a product of his consumer behavior, his preferred interests. The pretentious Art History academics are equally to blame. These are the cultural elitists who have isolated themselves to a bourgeoisie guild of cynics and posthumous-dwelling groupies who reject the uninformed. Maybe it is for the fear of modern society precipitated by modern art itself, but the lack of dynamic progress in the today's art is puzzling, given the unlimited recources for exposure with the advent of the Internet. Recognizable art rises from obscurity, not from academic perspective on recognizable art. WE HAVE GOT TO BRIDGE THE GAP MY PEOPLE. That's what Grub Street is about, providing exposure to good art EVERYWHERE. No background checks, no credentials neccesary, if your art is dynamic, we want to bring it to the surface. Pack this one in your lunch box for art school: Fuck a high education, we keep our ear to the street.
-Ill Gates
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Damien Hirst: Welcome to the Machine
So everyones talking about it, Not only did Damien Hurst make 200 million dollars during his 2-day firesale auction via Sotheby's London, He made it while the rest of the world's economy was going to hell in a handbasket. I just found out that the government bailing out of Freddie Mac & all the elite corporates is going to cost each of us individually over $1100!! yo money... Fuck we're all fucking broke and losing our well invested portfolios by the NY minute while Hirst, this motha fucka just made definitely over $160 million after Sotheby's gets its chunk.
You know I never REALLY knew who Damien Hirst was or what his work looked like. Until he made that nigga rich skull encrusted with diamonds. All I knew is what my retarded art history education taught me. Damien Hirst is the leader of the YBA. YBA? Young British Artist. Apparently back in the 80's finally some British birds and blokes finally managed to shock and offend the the masses with their art enough to give them credibility. WOW!!! Britian's cool in modern art for the first time! Well their creditability really came from the $$$$, yup the lavish Lord Satchi dished out millions to the YBA's to get them going
I dont know how this whole YBA thing caught on... i mean the actually name Young British Artist. What a crap name! Doesn't sound very modern to me, sounds like the name of a traditional art institute, high academia. pewwwww But regaredless
wow dont i know a lot, thanks college! but really the saddest fucking thing is that I can drop this whole narrative bout the rise of the YBA but I couldnt name you one piece of artwork made by one of these mother fuckers and I cant name you one other artist besides Damien Hirst! Why cant I just be brain-dead and from Nor Cal! And now guess what? Everybody knows Damien Hirst because of his $200 million.
I swear every articled i have read is about the externalities of his art: the factory of anonymous people he employs to create 'his' art, or obstacles collectors face when trying to 'preserve' Damien's work, or the implications of the British art scene, or the trails of money it leaves haphazardly behind it.
Alsa, a truely conceptual artist. HE doesnt make anything, just his name, his brand, his machine. He controls the MEANS of production AND distribution. He has cut out all the middlemen. No more art dealers, Damien goes right to the world's premier art auction house. But when it comes to the question of pure art, Damien Hirst has begun to see himself as an unnecessary middleman.
Damien only needs to exist in your head. He has 6 art studios all operating under an assumed identity, Damien Hirst. Each studio simultaniously guided by his aesthetic forethought, yet he has not even physically seen many of these studios. Damien Hirst does not even touch his art anymore. The object only takes on its identity when Damien signs a photograph of the work, a representation of it.
As Damien continues detach himself physically from the art objects he produces, Art itself is purified. What we now call modern art has as one of it basic tenants a steadfast adherence to exposing modernity essence, rapid change in a society of spectacle. The physical object for the first time became overshadowed by his shadow. Receding farther and farther back into the cool shady conceptual realm, intangible as modernity itself. Damien has pushed the inevitable extreme; He cut out... himself. HE is a crab who has built its own shell, a shell of sheer force. A shell that may become more than just an extension of creature who dwelth. Like a crazy computer programs that turns on its makers in those sci-fi movies. Full of information but empty. He makes authorship translucent as only Warhol could do.
Damien Hirst has become the ghost we are all looking for in art, a deserted shell. An object that once was... a self-annihilating nothing.
-Avant God
You know I never REALLY knew who Damien Hirst was or what his work looked like. Until he made that nigga rich skull encrusted with diamonds. All I knew is what my retarded art history education taught me. Damien Hirst is the leader of the YBA. YBA? Young British Artist. Apparently back in the 80's finally some British birds and blokes finally managed to shock and offend the the masses with their art enough to give them credibility. WOW!!! Britian's cool in modern art for the first time! Well their creditability really came from the $$$$, yup the lavish Lord Satchi dished out millions to the YBA's to get them going
I dont know how this whole YBA thing caught on... i mean the actually name Young British Artist. What a crap name! Doesn't sound very modern to me, sounds like the name of a traditional art institute, high academia. pewwwww But regaredless
wow dont i know a lot, thanks college! but really the saddest fucking thing is that I can drop this whole narrative bout the rise of the YBA but I couldnt name you one piece of artwork made by one of these mother fuckers and I cant name you one other artist besides Damien Hirst! Why cant I just be brain-dead and from Nor Cal! And now guess what? Everybody knows Damien Hirst because of his $200 million.
I swear every articled i have read is about the externalities of his art: the factory of anonymous people he employs to create 'his' art, or obstacles collectors face when trying to 'preserve' Damien's work, or the implications of the British art scene, or the trails of money it leaves haphazardly behind it.
Alsa, a truely conceptual artist. HE doesnt make anything, just his name, his brand, his machine. He controls the MEANS of production AND distribution. He has cut out all the middlemen. No more art dealers, Damien goes right to the world's premier art auction house. But when it comes to the question of pure art, Damien Hirst has begun to see himself as an unnecessary middleman.
Damien only needs to exist in your head. He has 6 art studios all operating under an assumed identity, Damien Hirst. Each studio simultaniously guided by his aesthetic forethought, yet he has not even physically seen many of these studios. Damien Hirst does not even touch his art anymore. The object only takes on its identity when Damien signs a photograph of the work, a representation of it.
As Damien continues detach himself physically from the art objects he produces, Art itself is purified. What we now call modern art has as one of it basic tenants a steadfast adherence to exposing modernity essence, rapid change in a society of spectacle. The physical object for the first time became overshadowed by his shadow. Receding farther and farther back into the cool shady conceptual realm, intangible as modernity itself. Damien has pushed the inevitable extreme; He cut out... himself. HE is a crab who has built its own shell, a shell of sheer force. A shell that may become more than just an extension of creature who dwelth. Like a crazy computer programs that turns on its makers in those sci-fi movies. Full of information but empty. He makes authorship translucent as only Warhol could do.
Damien Hirst has become the ghost we are all looking for in art, a deserted shell. An object that once was... a self-annihilating nothing.
-Avant God
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