Calistoga 100803
Calistoga
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To look at/read later: Gunther Forg
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Interview with teacher, curator, critic Dave Hickey in the Denver Post:
Q: What gets left out of both of those scenarios (art writing) is the art itself, particularly the art object.
A: Well, of course. Art objects are basically what interest me. My principle is always that people are (jerks) and ideas are smoke. Just give me an object any time.
It (object-making) will become a discourse of enthusiasts. It will maintain in culture the kind of status that jazz has. I really think the world of object-making is receding into that kind of marginal status, which, in a sense, is OK for me. That's the status it had when I was a kid.
I've talked with others about this recently. I believe the hand-made art object will attain a status of importance and rarity with specialized audiences, and while new media art will grow (video, installation, internet-based, digital images, etc.), and with it the audiences, new media art will be an art with a whole different experience and meaning from object art. New media art will be potentially more easily accessible, the boundaries blurring between the art and consumer media. And because much of this art is game and entertainment-based it is often a one-off experience. For me, good art is about repeated viewings.
In the meantime object-based art will always require education, time, and the active engagement of the viewer, something many viewers just won't give readily to static objects. The issue of engagement for much new media art depends less on time and education, since so much now uses media familiar from the cradle: photographs, video, film language, narrative, popular themes, a stage set environment, lighting and sound from theater, etc.
When I have referred in the past to my desire for a more elite art, I mean an art that demands of the viewer a non technology-mediated engagement, that uses the eye, that requires the time-based experience of seeing and knowledge that extends over years, even a lifetime, that requires education, reflection, repeated viewing. My feeling is that the more machines do for us the less grounded we are, and the less grounded we are, the less we see and feel.
I am interested in an art of seeing and feeling, and the intellectual processing and cognition of the experience of seeing and feeling. I am interested in an art that doesn't come and go in and out of style in 3-5 year cycles, that doesn't require new machinery and upgrades, that stands still and looks back at me. A 3,000 pot needs a pedestal, and doesn't really need more than that except a little security; new media art has the issue of it's existence- a video on tape, transferred to DVD, that will need to adapt to future technologies just to experience it can still have value, but it is so far removed from my breath and blink that for me it is not a solid experience.
Q: What are some of the ways that you see the art world has changed in the last 20 years?
A: Art's just not that important or that fashionable anymore. It's not cool. Not only that, it's not intellectually serious. But art gets sold.
I just talked to a friend of mine who came back from New York, and he said, 'I didn't see anything but C-prints (a type of color photograph).' They're all going to turn green, which makes them terrible collector objects. And they're all really boring.
What do you do with an art world in which the normative work of art is a giant C-print of three Germans standing beside a mailbox. What's that? Stop it, please.
This example sounds like a joke, however it is not an extreme exaggeration.
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I have no faith in a political process, national or state-based, that is stuck in the machinery of the two-party system. This, to me, is a fault still with even well-intentioned movements like moveon.org. Our governments are in ruts, and the process is corrupt. I also have no faith anymore in an electorate that is impatient and can't follow rules, and sees issues as black and white. I am disillusioned by the superficiality of yesterday's election. I don't believe the media. I am disappointed with the cost of housing. I feel threatened by our health care system. I am bored with the forty hour work week. It's too crowded. I hate the sound of bass-heavy hip hop from cars on the street. My knee hurts. A really good organic tomato requires a down payment. Yakety yak yak yak, blah blah blah.
Say...
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