general

to minus space press release: here is another project of "classical violinist, bandleader, and sound recording engineer" Enoch Light: [jpeg]

(hat tip to mark)

Update: Schwarz explains the problem with the Minus Space press release well:

to elaborate on moodys point: minus space fails to point out that regardless of the deserving museum quality presentation of albers graphic package design, he was functioning as a hired gun (hired by light for his self released projects) to put a highbrow face on elevator music schlock. light blended hammed up stereo effects, symphonic hi-fidelity and faux beat-nick bongo sensibilities for the wanna-be audiophile market of the day. a questionable direction now appreciated in the mostly ironic terms of the current retro "lounge-music" listening genre. not those of a violin master as stated. no properly contextualizing mention of that cultural value disconnect in product and package.

Guessing the Minus Spacers are too young to have lived through Enoch Light but that's no excuse for rewriting history; this info is all available--fortunately Masheck's review politely set them straight.

Paddy Johnson has posted her thoughts on the Boris Groys lecture at SVA, linking some of his rhetoric to the surf clubs and other artists working on the internet. Agree his ideas give those activities some theoretical heft (this blog is all over the "weak repetitive gesture" and "low visibility" as strategems, avant garde or otherwise) but it may require some creative misinterpretation since he doesn't seem to actually read blogs.

Last August Johnson tweeted a Frieze article quoting Groys ("Reflecting on the profusion of the blogs and the mysteries of the readership, Groys mused, 'I am convinced they are being written for God,' later clarifying, 'who, of course, is dead.'") which I made fun of ("meaning no one is reading me"). In his lecture he noted the author of personal cat site A never commented on personal cat site B but seemed OK with that; at least they weren't watching TV.

SVA's press release claimed he would be talking about "artistic rights [beginning] to manifest themselves as general human rights" which seemed ridiculous but that was not part of his talk. Elsewhere he differentiates between artists using the "weak" sign subversively and political agitprop-ists (or terrorists) pursuing the "strong" sign but overall his critique seems to be that politics have left art, which is the opposite of what SVA was saying he would say.

Frieze called him an “imp of the perverse” dispensing “nihilist irony” so his actual beliefs may not be that easy to pin down. Will read his recent book Art Power and report back.

Attended the Boris Groys lecture tonight at School of Visual Arts, titled "Everyone is an Artist." Paddy Johnson also attended and her twitter notes follow these transcribed handwritten notes of mine. Groys teaches aesthetics, art history, and media theory at the Center for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany, and at NYU. He has written on Ilya Kabakov and other artists and, per Wikipedia, "re-evaluated socialist art production [and] challenged the norms of aesthetics by [advancing] a thesis based on Walter Benjamin in the... interpretation of politics, claiming that modernism had survived in the 'total artwork' (Gesamtkunstwerk) of Stalinism." (Which sounds like the statement that got Stockhausen in trouble after the 9/11/01 attacks.)

My notes:

--The deprofessionalization of art is a form of professionalism. Transition from "Old masters --> Malevich --> Duchamp --> 'weak' video loop" still occurs within a specialized field.

--The artist is a secularized apostle, spreading the gospel that time is contracting, time is viscous.

--The avant garde isn't about change but creating weak transcendental repetitive patterns that allow others to recognize and decode images (Kandinsky shows painting is just shapes and colors). These perceptions transcend their time period.

--This creates clarity but also confusion, when the Kandinsky is put next to the Old Master. Now the Kandinsky is historicized, dated.

--This process of clearing and confusion is good and needs to happen periodically; it is how the avant garde democratizes Plato's privileged "philosophical gaze."

--We need new clearing/confusion, new weak signs, new repetitive simplification. Groys shows Francis Alÿs' animated/rotoscoped video loop of woman pouring liquid back and forth between two glasses.

--Groys believes social media and the internet is the new arena for the avant garde's production of "weak signs and low visibility"; the masses creating their own work for minuscule audiences in the 21st Century vs consuming the spectacles created by mass media in the 20th. He mentions people putting up websites about their cats (a late '90s example).

--An audience member asked him how big-box Chelsea galleries could implement these weak signs. He said that a certain part of the art world tries to compete for the production of "strong images" (Madonna, Michael Jackson) and shouldn't.

--I asked him if the professional apparatus he had described earlier (art schools, museums, biennials) needs to retool itself to sift through social media, or if it serves any function at all at this point. He said the Biennales still serve a function--millions of people attend them. It's where they get their ideas. He believes the social media producers would shrivel and die without this stimulus and inspiration. I don't agree. Essentially he's saying cat sites would disappear unless we have art schools.

--A woman objected to his constant use of the word weak. See Paddy's notes below. He also said a "weak sign is not a sign of weakness." He believes you destroy a fortress, city, pyramids, etc when people lose interest in them and become interested in something else. He sees the "weak gesture" as that alternative and believes it can be powerful.

Paddy Johnson's Twitter Notes:

--Groys asks how one distinguishes between the artist and the non-artist. Answer: the artist is simply a "professional."

--Living in Ultra-modern time means nobody has time. It's not an impression or feeling, it is a condition of our social being.

--The true goal of avant garde should not be innovation but transcendental repetitive reductive art.

--The contemporary condition is a repetition of repetition.

--The avant garde opened the flood gate for the "weak gesture."

--Millions of people now producing text and images for the few who have little to no time to view them. Reversal from the media used to work.

--Weak images are without a spectator. Strong images are 9-11, Madonna, Michael Jackson, etc. Art is competing with strong images.

--Groys does not believe the art world is strong enough to compete.

--True belief in art was originally shown through permanent collections. The slowing of this practice represents a deep skepticism in art.

--Groys is crazy: he basically just said kitty websites would disappear without art school.

--Someone just told Boris Groys that he didn't mean to call images weak. Groys says he not only meant to say that but to create a weak lecture.

Update, May 26, 2010: eFlux posted Groys' essay The Weak Universalism.

Need some better rhetoric for my work so went looking for it online. Here's Saatchi Gallery on Kelley Walker:

Using the famous Maui air crash photo which appeared on the cover of Benetton’s magazine Colours in 1995, Kelley Walker explores the currency of media images as a platform where abjection and desire become indistinguishable. Obscuring the picture with a mesh of candy-coloured dots, Walker visualises the clothing company’s 'united colours' slogan, and makes reference to the pixelised format of digital media. Maui is both appealing and appalling: exposing the malleable nature of the meaning of images, Walker questions a world order where human value is calibrated equally by fashion and trauma.

Here's how I could adapt that for an artist's statement:

Using an obscure image of some "wall bangles" captured from the internet, Tom Moody explores the currency of amateur media images as a platform where abjection trumps desire. Crudely filling in the bangles with candy-coloured spheres using the ordinary Microsoft Paint program that ships with Windows, Moody visualises a kind of endless hippie crash pad bending time and space, as filtered through the unhip lowest common denominator of digital media. Enantiomorphic Amulet Chamber is more appalling than appealing: exposing the malleable nature of the meaning of images, Moody questions a world order where human value is calibrated more by trauma than fashion.

This item from Server Side:

NYmag says that the NYTimes is set to start charging for its online content in the next few weeks. Supporting some of my speculation is this bit: "Apple's tablet computer is rumored to launch on January 27, and sources speculate that Sulzberger will strike a content partnership for the new device, which could dovetail with the paid strategy."

So we go from "free on the internet" on a general purpose computer (except its not "free" because the Times has always had a sign-up requirement and its pages are chockablock with ads and "rich media" sales tools, aka intrusive popups) to pay-as-you-go on some obnoxious Kindle-like tablet manufactured by Apple and probably DRM'ed out the wazoo. Couldn't happen to two better companies.

I subscribe to Salon but will probably pass on the Times because it isn't trustworthy (Judith Miller's fictional "weapons of mass destruction" reporting, the paper's general cheerleading for the Iraq and other elective wars, or, for a more up-to-the-minute example, yesterday's poorly fact-checked article on tech company IPOs, and on and on). Didn't subscribe to their columnists when they tried the experiment of putting them behind a for-pay firewall: getting weaned off Maureen Dowd was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

This is a classic Thomas Friedman quote, from that New York magazine article:

Friedman recently told me by phone. "What was coming to me anecdotally from my travels was the five worst words that as a columnist you ever want to hear: 'I used to read you before you went behind the wall.'"

Uh, Tom, that's eleven words. A reader's subscription dollars would be better spent on an honest non-fool such as Salon's Glenn Greenwald.