BIO
The Rematerialization of Art
Clarifying:
"My point is that's a better way to bring art into the computercentric world the rest of us live in than these circle the wagons exhibitions."
By the rest of us I mean most of contemporary culture where jobs mean staring at a computer all day, banks are doing away with paper checks and urging you to go online, etc. You don't have to ask the gallery to show an actual computer, just get it to acknowledge its own retro devotion to old handmade forms as a misplaced antidote to computercentric culture, which is the norm outside the galleries (even in Mongolia).
"My point is that's a better way to bring art into the computercentric world the rest of us live in than these circle the wagons exhibitions."
By the rest of us I mean most of contemporary culture where jobs mean staring at a computer all day, banks are doing away with paper checks and urging you to go online, etc. You don't have to ask the gallery to show an actual computer, just get it to acknowledge its own retro devotion to old handmade forms as a misplaced antidote to computercentric culture, which is the norm outside the galleries (even in Mongolia).
The Rematerialization of Art
I must have missed Cao Fei that, Jaume Plensa, Jenny Holzer, John Simon, Lincoln Schatz, Cory Arcangel in the Whitney and NewMu this year. I will go back and check.
Jenny Holzer got her start tacking truisms up on New York phone poles, not in the new media sphere.
Rather than a show about packaging/marketing, it would seem better to pair new media sphere artists with non, and not make a big deal about what you're doing.
An example off the top of my head: pair Douglas Gordon's 24 hour Psycho with Cory Arcangel's Slow Tetris. This bootstraps Arcangel into the discourse of a known "media art genius" from the gallery side and he comes off rather better for the comparison, because his piece is more cheeky/fun. The theme is "time in media," not sales.
Not saying this isn't being done with Arcangel--it is (maybe even with those pieces, I forget). My point is that's a better way to bring art into the computercentric world the rest of us live in than these circle the wagons exhibitions.
Jenny Holzer got her start tacking truisms up on New York phone poles, not in the new media sphere.
Rather than a show about packaging/marketing, it would seem better to pair new media sphere artists with non, and not make a big deal about what you're doing.
An example off the top of my head: pair Douglas Gordon's 24 hour Psycho with Cory Arcangel's Slow Tetris. This bootstraps Arcangel into the discourse of a known "media art genius" from the gallery side and he comes off rather better for the comparison, because his piece is more cheeky/fun. The theme is "time in media," not sales.
Not saying this isn't being done with Arcangel--it is (maybe even with those pieces, I forget). My point is that's a better way to bring art into the computercentric world the rest of us live in than these circle the wagons exhibitions.
The Rematerialization of Art
One bug with this comment software (in addition to the delay in the comment counter, which Paddy Johnson noted today) is that if you refresh you can end up reposting, as I think you just found out.
Written before reading your repl(ies).
Written before reading your repl(ies).
The Rematerialization of Art
Hi, Patrick,
"one thing this show asks is whether New Media has been accepted as Contemporary Art (i.e. become part of the gallery/museum world), whose practices have been accepted, how that fits into the current contemporary dialogue, and how does that relate to larger "mainstream" art historical traditions."
That's three things. Taking the questions in turn the answers are:
1. No. (See my comment above about the current Whitney and NewMu surveys)
2. The galleries have their own idea of media art--it's mostly video but there is sometimes a computer component (tabulating data, etc.). The computer is not front and center, it is usually in the back story.
3. Computercentric art has not been accepted into the mainstream and won't be as long as shows are only "about" packaging/marketing. We need more than that to be inspired (e.g "a NeoPop resurgence"). You are providing context after the fact for a show with a weak premise. Maybe Domenico should have consulted you before organizing the show.
"one thing this show asks is whether New Media has been accepted as Contemporary Art (i.e. become part of the gallery/museum world), whose practices have been accepted, how that fits into the current contemporary dialogue, and how does that relate to larger "mainstream" art historical traditions."
That's three things. Taking the questions in turn the answers are:
1. No. (See my comment above about the current Whitney and NewMu surveys)
2. The galleries have their own idea of media art--it's mostly video but there is sometimes a computer component (tabulating data, etc.). The computer is not front and center, it is usually in the back story.
3. Computercentric art has not been accepted into the mainstream and won't be as long as shows are only "about" packaging/marketing. We need more than that to be inspired (e.g "a NeoPop resurgence"). You are providing context after the fact for a show with a weak premise. Maybe Domenico should have consulted you before organizing the show.
The Rematerialization of Art
Correction: I have talked with Paul Slocum about presentation issues on the blog and elsewhere and I talked a bit with Olia Lialina about it, but that may have just been by email. So it's not accurate to say that several artists in your show have discussed this on my blog. Paddy Johnson, Michael Bell-Smith and I had a lengthy confab about the content issues of being "geeks in the gallery" on her blog if you want to check it out.
