Continuing our series on Consensus Malpractice ...
The Brooklyn Rail is a wonderful website of “Critical Perspectives on Arts Politics and Culture.” Sharkforum readers should check it out. One recent article in the “Art Seen” section I found very enjoyable: “Call it Merde” by artist and art critic James Kalm. He has his own youtube page with videos of art criticism.
A few excerpts to tantalize you:
"As the new art season opens, led by the charge of the market bulls, we’re confronted once again with the latest, the hottest, the chic-est. For this somewhat jaded spectator, who’s experienced our culture’s willing desensitization via a plethora of evermore “shocking” gestures, I find myself wondering about its relationship to that most base of all materials: shit, crap, doodoo, poop. ..."
..."In an essay titled “The Trouble With Youth” that appeared August 20th on artnet, Donald Kuspit lays out a thesis that in part draws a correlation between the mentality of the avant-garde and society’s obsession with youth culture and the desire to remain forever young, hot and audacious. This overriding desire for innovation and novelty, rather than hard-won mastery, which has dominated the art market for much of the last century, is one of the most blatant symptoms of the syndrome."
“ 'Progressive' ” art has prized untainted childlike perception for decades, and for babies, little Duchamps in diapers, feces is the first readymade medium."
"In several recent articles and lectures Jerry Saltz has lamented the fact that “we have no economic theory for the art market.” Not to pick on poor Andy, but despite his relative merits as an artist, he’s Exhibit A of the “Bizarro World” nature of monetary value in the art world."
Now go read the whole, wonderful thing!
http://brooklynrail.org/2007/10/artseen/merde
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