Writes Sebastian Smee, in "A superb Whitney Biennial, marred by flimsy politics/The 81st edition of this closely watched survey of contemporary art is the best in a decade" (WaPo)(free access link).
"[W]hat if 1970s-style consciousness-raising is not why we came to the museum today?.... [Curators Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli] want their exhibition to tap into 'strategies of coping and healing.' This kind of therapeutic cant, which has lately taken hold in the art world, sounds benign. But it collides with the uncomfortable reality that many strands of social idealism have hardened into sticks with which to beat the 'unreconstructed.' If you think, as I do, that scolding, identity-based 'activism' feeds a reactionary impulse toward populist authoritarianism (a dynamic epitomized by the changing usage of the term 'woke' over the past decade), you might be less inclined to humor this Whitney Biennial."
So... there's a lot of low-quality left-wing politics screwing up the left-wing art, but the real problem is the way that nourishes the genuinely bad people, the right-wingers. Why can't you just point straight at the bad and call it bad? Why reel around and attack the people who aren't even participating in this shitshow?
ADDED: Never in the 20-year history of this blog — until now — have I seen fit to use the word "shitshow." "Shitshow" — according to the OED — is "U.S. coarse slang" that means "A situation or state of affairs characterized by chaos, confusion, or incompetence; a mess, a shambles, a debacle. Sometimes expressing contempt for bad organization, poor execution of a task, etc." This is a good word, and I approve of my selection of it — for the first time — for this post.
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48 comments:
Did he mean write on wall?
So... there's a lot of low-quality left-wing politics screwing up the left-wing art..
this ties into yesterday's post on Bruce Springsteen. Many people here said: (paraphrasing)
He's a jerk, and an idiot, and a dumbf*ck.. BUT; i REALLY like his music!
The Problem isn't "a lot of low-quality left-wing politics screwing up the left-wing art" ..
The Problem Is: low-quality art
IF this "artist"'s crap wasn't CRAP.. people would care (or at least know) who they were..
Serious Quiz Question.. How many of you readers (without going back and checking) know who this artist was?
I wonder if Even Ann can remember who made this shitshow?
This is mental illness.
Liberals are destroying the nation.
Shitshow Bloodbath. Good name for a band.
These seem to have been generated from a dutiful checklist of issues that includes Indigenous rights, race, abortion, disabilities, ecological destruction, gentrification and gender fluidity.
This is merely propaganda.
Real art challenges the existing regime.
A situation or state of affairs characterized by chaos, confusion, or incompetence; a mess, a shambles, a debacle. Sometimes expressing contempt for bad organization, poor execution of a task, etc.
Biden has made the US a "shitshow" country.
The article tells us, "...this show groans with good work."
If you've seen one menstrual blood painting, do you really need to see more?
Never in the 20-year history of this blog — until now — have I seen fit to use the word "shitshow."
Hmmm, wonder how long until Althouse labels something a "total goatfuck"?
”The Problem isn't "a lot of low-quality left-wing politics screwing up the left-wing art" ..
The Problem Is: low-quality art
IF this "artist"'s crap wasn't CRAP.. people would care (or at least know) who they were..”
Your post brings to mine the term “crap artist.”
I had a few things to say about what this appears to be, but...you seemed to cover all of it, and said it better than I would have.
Art that needs to be explained by the tag next to it on the wall isn't art.
"[T]he uncomfortable reality that many strands of social idealism have hardened into sticks with which to beat the 'unreconstructed'." -- Althouse
Ouch.
I went to a snooty arts college way back in the late 1980s and this "style" of "art" (for lack of a better phrasing)—scrawled slogans about the evils of capitalism and patriarchy, women's cabinets or beauty products held up as some sort of moral equivalent with the Middle Passage, all the tired cliches of the young and bourgeois playing at both being oppressed and being brave fighters against oppression etc—was EXHAUSTED back then. About 40 years ago!
Arts and culture are just frozen in a post-60s gesture of an eternally recurring pseudo-rebellion where every generation of "artist" must always be kicking the corpse of the Old World, and where things like skill, style, craft, essentially all the magic and beauty of real art are ignored or denounced.
This was maybe kind of "rebellious" in the 80s but now what passes for "art" is the same, stale empty gestures of anxious careerist narcissists who are full of rage and alienation because they have ZERO TALENT and nothing unique to say—and because we know it and they know it.
The art is crap.
The text is a (failed) attempt to show the brilliance of the artist and his vision. And by extension your stupidity for not getting "IT". Resulting, of course, with you exclaiming, "Of course I got it. Didn't YOU?"
And the circle jerk continues.
Can anybody define for me this "authoritarianism" that lefties claim that Trump represents?
... I'll wait...
I didn't think so.
"Never in the 20-year history of this blog — until now — have I seen fit to use the word 'shitshow.'"
It's good to keep the powder dry on words you might need some day.
Re: who-knew:
Art that needs to be explained by the tag next to it on the wall isn't art.
For this kind of high concept modern art, he art isn't just the object -- the object and the explanatory tag together are the artwork, and combine in the mind to produce the effect. Like a comic book or an old silent movie.
Who writes this wall-label gibberish (not just at this show)? Must be the same people who write tasting notes for mediocre wine. Is there a school for this somewhere? Or maybe they are journalists fired from the MSM for being too lucid.
Outside of Ramrod, Bruce Springsteen is the biggest hack in the history of music hackdom, not to mention a fucking working man hero of which nobody can deny. Ramrod sure does kill it though. One hit wonder with me.
I paid a visit to the Whiteny 20 years ago. Not a happy experience. Thought I would see some grand ol' American Art. Got there early to beat the crowd but STILL stood in line for 30 minutes AFTER the opening time because they had ONE person selling tickets. Then got in, and found almost nothing worthwhile on display. The Met was x10 better.
The write-ups on the paintings were the usual gooble-de-gook but I ignore that crap anyway.
Shitshow is strong language. Stirring the pot.
its much worse than you think
It probably helps to view this stuff heavily stoned, or tripping.
Shitshow sounds better in the original German.
"populist authoritarianism" - oxymoron?
It's exhausting to be progressive with all the things you are supposed to care about while updating the enemies of the people list.
I find myself at odds with my culture in both its popular and avant garde forms. Propaganda is everywhere. The creators of music, literature, history, science, theatrical films, plays, and just about everything else are all under pressure to tell me that I'm not good enough unless I cave to the Agenda.
I'm not alone. There's a lot of alienation out there, much more than one election can fix.
Kevin: Real art challenges the existing regime.
Not necessarily. The "Blue Madonna" didn't challenge the existing regime. Nor did Michelangelo's "Pieta".
Challenging the regime or assaulting the bourgeoisie seems to be the metier of hacks who think notoriety is the same as timelessness.
The art gallery here in our very small town has the most astonishing display this month. Every piece, from about six different artists working in various media, is thought-provoking and/or beautiful. I'm glad for us. However, major galleries in world class cities should be able to curate better than we can. The fail is so sad.
Yes. Now do mainstream comic books, movies and television.
It was an excellent exhibit comrade, don't you think?
"Never in the 20-year history of this blog — until now — have I seen fit to use the word 'shitshow.'"
Feels good doesn't it.
My youngest, the artist, made this observation.
There are two types of students in art school. Real artists who enrolled to learn and improve. Truly talented people. The untalented kids of wealthy people whos child needs a degree in something. You get a lot of political 'art' from the latter.
The Whitney is a fine place to spend an afternoon - some nice West Village bars around, if youre into that kind of thing. However, the Guggenheim has a much better vibe all the way around - nearby bars included.
The whole Smee critique doesn't really move the ball too far - and I guess that's mostly his job. It does however (to me) lift the whole "this revolutions is getting kind of boring", feel that seems to be gaining volume. who knows where it will go, but it happens to every revolution.
"If you think, as I do, that scolding, identity-based 'activism' feeds a reactionary impulse toward populist authoritarianism (a dynamic epitomized by the changing usage of the term 'woke' over the past decade)"
Just a variation on Republicans pounce. Can't these people at least recognize the laughable cliche?
"So... there's a lot of low-quality left-wing politics screwing up the left-wing art, but the real problem is the way that nourishes the genuinely bad people, the right-wingers. Why can't you just point straight at the bad and call it bad?"
Cuz that would acknowledge the prog problem, which is intolerable. Bad faith is a form of prog protection.
dynamic epitomized by the changing usage of the term 'woke'
The word did not change. Conservatives illuminated the word and made the left own the meaning
Once we had art of such transcendant beauty we needed essayists and philosophers to explain how its existance in this world led one to experience the beauty that lay beyond what we could directly perceive. Now we have art of such dull ugliness that we need wall placards to explain why it is taking up wall- or floor-space.
Narr said...
Shitshow Bloodbath. Good name for a band.
3/30/24, 12:34 PM
I'd reverse it - Bloodbath Shitshow. Then market it as BS.
free access link. How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
The deYoung in San Francisco has gone down this toilet. Plus, the new building's exterior looks like nothing so much as a set structure for a Star Wars movie, specifically some sort Of Evil Empire military outpost, complete with defensive weaponry. Black, metal mesh, angular, outcrops. I literally may never go there again in this life.
Fortunately, the Legion of Honor is still rewarding.
Ampersand said...
I find myself at odds with my culture in both its popular and avant garde forms. Propaganda is everywhere. The creators of music, literature, history, science, theatrical films, plays, and just about everything else are all under pressure to tell me that I'm not good enough unless I cave to the Agenda.
I'm not alone. There's a lot of alienation out there, much more than one election can fix.
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This resonates with me. Well said.
"I'm totally alienated."
"Join the crowd."
I visited a Cherokee museum in Oklahoma last year. The first three exhibits were about how indians mistreated blacks when they encountered them. The next three were about how white men mistreated the indians when they encountered them. Nothing at all about a proud heritage.
Welcome back my friends, to the shitshow that never ends.
"I went to a snooty arts college way back in the late 1980s and this "style" of "art" (for lack of a better phrasing)—scrawled slogans about the evils of capitalism and patriarchy, women's cabinets or beauty products held up as some sort of moral equivalent with the Middle Passage, all the tired cliches of the young and bourgeois playing at both being oppressed and being brave fighters against oppression etc—was EXHAUSTED back then."
I agree. I went to art school circa 1970, and so I was watching how things played out in the ensuing decades, and I agree that by 1990, this stuff was getting embarrassingly repetitive.
I remember encountering one person here in Madison around this time who had a skilled craft making elegant, beautiful bowls and other vessels. She said to me something like, "I just can't figure out how to get my politics into them" or "how to make them political."
That would have quite the witticism if she'd been kidding but she was quite serious. I responded in a way I regretted (because it didn't start a lively conversation): "I'd always thought that political art is bad art."
I was pursuing a career as a pariah in Madison.
"I was pursuing a career as a pariah in Madison."
That's what we likes about you, Ann.
Why reel around and attack the people who aren't even participating in this shitshow?
Dobie Gray and Tim Hardin had two valid answers in the mid-60s.
"I was pursuing a career as a pariah in Madison."
If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
'Specially online.
As a special collections librarian I sometimes had to deal with artists and their work, and museum curators and theirs.
Overall, it was an interesting and intellectually stimulating experience (like my worklife as a whole) but day-um, and politics aside, can they be pains in the fundament.
"I was pursuing a career as a pariah in Madison."
It's important to have a day job, to support side-gigs like "lawprof" and "internet seductress".
"So... there's a lot of low-quality left-wing politics screwing up the left-wing art, but the real problem is the way that nourishes the genuinely bad people, the right-wingers. Why can't you just point straight at the bad and call it bad?"
I thought Smee did a good job of pointing straight at the bad and calling it bad in his first few paragraphs.
E.g., "But their articulation in the work is, in most cases, feeble, perfunctory and completely illegible without the accompaniment of convoluted, brain-draining texts."
Then he raised the reaction as a secondary point.
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