"... consisting of wild rabbit, spinach, aloe water and coconut oil.... [A] studio spokesman told Artnet that assistants were in fact dispatched to make Napoleon’s 'veterinarian-prescribed meals.'... On Tuesday, Mr. Sachs... said that he sincerely regretted having referred to a particular room in the studio housing an air compressor as the 'rape room.'... For all the recent show that the art and fashion worlds have made of their progressive politics — their efforts to market their alignment with inclusive causes — they remain tied to caricatures of intemperate genius — even when the genius itself is hard to locate. A brilliant artist reads beneath the culture, identifying the undercurrents the rest of us cannot easily recognize. What should we make of one who has managed to miss what is happening right on top, who has been blind to a tidal wave of shifting social norms?"
This gets my tag "geniuses."
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People like Tom Sachs need to have new employees sign NDAs, and avoid hiring people with pronouns. This is not an existential problem; it can be easily remedied.
That sounds pretty bad. Making a dog eat spinach? Maybe not actually abusive, but certainly rude.
"For all the recent show that the art and fashion worlds have made of their progressive politics — their efforts to market their alignment with inclusive causes — they remain tied to caricatures of intemperate genius — even when the genius itself is hard to locate."
The NYT discovers that art and fashion are businesses! Or perhaps they've known that for some time, but only recently determined that it was fit to print.
"What should we make of one who has managed to miss what is happening right on top, who has been blind to a tidal wave of shifting social norms?"
He wasn't blind at all. He saw how long Weinstein could do his thing. He knows Epstein's clients got off unscathed. Franken is back palling with Lindsey. Bill Clinton is an elder statesman. Social norms apply selectively to people progs dislike. Of course, anyone at anytime can become a target. But good progs can play the probabilities for personal benefit.
Art vessels have a full complement of the human element. If you try to fix it, you wind up with this.
Bottom line. It's deeply flawed people making better art. (link to Hunter Biden's art 😬)
Artist need wiggle room. For example, are going to ask Banksy to get a permit for what he does? It's a question of prioritizing our sensitivities. We make compromises all the time in exchange for something of greater value to us. Stuff we care about. We need these flawed people if we believe in art, if art is to continue to have a preeminent place in our lives, if the artistic endeavor is worth preserving.
Maybe Hunter is a poor example. Hunter used his father's position for personal gain and the VP's personal gain. If anybody belongs in jail, it's Hunter and his father.
Based on a cursory review of images by Sachs online, he's a fraud as an artist, but perhaps a genius at grifting those with no real familiarity with art, and too afraid of being seen as squares to balk at his shit.
Frenchies are suddenly the mode. I'm sure it says something profound about our current pass, but have no idea what it would be.
Ugly-ass sumbitches.
"What should we make of one who has managed to miss what is happening right on top, who has been blind to a tidal wave of shifting social norms?"
Well, if they are progressive we say, "Bad boy,Tom, you genius you.
If conservative we burn down their house with their non-vegan pets inside.
Sure, sure ... it was his wife's bulldog ...
Step up and own it, art boy ...
Right now, I have a can of Campbell's Soup, a beer can, and a large jug of Tide in the house.
I'm willing to sell the Warhol and the Jasper Johns.
Maybe I should unload the Tom Sachs as well.
Social norms change with the wind. Art is timeless.
Art informs social norms, not the other way around.
NDAs are not binding anymore. That's what's happening.
Get ur popcorn.
Novelty explains some of the appeal. We can ridicule 1960s collectors who loaded themselves up with junk, but there may have been something captivating about seeing new, unexpected objects in an art gallery. It may look awful hanging in your living room for thirty years, but it did make an impression in the gallery.
I looked up Sachs's work expecting to hate it, but I found some interesting works that would attract attention in a gallery and spark conversation. Now I look at it again a few minutes later, and I'm less impressed. The overall impression is that he's not that creative or imaginative, doing for McDonald's what Warhol did for Campbell's soup, doing for NASA what Rosenquist and Lichtenstein did for the Air Force, and ripping off Johns in even more blatant ways -- but the price of admission to a gallery is a willingness to find the banal profound, so once you're inside you might buy something, if your bank account is big enough.
Amending comment above 👆🏽: Art vessels have the full complement of the human condition.
People of the great reset, out to remake the world, need to reign in artists and art. It’s not obvious to most people why.
The missus is kinda foxy. +1.
His other creations are just meh. - (>1).
Net loss.
By necessity, most artistic types are "neurodivergent", or to put it in the vernacular... Nuts. All of them. Doesn't matter who, doesn't matter where... They're fundamentally nuts. You find a sane one, they're usually serving as a front-man for some loony off in the shadows.
Or, they're not any good.
Same-same for a lot of the "talented". Really good military leaders, like Patton? All of 'em are generally nuts.
At least, by the standards of "normal" people.
It's the same even down at the lower levels; how many restaurant owners have to deal with half-crazed cooks? You'd be surprised at the level of crazy you find going on in the kitchens of even the most prosaic places. And, people put up with the crazy because... A lot of the time, crazy gets good results.
Sad fact of life, that. The thing is, a lot of these crazies really need normal people around them, reining them in and keeping them from going too far off the rails. Fact of life, that... You have to have someone whispering in their ears about the mortality of it all.
Which A-List Art Power Couple Was Behind That Absurd, Now-Viral Ad for an Assistant?
from Art Net News:
When a “high-profile art world family” posted an ad on the New York Foundation for the Arts job board looking for an executive assistant, the internet took notice—and not in a good way. The demanding position read like a parody and seemed significantly underpaid at just $65,000 to $95,000 a year given the role’s extensive responsibilities.
So who is this family seeking a candidate determined to “make life easier for the couple in every way possible,” including by managing their “dog systems,” “closet systems,” rooftop gardening, drafting emails and social media posts, picking up clothes from “high-end stores,” booking “high-end travel,” providing IT support, helping with “in-studio cats,” managing house cleaning, providing childcare, being available on nights and weekends, signing an NDA, and driving the family to the Hamptons—after packing their bags?
Tom Sachs and Sarah Hoover!
You cannot say the assistant was not warned.
His assistant was tasked with annoying errands and routine tasks he didn't want to do? Isn't that why people hire assistants?
I'm guessing Harvey Weinstein really wishes he'd thought of NDAs!!
You have it backwards. Talented jerks can keep their jobs. Less talented "crazy" people scrape by as no one will put up with them.
I can't help but imagine the provider of the "wild rabbit" has a barn full of caged bunnies that are the ones actually provided to customers, and a partner who goes into the field to film him "hunting" for the feral Lagomorphs. Now that would be some subversive art.
Based on a cursory review of images by Sachs online, he's a fraud as an artist, but perhaps a genius at grifting those with no real familiarity with art, and too afraid of being seen as squares to balk at his shit.
It is an infinite universe after all; I agree with Robert Cook on something.
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