I'm reading Julia Halperin's
"Covering an Artist With Unconventional Materials: Strict Rules and Time/A culture reporter is always watching for art that challenges us to look at the world, and our lives, differently. An artist who lived in a cage for a year ticked that box" (NYT).
Hsieh’s retrospective brings together documentation of and objects from all of his one-year performances. In addition to “Cage Piece,” they include “One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece),” for which he punched a timecard clock every hour on the hour, including at night; and “Art/Life One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece),” for which he spent the year tied to the artist Linda Montano by an eight-foot rope. Hsieh made “One Year Performance 1985-1986 (No Art Piece),” when he refused to look at, think about, talk about or make art. That gallery is empty....
Why would someone do these outrageous things? Why are they considered art?... Hsieh resisted answering my questions.... “It’s not like I become Superman,” he told me.
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19 comments:
Oh God another Halperin.
…artists want to challenge only with things that are comfortable to them…
Only slightly acquainted with the Halperins, but Mark Helprin is a great novelist, and could hilariously skewer a poseur like Hsieh, if he decided to bother. Or make us love him.
Autistic tics.
Tick...tick...tick...tick...tick...
Ya ever think the art word might be existing in a bubble, ann? You've seen a lot. Where is it going? Back to conservativism, trad art again? Follow the money? I don't think future people will keep consuming what's being served up -- like they rejected mass market music w/napster; tv shows and movies w/streaming services; books w/open access to all the world's reading materials...
Will the old art world survive? (this is still the old-money art market funding this, right?)
Bleh... I hope you haven't knocked off for the day. You don't want to leave this post topping the blog all Monday. Your audience won't have too much to say on this one... more meat, please?
‘Performance art’ = ‘Off-off-Broadway Wannabes’
Not exactly an artist like, say, David Mamet.
When did stupid stunts become "art"? I'm pretty sure it was within my lifetime but you could make the case that it was even earlier. Marcel Duchamp comes to mind a possible culprit.
You can tell some artists by their box.
Good art requires vision, technical skill, and belief. Performative bullshit requires none of the above.
Christ in Urine. Tick
Who gives the best performance of John Cage's "4'33''"? (I'll bet jolly Dave Hurwitz has covered it.)
“Why would someone do these outrageous things? Why are they considered art?”
Well, an “artist” has to do something, and everything worthwhile has been done.
The greatest fool theory applies to more tan price.
Why would someone do these outrageous things? Why are they considered art?
Because it takes talent to do a Madonna and Child without using feces.
In den letzten Jahrzehnten ist das Interesse an Hungerkünstlern sehr zurückgegangen. Während es sich früher gut lohnte, große derartige Vorführungen in eigener Regie zu veranstalten, ist dies heute völlig unmöglich. Es waren andere Zeiten.
Most official art these days is a complex partnership between attention whores and money launderers. Sadly so as there are amazing artists out there.
What rehajm said at 11:05 os spot on. They are existing in their own derivative comforts and appealing to their moneyed masters with predictable side card explanations. They are protests in inflatable artist costumes getting the attention they need while being anonymous in playing a role in a sad, meaning starved system of money management for the corrupt
It's not art. And those people who consider it to be art, are ....probably liberals.
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