It’s that time again down here in Miami. As of last year, the beginning of December sparks the huge art celebration that is Art Basel Miami Beach. Literally thousands of artists and art dealers will be set up down here for the weekend to show off the modern art of the world. Last year’s event was crazy. There was tons of music on the streets of the Design District, and practically every store in the vicinity was displaying somebody’s art work. Heck, even I had a showing. Really. The folks at Thirdeye were nice enough to advertise my own show in their office space. People came in and out, spoke to me about my work, and I even got interviewed my a magazine. Unfortunately I never found out if it got printed, I don’t think it did though. There were so many other ‘important’ people out there that they just threw my name at the bottom of the list. No sweat, at least I got some exposure.
This year I will not be displaying any new work, frankly because I don’t have a new series to show. I will, however, visit plenty of art shows and openings. I’m expecting it to be art overkill as it was last year. About half of what I saw last time was caca, so I’m not going to get my hopes up in terms of seeing any good paintings or sculptures. Seems like everyone wants to do some sort of shocking installation art or conceptual art. Gag. Come on, people! You’ve turned the aesthetic experience into a bad sex joke, and nobody’s laughing.
what kind of art would you like to see?
i re-read the last part of your post and saw that you gagged at conceptual art. i was just wondering why it is a bad thing. the following webpage clears up a bunch of misconceptions about conceptual art and really explains why it is important, though .. if you are interested:
http://www.biddingtons.com/content/pedigreeconceptual.html
i can totally understand your hatred of installation art that intends to startle. maybe you didn’t mean it the way you did by grouping conceptual art with ‘shocking installation art’ (‘cause not all conceptual art is like that, of course), but i just wanna try and clear stuff up. ok, bye.
I meant it the way I said it. Yes, there is a fair amount of conceptual art that in the past has contributed to the view of art and how art is to be appreciated from a certain point of view. Unfortunately, a lot of the conceptual art that is performed/installed/described today is only for the benefit of the artist. It often serves just to humor the artist, in seeing how much a bystander can handle seeing/hearing/smelling an out-of-place material. I’m not saying either of it is invalid as ‘art’, it’s just that (at least in the Miami art scene) we’ve been overloaded with strictly this type of expression. A growing majority thinks they can contribute to the art world just because they have an idea. Unfortunately these ideas are displayed poorly. It’s about how much you can get away with nowadays, and the craft itself has been neglected. Why aren’t there any more paintings? sculptures? print materials? It’s too difficult to do. Let’s take the easy way out. Let’s dress some weirdo in a peanut butter and see how long the smell lasts. Let’s write curse words on canvas and see who buys it. Let’s get a blow-up doll and walk around with it. Let’s pee in a glass and put a price tag on it. Let’s have someone shoot themself. There’s an idea!
Is art with a concept just as valid as conceptual art? We hatched this issue out in class a few weeks ago, and it seems to be a topic that can have no absolute solution to it, or perhaps I haven’t done enough philosophical reflection on it. On a personal level it all boils down to quality. Anyone can express an idea. Just say the word and someone can tap into it. Love, hate, mortality, humor, hunger. The artist finds a way to visualize it, and sometimes it sucks. I fear there will be a lot of suckiness this time around, and people will be applauding it.
Dude it’s true. And that’s because there are just alot of sucky people around. Haha, it’s true. Well I guess either that or they just know the person who created it, then even that artist’s “barf art” can look good enough to eat. (Recent web experience
)
thank you so much! that was such a well-written response. i admire you, mister david; you have no idea.
you are so right about some ideas being shown in a not-so-smart way nowadays. i think that sometimes it takes more than just 2-d work to really flesh out an artist’s idea, but only if s/he does so in an intelligent manner.
which artist shot himself? are you thinking of yves klein? i think he had someone shoot him in the arm. besides that crazy stunt, i think he’s composed some really beautiful pieces. his “living paintbrush” prints are pretty nice.
lemme know how the art basel show goes down!
so, which magazine were you interviewed MY?
Well I was interviewed by the non-profit organization known as Gen Art, who is known to have connections with Ocean Drive magazine. It was almost impossible to find the January issue of last year, which included pictures and interviews from Art Basel. But when I finally found it, I didn’t find any bit of reference to me. I did find plenty of pictures and interviews with another DASH student though.
Gafawing with laughter
I too have heard many a tale of Mr. Cortizar.
“The craft has been neglected…”
I agree. You already know my opinion on this—I was in that WARP discussion. There’s definately a fine line.
Fred has this little prodigy named Joy (spelled weird) Hwang who painted two walls of pink clouds at the Art Basel exhibit. I was really mad and annoyed. I wish you saw it…People were laughing. The other famous alumnus Hernand Bas takes photos and splatters red blood and pentagrams on them…I mean I am exxagerating but, C’MON!
I feel sometimes like I have to explore taboo or
extraoridnary subject matters just to feel like my work is important to Fred.
He had about 7 interviews this year in the Herald. Not one time did he mention our school. Pompus.