Speculation Rules the Nation

Robert Del Naja, Bristol, 1985

Dubious hypothesis of the week, "street art" edition: According to a blogger in Glasgow, Banksy is really Robert "3D" Del Naja of Massive Attack. After all, if the Daily Mail deems that a dog worth chasing, then it must be true.

News of which has me walking to my book shelves and pulling out a couple of old volumes. First up, 3D as he appeared in the 2-page spread devoted to Bristol in the Henry Chalfant & James Prigoff title Spraycan Art, Thames & Hudson, 1987...

The other half of the spread being devoted to a young, pre-Metalheadz Goldie.

Next up is the volume Scrawl (1999, via Booth-Clibborn Editions), which features exactly one piece by Del Naja, but also depicts four graffiti murals by up-and-comer "Robin Banks," aka Bansky...

Comparing the two, I'd say that Banks's can control and and compositional sense in 1998 weren't quite as nuanced as Del Naja's had been some 12 years prior.

Bansky has said in the past that the work 3D had originally inspired him to pick up a spraycan and stencils. What's more, in the  Booth-Clibborn title, he's quoted as saying that members of Massive Attack were among the first clients to buy some of his canvases. (Meaning that Banksy haters can blame Del Naja & co. for helping the guy get a leg up.)

The Glaswegian sleuth Craig Williams cites as evidence that Banksy murals have a habit of popping up in various locations that seem the follow Massive Attack's international tour route. The only thing this prompts me to wonder is: Who, then, is the more obsessive Massive Attack fan -- Banksy, or Mr. Williams? Either way, I'd assume Del Naja already has a lot on his plate between the demands of his music career and also continuing to produce visual work in a variety of other graphic mediums. Enough so, that I image it'd be difficult to access the surplus time and energy it'd take to maintain a third career as a stealthy, nocturnal, internationally-renowned hit-and-run graffiti artist.*

"The Artistic Temperament"

Verdict of the Peter Doig case that I posted about earlier. As well as a befuddlingly hilarious recap of the closing argumennts.

Margin Call

Come what may:

"[The Luxembourg] report notes that following the 2008-09 financial crisis, few market sectors rebounded as robustly as art – particularly contemporary art, which has doubled in value since the beginning of the financial recovery. 

"But since art has no fundamental value, it is difficult for economists to apply economic principles to it. It is harder still to trade in art as an asset class, as the market has clearly attempted to do. [...] 

Levin said the bubble was inflating in part due to the prevalence of high-end money laundering being done through art, and how the two have come to affect one another. Buy art in one country and pop it in the private jet, the theory goes, and by morning you’ve moved $100m between tax jurisdictions.

"'In certain countries, art is very effective way for collectors to transfer wealth,' Levin said. 'It’s highly mobile and there’s a tendency for it trade up to whatever the strongest currency may be.'"

In other news:  I guess for years now NYCers have been saying that the city's been taken over by rich wankers. I guess this confirms it as fact.

image: Damien Hirst; "What Comes Up, Must Come Down", 1994

Pig in a Poke

"I did genuinely worry for a moment whether reality is a fiction designed to confuse me, which isn’t a thought that you are meant to really have."

In other entertainment news: Gio at BBB offers further reflections on the mass ornament; and at 555 Timh ruminates over the banalization of the apocalypse and the end of the end of history.

The Imaginary Museum

This article could've been a submission to the next edition of The Journal of 'Ugh', but instead it arrives by way of The Atlantic:

"But for art to have as much of an impact upon mass culture—and appeal to consumers—as those luxury brands have achieved, it will have to break out of its crystal bubble. It will have to follow the path that the food industry has for the last two decades or more, which has been the path of taking once abstruse and artisanal products and making them common fare. [...]

"'Anyone who is a serious member of the creative class,' Art Basel director Marc Spiegler told Reuters last week,' is going to come into our fair. We’re getting a lot of requests from CEOs and CMOs who’ve never come to the fair.' In other words, there is a legitimate turn taking place as the idea of an immensely lucrative contemporary art market ceases to seem like a sign some market bubble is about to pop. With each passing year, contemporary art becomes a more plausible tentpole for the global creative economy."

Of course, the whole piece serves as yet another megaphone of the marketplace triumphalism, a 'rah-rah' celebrating the wind down of this year's installment of Art Basel Miami.

There are so many problems with the thread of the author's argument that I almost get a headache trying to think of where to begin. But ultimately, the argument hinges on a number of socio-economic hypotheticals that fly in the face of the current state of things. For instance: As if an art fair is an ideal or even conducive setting for viewing art. As if every art fair is an equivalent to a Documenta, Venice Biennale, or a visit to the Gugg. And as if lots of collectors are like Charles Saatchi who -- be it for the sake of raising one’s profile or out of a genuine sense of cultural largesse -- share their collections with the public.

About that last item: Nevermind that the elevated prices brought about by the high-rolling market of recent years has priced out most museum and cultural institutions, the price of the average desirable acquisition far exceeding whatever funds they might have at their disposal. Instead much of the work ends up in private collections, often bought as a speculative investment, then shunted away into safekeeping and well out of public circulation then maybe sometime later put back on the auction block. (Unless, of course, they decide to donate -- once again, whether for the sake of public prestige, a sense of civic generosity, or as a tax write-off -- parts of their collection to art museums. If there’s been a surge in these donations in recent years, one which parallels the frenzy of the market, nobody’s mentioned it. Maybe the Pew Foundation’s already chasing those numbers.)*

In a way, one could argue that the article’s thesis tracks like a misunderstanding or distortion of the Beuysian equation of “Kunst Gleich Kapital,” extended to “Art + Money = Democratization.” Except, judging from the context, that the author’s idea of what constitutes “democratic” rests on the assumption that there’s a sort of trickle-down economics will come into play as a result of the perpetually-booming art market. Which I guess makes it the Chicago School of Economics version of Andre Malraux's "“Le Musée imaginaire." Praises be, edification from on high!

Say it with me: Ughh.

^ ^ ^
BTW: The image a the top is tom Eric Fischl's recent series of painting derived from photo studies taken at various art fairs. About which, note this article posted at -- oh, irony! -- the site for Christie's auction house. Final paragraph:

"Fischl does not paint the generous, open, multi-cultural city of Miami, infused with energy and Art Deco beauty, and lit by neon. This series is about the art world which, in his opinion, represents another country altogether."

Meaning that, in a way, it's a revisitation of his "Cargo Cults" series of beach paintings from mid-late 1980s.

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* This scenario is, of course, peculiar to the U.S.: where -- unlike other places -- cultural institutions and museums received little or nothing in the way of government subsidies, and therefore have to depend heavily on donations.

Pedagogical Interlude

“Yeah, this seems like a dick move,...it’s a dick move whenever a corporation rips off the creative output of an artist, especially an emerging artist. Even if [that artist] happens to be a war criminal.”

- Greg Allen, speaking to ANIMAL NY.

Object Lesson, II

Related to the topic of the prior post...

Of course, the pricing of an LP is – in theory, at least – based on the usual supply & demand principles, with the scarcity of a near-obsolete/technologically marginal format being the prime factor in the equation. Number of copies in circulation, etcetera.

Which brings us to the Wu-Tang Clan’s upcoming album The Wu – Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, of which there will be precisely one copy. A single copy, housed in a silver and nickle hand-carved box – presented as a unique objet d’art. The item will reportedly be sent on a tour of museums and galleries, where people will be allowed the one-off chance to bask in the glow of the album’s aura via headphones after paying an "entry fee," after which the thing’ll finally be put on an auction block to be sold to the highest bidder, the desired sum being in the seven-figure range.*

One might emphasize the word reportedly, because there’s a lot about the news item that suggests a media prank in the offing. If the enterprise seems a bit it preposterous, the accompanying proclamational text at the project's PR site hammers that impression home very squarely. At turns bombastic and apocalyptic, it makes a series of statements about the g music industry, all under the premise tap between popular music and “fine art” and the current state of the music industry, that the project in question would somehow tactically remedy or address anything connected with these situations. A bit droll, innit? Reuters finance contributor Felix Salmon argues that there’s the question of just much RZA and crew understand about how the artworld and its markets operate. Which would seem to be the case, but whether it’s a case worth arguing is another matter.

I’m not sure what subpercentage of the One-Percent might actually want to have the Wu as the “soundtrack of their life.” Strangely, the project is (once again, according to the website) the first in a series of such ventures by an entity calling itself – ugh – The Carmen Clandestine Experience, which purports to be "the world’s first private music service," about which there’s no further information to be found. By “private music,” one assumes this means: Music as luxury item sold to a sole deep-pocketed individuals or entities.

Perhaps the best comment I’ve read in relation to the Wu jawn is someone asking, “Maybe start a Kickstarter campaign to help ‘liberate’ the album?’”

Some would argue art’s ultimate value – or its greatest redeeming value -- is the role it plays in relation to the larger culture. A similar argument could be made music in relation to the social realm. In which instance, instead of debating if RZA & co. have completely misunderstood the nature of art; the better question would be if they've instead come to misunderstand the nature of popular music. Once again, providing this isn't all a joke/publicity stunt. Perhaps some barbed commentary about the inherent socio-economic contradiction of the one-time "music from the streets” getting too entangled with the exclusivist aspirations of gated community?**

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* Certain details lacking in all of this. For instance: Auctioned off how, or through what venue? Does the Anglo-Moroccan artist who carved the box get a cut of the auction, or was he offered a flat fee for his services? Whatever the case, I hope all the contracts are in order, and that the involved parties sought proper legal counsel in advance.

**Either that, or it's the product of smoking too much cheeb over the span of many years. Which would make the project the other type of "high-concept." You decide.

New Traditionalists

Or new retromantics, if you like. Teach your children well, and let the youth lead the way. Note the rhetorical interrogative posed as a cultural imperative, giving voice to the conflicted keening of the anxiously aspiring middlebrow set.

Not familiar with "Ob Art," but I'm pretty sure it was never -- y'know -- a thing. Unless it was, in which case it was even more of an invented, next-big-thing-that-wasn't non-thing; kind of like Op Art in the way it made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing for a brief five minutes, but was then even more easily and thankfully forgotten. (And if it never existed, then maybe it's time we invented it; seeing how you can go only so long by running on fumes & the like.)

Circa a 1966 issue of Redbook magazine, apparently, Via here, who via'd it from there.

Discuss.

The Inaesthetic, I

First, there's Chris Jones at The Appendix (by way of a relay at The New Inquiry) writing about the UK hardcore punk band Discharge, specifically about why the band received a much less-than-welcoming reception when it played Long Beach in 1986. Jones doesn’t make a bold assertion about whether or not Discharge were, in the end, any good; but he does make the case they were very good at what they aimed to do – playing fast and loud, etc.. If anything, Jones’s thesis seems to be that the band’s main problem was that it existed in the crap universe of music in the mid-late 1980s.

Which brings us to this bit, in which a cultural contributor to the conservative UK publication The Spectator dares to ask the question: Is Pussy Riot’s music any good? God, how tedious. But I suppose the question was bound to come up at some point. After all, critic Jed Perl recently had the audacity to ask if Ai Weiwei was a good artist. And of course in recent years there’s been a fair amount of debate to that same affect about Banksy (where the verdict seems to be overwhelmingly no).

All of which goes back to what I touched on in a prior post -- the nagging persistence of notions of quality. And how in recent times the argument has been made that the notion of quality and all its accompanying criteria are little more than an elitist (i.e., “undemocratic”) rubric that makes sure than certain people are kept at the cultural margins, that certain voices aren’t acknowledged, etc..

At any rate: As the Spectator columnist points out, Pussy Riot haven’t recorded anything yet. Well, of course they haven’t, and they probably won’t, because being a musical act proper probably ranks among the lowest of their ambitions. Rather, it’s probably better to regard what they’re up to as a type of performance art (of a “street theater” stripe) deployed in the service of activism. Aesthetic concerns are at best tertiary, in this context. Their intent isn’t to get signed to XL Records any more than Banksy ever wanted to be exclusively represented by Hauser & Wirth Meaning that most likely the wrong questions are being posed.*

In the case of Pussy Riot, as with Weiwei and Banksy, the goal is a form of activism, inasmuch as activism might involve little more than a calling-attention-to or "awareness raising." Which of course raises a whole different set of theoretical questions; questions having little or nothing to do with aesthetics, but rather with strategies of “hacking the society of the spectacle,” social engagement or intervention, or whathaveyou.**

Do you ever hear anyone asking if Thomas Hirschhorn is “any good”? Not really, because the critical consensus (for the time being, at least) is unanimous. But then again, Hirschhorn largely works through the usual channels, doesn’t he?

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*  A better question to ask in the case of Banksy might be: In what ways does this work differ from your run-of-the-mill newspaper political cartoon? The answers to which would have a lot to do with many things that fall outside the realm of art.

**  All of which is very dicey territory -- both critically; and also tactically, since it many (if not most) instances it can go so terribly wrong.

The Views Expressed Do Not Necessarily Reflect Those of the Station or Its Management

Recently stumbled across KEXP's "Review Revue" blog category thing, in which someone at the station scans and post old LPs from their library, highlighting the comments written by former DJs. And was a bit surprised at how boring much of it proved to be. Which had me thinking about my former community radio venue, and the odd items in its record library and some of the reviews scrawled thereon, thinking that said station should mount something similar.

And apparently someone there recently did just that.

First item that comes to mind, here's an old favorite, famous among staffers for its historical significance...

Featuring a response penned by one Mark E. Smith. Mark had recently married American expat Brix, who was in the lineup of The Fall. Brix, as it turns out, was an alumnus of the University of Chicago. And when The Fall played Chicago sometime around 1985-6ish, they apparently made a trip to the UofC campus, which included paying a visit to the radio station, with Mark E. poked through the record library and discovered that someone had made a disparaging remarks about Brix's vocal, and fired back: "YOU FUCKING DUMB MEDIOCRE PLANK! Signed - Lord Marquis E. Smith".

As I recall, he left comments on some other albums, as well. Sometimes taking issue with a staffer's reviewer, other times merely bestowing his blessing on the LP/artist.

The site so far sports a high ratio of old hardcore punk records for some reason, which is hardly representative of the rock end of the station's library. I thought some of the most amusing (i.e, quaint) comments came from the period roughly around 1980 -- from the years that the station was transitioning out of it prior AOR format (so common among left-of-the-dial college stations during most of the 1970s) and gravitating toward the noo music that would ultimately pave the way for '80s "college rock." Heated debates on the sleeves of some LPs by short-lived acts of that vintage; arguments about whether the act in question was a "real" or "fake" "New Wave" band, usually sparked by someone angrily decreeing that the artist in question (The Suburban Lawns, say) was little more than a despicably cynical trend-hopping opportunist, etc.

Former Copyeditorial Interlude

Because no.

Because?

Because iz boolshit. Because mine former hrvatski building super of long time had even for him better english grasp than.

Slates, Slags, Etc. (Reprise #115)

Re, I suppose there's any number of things I could say and this and this, but don't really see the point, since the artists who touched off the discussion/dirt-clod fight hardly merit the vicarious attention. (Nor does anything that appears at NME, for that matter.) And hardly warranting the descent into snotty-nosed snark and bogus polemics.

The End of History is Made at Night

Yep:

"Amazing that these artists are so hip. It's like: take an urban culture, wait twenty years, take out all the emotions, all the opinions, all the oppositional tendencies, all the funk, all the sweat, all the vitality, all the black people, and then get a good agent and a good haircut. And someone will actually be fooled into thinking that YOU are the underground!"

Hilarious rant from Aaron at ATTT. Or at least hilarious for me, if only because so much of it rings familiar (based on a majority of my clubgoing experience in recent years). Just substitute Chicago for Providence -- or substitute any city you care to name, really.

Showroom Model: For Display Purposes Only

I once had one a lot like this. Had it for many years, put it to a lot of use, so it had quite a patina on it. Mottled with patches and blobs of impastoed paint caked along the lower brace. Multicolored skeins and drips, layering one atop the other many times over. Each layer, each drip told a story, referred back to this or that specific work that was created on the thing. The phase when I was big on using lots of neutral and earth tones. The later phase when I used a lot of solvents, going for for lots of washed-out "atmospheric" effects. Referring to a particular stages in my artistic development...back in the days when I used to do that sort of thing

Lots of stories tied up in the thing. Like the time I missed what could’ve been my big break. Had landed a show at a downtown gallery, my first solo exhibition. A noted art critic – widely read and respected by his peers and readers alike – had agreed to review it. I figured that this was to be my ace in the hole, because I knew he was in corner, very much liked what I was doing. Not that I expected it to lead to sales right away, but a good review from him would’ve definitely paid off in the long term, would have generated ample interest in my work. But en route to the show, he and his wife got into an argument in the car, which led her to accidently steer into oncoming traffic, which put them both in the hospital with minor injuries, which meant that he missed the show. Sure, a couple of reviews appeared, but they were each written by some piddling, unimaginative hack who wrote for local publications whose readership couldn’t give a shit about art and therefore never bothered to read the art reviews section in the first place.

Or the one about the big show that took place not too many months later. It had been in a new gallery space in a huge semi-raw loft space, recently opened by a partnership of local aspiring art scenesters. The opening was a fairly big to-do and a lot of people showed up. It was a good mix of work, and my own was hung with a couple of other artists who were well established on the city’s art scene. A lot of paintings sold that evening, including three of my own. Turned out one of the partners who’d been brought in to open the venue had claimed he had considerable financial backing on the venue. Thing was, he didn’t – he had lied about it all. So to cover his ass, on the sly a couple weeks later he booked a clandestine late-night rave in the space, hoping to pass off what he raised on door admissions as the promised fiduciaries. Of course, the other partners in the venture found out about it later, because a number of paintings hanging around the place were damaged or destroyed by the attending revelers. Including four of my own, three of which were the ones that had been purchased. Which proved to be neither nor there, since none of 'em had yet to actually write out a check or anything.

Shortly after that I got an agent. She worked some connections and got me into a gallery that had a pretty decent roster -- lots of big names. So many big names, in fact, that I became something of a "backroom artist." And by that I mean the sort of of backroom artist whose stuff never comes off the shelf back in the storage cubby, because the big names stay up on the house walls all the time. So that proved to be the potential score that went absolutely fucking nowhere.

I guess I should've reckoned early on that it wasn't going to go anywhere. Back when I was first starting out, and I sought to score an assistantship under a renown German artist whose work I was very taken with. He'd come to town for an exhibition, and I approached him at a party after the show's opening. I made my pitch, told him I thought it would be a great opportunity -- if he were willing -- to work in his studio. He was evasive, I felt really awkward, as he was standing about with a number of admirers and associates, knocking back some beers. When I could tell that my effort had hit a brick wall, I changed the subject, asking him if his work was as well-received in Europe as it was here. He grimaced and said that European audiences were different. They'll be polite to your face, he told me, and then once your back is turned they'll "get drunk and tear you to pieces." A friend later told me that once I'd left, the artist and his friends proceeded to do much the same to me -- mocking me as soon as I was out of earshot. That they'd snickeringly dubbed me "painter man." Apparently I had been naive in more ways than one, had misunderstood the nature of his work. Yes, his work consisted entirely of painting, but apparently -- in the end -- it wasn't painting, had nothing to do with painting, was a wholly different enterprise. Theoretically, at least. But I was too young to get that at the time. He thought painting was a trite, obsolete, and moribund mode of artistic production; therefore what he was doing wasn't really painting. He was just painting condescendingly.

Like I said, lots of stories. About setbacks, betrayals, personal failures and shortcomings – all sorts of other things I could tell you. Stories prompted by that easel I had, if I still had it. But fuck it, who cares? Not me, not since I gave it up. Put it all behind, and found something else to do – something less chancey, something more reliable, more lucrative.

No, I don't have the old one anymore, thank god. Too many memories tied to it. Got rid of it some years ago. Donated it to the art department of a local university, who were happy to take it. And then recently I got this one. Yes, the old one originally only cost me about eighty dollars, and this one cost me over 2K. But this one is better. First, it doesn't take up as much room as the old one I used to have (I used to like to work large), so it much more easily fits in this space nicely.

The other advantage to this thing is that I have no personal connection to it. I had nothing to do with any of the paint that you see smudged and slung across the thing. Somebody else -- probably some low-waging schmuck in a warehouse somewhere -- did all that. It arrived that way, readymade.

Which is good, because I don't really like talking about myself, anyway. Never have. Maybe that was part of my problem, why I was doomed with that prior enterprise of mine from the start. Because that sort of thing can be a handicap in certain lines of work, especially ones where you're frequently expected to schmooze and to – y’know – "sell yourself" and that whole rigmarole.

But they’re right, it does make for a good conversation piece. I suppose I could put something on the thing, but I like it the way it is – just standing there like that. I like the way it calls attention to itself. I like that, in the way it calls attention to itself, it seems to be saying something about what I do. Except that it doesn't. The only thing it has to do with me is that it's something I bought.

There's pretty much a similar story behind that antique Underwood manual over there on that desk. Except that I damn-near flunked the typing course I took in high school.

So, what can I get you to drink?

About the Artist

As if I hadn't been long aware that certain types of texts practically writes themselves...

Wallace Crumley

Wallace Crumley (b. 1974, Lexington, Kentucy) makes conceptual artworks, performances and media art. By studying sign processes, signification and communication, Crumley touches various overlapping themes and strategies. Several reoccurring subject matter can be recognised, such as the relation with popular culture and media, working with repetition, provocation and the investigation of the process of expectations.

His conceptual artworks are on the one hand touchingly beautiful, on the other hand painfully attractive. Again and again, the artist leaves us orphaned with a mix of conflicting feelings and thoughts. By manipulating the viewer to create confusion, he makes work that generates diverse meanings. Associations and meanings collide. Space becomes time and language becomes image.

His works are characterised by the use of everyday objects in an atmosphere of middleclass mentality in which recognition plays an important role. By using popular themes such as sexuality, family structure and violence, he makes works that can be seen as self-portraits. Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times, they seem typical by-products of American superabundance and marketing.

His works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, clichés and bad jokes. They question the coerciveness that is derived from the more profound meaning and the superficial aesthetic appearance of an image. By parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, he often creates several practically identical works, upon which thoughts that have apparently just been developed are manifested: notes are made and then crossed out again, ‘mistakes’ are repeated.

His works question the conditions of appearance of an image in the context of contemporary visual culture in which images, representations and ideas normally function. By taking daily life as subject matter while commenting on the everyday aesthetic of middle class values, he often creates work using creative game tactics, but these are never permissive. Play is a serious matter: during the game, different rules apply than in everyday life and even everyday objects undergo transubstantiation.

* * * *
Text created by using the Artist's Biography Generator, a component of Belgian artist Jasper Rigole's "500 Letters" project.

III

Apparently they were part of some subgenre that briefly came and went, and their first and only album was an attempt to conform to some trend that had a lot to do with fetishizing (or perhaps only obsessively shopping for) shoes.

Post-breakup, the frontman would have a prolific career of befuddling and bedazzling the world with the eclecticism of his output.

Contractual Obligation Interlude, II

Unsurprising that the group would call it a day after this, their swansong single. As many critics have pointed out, the A side mostly sounded like a slight and somewhat tired retread of their debut, "Insert Text Here."

Painter Man (Can I Join Your Band?)

"I hate music. I always have."    - Don Van Vliet