Thursday, December 27, 2012

A Phoenix in Winter

Mass MoCA is an artspace housed in an old, enormous industrial complex in North Adams Massachusetts, nestled at the base of the Green Mountains and just above the Berkshires...it is crazy that I had never been there until just a few days ago! This space tends to be on the cutting edge of contemporary art with a strong lean towards performance, fostering residencies and events (ranging from the in progress to the rock concert) throughout the year. The progressive-ness of the space was definitely on view during my visit spanning everything from a Sol LeWitt wall drawing retrospective to the latest in Canadian video art (more on that soon!). But the thing that makes this space so appealing for so many artists is its size, featuring a nearly football field sized warehouse that is a daunting exhibition space for many...but not Chinese artist Xu Bing whose current exhibit, The Phoenix, just opened and who is so prolific, whose ideas are so big, he will be having a second show opening in April testing the limits of artistic gargantuanism! I would normally scoff at this idea, of an artist's bloated ego needing to fill up a hall this big twice over, but after seeing Bing's first round of art I was so inspired, so awe-struck, so full of ideas, that it definitely left me wanting even more.

Bing is mostly known for his work with language; inventing his own Chinese symbols, casting type faces, creating scrolls in reference to his heritage. His foray into large scale sculpture is a thing that was so arresting that I stood silent in it's presence trying to figure out a way to articulate the work to others, the piece communicating more through form than any blog post ever really could. Walking into the space that houses The Phoenix sculptures you are first confronted with crates, large packing boxes stamped with Chinese symbols that, presumably, were used to ship the giant birds across the globe. This seemingly simple detail of displaying the shipping method adds both an element of reveal, snaking you around into the exhibition space (like a good Serra), but also a nod to origin, manufacturing, communication, language and industry: these crates contain worlds and these worlds are so foreign yet hold the defining objects of so many other worlds within.

After walking through the crates you round the corner to see the actual sculptures, large, mythical birdlike creatures that rise from the ashes to be reborn as a new and beautiful animal. These Phoenixes hang above the large hanger feeling space, suspended so that they can be walked under and around, lightly floating while in actuality hulking with a dense weight, evoking a strange tension when you move closer and realize the composition of these beasts. Bing's birds are made from the refuse of construction sites in Beijing. Everything from used compressor cans, to saw blades, to sanding pads, to hard hats, all expertly patched together to form the image of these fire-birthed birds. It is so incredible, so complex, such an intricate puzzle- in both construction and content! Communist China recently had an industrial boom, a contradiction I don't quite get (their economy is some hybrid "socialist market economy" which seems to benefit the government but seems ultimately detrimental to workers, and one that the country regards with both skepticism and . This movement could be seen as a forward motion for the nation but is also highly arresting, detrimental to many Chinese workers. These birds are obvious, honest representations of the mythic past of a people whose world has changed and grown, concretized into a present that is ladened with contradiction, and whose future is precariously balanced on the wings of Bing's work.

Many contemporary Chinese artists deal with issues of reconciling a specific cultural past with the new culture of industry. Ai Weiwei and Stephanie Syjuco are two prime examples. And the recent, under-the-radar documentary Chimeras also deals with this issue by following a young, emerging Chinese photographer and a famous contemporary artist as they try to balance the changing cultures and expectations of their home, quietly displaying the clash of making relevant work in the face of tradition and the role that an "art star" system has in this particular politically motivated society- is it a mimic of the East? A new definition of what it means to be Chinese? Are the economic rise and the social structure compatible? The scope and scale of Bing's rendering of these questions will leave a permanent mark on his culture- especially since he was recently named Vice President of the Central Academy of Arts in Beijing, a feat that seems so unlikely in the wake of other recent treatment of thought provoking artists from the region. At first I thought the Phoenixes were a huge departure from Bing's language centered work, moving to an image in order to communicate with our image savvy digital society, but now I realize that they are an obvious extension. Each tiny fragment that composes these sculptures holds a meaning and history just as weighted as the entire image itself, the words of industrialization, the people behind the building, making up the sentences and identity of a highly spiritual cultural symbol...unlike the legendary Phoenix, and unlike the East's phantom vision of China, Bing's Phoenix is a solid representation of a culture that will always seem to remain intangible to others, at odds with itself, and always able to be reborn. More photos here.


Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Library of Congress or It's Okay America!

Being that the Holiday Season is upon us I have been watching a lot of A Christmas Story. Yes, I said a lot. For me it is the single best American movie, quite possibly, ever. There is humor, and love, and the cruelty of childhood/life all wrapped in a nice little Red Ryder BB gun package- it seems so simple but the depths of what the story covers are heartbreakingly beautiful, a pure American classic! Which is why when I found out that the Library of Congress just added the film to the National Film Registry I suddenly got really interested in this "Library of Congress?"

So, guys, the Library of Congress is awesome, did you know this? I mean, I am a library person in general but, after poking around the collection for a little while today I uncovered some pretty wondrous gems all collected for the preservation & advancement of America. Actually, the L of C began as a resource for Congress so that they could have access to information to perform their constitutional duties but as the collection expanded it seems that their mission statement did too: "...to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people." The fact that our own government desires for it's people to possess qualities of knowledge & creativity is a thing that I think we tend to overlook when arts funding cuts have swept the nation in recent days and so many other pressing disasters have taken priority...


As a film person I immediately managed to find a ton of early Edison recordings tucked away in the online archives available for your viewing pleasure- and in some cases, download! It also appears that long before the sneezing panda us Americans had a tradition of loving films of animals doing wacky things- immediately deeming a roller skating monkey worthy of precious film stock! There is also Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection which encompasses all types of information about early American folk music (including music, fieldnotes, transcriptions and tons of other resources)  and, one of my personal favorites, the WPA poster archive (some of which are seen here!)- can you imagine a time when the American government supported artists this way?

Digging through the holdings of the Library of Congress made me value our national culture a little bit more. It made me respect our (and consider myself more part of an "our") creative endeavors of all kinds- from Richard Linklater's Slacker (another new addition to the L of C holdings!) to recordings of traditional Native American songs (<--this one is exquisite), this resource is a thing full of lives that we should all take advantage of, especially when our current media is zeroed in on the tragedies...It is what we build as a society that we should focus on, not what gets destroyed. So, if you ever have a moment, I suggest poking around the Library of Congress site to restore some of your faith in humanity, media, & the potential good that government can build and also to inspire yourself to build too. And, if you weren't already convinced of the awesome powers of the Library of Congress, check out this story about another recent aquisition: a series of one Dallas filmmaker who made 200 (!) versions of the same kidnapping caper comedy which he filmed in different communities using locals throughout southern and central areas of the U.S. bringing a home movie, community building feel to the masses through the wonder of film!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Slow Blog Apology, Fast Life Exhaustion

Well...I am a bad blogger right now. But, it's because I am busy. Busy doing what you may ask? Well: currently I am a reader for the Electric Literature Recommended Reading series, a screener for a NY based film fest, writing an article on the future of film for a magazine (OMG I am so excited to share this with you when it is finished!), employed by a goat milk caramel farm, and waitressing at a pretty bad-ass restaurant hidden in the shadow of a mountain in a tiny, rural New England town..! Some days I feel like I am getting lost up here on the banks of the Connecticut River Valley but other days I feel like I am hiding out with James Tate and all of the other little reclusive pockets of thinkers, makers, and fellow puritan punks dotting the mountainsides in front of winter fires. Blogging will continue though...also, how do you guys feel about a radio edition of the blog?

In other news...here are a few links of interest for you:

1. Things to do to help out the suffers from the (most recent) national tragedy involving guns
...and another, this one a different take on a largely overlooked component of these types of incidents, that of mental illness.

3. My favorite collection of poetry on the web.

4. Reprints of Leonard Maltin's film mag Film Fan Monthly are now available for $5 an issue! Little time capsules of cinematic history, a great gift for any film lover!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Worst Art Show of 2012

Well...I usually don't write about art I don't like. So that is the disclaimer I am going to start with....and now I am ready to present the contenders for Worst Art Show of 2012!

1. MoMA. Meta Monumental Garage Sale by Martha Rosler
Well, guys, just in case you didn't know: a garage sale is, apparently, art! Yes. I get the whole "anthropological artifact" angle. The questioning of community & commerce. The class issues inherent in the need to hawk one's own wares. The idea of skewing commodity/art object/trash/treasure/aura/curation...all that, whatever....but really? Rosler has been staging her garage sales for decades now and, frankly, I find her approach kind of offensive...take this quote from this interview (an interview which I couldn't bear to read all of): "...I saw many so-called garage sales—a phenomenon I was completely unaware of. I was struck by the strange nature of these events, their informal economic status and self-centeredness, but also the way they implicated the community in the narrative of the residents' lives." I'm sure everyone loved it when Rosler showed up at their garage sale and looked upon them as strange, unearthly events that she- the artist- could inevitably use as a medium, taking a pure American ethos and putting it on view as her own personal "art." Bullshit! I may also be a bit sensitive here since I know that Rosler is a difficult artist, going through a quick clip of assistants each with their own horror story to boot, making any realness or genuine-ness in this piece strike me as even more ego-driven and false...And, speaking of realness...MoMA: $25 ticket price to go to a garage sale...?

2. New York City Gallery. Hot Potato by Ben Gocker.
The first time I saw work by Ben Gocker it was in the Miami art fair hub bub and I remember thinking "O...cute...I guess?" The second time I though "Yeah..." The third "Ug, really?" and then I started to read the "press release" to this show and I wanted to vomit. Immediately.  Multidisciplinary artists- mostly those with degrees in nonart- often brilliantly fool the art world...with a background in library science everyone assumes that, since he has (probably?) read books there is meaning behind Gocker's objects. But, after hearing the artist at a group show which he was a part of, joke about his own meaningless-ness, chuckling away at the absurdity of the awful sculpture of crap he presented. This work is cutesy pseudo intellectual garbage at it's best and, well, it is a thing we need to shut down people! I don't want to see the pastel machinations of a cloying white man-boy anymore...! Especially when the government is making robots with the ability to think about murdering on their own!

3. MoMA PS1. Just Knocked Out by Laura Faveretto.
"A sense of resignation to the forces of decay and obsolescence runs throughout her work—most visibly in her minimal cubes made of confetti, which decompose during the period of their display." Well....so...basically the confetti block is like the trash left after a parade but without the candy, moving floats, or marching bands...? I saw this exhibit. It was terrible. At one point I saw a man turn to his partner and say "You MUST see the next piece. It is ah-MAZE-ing!" Do you know what it was? It was the scrubbers from a car wash spinning around. Yup. That was it. And, even though they photograph well, there was nothing interesting about them whatsoever....If it was her own obsolescence and resignation (see laziness) that the artist was grappling with in this exhibit then job well done! Decay, change, monument & form (and the biggest cop out of the current contemporary sculpture landscape "play") all lurked around as potential themes/meaning but in the end all attempts just left me without feeling, engagement, or wonder...which, again, I think might be the point but was so un-fulfilling that I left this exhibition with a sense of dread, so un-stimulating in every way...it felt like the negative space my brain enters when I have spent too long in Ikea. And there weren't even Swedish meatballs to make up for it....! Un-nourishing on all counts!

Ok...so these are the most offensive art shows of 2012! And I am not saying that these artists are the worst artists by any means! Rosler's war-centric collages are beautiful, haunting, pop-y, vital wonders! Faveretto is also responsible for large kinetic social sculptures that (potentially) sound incredible- weaving a rope out of her own hair, hanging it in a gallery and allowing the viewer to move it around as it whips into an interactive creative frenzy! And Gocker...well, um...I guess I kind of like the way he makes those sculptures look like drawings...maybe-cough-Dubuffet-did-it-best-why-bother-o-it's supposed to be a comment on that probably-so-lame-art-about-art is so bad-cough? Either way, these shows are some kind of blaring warning signal to me that art institutions/galleries need to step up the game! Think of it this way: if a poor American family decided to go see some art, to gain cultural appreciation from the minds-and hands- of our current creative thinkers are these the things they would want to see? Are these ideas progressive? Inspiring? Interesting? Will this art stop wars? Spur children into action? I kind of don't think so...or maybe it will, what do I know?! But, I do know that I personally want to expect more from both the viewers and also those making the work on view. I want the elite-ism of art (even the garage sale has an inherent snobbery to it for goodness sake!) to cease. I want those profiting from it to give back more to their communities. And those funding it to hold the content accountable. For the insides of the book to be valued just as much as the way they look on a shelf. If the world does end at the end of 2012 (which it probably won't guys! Just an FYI!) I certainly do not want these shows to be the artifacts of our minds that are left behind...! So, 2013 anyone...?