I take it back - we're going to post negative reviews sometimes
In the comments of a post (I can't find) on this blog, I argue that there is no need to post a negative review- my argument being that there are too many good shows to cover anyway, so why waste time on bad shows? My ideology has been to attack ideas and not specific exhibits or artworks.
But what happens when an exhibit epitomizes a problematic or worrisome idea, and it becomes such a widespread trend that we use an exhibit as a case study? What I'm seeing, and some members of the FNA are seeing, is the trend of "Ironic Art".
To get a little linguistic, let's work with ironic's definition as, "someone else's voice" or as per Modern English Usage, "a second audience" - consisting of one party that upon hearing will hear and will not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that "more" and of the outsider's incomprehension. To paraphrase, the intention is for only the smart people in the room to get the joke, and what's really funny about it, is that outsiders won't get it.
Duncan MacKenzie always talked about the "Shitty Drawing Movement", which would present
child-like drawings, and everyone was supposed to know that this was done on purpose -these weren't actually crappy drawings, but parodies of parodies of crappy drawings that looked exactly like crappy drawings. What? Don't you get it? No? Then you're an idiot, this show is for the other, aforementioned "second audience".
But let me put out a more troubling example. I could use any minority group, but in this hypothetical, let's say a straight artist did an "Ironic Art" show about homophobia, and it brought up hurtful images, like Axl Rose's "AIDS kills F****** Dead" t-shirt, and slogans from anti-Gay marriage protests, and put it all on display. The show needing a super-sized font for the wall text is an understatement. I personally believe the art should have the irony built into the piece itself and not be dependent on the curator being an artistic collaborator to give the pieces its full meaning.
But the issue of context aside - beyond essays, explanations and assumptions, criticism of incendiary content is allowed, no matter how ironic the whole thing is supposed to be. The expectation that everyone is going to magically rise above all their personal and cultural experience and see this work in a vacuum is not a reasonable expectation. The "other audience" exists inside all of us, and to censor that is to censor our gut reaction, and stiffle our personal mindset, which gives each of us a unique viewpoint of art.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: DuncanMacKenzie, irony, shitty-drawing, Smell-the-glove, This-is-Spinal-Tap
I seem to remember Duncan calling that type of drawing: "Chewbacca taking a shit" - a classic.
Regarding "Ironic" art. Bad art, rendered ironically or not is BAD. It is not sufficient to have a stupid idea rendered badly. It's an insult. Nor is it sufficient to have a good idea executed poorly. Look at Karen Kilimnik for example. Museums shows or not - she is dreadful. She is not an artist. She is a hack. Let's not make excuses for, or rationalize, garbage. Garbage in garbage out.
I am pro-negative reviews. Upon reading the criticism, they're often the shows I go out of my way to see.
Hi All, thanks for the great comments, all.
Right Natalie, and that's why I used to be (and am still hesitant) about bad reviews, and ultimately why we posted it, because ... it really made me want to go see the show! I thought, how much harm could it be if it's now getting put first on my list of shows to check out. So it's Warhol's idea that there's no such thing as bad publicity.