Shirtless

Last month I got a call from a young art curator in a fix. She said, “I have a good job. It’s one of the best galleries in L.A. I don’t know what my problem is except that I can’t take it any more, the kind of art we’re showing–glossy, popart, Koonslike stuff. It feels so empty. I want to do something better.” I didn’t really know what she was talking about. But she went on to tell me that she had approached the gallery owner’s with an idea for a transformative art exhibit to introduce some newer, lesser-known artists who were making social critiques with their art and had something worthwhile to say. But the bosses had said no; they were sticking with the popular shiny stuff that sold.

Curator said, “Help me, Spiderfox. The world is falling apart and I’m just sitting here nudging it along.”

That’s a common feeling these days. I don’t get a chance to do much about it, and so I was very excited to help but I didn’t know what she needed me to do. I asked, “Why don’t you just do your show somewhere other than the gallery?”

“Because I want it to be big” she said. “It needs to be seen by lots of people to have an impact. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Curator found an old warehouse down near the port and she got to work putting together her show. Meanwhile, Spiderfox found some ways to get people to see it. First thing I did, of course, was to call Captain F&G who summoned his army of men, so there were a couple thousand people—men—available right there. I told him they had to wear shirts for the event; Captain promised to do his best. Then I created the nicest museum-quality placards, the kind you see next to a piece of art showing the title and artist and date. But on these I printed the name of Curator’s exhibit, the location, and the date of the opening night party. I added a variety of little come ons like, “Is this art?” and “”Don’t you care about what’s happening?” and “Pretty but empty.” Then I had a good time sticking these up all over town in museums and galleries next to the stuff that’s already up.

Curator got mad at me about the “Is this art?” one. She said, “It’s all art. That’s not the question. The question is Why do we care? Or maybe What’s it for? Or better, Is this saying enough?”

Spiderfox is always learning things. So I did a little reading to figure out what Curator was talking about. I started with Peter Schjeldahl’s New Yorker article “Artists Get Serious.” Schjeldahl examines a new exhibit called “After Nature” of several dozen international artists. He writes, “If the common run of contemporary art risks triviality in the pursuit of seduction, the new kind incurs hysteria as a toll of earnest intensity. Emotional reach exceeds formal grasp throughout the show, and certain melodramatic lurches fail entirely. . . . But the futility of artistic technique in the face of world conditions may constitute a subject for art as substantial as any other, and rather more compelling than today’s stacked-deck models of success.”

He is critical of the art in the exhibit, referring to various works as hysterical, despairing, silly, gaudy, smug, and even dumb. But he recognizes the cultural imperative and context for art of deep feeling and sees in it the “exhaustion of a received cultural situation, whose traditions are slack and whose future is opaque.” And he admires the work’s “driven sincerity” and “raw-nerved provocations.” Most important for him, the work, with its “existentialist standards of authenticity” signals a major shift in art and heralds the possibility of a future “forward leap” in art or at least the arrival of a new major artist. But Schjeldahl recognizes that neither may ever come.

Look at these:

Maurizio Catellan, Untitled, 2007

Jeff Koons, Elephant, 2003

Do you see what Curator is talking about? The Catellan piece is in “After Nature.” The Koons piece is the kind of thing Curator is reacting against. The way I see it, human civilization is heading toward shirtless, metaphorically speaking, and art’s response has been to whip off our shirts and spin them around our heads whooping. I think that’s what Koons is getting at. “After Nature.” in contrast, sews shirts out of sealskin (no lie) and says, “Kind of nasty, huh?”

The turnout at the opening party was enormous. Between Captain’s army and the throngs from my placards, we counted about two thousand attendees. Ongoing media coverage means attendance will continue at the exhibit in the weeks ahead.

So yay. But I’m left worried about two things. One: Captain couldn’t keep the shirts on. The media were highly focused on the shirtless factor. I am worried that the exhibit will be seen as some sort of gay event and that the majority of people will then be able to dismiss it as irrelevant to them. On the other hand, gay support hasn’t hurt art before. Think of Warhol or Basquiat or Haring, for example. Two: Curator was fired. She doesn’t care because she has had tons of offers. She’ll be fine workwise. But what will it mean to her personally, in terms of her personal development, in terms of her rebel vision? As Schjeldahl writes, “There is nothing new in our culture which can’t be faddified.” That’s what “After Nature” was reacting to. That’s the trap Catellan’s piece is leaning over. That’s what could happen to Curator. And Spiderfox might not be able to help.

That’s what I said. I’m Spiderfox

Shirtless image by chrichton91, 2008, Creative Commons license.

©2008 Spiderfox