Swollen and bilious, but still beautiful
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Damien Hirst is Getting a Drubbing
The BBC has a helpful roundup of reviews panning Hirst's foray into painting with his "No Love Lost" exhibition at the Wallace Collection. Mark Hudson at the Telegraph thinks the unanimity among critics is so total it might signal a pivotal moment in the history of art.
I haven't seen the paintings, obviously, so it's hard to say much there, but actually it hardly seems necessary when the real story is the critics. That is what everyone seems to want to talk about, concerted critical dismissal attached to so prominent a figure coming along so rarely as it does. Knife and fork, please. Mark Hudson has one remarkable quote in the article linked to above, speaking of
In contrast, the paintings themselves, both in the glimpses from the press photos and as outlined in the reviews, seem too nondescript to incite this sort of response. For an artist who made his name with adjectives like "outrageous," what is remarkable is that so little of the chutzpah is on the canvas. When the reviews puff about Hirst's gall they are chiefly complaining about his venue, the Wallace Collection being one of the grandest of grand old master galleries. It's as if, outraged criticism being no longer able to go hand in hand with outrageous art, critics have retreated to guarding original genius and treating the quality of being merely "derivative" as the original sin. The ire does not fit the crime. Moreover, there is an inversion at work in a model where the artist staging absurdist installations and literally phoning in work to subordinates is taking the critically safer path than the artist working in oil on canvas himself with more or less transparent references to other artists.
I haven't seen the paintings, obviously, so it's hard to say much there, but actually it hardly seems necessary when the real story is the critics. That is what everyone seems to want to talk about, concerted critical dismissal attached to so prominent a figure coming along so rarely as it does. Knife and fork, please. Mark Hudson has one remarkable quote in the article linked to above, speaking of
"...writers with an understanding of the art of all eras who have had to pander to every kind of money-inflated idiocy in order to appear relevant in our ever more uncertain cultural market place – in order, simply, to keep their jobs. But now the critical worm has turned."What is he saying? That critics have been faking it with work that but for "money-inflated idiocy" they might have considered rubbish? Is he so sure "the critical worm has turned" that he wants to raise the curtain like that? Hudson's is the giddiest expression, but reading these reviews you do get a sense that some backed up bile is enjoying an overdue venting of the spleen.
In contrast, the paintings themselves, both in the glimpses from the press photos and as outlined in the reviews, seem too nondescript to incite this sort of response. For an artist who made his name with adjectives like "outrageous," what is remarkable is that so little of the chutzpah is on the canvas. When the reviews puff about Hirst's gall they are chiefly complaining about his venue, the Wallace Collection being one of the grandest of grand old master galleries. It's as if, outraged criticism being no longer able to go hand in hand with outrageous art, critics have retreated to guarding original genius and treating the quality of being merely "derivative" as the original sin. The ire does not fit the crime. Moreover, there is an inversion at work in a model where the artist staging absurdist installations and literally phoning in work to subordinates is taking the critically safer path than the artist working in oil on canvas himself with more or less transparent references to other artists.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Nobel Status Anxiety
Little follow up. Is Obama getting this award because the Committee is eager to demonstrate it is not provincial? Maybe this seems like a stretch, but indulge me.
Remember back last year the big kerfuffle when Horace Engdahl (thank you, Google) ripped American literature as "isolated" and held back by "ignorance" of the wider world? A common defense on this side of pond was to note that the provincialism was all with Horace and and Noble Committee. That when American literature had focused on the rural and slowly built up still in the shadow of other traditions, it well pleased the Committee to award it the occasional prize. But as American literature flowered in the post-war years with countless major authors representing a global cultural and linguistic American presence, so to did American visibility in the Nobel awards slow to a trickle. In other words, America could be appreciated while its literature embodied certain stereotypes or as the country mouse to Europe's city, but not so much as an engine in its own right of international culture. "Europe," Horace had huffed, "is still the center." Provincialism, replied defenders, explaining Horace's en masse dismissal of American writers, his ignorance of the American literary scene, and his trite use of geography to locate a "center" for literature. It was provincial in another way as well. The attempt to pretend, both in the quote and in the Prize's ignoring of American literary contributions for the past several decades, that American literature didn't matter all that much smacked of les provinciales mocking les parisiennes in old French plays (coarse! not really so important!), with the Europeans in the role of les provinciales.
Seen this way, the controversial quote from Horace last October was a statement born of insecurity. The comically politically overdetermined awarding of Barack Obama might be seen as an attempt to play a relevant role in American politics. Perhaps it was meant to demonstrate the Committee wasn't as tone deaf as those Danes over the border. However it was meant, the case for continued relevance that the award unavoidably makes every year has been made ridiculous by its utter misapprehension not only of the US political scene (high octane political fodder for Obama opponents at crucial time for the president), not only of the political moment (ends a week of Obama being satirized SNL, Stewart, and Maher for accomplishing little), and but perhaps most appallingly of race in America. Even while the award undermines him (as a distraction and unwelcome occasion to play defense) politically, it crosses him up symbolically as well. There is a suggestion here of awarding Obama for African American-ness, a position both terribly patronizing (you need a political crutch only we can provide) and reductionist (he is black and powerful and so must be the same as Martin Luther King). Maybe the Committee wished to show that it had come away from the provincialism of anti-Americanism, away from the Danish squares unable to recognize the man of the moment, and into a continued relevance to great power politics and world brotherhood. Instead, they simply underscored that they have little conception of what they were doing.
Remember back last year the big kerfuffle when Horace Engdahl (thank you, Google) ripped American literature as "isolated" and held back by "ignorance" of the wider world? A common defense on this side of pond was to note that the provincialism was all with Horace and and Noble Committee. That when American literature had focused on the rural and slowly built up still in the shadow of other traditions, it well pleased the Committee to award it the occasional prize. But as American literature flowered in the post-war years with countless major authors representing a global cultural and linguistic American presence, so to did American visibility in the Nobel awards slow to a trickle. In other words, America could be appreciated while its literature embodied certain stereotypes or as the country mouse to Europe's city, but not so much as an engine in its own right of international culture. "Europe," Horace had huffed, "is still the center." Provincialism, replied defenders, explaining Horace's en masse dismissal of American writers, his ignorance of the American literary scene, and his trite use of geography to locate a "center" for literature. It was provincial in another way as well. The attempt to pretend, both in the quote and in the Prize's ignoring of American literary contributions for the past several decades, that American literature didn't matter all that much smacked of les provinciales mocking les parisiennes in old French plays (coarse! not really so important!), with the Europeans in the role of les provinciales.
Seen this way, the controversial quote from Horace last October was a statement born of insecurity. The comically politically overdetermined awarding of Barack Obama might be seen as an attempt to play a relevant role in American politics. Perhaps it was meant to demonstrate the Committee wasn't as tone deaf as those Danes over the border. However it was meant, the case for continued relevance that the award unavoidably makes every year has been made ridiculous by its utter misapprehension not only of the US political scene (high octane political fodder for Obama opponents at crucial time for the president), not only of the political moment (ends a week of Obama being satirized SNL, Stewart, and Maher for accomplishing little), and but perhaps most appallingly of race in America. Even while the award undermines him (as a distraction and unwelcome occasion to play defense) politically, it crosses him up symbolically as well. There is a suggestion here of awarding Obama for African American-ness, a position both terribly patronizing (you need a political crutch only we can provide) and reductionist (he is black and powerful and so must be the same as Martin Luther King). Maybe the Committee wished to show that it had come away from the provincialism of anti-Americanism, away from the Danish squares unable to recognize the man of the moment, and into a continued relevance to great power politics and world brotherhood. Instead, they simply underscored that they have little conception of what they were doing.
Nordic Nation Suckerpunches Obama (Again)
What does the Baltic have against Obama? Are they trying to make him look ridiculous? First Denmark and the Olympics, now Norway and the Noble Peace Prize. Suddenly, through no fault of his own, Obama has to try and distance himself from the silliness of it. When I saw the news in the NYT this morning I thought it was The Onion following up on the SNL Jack Squat skit. Although, I will say, as someone who likes to read pundits, Norway has made today oh so entertaining. Michael Tomasky exaggerated nothing when he envisioned heads exploding across the fruited plain.
What is frustrating in all this is the depth of the cluelessness at the Noble Committee. You are possibly the most prestigious international award in the world. But you've taken some hits in recent years alleging your premiere prize is partisan and political. So you give a guy an award for changing what is essentially atmospherics, for not maintaining the status quo of the guy who came before (although some aren't willing to go even that far, see Medhi Hasan in The New Statesman). This only proves your critics point. Not to mention the disservice it does to the recipient. Who wants to receive the Noble Prize for not being the other guy? Even if the you really wanted to give it to Obama, couldn't you have at least waited four years, so that you could pretend it was for something other than telegraphing what sort of American politicians Norway approves of?
What is frustrating in all this is the depth of the cluelessness at the Noble Committee. You are possibly the most prestigious international award in the world. But you've taken some hits in recent years alleging your premiere prize is partisan and political. So you give a guy an award for changing what is essentially atmospherics, for not maintaining the status quo of the guy who came before (although some aren't willing to go even that far, see Medhi Hasan in The New Statesman). This only proves your critics point. Not to mention the disservice it does to the recipient. Who wants to receive the Noble Prize for not being the other guy? Even if the you really wanted to give it to Obama, couldn't you have at least waited four years, so that you could pretend it was for something other than telegraphing what sort of American politicians Norway approves of?
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