“PRESS KIT FROM HELL”

Currently going viral both privately and- encouragingly- in public among artists and curators I know, this brilliant stab by Nadja Sayej at Documenta 13′s curator Carolyn Christov-Barargiev, who seems to be under the impression that she’s more important, more interesting and just more attractive than any of the artists or their work… and also that it’s OK for a huge, prestigious and international operation like Documenta to give out “press packs” (sic) to professional journalists that consist solely of a home-burned CDR, written on with a felt tip pen, with content that’s mostly pictures of herself.

http://artstarstv.com/post/21143426887/curator-porn-documenta-13-and-the-press-kit-from

Images of the artist Giuseppe Penone’s work on the CD: three. Images of the artist Jimmie Durham’s work: nine. Images of curator Carolyn Christov-Barargiev: nineteen. She can’t blame anyone but herself for the observation that she’s nothing to write home about and that her dress sense is disastrous; not that her breathtaking, blithe egocentricity and arrogance would be any better if she really was as outstandingly attractive and stylish as she seems to think she is. Strong echoes here of the Samantha Brick delusion/denial dreamworld.

Follow the link to scare quotes “enjoy” Carolyn upholstered in aeroplane crash recorder orange and black (perhaps we can take this as fair warning to keep away?), as either an Indian restaurant employee or a mock Indian restaurant interior from a Mike Nelson installation, mysterious sulky duckface behind bars with Jackie O glasses, and making sure that nobody can even look at an installation view of an artist’s work without her standing right in the middle of it.

As Sayej rightly observes:

“Note to artists: Please do your own PR. If not, this might happen – you might have the chance to be in a big art show and be completely squashed by someone else’s political savvy and outrageous vanity.”

SGT. PEPPER’S WONKY MOUSEMAT HAND

Armed only with a questionable command of the mouse, a passing acquaintance with MS Paint and up to five minutes of his undivided attention, Ringo Starr proves there is absolutely no beginning to his talents with magnificent “computer art” works such as this one, titled ‘No, No, No.’

Ringo Starr's ‘No, No, No’. Indeed, Ringo. Indeed. The word NO definitely comes to mind.

I’m really not joking. Printouts of this truly are being sold as a limited edition Ringo Starr art work. Particularly skilful and painterly use of the gradient fill in this one, I think you’ll agree, and a keen eye for the nuances of human physiology and expression.

Ringo says: “I started in the late nineties with my computer art. While I was touring it gave me something to do in all those crazy hotels you have to stay in on the road.” Apparently it never occurred to him that he could get out of the hotel and see everything the world has to offer a multimillionaire celebrity. Or even get out of his room and avail himself of the facilities that those “crazy hotels” tend to have available for multimillionaire celebrities. But hold on, wait, something even more troubling arises when we fully parse this quote: Ringo Starr was touring? How on earth did such a thing happen, anyway, and what sort of twisted nutcase pays to see a Ringo Starr gig?

ANISH KAPOOR: ORBIT

No, this isn’t about Anish Kapoor being fired out into space… although that’s a development I would also welcome, preferably without a spacesuit or (even better) without a space ship.

I’m talking about the massive sculpture commissioned at vast expense™ for the 2012 London Olympics at Stratford, so it will probably be offending the discerning eye for many years to come. Despite the vast expense™*, it still looks sort of cheap. It’s a giant wireframe octopus trying in vain to open a can of tuna. Or a melted version of Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International. Or one of Tokyo Tower’s feet, all that remains after the rest of it was wrenched off by Godzilla to use as a kind of swatter against annoying jet fighters. Or the kind of non-Euclidean, tentacular fetish idol that one of HP Lovecraft’s squeamish antiquarian characters would glimpse in a nightmare trance vision of Earth in the far future, a world devoid of decency and logic, a world riddled like a rotten apple with the vile, tumorous excrescences of incomprehensible forces utterly inimical to humanity (e.g. Boris Johnson.)

ANITA’S ART DIARY: APOTHEOSIS OF THE IDIOT

Anita Zabludowicz has a blog, or something that we’ll call a blog for want of a better word. It’s more like an endless stream of blurry snapshots with semi-literate annotations regarding where in the world and with whom she had breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Or perhaps one could compare it to a Tumblr site that’s accidentally updated from time to time by a short-sighted chimp who follows Anita around to art events. It’s not really about art at all, although there are admittedly sometimes artists somewhere in the frame even if they’re pissed or stuffing their faces at a dinner they didn’t pay for or submitting like terrified rabbits to Anita’s iPhone camera that she doesn’t really know how to use and is made of solid coltan, conflict diamonds and the crystallised blood of a thousand Palestinian babies.

FOR WANT OF A NAIL (IN PRAISE OF ARTSWAY)

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

This post is a bit different from the usual, but it’s still about the British art scene because I’m going to write today about the damage recently and needlessly inflicted on that scene by the egregious short-sightedness of whichever numpties at the Arts Council of England had the final say on cutting relatively trifling but vital sums from numerous crucial community-centred or artist-led organisations while gaily tipping ever increasing millions of obscene pounds into the gaping haute bourgeois money pits of places like the Royal Opera House.

BRITISH ART SHOW 7: IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET

Hayward Gallery, London, 16th February-17th April 2011

What does ‘In the Days of the Comet’ mean? There is a waffling, bullshit explanation by exhibition curators/perpetrators Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton, but in typical artbollocks style it leaves us none the wiser. Some drivel about H.G. Wells and going around the same sun. Whatever planet these people learn to write English on, it’s not orbiting the same sun as the Earth I live on or the one that Wells lived on. Essentially it’s just a cool and/or ominous-sounding strap-line that bears no palpable relation to the content of the the show whatsoever. I should imagine one of them just had the startling(ly obvious) insight that the BAS comes back every five years, like some kind of… duh… comet. Not that all the work in it should have been about comets, obviously; just leave out the pretentious justifications altogether and we’ll decide for ourselves what we think and what conclusions to draw, OK?

One thing the curators should be complimented on is recognising that many of the most interesting artists in Britain are working in video, in performance or exploring history and narrative, often all of the above. Admittedly, BAS7 is at least five years and possibly even ten years behind the actual practice of working artists, but the majority of other institutions and curators appear not to have noticed this fact at all. Either that or they’re pointedly ignoring it because it doesn’t fit with their arid, dated, Modernist take on what contemporary art is, or should be. So, yes, +1 Curator Points each to Tom and Lisa for actually having some semblance of a clue about what contemporary artists are really doing and what they’re really interested in.