THE WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORDS

Thanks to the reliably cringe-inducing Rhizome mailing list, some PR material for an exhibition in Milan called ‘~hieromesh~trance`scribr~~>’, which in itself is incredibly annoying in its preciousness and its extremely dated enthusiasm for titles that look a bit like computer code, or actually are computer code. Anyway, the puff itself contains several fine examples of art world cant:

“In both her physical work and vibrating Web page pieces, [Brenna] Murphy organizes collected everyday detritus into grids of repeating patterns. In the large, undulating, web-based grids, the assembled images vary in depth and perspective. Some frames vibrate while others contain short looped gif animations. Rendered shadows and contours add texture and dimension to these compositions, which could not exist outside of the confines of the computer screen. Each element retains an incredible level of detail while also blurring, even literally, real source imagery with digital alterations and truncated environments.”

Investigation of the artist’s website reveals that this is a florid description of what looks like a cross between a multistorey car park made of vomit and a bunch of Magic Eye pictures from the Nineties. At least if you stared at that crap for long enough you’d see a wobbly dolphin or get a migraine or something and you’d know your brain was still capable of functioning. Better that than the braindead, flatline non-experience of looking at something you don’t even care enough about to dislike.

HOW TO EARN SOME FORGIVENESS FOR BEING A CAPITALIST PIG

François Pinault may be the first plutocrat billionaire übercollector from the top of Art Review’s most powerful art world figures list who also appears to have some taste and discernment. Or at least a taste that somewhat coincides with mine… which amounts to the same thing, obviously, because we’re on the internet where opinion is daily defended to the death as if it has a factual basis in some kind of Universal Law of the Universe.

ARSENALE VII: HEAD MELTED OFF

Urs Fischer’s melted (and melting, thanks to lit candle wicks) wax sculptures almost comically literalise the ‘Illuminations’ theme, although he must have felt like a total fool at the private view since nobody else seems to have bothered to follow any kind of brief. Any thematic convergence at the Biennale or any artist presenting good work seems to have occurred more or less randomly.

The items presented are also highly Venice-appropriate: a wax simulacrum of Giovanni Bologna’s disconcertingly titillating Renaissance ‘Rape of the Sabine Women’ (at the time of my visit just torsos with lots of drips, fallen muscular debris and face remnants) is surrounded by two unremarkable wax office chairs and what looks like a nonchalant smart casual artist or gallery-goer showing no concern whatsoever about his head being melted off.

I liked this. It was somehow grandiose and self-effacing at the same time. A rare example at the Biennale of an artist discovering a striking aesthetic and an interesting artistic tactic for himself, rather than just taking these things off the shelf or osmosing them with virtually no conscious decision-making process during his art school days. Unless there’s a whole school of melting-things artists that I don’t know about.

VENICE SPECIAL

THE VERY GATE OF LA BIENNALE, HELPFULLY SURTITLED LIKE THE GATE OF HELL IN DANTE’S INFERNO SO NOBODY CAN SAY THEY WEREN’T WARNED. “THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE SUFFERING CITY; THROUGH ME YOU GO TO EVERLASTING PAIN; THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST… ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE.” TRUE DAT.

Having recently returned from a trip to the art world c(r)apital that is La Biennale di Venezia, I have lots to share: the good art, the baffling art and the things that made me want to do an impromptu re-enactment of Bruce Nauman’s ‘Clown Torture’ videos where somebody just throws themselves around yelling NO NO NO NO NO NO NO in an endless loop.