29.6.21
To put it another way: having gone about as high
up Hemingway Mountain as I could go, having realized that even at my
best I could only ever hope to be an acolyte up there, resolving never
again to commit the sin of being imitative, I stumbled back down into
the valley and came upon a little shit-hill labeled “Saunders Mountain.”
“Hmm,” I thought. “It’s so little. And it’s a shit-hill.”
Then again, that was my name on it.
This
is a big moment for any artist (this moment of combined triumph and
disappointment), when we have to decide whether to accept a work of art
that we have to admit we weren’t in control of as we made it and of
which we’re not entirely sure we approve. It is less, less than we
wanted it to be, and yet it’s more, too—it’s small and a bit pathetic,
judged against the work of the great masters, but there it is, all ours.
What
we have to do at that point, I think, is go over, sheepishly but
boldly, and stand on our shit-hill, and hope it will grow.”
― A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
This article is about the twentieth-century art dealer. For the nineteenth-century gambler, see Pat Hearne.
28.6.21
There is a deep, dark, endless feeling to representing one’s insides. What appears in your writing changes the objects and people around you; they take on the qualities of how you portrayed them. A friend drawn ugly becomes ugly. A life drawn sweet becomes more sweet. To draw your life is to attempt to transform it with your magic. Your life invariably comes to resemble the depiction layered on top of it, because you now look at it through the lens of how you depicted it. This is why some artists run away from their lives; because who among us can live forever in our own dream?
24.6.21
Upcoming show at Carlos/ishikawa, opens on Saturday 10th July 3-6pm. Thanks Sam de Groot for poster design and thank you Victoria Colmegna for the photograph.
20.6.21
If life was once about chasing after a dream, it’s now about running away from the comfortable, hypnagogic lifestyles prescribed to you by the culture we create together, reflexively and imitatively. You’re living inside other people’s dreams; and these are not good dreams. So much of modern life is algorithmically scripted so as to exclude surprise or chance, and you must try to break free of this script every day. Rejecting all this post-death culture is a good place to begin. It’s New Year’s Eve —
https://www.spikeartmagazine.com/articles/downward-spiral-popular-things-dean-kissick
So pleasantly soft and relaxing. A museum of what critic Rob Horning has described as culture without friction: “‘readable books’; ‘listenable music’; ‘vibes’; ‘ambience’ etc.”
"The Turner Prize shortlist suggests a contempt for art and for artists that most of us can well sympathize with, nevertheless I do think its jurors have a responsibility to find good artists and advocate for them, or, if they really insist, to find good socially engaged collectives and advocate for those. However, if only socially engaged collectives are nominated, each of them is belittled, undermined and reduced to a supporting role in a publicity stunt by the jury: You’re not here because of what you do for your community, you’re here because of what you represent for us. Like much else today it’s both patronizing and unbearably literal. This is the new world of floating signs and symbols, where everything must become a token: in the fair, hazy paintings are traded as stores of wealth, while on the blockchain, images become speculative derivatives and financial instruments, while in the art prize, diverse community groups are tokenized as fungible window dressing for public institutions that are laying off their staff. As Black Obsidian Sound System commented after their nomination, “We understand that we are being instrumentalised in this moment.”
It’s a funny world in which the most expensive artist under 66 isn’t really an artist, the most expensive painting in history is missing, will never be seen again, and the most influential art prize is no longer awarded to artists. Welcome to the dystopian present. In Singapore, MetaKovan (Vignesh Sundaresan) is building a museum in the metaverse, with Beeple’s 5,000 Days as his Michelangelo’s David; in the high-rise enclave of Hudson Yards, in The Shed, the $500 million white elephant with the moving roof that never moves, that cannot be moved (something to do with needing costly sailors to come and rig the curtains), facing the Heatherwick honeycomb which has been closed to the public because people keep jumping off it to their deaths, by the bankrupt Neiman Marcus, under the Equinox Hotel with the giant wireframe sculpture of a person with a hole in their head, the shimmering monumental psychogeographic sunset-facing lobotomy, is a calm, mindful fair where all is mellow; in Coventry, where the Turner Prize has gone to bring art to the reaches, five different socially engaged collectives will be judged against one another, by a cheery bunch of museum directors and actor/ collectors, to see which is best; a nightmare vision of the postmodern welfare state.
These different art worlds are so far away from one another, but are
joined by their lack of variety. When I first started to go to Frieze in
London it was a bustling, cacophonous variety show packed with
different approaches, ambitious gallery stands, architectural
interventions, weird projects winding in and out of the fair, bars and
restaurants everywhere, and a circus of freaks, interlopers and
celebrities clamouring for attention. Regent’s Park was where I had my
education, where I went to learn about contemporary art and the gallery
scene, and to see what was being made around the world and who the
important and the up-and-coming artists were. At the end of each day
they’d play applause over the intercom, applause for all the money
they’d made and how, and gallerists would lean back in their replica
Eames chairs with a flute of Ruinart and light up, weed smoke rising up
into the tents. Today though it’s more like a smart weapon, or a
duty-free, a targeted, purified space of highly refined middlebrow taste
designed to sell a certain kind of painting to a certain kind of
person, and nothing more.
The same’s true of the Turner Prize shortlist. It’s crafted to appeal to a certain sort of person: not to an art-loving public, or West Midlands schoolchildren who might have dreams of escaping their hometown and creating an immortal masterpiece, by which they might transcend this Earthly realm and echo through time, but to fellow professionals wanting to feel good about themselves
https://www.spikeartmagazine.com/articles/downward-spiral-art-party-carousel
DEAN KISSICK is Spike’s New York Editor. The Downward Spiral is published online every second Wednesday a month. Last time he wrote about Return to Tradition.
9.6.21
This escape pod on the Forth & Clyde Canal would guarantee a memorable staycation.
The Ava Rose is a converted oil rig rescue pod that sleep two, moored just outside the city at Bowling Harbour on the historic Forth & Clyde Canal.
The brightly-coloured craft may be small but it has everything you'll need for a relaxing break and plenty of quirky design flourishes.
There's a wood-burner to keep things toasty, a kitchen area with a hob and fridge, a compact shower room and a comfy bed.
If you’re looking for something a little closer to the city centre, Gerda of Glasgow is a beautiful Dutch barge moored at Spiers Wharf on the Forth & Clyde, a peaceful spot you’d never guess is just a short walk from Sauchiehall Street.
Inside there are stylish wooden floors, a wood-burner, two stylish bathrooms and a gadget-packed kitchen.
Sleeping up to four people, there’s a kingsize bed and two singles to curl up on.
the Pod natives are here
7.6.21
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