The Büchel Case
Posted by ben on 27 Sep 2007 at 09:46 am | Tagged as: arts organizations, renegade performances
A lot has been written about the dispute between Christoph Büchel and MASS MoCA, so I won’t bother to summarize here (check out this post at a Walker Art Center blog for background). The ultimate resolution will have important implications for artists and museums, so it’s worth keeping an eye on. Tyler blames both the artist and the museum for the dust-up; the artist for being a jerk and the museum for not realizing this project would be a fiasco from the beginning (especially considering what a jerk Büchel is).
I wanted to note a couple of interesting tidbits about the case. First, the “final straw,” when the museum decided to break up with Büchel, was an item he requested that the museum procure: “the fuselage from a large jetliner, like a 767, that Mr. Büchel wanted to be burned and bomb-damaged and then hung from the ceiling.” Second, the fact that the judge in the case has deemed that the museum is a collaborative partner with Büchel, giving them at least some claim to the copyrights to the work (is this a first?). I don’t think MASS MoCA will actually try to claim any ownership of the work, but the precedent could prove consequential.
“The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything – or nothing.”
Nancy Astor
“On the one hand, only an imperfect, lacking being loves: we love because we do not know everything. On the other hand, even if we were to know everything, love would inexplicably still be higher than complete knowledge. Perhaps the true achievement of Christianity is to elevate a loving (imperfect) Being to the place of God, that is, the place of ultimate perfection.”-Zizek
“What’s the new mary jane is the audio equivalent of a heroin overdose and qualifies this as a 5 star delicacy on its merit alone. Play that song once and you should see the world with such crystalized clarity that you will no longer feel the need to take drugs ever again. It is THE quintessential pop masterpiece forever preserved in a solid block of zen. Put down the pipe and start studying quantum physics, buy a $500000 suit and move to Tibet. At least get some really comfortable shoes or something….good god, man. LIVE A LITTLE!!! Dont you deserve something more out of life than a……hangover? Treat yourself, buy this, learn it, live it, love it…lucky fool.”- a music fan
“As far as taking it seriously, that’s an individual thing, but when people start saying ‘I have the background,’ they’re getting in a little over their head, and it’s very bad to get in over your head with me when it comes to that because… I never pulled a Cale and started talking about studying in a conservatory, but if I ever said what really is my background, a lot of people would have to take their thumbs out of their ass and say ‘He’s putting us on!’ Well, don’t be too sure.” – Lou Reed
Here’s to the man
Who forgot his way home,
Who silently narrates
The confusion of his fight.
He fears the great truth
That would free him with its mercy
He hates his own darkness,
Dare he hide from this light?
Abracadabra, here’s the key to the kingdom,
See thru the eyes that be behind yours.
Judee Sill
the moles are dead, long live the moles.
Maverick,
Can they still be called ‘Youth’? If they need an experimental hip replacement, I’ll see if I can put them in the right direction. Anyway…I thought the show was at the Thunderbird Hotel, not the Ballroom. I’d hate to be caught on the wrong side of downtown Marfa and miss the show.
P.S. I’m still in exile. And please, no retard quotes following everything I write.
dismissed,
the Colonel of Truth
Ben, firstly, why haven’t you blocked this ZERO yet?
On a more lighthearted note, Andrew Uber has an awesome post about what he calls “all this kerfluffle.”
Check out this video, Mike Smith’s World at the Blanton blows this Buchel guy out of the contemporary art waters in London.
Read more at Andrew Uber
http://www.uber.com/andrew
Ben, firstly, why haven’t you blocked this ZERO yet?
Because I think TLC is trying to add to the conversation, just in a slightly different way than you are used to. I think the quotes are related to the posts in a somewhat obscure, but still meaningful way.
The co-option of Baudrillard into art lingo seems so lame. If you have to ask, “emptied of meaning” for whom? What happened to the notion of relativity? This refracted concept of a society was what Emile Durkheim first traced as a model and which Weber later disputed and redirected by addressing relativity: Even if there is one set of goals within a society deemed desirable to obtain — there is certain to be differentiated access to it for different groups within that society; and where one group may be positively directed with institutionally and constitutionally easy access to those goals, another group may have to try to attain those goals through other channels, in ways which are actually “against the law.” To dream up a society in which all things have been emptied of meaning is to aver in the end that there exist no class distinctions in that class — an irresponsible representation.- Cady Noland