All Yourself Are Belong Here
Posted by ben on 05 Nov 2007 at 09:16 pm | Tagged as: responses/reviews
Katie Pell’s current show at Galeria Ortiz (you belong (here)) explores the relationship between artist and viewer in a more explicit way than artists usually attempt:
Like the framed niches printed on wallpaper adorning French houses and salons, I am presenting works to frame whatever stands before it. Like you. You are a product of a lot of hard work, and this is my version of a standing ovation. Yes, that’s right, this is my standing ovation to you, full of adorable fuzzy creatures of the forest, rock stars, bouquets of flowers and mythical creatures from heaven.
Well, ok, I didn’t see any rock stars, but these mirror-framed pastel drawings do leave a wide-open sky within which to see yourself surrounded by flowers and fuzzy creatures (photos by Justin Parr):
Pell’s decision to frame the viewer twice, first within the reflected gallery environment, then within the dense, baroque flora / fauna scenery is an interesting one, if a bit jarring (and difficult to photograph). What is the viewer to make of this fantastical world, full of happy forest creatures clutching Pixie Stix and Hershey’s kisses, framed by a mirror reflecting white walls, and perhaps a Mondini-Ruiz painting or two? Is the artist celebrating the viewer or projecting an idealized facade, not too different from the idealizations art enthusiasts might project on artists? Why does she expect us to see ourselves in these whispy, pink- and yellow-tinted clouds floating in a baby blue sky?
Pell claims in her statement: “I just want you to feel special” — and I appreciate her attempt to address the relationship between artist and viewer directly, whether she means it or not. I don’t know when the show closes (the flier doesn’t say, and apparently every section of the Galeria Ortiz website is “currently under construction”) but Tuesday morning (November 6), Pell is having a gallery talk at 11:am, which she would prefer you not attend, miracle though you may be. Well, at least she told me not to attend, but maybe you’re more special than I am.
One of the most amazing images of love that I know is Persian – a mystical Persian representation as Satan as the most loyal lover of God. You will have heard the old legend of how, when God created the angels, he commanded them to pay worship to no one but himself; but then, creating man, he commanded them to bow in reverence to this most noble of his works, and Lucifer refused – because, we are told, of his pride. However, according to this Muslim reading of his case, it was rather because he loved and adored God so deeply and intensely that he could not bring himself to bow before anything else, and because he refused to bow down to something that was of less superiority than him. (Since he was made of fire, and man from clay.) And it was for that that he was flung into Hell, condemned to exist there forever, apart from his love.
But if you read Lacan, this is the result. Your brain turns to pudding! She has a case to make. She cannot make it. She’s full of paranoid fantasies about the world. Her education was completely removed from reality.
Judith Butler, she pretends to be a philosopher out there [University of California, Berkeley], but she’s not recognized in philosophy, her knowledge of anything. She was a student when I was at my first job at Bennington in the 70s, and I saw her up close. And I know what she knows. I mean, she transferred from there, to Yale, and her background in anything is absolutely minimal. She started a career in philosophy, abandoned that, and has been taken as this sort of major philosophical thinker by people in literary criticism. But has she ever made any exploration of science? For her to be dismissing biology, and to say gender is totally socially constructed — where are her readings, her studies? It’s all gameplay, wordplay, and her work is utterly pernicious, a total dead-end.
“If they’re quoting Lacan, you know they are incompetent.”
If Kate Moss was really great at something in particular she’d hardly inspire madmen to run through the streets shouting her name. What makes Kate Moss spectacularly thrilling to contemplate is implied in the name super model, with the outline this word implies serving as the container into which Lacanian jouissance pours like the endless chocolicious waterfall at Wonka’s wonderful factory. What makes Kate Moss wonderful is that she is good at nothing.
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It’s all gameplay, wordplay, and her work is utterly pernicious, a total dead-end.
Your brain turns to pudding!
Lacanian jouissance pours like the endless chocolicious waterfall at Wonka’s wonderful factory.
maybe you’re more special than I am.
In Grease, the movie I grew up with, the boys worked on cars and staged dangerous races, while the girls waved their handkerchiefs in terror and failed beauty school. Low rider/hot rod culture goes with drag races, rebellion, youth, and men. Our culture associates these activities with the masculine realm, just as much as it associates the cooking and cleaning with women.
Sound artists–particularly the older Europeans–tend to be so engrossed in their medium that they fail to consider it critically or conceptually.
Differ-ence results from the power which lies in the unknown, in the not-yet-known or never-known. Absence prevents anthropocentrism, the biggest threat to humanity. Ambiguity returns to us the insight, the intuition our bodies posess. Difference, absence, ambiguity belong to the realm of concealing, the most influential life technology we’ll encounter. The ongoing process of concealing protects homo generator from partic-ipating in, buying into, being part of what others have revealed and imposed upon us as “given”. This addresses gender roles as well as schools of thoughts, national identities as well as traditions.–WOLFGANG SCHIRMACHER
ben, I really just didnt want you to come to the lecture,not everyone else.It was nice meeting your mom though.
“My tour is totally egalitarian. Artists aren’t judged; all they have to do is tell me they want to be on the tour. We get a real mix, from the art lovers to people who are interested in architecture and interior design. It’s a chance to see that making art is like a business. Despite the stereotypes, you can’t be some crazy dreamer and make it as an artist. You have to be organized and productive.”
please, i’ve seen you behave in public, you don’t consider yourself an equal. nor do others
Dragon Fly