2001-04-26 - 1:10 p.m.
SEATTLE CRAP ART REPORT
Brett and I made a trek down to the Seattle Art Museum yesterday; it's a museum known locally not for its discriminating taste and intelligent and thoughtful additions to its permanent collection, but instead for the fact that each gallery is named after a corporation. Thus we have the "Boeing Gallery," the "Safeco Gallery," the "Bill and Melinda Gates Gallery," etc. However, its collection of African masks is well worth the trip, and the intricate woodwork of native shamans and sculptors from Natal and the Ivory Coast far outshines the baubles and gewgaws that represent the rest of western art in its sterile and echoing halls.
Currently, there are two visiting exhibits, both of which presented us with a remarkable contrast in aesthetic philosophies. The first, called "Sewn," is a horrible collection of conceptual bullshit, all of which consisted of works of "art" that were sewn. Included in this cavalcade of crap were such ridiculous and useless eyesores such as a lace doily with the words "Fuck This" emroidered in pink across the surface, said by the artist to represent the rejection of the idea that women are seen as stay-at-home embroiderers who like quilts and sewing and cooking and pregnacy, etc. Same old story, and maybe it would have had some point in, say, the Nineteenth Century, when women did such things. There was also a "Doll Circus," with sewn cloth midgets and freaks and strong men-- very nice as dolls, but as art? No. Apparently SAM has demolished the line between arts and crafts.
Another room, focusing on conceptualism, presented us with various cardboard boxes plastered on the wall and called 'birds,' as well as a brilliantly horrible xerox of a page from the "B" section of a dictionary, blown up to poster size, that was intended to show the viewer that "Betray" and "Betroth" were right next to one another in the dictionary, and this was supposed to make some kind of a point. Thanks, guy, but I already have a dictionary.
In another wing, instead of the usual nonsense, was a presentation of Shaker objects, such as stairs, chairs, doors, clothes, etc. The Shakers, for those who do not know, were a religious group who believed in total simplicity to an almost fascistic extent. These folks think angles on chair legs are Satanic. Everything was plain, numbered, and wooden. No flashy color, nothing too extravagant.
The contrast between the one extreme, i.e. conceptualism and the liberal and unchecked allowances taken by participants, and the austere but boring simplicity of the Shaker work, was profound and intriguing. On the one end of the spectrum, you have a wooden 'spitoon' labeled "Room 25," so an unwitting Shaker who carried the spitoon too far would know which room the spitoon belonged in. On the other end you have an AK-47 crafted out of ceramic and painted in Dutch Delfft (sp?) which attempts to make its standard 'statements' about war, blah blah blah, etc. A room showing the 'influence of Shaker art on modern art' was most telling indeed, as the premiere item was a plaster and wooden urinal, quite obviously ripped off from Duchamp, but considered "Shakerly" because it was simple and unadorned. And speaking of Duchamp, we also saw a blatant rip off of his sculptural cage and cuttlebone piece "Why not sneeze?" which the audacious motherfucker who churned it out even signed as "RRose Selavy," one of Duchamp's 'nom de urinals.' Is he saying he's a good as Duchamp? Great, just what we needed.
I must say, selfishly, that the most distressing aspect of all was that the woman who made the circus dolls, the woman whose summer-camp project turned reality pollutes the walls of the pinnacle of Seattle art culture, was born in 1977, and is therefore two years younger than I am. Damn.
J. Puma
Email: cronopio@disinfo.net
This item first appeared on the Stuckism International Message Board: http://assembly.nerdworld.com/assembly.asp?rn=71260&show=all&assemblyid=11535&firstmsg=50
