Art Review - March Issue - (Page 48)
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/mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 10 DISPATCHES
HITECTURE, FILM, SHOPPING, NEWS AND THINGS TO MAKE AND DO… ART, MUSIC,
ARCHITECTURE, FI TA LES FROM THE CITY: New York ords JONATHAN T.D. NEIL
May I make a distinction between what we might call ‘lifestyle’ and
‘studio’ artists? These are gross generalisations to be sure, but as
the cult of the artistic ‘persona’ has come increasingly to stand in
for, if not in front of, any kind of artwork no matter how inadequate that
last term may seem as a covering concept , it would appear that some
categorical exercise, however ill conceived, could be useful at the
present moment. I blame New York Magazine for inspiring this latest bit of
impromptu pop theorising, as two of its articles from the January issue
‘introduced’ the magazine’s readership to the artists Terence Koh
and Dash Snow with fellow artists Ryan McGinley and Dan Colen making
appearances as the managers and handlers in the business of Snow and Co.
as the New York artworld’s latest ‘downtown’, outré offerings. As
profiles, the articles make the pair sound like interesting-enough
characters, but their art would seem to be noteworthy and notably
expensive by sheer dint of that fact, which is to say by the lifestyles
they seem to lead. moment may well provide some historical grounding for
the ‘lifestyle’ distinction I’m pursuing here, though, by which I
mean it was also the moment of Warhol’s Factory a point the editors of
New York Magazine are quick to make as well , or at least its first
iteration a point those same editors miss . This is important: even though
Warhol became the centre of gravity around which so much aesthetic activity
appeared to orbit, the Factory maintained much of its own identity through
its various incarnations as with the Argo of myth . Like Warhol, the
‘lifestyle’ belonged to the Factory itself – to a place, not to a
person perhaps Andy was more of a ‘studio artist’ than we might first
suspect . Likewise, we should remind ourselves that minimalism was no
solitary creature of the studio either. It owed the articulation of its
phenomenological character to the influence of experimental dance and
performance work practised by figures such as Simone Forti. But
minimalism, or the discourse surrounding it at least, countered the
potential for its artists to take centre stage by embarking on a campaign
of ‘subjective detumescence’ a phrase I take from Denis Hollier . In
the wake of ‘The Irascibles’, shunning the limelight was simply the
thing to do. This impulse has waxed and waned in the intervening years.
Julian Schnabel comes to mind as a lifestyler; Peter Halley as a creature
of the studio. Rirkrit Tiravanija probably managed a perfect synthesis of
the two by inviting the public into the studio for a meal, which was
something like life itself, but with only the most demotic stylings every
New Yorker secretly lives on Thai food . At present, though,
Tiravanija’s ‘participatory aesthetic’ has given way to a mode of
cooler-than-thou posturing, no matter how innocently undertaken, which
makes the solitary artist under lock and key in the studio begin to appear
that much more avant-garde. Because for the lifestyle artist there can be
no public, only publicity, which functions to keep us entertained, but at
bay. Nevertheless, if we are to laud the life lived aesthetically, if now
is indeed the time of the ‘lifestyle’ artist, I have only one question
to ask: Don’t socialites do it better? Julian Schnabel comes to mind as a
lifestyler; Peter Halley as a creature of the studio. Rirkrit Tiravanija
probably managed a perfect synthesis of the two by inviting the public
into the studio for a meal I should note that the latter of my two opening
categories, the ‘studio artist’, has been much maligned of late, and at
least since the 1960s, when minimalist object-making gave way to
experiments in and on the environment by figures like Robert Smithson and
Michael Heizer. That ARTREVIEW w p 46-48 Dispatches AR Mar07.indd48 48
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Art Review - March Issue
Manifesto
Dispatches
Consumed
Tales from the City
David Lynch
Marcel Dzama
Future Greats
Art Pilgrimage: Moscow
Mixed Media: Moving Images
Mixed Media: Photography
Mixed Media: Digital
Reviews
Book Reviews
On the Town
On the Record
Art Review - March Issue
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