Chasing The Cheap Ass Sublime

by Art Fag City on May 24, 2010 · 65 comments Events

POST BY: PADDY JOHNSON

Full video available on Rashaad Newsome’s website here.

“The piece is okay, but what is it past a cut-up youtube video?” My friend asked at the Greater New York press preview Thursday of the Rashaad Newsome video above, “I mean, is it saying anything?” Newsome’s video The Conductor (fortuna imperatix mundi) & The Conductor (primo vere, omnia sol temperat) strings together clips from rap music videos, using on the hands of these stars as a means of conducting Carl Orff’s 1937 work, Carmina Burana. I might have counted with, “Youtube mash-ups aren’t art?” or “Is conceptual merit so important that it always levels craft?” but I didn’t bother. The art world’s typical “yes” response to the latter, usually answers the former in a negative, (inspiring a lot of light weight think-y art that doesn’t look any good in the process).

I like The Conductor for its virtuosity, and felt more at ease Newsome’s easy choice of a universally moving soundtrack, after hearing it described as a “knowing use of the cheap ass sublime”. After all, the same soundtrack has been used to advertise Carlton Draft Beer, an unfortunately effective Republican scare campaign about how closing Guantanamo would place terrorists in your neighborhood, and the movie, 300.

The race commentary drawn from a correlation between the glitz of rap videos, and the cheap yet scary draw of fortuna isn’t all that complex but I don’t have the sense it’s intended to be. And, of course, like any aspect of a work that prompts doubt, once you decide its form is on purpose it’s much more interesting.

{ 63 comments }

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 12:39 pm

“Rap to the classics!” might be an alternative title. Use of “O Fortuna” also abounds in movie trailers, particularly horror films about the apocalypse, surpassing even the 1812 Overture in the “most overused” category. Newsome’s T-Pain version of “Primo Vere, Omnia Sol Temperat” (also from the Carmina) is fairly inspired, and that part of the score is less familiar. Definitely YouTube-style mashups–possibly better paced and more exploratory than most. In the racial subtext dept.: the Carmina’s composer Carl Orff was Bavarian and remained in Nazi Germany and was somewhat tainted by this so he is the ultimate white guy musician. (He is a great composer regardless.) It might be more interesting if Newsome put these on YouTube and counted how many hits they got by the end of Greater New York’s run. Let the court of public opinion rank something a much smaller group has already validated.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 8:39 am

“Rap to the classics!” might be an alternative title. Use of “O Fortuna” also abounds in movie trailers, particularly horror films about the apocalypse, surpassing even the 1812 Overture in the “most overused” category. Newsome’s T-Pain version of “Primo Vere, Omnia Sol Temperat” (also from the Carmina) is fairly inspired, and that part of the score is less familiar. Definitely YouTube-style mashups–possibly better paced and more exploratory than most. In the racial subtext dept.: the Carmina’s composer Carl Orff was Bavarian and remained in Nazi Germany and was somewhat tainted by this so he is the ultimate white guy musician. (He is a great composer regardless.) It might be more interesting if Newsome put these on YouTube and counted how many hits they got by the end of Greater New York’s run. Let the court of public opinion rank something a much smaller group has already validated.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 2:36 pm

Meh. I don’t know if it would be more interesting if it were on youtube. It’s just distribution. The strategy reminds me of Marisa Olson’s American Idol blog. In retrospect I’m not sure it was an interesting project, and the only thing that saved it was how well read it became. I think that success to some extent hide the larger weakness of the work.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 10:36 am

Meh. I don’t know if it would be more interesting if it were on youtube. It’s just distribution. The strategy reminds me of Marisa Olson’s American Idol blog. In retrospect I’m not sure it was an interesting project, and the only thing that saved it was how well read it became. I think that success to some extent hide the larger weakness of the work.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 2:59 pm

I liked the Idol piece more than you did and also that it was being read by a YouTube audience that possibly didn’t know the nerdy girl was satire, so it was working on two levels. The Newsome only works on one level–you’d just be shifting the context as a social experiment. Not the greatest idea but like YouTube commenters I thought I needed to say something.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 10:59 am

I liked the Idol piece more than you did and also that it was being read by a YouTube audience that possibly didn’t know the nerdy girl was satire, so it was working on two levels. The Newsome only works on one level–you’d just be shifting the context as a social experiment. Not the greatest idea but like YouTube commenters I thought I needed to say something.

beau May 24, 2010 at 3:46 pm

Tom, maybe your impulse to get this on YouTube to see how it floats is because the piece appropriates the gestures of forum culture without also submitting to its norms. I.e. it’s a forced meme.

beau May 24, 2010 at 11:46 am

Tom, maybe your impulse to get this on YouTube to see how it floats is because the piece appropriates the gestures of forum culture without also submitting to its norms. I.e. it’s a forced meme.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 4:49 pm

“Forum culture” – I like that – thanks!

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 12:49 pm

“Forum culture” – I like that – thanks!

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 5:08 pm

And good point. It wouldn’t be a forced meme if we could turn the clock back to when only gatekeepers decided what we could watch, but we can’t, so… It means artists have to find the last remaining gatekeepers (video curators who don’t watch YouTube) in hopes of making an end run around the “majority tyranny” of forum culture. That makes sense if the work is “too weird for the masses” but this definitely isn’t.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 1:08 pm

And good point. It wouldn’t be a forced meme if we could turn the clock back to when only gatekeepers decided what we could watch, but we can’t, so… It means artists have to find the last remaining gatekeepers (video curators who don’t watch YouTube) in hopes of making an end run around the “majority tyranny” of forum culture. That makes sense if the work is “too weird for the masses” but this definitely isn’t.

Howard Halle May 24, 2010 at 5:18 pm

What I like about Rashaad’s piece is that he didn’t overthink it, and that it demonstrates showmanship. It’s no surprise that it stands out in an otherwise dreary GNY.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 5:18 pm

Yeah, if this work were on youtube I expect it would get a minimum of 60,000 views. And I think the showmanship aspect of the work is important. I like that this mimics the source videos themselves.

Howard Halle May 24, 2010 at 1:18 pm

What I like about Rashaad’s piece is that he didn’t overthink it, and that it demonstrates showmanship. It’s no surprise that it stands out in an otherwise dreary GNY.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 1:18 pm

Yeah, if this work were on youtube I expect it would get a minimum of 60,000 views. And I think the showmanship aspect of the work is important. I like that this mimics the source videos themselves.

pbd May 24, 2010 at 6:18 pm

paddy following on from yr point that taking a position where conceptual merit levels craft which means youtube mashups aren’t art and thats bad, and then yr point that Conductor is virtuosic: what are your criteria for evaluating craft in a piece like this?

pbd May 24, 2010 at 2:18 pm

paddy following on from yr point that taking a position where conceptual merit levels craft which means youtube mashups aren’t art and thats bad, and then yr point that Conductor is virtuosic: what are your criteria for evaluating craft in a piece like this?

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 6:32 pm

Mostly, that I like the way the cuts match the music. There’s a logic to the way they’re laid down. I mean, I understand this is kind of schlocky, but everyone has their guilty pleasures.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 2:32 pm

Mostly, that I like the way the cuts match the music. There’s a logic to the way they’re laid down. I mean, I understand this is kind of schlocky, but everyone has their guilty pleasures.

pbd May 24, 2010 at 8:08 pm

agreed, altho i had an opposite reaction to the work.

when you used the word “virtuosic” it caught me. even if i thought that about Conductor i’m actually not sure how’d i’d argue the qualification. i guess cos the technical bar for making a mashup is set so low whereas traditional markers of virtuosity – like improvising over rhythm changes at a fast tempo or making it through the hammerklavier unscathed – require an elite skill set by definition. and im not sure if more cuts synced tighter to more music is more virtuosic or not. i suppose it is (marclay video quartet) but that was also pre-youtube. anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc7nmNJozTc

pbd May 24, 2010 at 4:08 pm

agreed, altho i had an opposite reaction to the work.

when you used the word “virtuosic” it caught me. even if i thought that about Conductor i’m actually not sure how’d i’d argue the qualification. i guess cos the technical bar for making a mashup is set so low whereas traditional markers of virtuosity – like improvising over rhythm changes at a fast tempo or making it through the hammerklavier unscathed – require an elite skill set by definition. and im not sure if more cuts synced tighter to more music is more virtuosic or not. i suppose it is (marclay video quartet) but that was also pre-youtube. anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc7nmNJozTc

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm

Memo to curators, MOMA Dept of Film and Video: “…when evaluating video art please take into account the following: virtuosity, showmanship, editing skillz, mashup style, beatmeistering, beat-matching, eye for pop culture memes, input from forum culture (if any), and general ‘getting down.'”

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 5:06 pm

Memo to curators, MOMA Dept of Film and Video: “…when evaluating video art please take into account the following: virtuosity, showmanship, editing skillz, mashup style, beatmeistering, beat-matching, eye for pop culture memes, input from forum culture (if any), and general ‘getting down.'”

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 9:14 pm

@Tom Moody. Is this the summation of arguments for this video now applied to all video art? I’m not sure how you got from point A to point B.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 5:14 pm

@Tom Moody. Is this the summation of arguments for this video now applied to all video art? I’m not sure how you got from point A to point B.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 9:57 pm

It’s a joke but by no means a comprehensive list.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 5:57 pm

It’s a joke but by no means a comprehensive list.

pbd May 24, 2010 at 10:29 pm

@moody sounds ridiculous but it’s a bit like that! i was watching Conductor thinking “rapper hand gestures dont match basic conductor patterns (hands always go up on the last beat of a bar). is that a minus? all his cuts are right on beat without fail, is that a plus? cuts on beat aren’t hard to do, is that a minus? focus on mid 90s bad boy records in the first movement suggests artist favors east coast over west coast, is that a plus? and where are bone thugs?”

i dunno maybe something’s there…not in this piece but in the difficulty of comparatively evaluating the stuff generally, but i’m unable to articulate any of it.

pbd May 24, 2010 at 6:29 pm

@moody sounds ridiculous but it’s a bit like that! i was watching Conductor thinking “rapper hand gestures dont match basic conductor patterns (hands always go up on the last beat of a bar). is that a minus? all his cuts are right on beat without fail, is that a plus? cuts on beat aren’t hard to do, is that a minus? focus on mid 90s bad boy records in the first movement suggests artist favors east coast over west coast, is that a plus? and where are bone thugs?”

i dunno maybe something’s there…not in this piece but in the difficulty of comparatively evaluating the stuff generally, but i’m unable to articulate any of it.

Howard Halle May 24, 2010 at 10:43 pm

I think there’s a little more to the piece than Rashaad’s mash-up skillz, mad as they are. I think it filters the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race, which has historically underscored much of American pop production from age of the minstrel show to today.

To whit, the way the work takes apart hip-hop culture and its hold over audiences white and black. The piece is both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.

And the music isn’t just an ironic nod to the over-use of a certain classical work by pop culture, though it is that; the lyrics of the Carmina Burana’s most well-known passage are all about fate—”monstrous and empty”—and fortune—”detestable life, now difficult and then easy.”

P.S. I know this because my kid is in the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and they took part in a performance of the Carmina Burana a few weeks back at Avery Fisher Hall. I kept the program.

Howard Halle May 24, 2010 at 6:43 pm

I think there’s a little more to the piece than Rashaad’s mash-up skillz, mad as they are. I think it filters the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race, which has historically underscored much of American pop production from age of the minstrel show to today.

To whit, the way the work takes apart hip-hop culture and its hold over audiences white and black. The piece is both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.

And the music isn’t just an ironic nod to the over-use of a certain classical work by pop culture, though it is that; the lyrics of the Carmina Burana’s most well-known passage are all about fate—”monstrous and empty”—and fortune—”detestable life, now difficult and then easy.”

P.S. I know this because my kid is in the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and they took part in a performance of the Carmina Burana a few weeks back at Avery Fisher Hall. I kept the program.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 11:19 pm

Plus, the Carmina Burana is based on the writings of defrocked monks, the… bad boys of their day? All right, I’ll stop.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 7:19 pm

Plus, the Carmina Burana is based on the writings of defrocked monks, the… bad boys of their day? All right, I’ll stop.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 11:32 pm

@Tom Moody Haha and all that, but I think Howard’s point has more merit than you’re giving it. Newsome spent five years working on this piece. What are the chances the relationship of those lyrics with the imagery coincidentally match up so well. I don’t think it’s so hackneyed.

Art Fag City May 24, 2010 at 7:32 pm

@Tom Moody Haha and all that, but I think Howard’s point has more merit than you’re giving it. Newsome spent five years working on this piece. What are the chances the relationship of those lyrics with the imagery coincidentally match up so well. I don’t think it’s so hackneyed.

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 11:45 pm

I don’t know if you can claim that something is a “cheap ass sublime” and also insist on deep connections between pop gestures and the underlying Latin lyrics (that are lost to a dead language and Autotune). Howard said Newsome didn’t overthink it–are we now supposed to?

tom moody May 24, 2010 at 7:45 pm

I don’t know if you can claim that something is a “cheap ass sublime” and also insist on deep connections between pop gestures and the underlying Latin lyrics (that are lost to a dead language and Autotune). Howard said Newsome didn’t overthink it–are we now supposed to?

Howard Halle May 24, 2010 at 11:46 pm

tom I beginning to suspect that you’re a player hater.

Howard Halle May 24, 2010 at 7:46 pm

tom I beginning to suspect that you’re a player hater.

pbd May 25, 2010 at 1:20 am

@howard sure, but i think an important question is how many of these delusions and send-ups have we not already gotten, unfiltered, through being repeatedly exposed to the source material in its original forms? for me it’s little to none, i’m quite aware of the o.g. delusions, hence the content filtering does nothin for me and thats why i was curious how paddy was evaluating the work as craft.

but also (and i’ve chatted with tom and maybe paddy about this) it’s nothing to do with the artist or even this piece: i believe that mashup as a form is unable to sustain a critical, self-reflexive examination of it’s cultural content. thats definitely another post though 🙂

pbd May 24, 2010 at 9:20 pm

@howard sure, but i think an important question is how many of these delusions and send-ups have we not already gotten, unfiltered, through being repeatedly exposed to the source material in its original forms? for me it’s little to none, i’m quite aware of the o.g. delusions, hence the content filtering does nothin for me and thats why i was curious how paddy was evaluating the work as craft.

but also (and i’ve chatted with tom and maybe paddy about this) it’s nothing to do with the artist or even this piece: i believe that mashup as a form is unable to sustain a critical, self-reflexive examination of it’s cultural content. thats definitely another post though 🙂

Art Fag City May 25, 2010 at 4:27 am

@Tom Moody I described the use of that particular music as the “cheap ass sublime”, not the video as a whole (which I described as schlocky). Howard made a point I think has some merit, so why not consider it on those grounds, as opposed to trying to disprove its merits by showing that my previous position is not consistent with my last comment?

@pbd Are you saying the video isn’t that interesting because we’ve already seen these send ups in their original form? I’m not sure I understand why you think Howard’s connections ultimately don’t support the work.

Art Fag City May 25, 2010 at 12:27 am

@Tom Moody I described the use of that particular music as the “cheap ass sublime”, not the video as a whole (which I described as schlocky). Howard made a point I think has some merit, so why not consider it on those grounds, as opposed to trying to disprove its merits by showing that my previous position is not consistent with my last comment?

@pbd Are you saying the video isn’t that interesting because we’ve already seen these send ups in their original form? I’m not sure I understand why you think Howard’s connections ultimately don’t support the work.

Howard Halle May 25, 2010 at 10:20 am

cheap-ass sublime is still a form of the sublime. the fact that the piece transcends its source materials—at least it does for me—is what makes it art.

Howard Halle May 25, 2010 at 6:20 am

cheap-ass sublime is still a form of the sublime. the fact that the piece transcends its source materials—at least it does for me—is what makes it art.

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 11:04 am

I like what pbd was saying about the work–he’s almost like a one-person forum culture, vetting the piece the way it never got to be vetted because it was not submitted to crowdsourced evaluation before a smaller, credentialed coterie decided it was important. You could imagine YouTube commenters identifying the rap video source material and telling us whether it was it was predominantly east coast or west coast. You could imagine a nerdy music professor wandering into the thread and telling us that the conductor motions didn’t adhere to classical convention. You could imagine other mashup makers critiquing the timing of the cuts. Someone else might ask if the work was just about its craft. But then, barely noting any of that, Howard reminds us of what art critics *will* say now that Newsome has made his end run around the digital mob: “filtering the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race,” “both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.” Important words for a piece we’re told is important, institutionally–it’s a done deal. Paddy, it sounds like you are respecting the work more as we discuss it: I’m going the opposite way. Put me in the “it’s a forced meme” camp. You don’t have to believe me when I say it is not envy but preferring one set of rhetorical considerations over another.

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 7:04 am

I like what pbd was saying about the work–he’s almost like a one-person forum culture, vetting the piece the way it never got to be vetted because it was not submitted to crowdsourced evaluation before a smaller, credentialed coterie decided it was important. You could imagine YouTube commenters identifying the rap video source material and telling us whether it was it was predominantly east coast or west coast. You could imagine a nerdy music professor wandering into the thread and telling us that the conductor motions didn’t adhere to classical convention. You could imagine other mashup makers critiquing the timing of the cuts. Someone else might ask if the work was just about its craft. But then, barely noting any of that, Howard reminds us of what art critics *will* say now that Newsome has made his end run around the digital mob: “filtering the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race,” “both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.” Important words for a piece we’re told is important, institutionally–it’s a done deal. Paddy, it sounds like you are respecting the work more as we discuss it: I’m going the opposite way. Put me in the “it’s a forced meme” camp. You don’t have to believe me when I say it is not envy but preferring one set of rhetorical considerations over another.

Art Fag City May 25, 2010 at 2:02 pm

I would exchange “respecting the work more” with “liking the work more” as we discuss it. It’s the art equivalent of like enjoying all the stuff that’s gone into a Britney Spears video after you’ve fully considered it.

Honestly though, if it seems like I’m waffling on the subject it’s because there’s some of that there. It’s the back and forth of a conversation that’s attempting to identify the value or lack there of in the work.

Like you, I really appreciate the way pbd talks about the work (though you’re imagining a best case scenario in which crowd commenting on youtube does all the things pbd just did). Anyway, it’s incredibly useful.

Art Fag City May 25, 2010 at 10:02 am

I would exchange “respecting the work more” with “liking the work more” as we discuss it. It’s the art equivalent of like enjoying all the stuff that’s gone into a Britney Spears video after you’ve fully considered it.

Honestly though, if it seems like I’m waffling on the subject it’s because there’s some of that there. It’s the back and forth of a conversation that’s attempting to identify the value or lack there of in the work.

Like you, I really appreciate the way pbd talks about the work (though you’re imagining a best case scenario in which crowd commenting on youtube does all the things pbd just did). Anyway, it’s incredibly useful.

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 2:27 pm

My joke earlier wasn’t clear enough: I wasn’t writing a memo to MOMA curators telling them how to evaluate this work, I was imagining a leaked internal memo telling curators what to take into consideration when analyzing videos that could as easily be a street product as Art.

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 10:27 am

My joke earlier wasn’t clear enough: I wasn’t writing a memo to MOMA curators telling them how to evaluate this work, I was imagining a leaked internal memo telling curators what to take into consideration when analyzing videos that could as easily be a street product as Art.

pbd May 25, 2010 at 2:36 pm

@paddy well i think it’s clear that howard and i look at this piece in very different ways. to me, whatever informational connection one can deduce from a mashup based on it’s source material, i’d really doubt it’s something due to seeing it as a mashup…as in it’s something you didn’t already know about the source material on it’s own. so then, what is the potential of a mashup to say anything new?

a crude analogy might be to say that i know 3 + 2 is 5. i wasn’t thinking about it at the moment it was pointed out again in a mashup, which adds a 3 with a 2, but that doesn’t mean the artwork has any information in it.

so all of howards connections make sense, but for me they don’t support the work cos in the way i’m interested in looking at artworks, those connections are more or less meaningless. they aren’t specific to the action of the artist in the work i’m viewing, they are specific to source material i’m already familiar with on its own terms. unless a mashup has some insane technical apparatus behind it, i don’t think it can function as anything other than a guilty pleasure if that. and i learned this from making and exhibiting mashups 🙂

to quote craig mack’s verse on flava in ya ear remix, one of the videos featured in Conductor’s first movement (and which of course we don’t hear):
“Word up don’t rap no crap you bore me,
Wanna grab my dick…too lazy…hold it for me.”

if it aint broke dont fix it, right?

i think the reason is that the language of mashup is so limited. you have two sources, edits, and that’s it. it’s a bit like working with presets in a way, in that the thing you make is actually a comment on the the self-imposed limits you’re employing, perhaps the social conditions that predicated them, etc. but presets can be many things…code, interface, hardware, microsoft word, protocol, whatever – there’s room to move and material selections to make.

with a mashup you don’t even have that…by definition you have flattened youtube pop culture element a and you combine it with flattened youtube pop culture element b. it’s 2010, so a and b are almost equivalent anyway. good luck coming up with anything to say in that system!

pbd May 25, 2010 at 10:36 am

@paddy well i think it’s clear that howard and i look at this piece in very different ways. to me, whatever informational connection one can deduce from a mashup based on it’s source material, i’d really doubt it’s something due to seeing it as a mashup…as in it’s something you didn’t already know about the source material on it’s own. so then, what is the potential of a mashup to say anything new?

a crude analogy might be to say that i know 3 + 2 is 5. i wasn’t thinking about it at the moment it was pointed out again in a mashup, which adds a 3 with a 2, but that doesn’t mean the artwork has any information in it.

so all of howards connections make sense, but for me they don’t support the work cos in the way i’m interested in looking at artworks, those connections are more or less meaningless. they aren’t specific to the action of the artist in the work i’m viewing, they are specific to source material i’m already familiar with on its own terms. unless a mashup has some insane technical apparatus behind it, i don’t think it can function as anything other than a guilty pleasure if that. and i learned this from making and exhibiting mashups 🙂

to quote craig mack’s verse on flava in ya ear remix, one of the videos featured in Conductor’s first movement (and which of course we don’t hear):
“Word up don’t rap no crap you bore me,
Wanna grab my dick…too lazy…hold it for me.”

if it aint broke dont fix it, right?

i think the reason is that the language of mashup is so limited. you have two sources, edits, and that’s it. it’s a bit like working with presets in a way, in that the thing you make is actually a comment on the the self-imposed limits you’re employing, perhaps the social conditions that predicated them, etc. but presets can be many things…code, interface, hardware, microsoft word, protocol, whatever – there’s room to move and material selections to make.

with a mashup you don’t even have that…by definition you have flattened youtube pop culture element a and you combine it with flattened youtube pop culture element b. it’s 2010, so a and b are almost equivalent anyway. good luck coming up with anything to say in that system!

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 3:26 pm

I’m proud of a “mash” I did where I took a slick New York Times video of Guggenheim artist Cai Guo-Qiang exploding some fireworks on a canvas with a team of assistants, and intercut it with YouTube footage of David Carradine in Kung Fu performing a fire ritual and batting some spears around. It “exposed the racist underpinnings of the Western curatorial project with its ongoing devotion to stereotypes of the Mysterious East” and was well done, too (in a self-effacingly crappy way). I don’t expect it to be in a museum, though. In fact that would kind of defeat the purpose, which was being annoyed by the pretensions of the system to understand stuff it doesn’t know anything about. I mean, China, fireworks, c’mon.

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 11:26 am

I’m proud of a “mash” I did where I took a slick New York Times video of Guggenheim artist Cai Guo-Qiang exploding some fireworks on a canvas with a team of assistants, and intercut it with YouTube footage of David Carradine in Kung Fu performing a fire ritual and batting some spears around. It “exposed the racist underpinnings of the Western curatorial project with its ongoing devotion to stereotypes of the Mysterious East” and was well done, too (in a self-effacingly crappy way). I don’t expect it to be in a museum, though. In fact that would kind of defeat the purpose, which was being annoyed by the pretensions of the system to understand stuff it doesn’t know anything about. I mean, China, fireworks, c’mon.

pbd May 25, 2010 at 7:35 pm

sounds riveting, tom 😛

pbd May 25, 2010 at 3:35 pm

sounds riveting, tom 😛

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 9:02 pm

In the best tradition of “institutional critique.”

tom moody May 25, 2010 at 5:02 pm

In the best tradition of “institutional critique.”

Jeannette Staley May 30, 2010 at 4:09 am

If only I had a nickel for each time I came here! Amazing article!

Jeannette Staley May 30, 2010 at 4:09 am

If only I had a nickel for each time I came here! Amazing article!

Jeannette Staley May 30, 2010 at 12:09 am

If only I had a nickel for each time I came here! Amazing article!

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