Ryder Ripps’s “ART WHORE” In the Running For Most Offensive Project of 2014

by Whitney Kimball on November 11, 2014 · 120 comments Newswire

Ryder Ripps on Instagram

Ryder Ripps on Instagram

This month, a bizarre streak of misogyny has been flaring up amongst the influential men of the art world. Richard Prince’s recent Instagram show expressly fetishized hot young women; immediately following a glowing review of that show, Jerry Saltz weirdly Instagrammed a shot of a woman’s severely-whipped ass (since deleted); and Ken Johnson, in typical fashion, pejoratively referred to Michelle Grabner as a “soccer mom” in a review of her art. At best these incidents are possibly-performative (at least, in Saltz’s case), but the ends are unclear.

Coming in at the most abhorrent, though, is Ryder Ripps’s “ART WHORE”, a project which has, at this writing, inspired a 235-comment thread on his Facebook page. The project, which is documented on Ripps’s livejournal, consists of Ripps soliciting sensual masseuses from Craigslist (whom he consistently refers to as “sex workers”) to make drawings for him in order to demonstrate that he’s being exploited as an artist.

“I was asked to be an artist in residence for a night in the hotel – which entails a free room for a night and a $50 allowance for art supplies,” his story begins.

This is followed by detailed email correspondences with Ripps’s real-life excursions into the sex world of Craigslist to, I guess prove, that he actually did go on Craigslist to source his artists. He hired two people to make a series of drawings, then adds that he paid more than the $50 for the art supplies. “I ended up paying each $80 for about 45 minutes of their time drawing.”

Documentation includes several photos of the drawings, and concludes on a self righteous email to the Ace Hotel.

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Asinine comments like Ripps’s above “I choose sex workers because great art is like great sex” follow all over the 235-comment thread on his Facebook post. The thread immediately opens with criticism.

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As this goes on, the conversation seems to devolve into a large number of men arguing over the definition of exploitation, (standing up for how “they” “sex workers” deserve to be treated by us) with a sprinkling of women. Meanwhile, in private, women-only Facebook groups like “Starwave”, the response to the work was equally quick and negative. As a private group we’re members of, we’re not able to reproduce the comments verbatim, but we do find the trend of women cordoning off their outrage behind closed doors on social media troubling. Their voice is heard loudly amongst each other, but disappears in public—hardly pushing the dialogue forward.

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It’s this comment, which Kate Meizner has chosen to repeat over and over, which reveals all of the assumptions made by “ART WHORE”.

It’s completely acceptable to identify and define other people solely as “sex workers”; it’s okay to use that label to further your own successful career capital; and, most offensive, it’s okay to refer to yourself a “whore” when the artist must compromise to voluntarily buy some crayons and outsourced labor.

 

{ 120 comments }

Dappledoze November 11, 2014 at 2:54 pm

How is screenshotting a “private” Facebook group different from screenshotting someone’s Facebook page? Because last time I checked (this was some years ago) you needed an Ivy League email address to even USE Facebook.

Well tell ya what, preps, it sure is dandy to hear you crowing about the plight of the fallen woman over your no-whip skinny lattes. If you think breaking into the art world is hard, try getting into the Yale Club for chrissakes.

I, a man, personally feel threatened by this whole girls-only “private group” code of silence nonsense. Last time one of you people had any bright ideas, Andy Warhol got shot, and you couldn’t even do that right.

There is a great joke waiting here about a “gigolo working in oils”, but alas you’re too busy having an aneurysm over your mini art world GamerGate. I have never been more angry by something I read on Livejournal!

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 3:16 pm

Ryder has a public facebook presence. You can subscribe to his facebook feed even if you’re not a “friend”. So all of his updates are public, and people should know that when commenting. It’s the opposite for a private facebook group, which is why no screenshots from that group exist.

Dappledoze November 11, 2014 at 3:26 pm

https://www.facebook.com/ryderripps
This page only loads if you have a Facebook account. I went to a state school, so I do not have the privilege. Thanks though.

Rosa M☵☲nkmɐn November 11, 2014 at 3:44 pm

In my country we have no ‘ivy league schools’ i dont even know what that really means. I have hotmail but this works fine via my 90s account.

judo_traveler November 11, 2014 at 3:48 pm

That was the case on Facebook in about 2004 or so, but Facebook is obviously now open to everyone. That plus your smart-alecky remark about Valerie Solanas shooting Warhol pretty much exposes the ignorance of your opinions about feminism and/or social media in this current century.

pastel_kate November 11, 2014 at 3:48 pm

omg lol

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 3:50 pm

I agree, i would appreciate if comments i made on my private Facebook account were not posted without my consent. I do not have a “page” on facebook and you can not subscribe to my posts if u are not my “friend”. You failing to respect this is a violation of my human right of privacy and you are exploiting our Facebook friendship.

WhitneyKimball November 11, 2014 at 3:53 pm

We’re not friends, and I took the screenshots.

judo_traveler November 11, 2014 at 3:54 pm

But isn’t exploitation your “thing”

Avery K. Singer November 11, 2014 at 3:53 pm

Sounds like someone went unconscious in a masonic lodge in the 1950s and woke up briefly in the early 2000s to discover collegiate Facebook. Kindly go back to sleep on your dog bed or stfu with the anonymous trolling misogyny (put your name to it — coward).

Dappledoze November 11, 2014 at 3:55 pm

Go back to Slashdot you strange man

marthamarlock November 11, 2014 at 3:56 pm

Go suck a dick … no actually go make a website for some person with a dick and a higher HHI than you

pp November 11, 2014 at 3:20 pm

nice article you wrote, kate

pastel_kate November 11, 2014 at 3:50 pm

peep3ee

Albert DeCrvnk November 11, 2014 at 3:21 pm

*runs to dump for commentary*

marthamarlock November 11, 2014 at 4:01 pm

I also don’t use facebook so this is where I am joining the commentary. *clap clap* to Ryuder Ripps for being ‘provocative’ …. I love how ryder fans are trying to make this into a facebook public/private issue but w/e

Anyway *clap clap* to ryder for making us all ‘think’.

I think where he misses the point though is that ‘sex workers’ put their physical selves at risk in their ‘whoring’, whereas the type of ‘whoring’ Ryuder does, as a slave in the culture economy, is unlikely to end in his physical harm… unless he drinks too much redbull .. wait he tried that but ended up ok and that was a one-time deal.

Guest November 11, 2014 at 4:14 pm

i agree with you! what do ya think of the drawings?

marthamarlock November 11, 2014 at 4:22 pm

I liked the drawings enough. I think this is an ok project hence the *clap clap* but you sort of miss the mark by like trying to make this all about you as poor Ruder who was exploited by the Ace Hotel. I hoping that like this was going to be some sort of critique of how expensive hotels harbor/facilitate exploitation by being sites where rich people can do dabs with prostitutes … idk I have to go reread your livejournal and see if I can get my mitts on the facebook comments. I’m glad you agree that you’re not quite a ‘whore’ in the same way a sex worker is a ‘whore’ and there is an inherent difference … it is actually offensive to equate/compare yourself to a ‘sex worker’ …

but this was a great troll/comment on the dumb nature of what Ace Hotel is doing with this bullshit …

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:37 pm

oh im definitely not, im just an attention whore. i used the word whore to get on the blogs.

pastel_kate November 11, 2014 at 4:41 pm

your argument is deteriorating ryder….

Tash Madden November 14, 2014 at 3:44 am

yeah, you do

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:05 pm

By the way, where can i pickup my “most offensive artist of 2014” trophy?

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 4:06 pm

You have to win the award first.

facetat November 11, 2014 at 8:17 pm

i think there is an overwhelming amount of bad things in our current culture and that this is less worse than the vast majority of other things. why do people care about this enough to become distressed? is it because it fits in with an internet feminist agenda? please, instead of being upset, actually do something proactive that will directly reduce human suffering or help our planet instead of reacting to this. as far as i’m concerned, spending time with strangers and giving them an incentive to make art is more beneficial that not acknowledging it. the people who are really abusing their privileges are the ones in the comfort of their homes, garnering attention or hits by criticizing unknowable and inexpressible intentions and possible effects of/on other people. that being said, ryder seems like an unpleasant human

Ryder Ripps November 12, 2014 at 5:36 pm

i want a cut of the ad revenue you got by slandering and exploiting me from this post, which has 90 comments compared to the 0 comments on the few posts before it.

pembroke November 12, 2014 at 10:06 pm

Welcome to celebrity, you idiot. Your repeated use of “exploiting” shows what a spoiled, little brat you are. How are you being exploited in any of these situations?

jude November 14, 2014 at 5:17 am

pretty sure ryder also used a male sex worker so you’re entire argument is thrown out.. paddy.. Richard Prince’s show however was terrible.. and hes supposed to be a ‘celebrated’ artist

jude November 14, 2014 at 5:40 am

here’s a dose of misogyny.. i can tell by your writing you’re an annoying bitch

Guest November 12, 2014 at 1:19 am

A lot of artists insist upon themselves, but some of them don’t people people to sleep. Like you do.

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:10 pm

One quick question – why were none of the drawings that were produced featured or discussed?

WhitneyKimball November 11, 2014 at 4:17 pm

Well, what purpose do you feel they serve to your piece, other than to demonstrate that the Ace Hotel has treated you like a whore? Aren’t the drawings beside the point, which is your own whoredom?

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:23 pm

the drawings are the work. im just an attention whore using my skills at getting attention to show them to you.

marthamarlock November 11, 2014 at 4:57 pm

the drawings are interesting i like them

vitaminC November 11, 2014 at 8:25 pm

Agreed, I think the artists have real talent! I mean the Craigslist ones, obviously.

Ryder, could you give us their names/contact info for future opportunities?

Devin KKenny November 11, 2014 at 4:58 pm

But you already have a platform and high visibility, are these tactics really necessary? …particularly when they’re tactics that become the subject matter of the work.

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:42 pm

also im always confused by the possessive tense of my name, like this article says “Ryder Ripps’s…” like it seems weird to me, I wonder if it should just be “Ryder Ripps..” cuz my name ends in an S.. does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 4:48 pm

Ryder, we consider it our job to archive relevant conversation around the web and we take that job very seriously. It is with this in mind, that I tell you that I personally find it a burden to be tasked with archiving this bullshit. Try, at least, to contribute something to these comment threads beyond AFC stylebook musings and gloating about how you did something so stupid we had to write about it.

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:50 pm

Will you will write about anything stupid I do? Thats what you think good journalism is?

nydumb November 11, 2014 at 6:48 pm

as long as it generates page clicks

is it meta that you are now being exploited by the manufactured outrage machine?

Amber A'Lee Frost November 12, 2014 at 8:02 pm

*That’s*

nydumb November 11, 2014 at 6:46 pm

Art F City will archive Bullshit Ryder rips does because they find that it is relevant conversation….GOT IT

By that metric i think Ryder gloating is the only appropriate response

PSUDEO-ART-INTELLECTUALISM AT IT’S FINEST

I think what you meant to say was “We only covered this piece and took this angle because we thought it made for good link bait” becaues we all know nectar Ads pays per page view.

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 6:52 pm

I love how page views are the only explanation for any opinion that might descent from those of certain commenters.

nydumb November 11, 2014 at 7:01 pm

“tasked with archiving this bullshit.”

Your words, not mine.

Personally I never take an opinion on shit. Shit is shit. Especially bullshit, I don’t know if you have ever been on a farm, but shit of the bovine variety is much worse than horse shit

Posting an article about a piece of shit stinking is nothing but asking for affirmation.

Saying LOOK HOW BIG AND STINKY THIS SHIT IS (basically how you wrote this article) is nothing but click bait.

ohcomeoooooon November 11, 2014 at 10:35 pm

Ripps’s is correct. Singular nouns that end in s get an apostrophe+s, e.g. cactus becomes cactus’s. You drop the s if it’s a plural noun, so professors would be professors’.

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 10:52 pm

We handle proper nouns differently. It’s not incorrect, publications just need to be consistent about it, which we try to be. http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/apostrophes/apostrophes-with-words-ending-in-s/

trev November 11, 2014 at 4:54 pm

GET A JOB, YA PRIVILEGED LITTLE BITCHES

Devin KKenny November 11, 2014 at 4:55 pm

Tyler Coburn. The Warp, 2013/14

Quotations and commissioned illustrations

“Between the hydraulic paddles and the warp stretched a
kind of long chest, no doubt containing the mysterious mechanism that
drove the whole contraption.”
—Raymond Roussel, Impressions of Africa

The Warp is a compilation of quotes that trace the effects of 18th Century automata on later transformations in labor and industrial technology. A recurring figure in these quotes is The Mechanical Turk, an infamous, chess-playing automaton powered by a small man concealed in its shell. As a concession to the fact that certain repetitive tasks still exceed the computer’s capabilities, Amazon has assigned this name to its crowdsourcing marketplace; The Warp contains hand-drawn illustrations by some of the marketplace workers, whom I hired to respond to select quotes. The illustrations not only required more creativity than the Turk’s commonplace tasks, but offer small reminders of the various types of labor at work in our virtual machinery.

This is not that.

marthamarlock November 11, 2014 at 5:01 pm

And this ‘artwork’ is also that: offensive.

YES/NO MUSIC November 11, 2014 at 5:36 pm

opinions

burntbrillo November 11, 2014 at 6:07 pm

I thought we already knew Ryder hated women based on his work creepily obsessed with Adrianne Ho.

max headroom November 11, 2014 at 6:45 pm

why is there no mention of the man who was hired? or no image of the drawings produced?

marthamarlock November 12, 2014 at 12:09 am

Love it. Exactly. As a 80-year-old woman, I’m a little depressed that the net art feminists are trying to hijack this moment.

I mean why isn’t there any mention of how sex workers have a modicum of agency here?, especially when Craig’s List can at least eliminate the pimp-ho vector of exploitation. Keep your net art laws off my body.

Ripps didn’t coerce or hurt anybody involved in this project. Hopefully he marred the image of the Ace Hotel which is deserving of condemnation for not exchanging money with ‘artists’ for their work in the promotion of the bullshit hotel…

capicola November 12, 2014 at 11:38 am

Because no one gives a shit about black men.

Catalina Jose Vallejos November 11, 2014 at 7:27 pm

this shit isn’t even intelligent.

dissapoint.

glasspopcorn November 11, 2014 at 7:28 pm

i agree that taking a reductionist view of escorts as “exploited” and manipulating that image in order to respond subversively to what may or may not be “exploitation” within an extraordinarily privileged field of production is, at worst, ignorant and, at best, uninteresting. still, i don’t think making absolute and condemning social justice claims in a #thinkpiece context is at all the appropriate way to have a conversation about that. if this project even justifies your site space/words, they should probably be written in condemnation of thoughtlessness rather than full blown misogyny.

art doesn’t have to be a bourgeois activity, but this kind of heavy-handed moral criticism does just as much if not more than such navelgazing projects to characterize it that way

as for the piece, the best way to encourage a healthy collective understanding of sex work is not to squabble over definitions but to understand the stories sex workers tell about themselves rather than those told by others. im not delusional enough to think this piece even attempts that, but the feminist criticism takes one step forward and two steps back in trying to represent ryders interactions with these escorts as wholly inauthentic

capicola November 11, 2014 at 8:41 pm

DUNKED ON

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 11:18 pm

What do you consider full blown misogyny and what words do you think expressed this in this post? I’m just trying to figure out how you’re defining your terms, as they are a little murky for me right now.

Anyway, if Ryder’s interactions with these escorts are, at least in part, authentic, how does that change the evaluation of the work? Is it less exploitive because he took the time to ask them if they liked drawing?

glasspopcorn November 12, 2014 at 12:16 am

i think the full scope of this piece’s irresponsibility is expressed by the fact that ryder considers escort services “exploitative,” and that, following from that characterization (which really no one has the right to make categorically), he intentionally places himself in the role of the exploiter without doing what he considers the exploiting. i think the scope of the project’s irresponsibility is limited by its own lack of real thought or ambition, and the fact that he didn’t actually have any prolonged interaction with the escorts or affect their ordinary labor. basically, this project isn’t interesting. it doesn’t penetrate much of anything, because all ryder wanted was to shit on ace hotel in a livejournal post. bourgeois art world nonsense which i think is perfectly appropriate to criticize in a private woman-only facebook group, but when you publicize those private objections the significance of this project becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. its not that the language of this piece levies a super specific criticism, just that it kind of engages in criticism for criticism’s sake in a case in which the piece in question inscribes precisely nothing with nothing

Paddy Johnson November 12, 2014 at 12:43 am

So your point is that any critical response to this work in a public forum is irresponsible because the piece is that bad? Seems a bit extreme no?

glasspopcorn November 12, 2014 at 1:07 am

nah just that this sort of critical response amounts to a signal boost in the event that the project is actually really obviously dumb

Ma Att November 12, 2014 at 7:06 pm

stop trying to sound smart bro, be yourself.. it’s ok you know.. to do that.

marthamarlock November 12, 2014 at 12:25 am

Paddy… WTF!!!!

In reality, what Ripps did with the space that Ace Hotel gave him is less exploitative than the hotel’s intention with Ripps. *Clap Clap* for Ruder for trying to make us realize that it isn’t okay for a multi-million dollar business to get Cool Pointz for free by offering ‘artists’ no compensation to further the hotel’s image. Sure, is he a little self-aggrandizing ——- what artist isn’t?!!! Give me a break! *Clap Clap* for Ryder!

Paddy Johnson November 12, 2014 at 12:38 am

So you think this piece is good for the workers he hired or just less exploitative? What value are you trying establish with the hierarchy?

marthamarlock November 12, 2014 at 12:41 am

Watch the video and tell me. Ripps wrote that the young woman expressed she enjoyed the experience.

There is no value to be established. Work is exploitation. Unpaid work is …. well how many interns do you have?

Jessica Fenlon November 11, 2014 at 7:57 pm

simplistic, didactic – (yawns)

kiss_lily November 11, 2014 at 8:00 pm

we don’t need more offensive art from the Ripps Saltz & Prince Foundation of Highlighting Patriarchy for Inflammatory Banal Purposes wherein the burden lies on women to explain how terrible and boring their art is – we need an app that saps all this white male entitlement and converts it in2 energy for phone chargers (estimating ~3438298797 phones per sec)

kiss_lily November 11, 2014 at 8:16 pm

need: an app that saps all this white male entitlement and converts it in2 energy for phone chargers (estimating ~3438298 phones per sec).
don’t need: more offensive art from the Ripps Saltz & Prince Foundation of Highlighting Patriarchy for Inflammatory Banal Purposes wherein the burden lies on women to explain how terrible and boring their “contributions” are

Ronald Swanson November 11, 2014 at 8:19 pm

paper tiger

CiaranMcLiam November 11, 2014 at 9:15 pm

putting offence aside for a minute, it’s just really lame.

sam adams November 11, 2014 at 11:32 pm

ryder ripps ur a piece of shit ur not even an artist ur just a trust fund piece of scum

DINO DINCO November 11, 2014 at 11:59 pm

All this righteousness aimed at a social practice piece: 1) where the participants were paid cash for their labor to escort in a different way…(guess no one here’s applied to any recent high profile Marina A performance “internships,” for example), 2) titled “Art Whore” on a blog once called “Art Fag City” and 3) that generated some good drawings from (presumably) non-traditional makers that no one seems to be remotely interested in discussing (or celebrating) because art policing is the priority here?

Paddy Johnson November 12, 2014 at 12:05 am

What do you like about the drawings?

DINO DINCO November 12, 2014 at 1:04 am

There’s a confident, graphic, thoughtful simplicity in how “Jay” renders minimal line drawings of the erotic body. Do I need to add the / his erotic black body? He thinks about (and confidently uses) color, shading and lighting with great economy. The pink and blue shapes are daring gestures. The cock ring is sculptural, textured….and broken. As silly as it might sound, there’s some real skill behind illuminating that jizz erupting from the cock. “Jay”‘s cum isn’t bland, flat, dull cum…. his cum sizzles upon eruption. It’s electrifying. Look at the ass / leg shot with yellow shading, one leg up on the pink box (the museum plinth). A fine, muscled body on display…for consumption. Here, let me angle my body using this box to catch the light better for the client… now pay me. In judging RR’s efforts, could some naysayers unwittingly be judging sex workers / escorts?

The one image that could read as a black hand stroking a non-black cock shaft could read as autobio / self-portraiture, calling attention to non-black patronage of a black escort. Sure, I’m willingly feeding into the indefatigable desire to discuss (obvious) race relations and privilege in contemporary crit & spectatorship, but stepping back even further, we have presumably non-black RR entering into an oral contract with a black escort who then makes a drawing of a black hand stroking the non-black cock…for money..for art. Who wouldn’t be tempted to bridge this reading with the fraught relationship between the whites of the white cube and non-white artists… but there’s loads of this talk already out there…

Although I prefer “Jay”‘s images overall to “Brooke”‘s, I love the latter’s drawing of the three bold dots separated from a much larger black dot by a thin line. “Mi vida loca” divided by zero = 1. A stylized self-portrait of “Brooke”s fear? surprise? another emotion work-related or not?

Further, I respect that these drawings were made on the spot in a hotel — a familiar territory for escort work… some do call this sex work, and I can see the frustration around the label for the lines aren’t clear. Many people in sex-positive SF, for example, are adamant that strippers are “sex workers,” regardless of whether there’s sex between clients or not. (And they’ve unionized: SEIU Local 790).

For those who are into the idea of “authenticity,” (of which I am not one), it could be argued that these escorts have made work informed by their work as escorts – physically, economically, emotionally. A naive reading, perhaps, or maybe one that’s too literal, but within the oral / social agreement made between RR and these escorts, these are the drawings that they chose to make in the hotel. There’s something undeniably beautiful about the conceit, the exchange and the outcome here, all of which are largely being ignored because people really want to punish RR. If THIS work is being framed as the “most offensive project of 2014,” then someone’s pretending that art fairs and biennials didn’t happen this year.

Ryder Ripps November 12, 2014 at 1:43 am

thank you.

luke cano November 12, 2014 at 9:38 am

D.U.N

done

Jeri Seltzer November 12, 2014 at 12:22 am

“Because good art is like good sex” … like at least 10 people have told me that Ryder is bad at sex

James Budd Dees November 18, 2014 at 1:59 am

who needs him to be good at sex? how good can he watch netflix with me?

molly_x November 12, 2014 at 11:26 am

Ryder Ripps deflects conceptual criticism by asking people to talk about the drawings – if his conceptual gesture is not in this work, what is left except drawings by disempowered amateurs that he is colonializing as his own. If this work is all about the drawings, why aren’t the escorts being talked about on Rhizome today. This work is a documentation of an artist nailing himself on a cross because a corporation offered him the opportunity to do so. Except instead of nailing himself on a cross, he put up the bodies of two black sex workers and tacked his white face over theirs. He uses the terms “whore”, “sex worker” to titillate, I do not see any evidence that he himself has even had to engage in the realities of sex work but instead is angry that hotels want to give him artist residencies, as though this is somehow analogous. He documents the work much like an American ethnographer creating vignettes of “real American Indians” – the work is not about the culture of another people, but about a white, empowered fantasy of what they are, mixed in with guilt, paternalism and pride in having colonialized this for one’s own celebrity art practice. Beyond the traditional aspects of this work – namely that they are colonial – Ripps stands in for everything mediocre about radical art gesture – a metaphorical whoring that stands in for the real whoring, the drawings that stand in for the real conceptual work and documentation of this work, and the results are something the opposite of a scarecrow, a whining mess of middle-class delusion that obscures much deeper and more meaningful exploitations at play.

I have addressed the drawings. I have addressed the corporate/artist aspect. I don’t think that American consciousness, or any art institution, needs this work to know that sex workers exist. This is the world’s oldest profession, sex workers don’t exist to give clueless middlebrow artists facebook likes and website hits. Furthermore the artist/corporate aspect is that Ripps’ project has only given more visibility to the corporation he allegedly wanted to criticize. I see the only winners here are white men and their navel-gazing games, which other empowered people and institutions support because documentation of black people is acceptable art practice, but putting black artists in a museum is not. Fuck Ripps and his most offensive artist of 2014 trophy anyways, and fuck the system that supports this depressing mess.

Tash Madden November 14, 2014 at 3:42 am

this is an absolutely incredibly comment

Tash Madden November 14, 2014 at 3:42 am

*incredible sorry

Ma Att November 12, 2014 at 7:04 pm

Dear Ryder,

Please stop making “Art,” everything you make is mimetic backwash. Cut it with the smart act bro, your art speak is as transparent as my piss, and i drink a hell of a lot of water.

Internet/ media representation chart:

ego > actual art

I can’t say that anyone should associate artist with your name.

Christopher E. Scott November 12, 2014 at 8:01 pm

I’m still trying to figure out why the writer thinks that Ryder Ripps’ art project is so offensive. From what I saw on the blog, it was kind of funny- and kind of depressing- but still somewhat interesting. Seems to me that the person who wrote this article can’t really see the dark humor that I saw and perhaps should start thinking a little bit “outside the box”.

Gianni De Angelis January 13, 2015 at 3:30 pm
tom moody January 21, 2015 at 9:28 am

This post epitomizes the mismatch between humorous art and humorless criticism. Naturally a hotel is concerned not to be seen as a place for sex, but rather a place for mom and dad to stay with the kids when they come to visit the wax museum on 42nd Street. So you have a nervous hotelier asking Ripps about his intentions for the project. He doesn’t reply “to expose the sexual subtext of the hotel situs” as an earnest do-gooder artist like Andrew Norman Wilson might. Instead he has a ready non-sequitur quip. Ripps then re-used the quip to handle anklebiters on Facebook — in the dialogue that you screenshotted and made the basis of this hit piece.
The online magazine Dazed did a better job describing this artwork — their treatment is skeptical, but balanced, accurate, and lighter in tone. This is just a hatchet job, reducing art to “correct” politics.

Paddy Johnson January 21, 2015 at 9:40 am

He labeled the people he employed whores. I don’t understand why we’re even discussing this.

tom moody January 21, 2015 at 9:52 am

As I said to Whitney, you are prissily focusing on the term “whore” — it’s as if it blinds you to the humor (and other merits) of Ripps’ piece. It’s a complex work and you dumbed it down.

Paddy Johnson January 21, 2015 at 9:57 am

We disagree.

tom moody January 21, 2015 at 10:04 am

True, and you can do much more damage than I can when you go into full persecution mode, as you’ve done here.

Dappledoze November 11, 2014 at 3:56 pm

This is a little harsh, Whitney..

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 3:56 pm

Nope. Im a starch conservative, and share the views of this republican art blog.

judo_traveler November 11, 2014 at 4:17 pm

This word “‘starch’ conservative”. It does not mean what you think it means.

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:31 pm

no, im a conservative who uses starch to make the crease in my pants perfect for the threads.

Ryder Ripps November 11, 2014 at 4:45 pm

as u write a comment on a blog affirming that i “got on the blogs”

pastel_kate November 11, 2014 at 5:01 pm

idgaf

Ryder Ripps November 12, 2014 at 12:04 am

they didnt want to disclose their full names, otherwise id be more than happy to share.. their work is theirs not mine.

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 7:27 pm

Never expressing an opinion on shit is complacency. You’re part of the problem.

nydumb November 11, 2014 at 7:40 pm

The shit would have to be relevant for you to be complacent about it

No other ‘news’ outlet even wrote about this shit, you searched for the shit to sniff and say it stinks. Other than your article the only effect this art project had was 2 sex workers making 80 bucks for doing something than handjobs and the ace hotel getting trolled. I fail to see the greater societal repercussions of this typical ryder ripps attention grab…if you really wanted to stick it too him…wouldn’t ignoring it be a stronger statement?

Again, but your logic, lets turn it around:

You are complacent about X because you are not seeking it out to write about how terrible and evil it is.

Paddy Johnson November 11, 2014 at 11:07 pm

It sounds like you’re suggesting that it’s better for women just to be silent when they see a work of art they think treats women poorly. I’m sure that’s not what you mean—it seems like the issue here is that attention seekers shouldn’t be rewarded with attention, particularly when the work isn’t so damaging that, say, small children were harmed.

I see that point, but when work leaves the participants nameless and does little more than reiterate what they do as a profession, then, for me, that’s worth calling out. Why? Because I think it’s important to challenge ourselves and our beliefs. Part of that is talking about the issues people bring up and deciding for ourselves, based on these conversations, what makes sense. I don’t see Ryder doing much of that in this thread, which is why I called him out. I’ve had some really good conversations here over the years, but I’ve had to be open to them. And that’s much harder than it looks.

nydumb November 12, 2014 at 2:15 pm

“It sounds like you’re suggesting that it’s better for women just to be silent when they see a work of art they think treats women poorly.”

He also hired a man. You are ignoring that fact, because it breaks the singular-narrative of “the sex industry is a women problem that is based on misogyny” that you are trying to manufacture with this article, when the ‘sex-work’ industry is far more complex. You are projecting plight onto the 2 people Ryder hired (white saviour complex). As far as anyone knows, they are in the industry by choice and love their jobs.

“it seems like the issue here is that attention seekers shouldn’t be rewarded with attention, particularly when the work isn’t so damaging that, say, small children were harmed.”

Yes, because otherwise these sex workers could have gone to who-knows-who and have who-knows-what happen to them. Bad things happen to sex workers every day and no one gives a fuck. How is ryder hiring them bad or any more exploitive then a john getting a hand job? If anything it brings light that the sex industry exists and it’s easy to access, something that many often deny.

glasspopcorn November 12, 2014 at 2:16 am

sorry for being vague. i guess a positive way of putting what i’ve said negatively is: why not aggregate a bunch of projects LIKE ryder’s and saying something about how, in broad strokes, thoughtless art can encourage deliberately insensitive/violent practice? would say a lot more because it wouldn’t rely on the social media art bro image, which is really only communicable to a handful of net artists all of whom are facebook friends.

capicola November 12, 2014 at 11:38 am

Yeah I didn’t hear about this until ART FAG CITY condemned him. Because ART FAG CITY wouldn’t want anything offensive to happen in art like a bad word.

strunken white November 12, 2014 at 10:44 am

I second this and it’s really not hard to do: already in these comments we’ve heard mention of Tyler Coburn’s “The Warp”. Andrew Normal Wilson’s “Virtual Assistance” is another one and a favorite of mine is Andrew Salomone’s “A Pizza for Sol” in which Salomone ordered pizzas through an online service and requested in the “notes” field that the deliverers make a drawing on the pizza box.

That all of the examples I can think of are white male artists already signals a line of questioning to pursue that isn’t far from the thrust of this post, except more fully fleshed out and less alarmist/click-bait-y than “Ryder Ripps’s ‘ART WHORE’ In the Running For Most Offensive Project of 2014”

I’ll end with Kara Walker on another white male who ordered things as a matter of practice:

“I like to think of Donald Judd’s Marfa complex as exemplifying the strivings of White patriarchy. But that’s just me; I don’t think he intended that.”

Paddy Johnson November 12, 2014 at 10:49 am

This is great feedback. We were planning a follow up post today. You can expect to see that.

WhitneyKimball November 12, 2014 at 6:16 pm

Thanks for the suggestions @glasspopcorn:disqus, @strunkenwhite:disqus, and @devinkkenny:disqus. I posted a response today based on them. http://artfcity.com/2014/11/12/holding-art-whore-up-to-its-peers/

WhitneyKimball November 12, 2014 at 12:04 pm

Thank you for the constructive comment, which gets more to the problem of power relations when artists outsource labor in general. We’ll take that into the follow-up. I stand by the title because I think it’s simply true, and appropriate for the tone of the artwork.

strunken white November 12, 2014 at 1:52 pm

Sort of throwing my initial reaction, in the time since commenting I remembered the work of Laurel Nakadate which might, in a way, be an even more direct comparison than these others…

nickkegeyan November 12, 2014 at 3:33 pm

To add to the list, Theodore Darst’s Fiverr video piece where he uses Fiverr gigs for people holding up signs of his name/brand (there’s a name for that I believe). + that series of jogging posts that were made through Fivver gigs

strunken white November 12, 2014 at 6:00 pm

now, by this point I know this is, like, totally not adding much to the further development of the discussion, but Eva and Franco Mattes’ “Performances by Everyone for No-one Every Day” is another one. This is fun!

Guest November 12, 2014 at 4:24 pm

r^ as an example of non-explotative outsourced labor through the platform Fiverr.

glasspopcorn November 12, 2014 at 3:26 pm

cool, glad it was valuable, wish i had a more specific idea of how art people can responsibly come into conversation with the assumptions other art people make. for what its worth, i think art whore is a tiny part of a long lineage of crisis w/r/t labor in art. feel like, as usual, AFC’s heart is in the right place, if not its fingers

Paddy Johnson January 21, 2015 at 10:10 am

I’m a little confused about what you want to get out of this conversation. You’ve made this point multiple times on the blog, and I’ve heard it. We’ve established we disagree. But we’re still rehashing the same points here, so I assume this means you’re not getting something you want. In your perfect world, what would be the result of this back and forth?

tom moody January 21, 2015 at 10:20 am

Your apology for oversimplifying this artwork, selectively quoting from Facebook, putting Ripps in the same “macho” niche as Saltz/Prince, and using your non-profit to force a narrow political agenda. For starters.

Paddy Johnson January 21, 2015 at 10:40 am

You’ve laid out your argument, and I’ve laid out mine. We have decided we don’t agree. To get what you’re looking for, I’d have to change my position, which we have already established isn’t happening. I don’t share your opinions. I’m not going to share your opinions. I have spent enough time thinking about this to know I will never share your opinions on this particular subject. I’m okay with that.

Is everything that follows in this comment thread supposed to be punitive simply because we have a difference of opinion.

tom moody January 21, 2015 at 12:06 pm

We’ve barely scratched the surface of how this is different from Saltz/Prince/Instagram, and doesn’t deserve to be tarred with the same brush. Ripps wasn’t letching around models’ instagrams, making pervy comments, and yet you cited this post in a later denunciation of the Postmasters show (which hasn’t gone up and that you don’t plan to see). That’s the kind of thing happens when you make up your mind and stop listening to people.

Paddy Johnson January 21, 2015 at 2:28 pm

I never said I wouldn’t see it. I said I wasn’t going to write about it if it didn’t look any different from the press release. That means the opposite of “I won’t see it”. I also never said or suggested Ripps was letching. Where is this even coming from?

Who cares if Ripps is using a non-sequitor quip? His piece did not communicate the way he imagined it, and that’s why there’s this outcry.

Anyway, you’re right. I have made up my mind. This is what people do after having spent two months thinking about this nonsense. I’m done.

tom moody January 21, 2015 at 5:27 pm

You are blaming Ripps for your own humorless misreading of his quip to the hotel.
I changed “don’t plan to see it” to “don’t plan to review it.” Your pledge to re-evaluate came only after a couple of questions from me about the embargo.
As for letching, let’s close the syllogism for your readers. On Artnet you complained about Prince making a “leering” comment on a fashion model’s Instagram. In this post you lump Ripps in with Prince for “a bizarre streak of misogyny.” Ripps has a show coming up involving Instagram about which you said, in advance, “we’ve made our views known.” Reasonable minds could assume you meant to connect all this together.

Paddy Johnson January 21, 2015 at 5:31 pm

LOL.

tom moody January 21, 2015 at 6:53 pm

Jezebel is following your lead with this cross-promotional smear. They even cite you. You must be very proud.
http://themuse.jezebel.com/petty-man-builds-art-career-by-shitting-on-fitness-star-1680762441

tom moody January 21, 2015 at 6:59 pm

I will say, Ryder posing shirtless is certainly throwing down the gauntlet. Especially in irony-challenged NYC.

Paddy Johnson January 22, 2015 at 11:17 am

That, I will give you.

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