If you like interesting packaging design, or if you’re just thirsty and want a virtual gulp of Badoit, you’ll enjoy a new short video at Danone’s consumer site.  Added bonus:  an opportunity to practice your French listening skills. But not to worry, most of the video is eye-candy.

It was filmed at the impressive l’Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris, where art students were given the challenge of designing a bottle for Danone’s Badoit sparkling water.  In a stroke of marketing genius, each year Danone launches a new decorative bottle that is so visually desirable that it becomes a collector’s item.

Out of 100 entries, 20 finalists were chosen and there was one winner. Timothée Talard describes his design as Christmas balls á la Jeff Koons.  Have a look at the video and see Timothée’s design under “les Bouteilles de Noël”.  By visiting the “Galerie” you’ll see the designs submitted by other art students.

http://www.badoit.fr/badoit-art-sinvite-a-table/

The Danone bottle is decorative style for the common man, and it’s a strategy that works

OK, we’re talking about a water bottle, not a sculpture or painting.  There’s no extraordinary quality of materials or cost. But that’s not the point, it’s a fun bottle that blends well with Christmas holiday decorations and looks good at festive dinners. Plenty of French people keep the bottle and continue to re-use it throughout the year.  You’ll see Danone “Bouteilles de Noël” on summer picnic tables or at a family-style lunch at home.

No discussion of stylish water bottles would be complete without mentioning Perrier

Perrier pioneered the concept of a stylish bottle, in their words “la bouteille Haute couture”, but the snob appeal of the brand has diminished today from its former glory.

Feeling thirsty

Originally marketed in 1902 as the “champagne of water”, the bottle didn’t change but the marketing evolved. By the 1950s, the focus was on the healthy and wholesome aspect of drinking Perrier water. The choice of clothing in the advertisement and the pure mountain imagery evoked a sense of well-being.

In the “1960-1970: Avant-Gardiste” period, Perrier’s marketing strategy evolved with the time period and provided bubbly refreshment for um…active people.

Today, nestled in the corporate heart of Nestlé, Perrier is enjoying a comfortable but active semi-retirement and continues to produce amusing ad campaigns.

In an emotional sense, I like the Belgian brand SPA

Fun, functional Belgian vibe

Waah, look at the cute little guy on the logo….really activates my clown fetish. It was the first European bottled water I ever drank and I always mentally associate it with business meetings. It continues to parallel my work life. This summer, when I visited a client in Brussels, I was served SPA’s “Barissart – l’eau explosive” from this vibrant red bottle.  At the end of the visit I swallowed my pride and actually asked if I could take the empty bottle with me. Fortunately the client understood that I am not crazy, just obsessed with packaging design.

Bottled water for some, tap water for others

But the market dynamics of the bottled water industry are changing for all the players in this sector.  Consumers who freely purchased bottled water in the 1990s and in the early years of 2000, are becoming budget-conscious. For others, it is an environmentally-conscious decision to choose tap water.  Although water bottles are recyclable and produce nifty by-products like Polartek vests, some consumers still balk at the idea of being addicted to ‘the bottle’ for their daily hydration fix.

New customer bases are emerging in a world that faces water shortages and lack of sanitary drinking water

An increasingly thirsty world

Market reports predict that over the next four years sales of bottle water will grow most quickly in Asia (notably India) and Latin America due to the water quality in these countries. Africa is also shows good potential for bottled water sales due to unsafe drinking water. At the same, there are rising number of people with disposable incomes who can afford to buy bottled water.

So why decorate a water bottle?

Well, why not? It adds a pleasant visual perk to a daily glass of water.  If you’re really eco-extreme, buy a water bottle and then endlessly re-use by filling it with tap water.  Hey, whatever works!  And if it helps us to drink those recommended 8 glasses a day, then à votre santé!

Jeff Koons, célebre artista contemporâneo, com sua ex-mulher, Cicciolina

É UM DOS MAIORES nomes da arte moderna, Jeff Koons.  Um dos artistas mais bem pagos do mundo, e tão extragavante que foi casado com uma atriz de cinema pornô, Cicciolina, que nos anos 90 tinha uma beleza loura e agressiva de fazer bispo olhar para trás e chutar poste. Os dois estão ali em cima unidos para sempre, embora na vida real já se tenham separado. (Vou colocar no pé deste texto outra obra de Koons de que gosto, um Popeye. Viajo no tempo quando vejo o marinheiro Popeye.)

A discussão que vamos travar agora junta arte e sexo.

A pergunta: que sentimento toma você ao ver uma imagem daquelas ali de cima?

So she climbed the extra three stories to the twenty-fifth floor.  She took the stairs, as to not arouse suspicion.

Jeff Koons' Rabbit, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

Even though she didn’t know the people who lived on those floors, she did not want anyone, familiar or not, interrupting.

Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

Her chosen route proved to be the most discreet option; during the ascent she did not see or hear one resident.

Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

As the stairs wound around above the final residential floor, they ended abruptly at a locked door. It was a compelling sight.

Takashi Murakami's Akihabara Majokko Princess, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

It was a plain, white door; no different any other one. But it was doused in an ominous blue haze, which seeped around its edges. An electric blue.

Miroslaw Balka's How It Is, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

A crescendo of noise had built as she went up the steps. A menacing hum enveloped her and each time she got higher it grew thicker around her.

Keith Haring tag, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

At the very last step she tried the handle but the door didn’t budge. Warning signs littered the stairwell, yet were unable to prevent her from lingering curiously.

“…el arte de marca funciona del mismo modo. Los amigos no podrán creerle cuando les diga: ‘He pagado 5,6 millones de dólares por esa estatua de cerámica’. Pero nadie muestra desdén cuando se le dice: ‘Lo compré en Sotheby’s’, ‘Lo encontré en Gagosian’ o ‘Éste es mi nuevo Jeff Koons”.

Hay más palabras que suenan a música en los oídos de los clientes de las galerías o casas de subastas, como “está en la colección de Saatchi” o “Saatchi lo quiere”. Si una obra de arte es del agrado de uno de los coleccionistas más notables del mundo, ¿cómo no va a quererlo en su casa un VIP que se precie? No importa que respetabilísimos críticos de arte como Robert Hughes califique la obra de Hirst de “mercancía absurda y hortera” o que afirme que Koons “probablemente no sería capaz de escribir bien sus iniciales en un árbol”. Al fin y al cabo, como le indicó a Thompson Brett Gorvy, director del departamento de arte contemporáneo de Christie’s, “esto es un negocio, no historia del arte”. (leer completo en El Pais)

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“I like money on the wall. Say you were going to buy a $200,000 painting. I think you should take that money, tie it up, and hang it on the wall. Then when someone visited you, the first thing they would see is the money on the wall.”–The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Manipulating a representation of some estimated value until it delivers insane dividends to a group of privileged investors appears to be a skill shared by Wall Street and Warhol, whose 200 One Dollar Bills sold for $43.8 million at Sotheby’s last week.

My understanding of moral hazard is slippery (is it possessing information that is used to the detriment of others or is it engaging in risky behavior based on a presumption of protection?)–more intuitive than precise–but the phrase makes me think that sales like these must stick in the craw of Joe Simons and others who have been prevented from partaking in Warholian currency while folks like Larry Gagosian, Peter Brant, and Jose Mugrabi swim in it.

To read more about the superfreakonomic, morally hazardous accusations that underscore Simons’s lawsuit against the Warhol Foundation, read Richard Dorment’s “What is an Andy Warhol? in last month’s New York Review of Books and “Authenticating Andy Warhol,” an article I wrote for ARTnews in 2004.

Strikingly, on the day that 200 One Dollar Bills went on the block, a front-page article in the New York Times questioned the ethics of the New Museum of Contemporary Art for its decision to turn the museum into a private showcase for mega-collector and New Museum Trustee Dakis Joannou and his favorite art star/investment/yacht painter Jeff Koons, who has been engaged to curate the exhibition of Joannou’s holdings.

“Sure, I am a trustee. Would it be different if I weren’t? Some people may think some things,” Joannou told the Times. “For me, it’s a nonissue. I know who I am and what I am doing.”

In the NYT ArtsBeat blog, Deborah Sontag, an author of the Times article, took a stab at revealing the “dizzyingly insular circle of art world insiders” and their connections to programming at the New Museum. I propose an addition to Sontag’s list – Pauline Karpidas, the seller of 200 One Dollar Bills (she paid $385,000 for it at Sotheby’s in 1986–lucky girl), a major benefactor of the New Museum, and a neighbor of Joannou’s in Hydra, Greece, whose most recent Hydra Workshop was devoted to Joannou-collectible Nate Lowman (with Mary-Kate Olsen in tow). In 2005, the featured artist of Karpidas’s Hydra Workshop was Urs Fischer, another Joannou collectible and the subject of the New Museum’s current exhibition. As Jerry Saltz points out, Fischer is represented by Gavin Brown who has secured exhibitions at the New Museum for four of his artists in the last two years.

But at least someone out there (who are the Erasers? perhaps these guys?) has a sense of humor: www.dakisjoannou.com. So, apparently, does society scribe Christopher Mason (eh hem): The Bowery’s New Museum Song.

On the cover of the November 5th edition of  The Brooklyn Rail is a drawing by William Powhida, taking aim at New Museum over its plan to allow Dakis Joannou, a trustee, to exhibit his Jeff Koons collection next February.  New Museum’s arrangement has generated considerable criticism and is compounded by the fact that Koons himself will curate the exhibition.  The situation came to the attention of a wider public this week in a New York Times article that cited  Tyler Green among others for helping raise awareness of the issue on his blog (Modern Art Notes).

As a non-profit institution, New Museum is sanctioning a collector/artist collaboration to exhibit work that has already been validated in the marketplace and which only stands to bolster the market position of both.  Wouldn’t the institution be better served in returning to its stated mission of showing original work by unknown artists who take risks and deserve recognition?  It is time for New Museum to exercise better judgment.  Powhida’s humorous and critically insightful drawing with accompanying text, slamming curatorial cronyism, makes this point clear.

For a high resolution image: click here.

When I read the except from the press release of Jeff Koon’s upcoming solo exhibition, I must admit – I was curious. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

“At first glance the works may seem abstract and gestural, but at the same time they are embedded in the traditions of figurative painting. The brush strokes, which are photorealistic in their application, are actually fake brush strokes in the style of Roy Lichtenstein — but at the same time they support the totality of gesture and action in life itself.”

I don’t know Jeff Koons as anything else other than a man who does big, sellable scultpures and voyeristic art (into his own life, that is). But I did experience seeing Mr. Koons’ boyant sculptures juxtaposed against the Versailles’ stiff ambiance.  It was surprisingly -  a luxurious experience. I say this because both are historic, both carry a prestige; and two completely different experiences were curated (regardless to whether it caused an uproar amongst Parisians) and it worked, beautifully.

What I do know is that when his art pertains to real people, it’s not without controversy. What I say? He’s a modern artist. But there is something enthralling and decadent about this image and I wish I was in LA right now, so I could see the whole show.

Who: Jeff Koons

What: New Paintings, solo Exhibition

When: Nov 14, 2009 – Jan 9, 2010

Where: Gagosian Gallery
Beverly Hills
456 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Contact: 310.271.9400, or email: losangeles@gagosian.com.

For more information, visit Gagosian.com.

Back to work this week but its always good to see some shows to get the ol motivation going. We headed for The Sacred Made Real show at the National Gallery on Monday, an exhibition of 17th century Spanish paintings and sculpture. Savage stuff. Especially the polychrome sculptures, really reminded me of all those Sundays at mass as a young-fella bored out of my brains staring at all the Catholic imagery on the walls and behind the alter. I’ve never really considered these sculptures as high art before, maybe because I’ve never seen them in a museum or because I just associate them with boring Sundays in the 80s but  they are quite real and arresting.

And then across the river to Tate Modern, to see ‘Pop Life, Art in a Material World’. Such a shame they didn’t go with the provisional ‘Sell Out’ title. Anyway, it included much of the expected – Warhol, Koons, Hirst, Murakami blah blah blah but a few interesting pieces from the equally brash but a little less known Martin Kippenberger.

Its a bit of a visual shock to go from looking at Velasquez at the National Gallery to Koons’ larger than life porn photos at Tate Modern but I think the contrast heightened each show, bringing out both the best and the worst of their respective genres with both shows highlighting what people worshiped then and what people worship now. The National Gallery was dark and solemn, the Tate was as busy as Tesco’s with blaring 80’s music. I reckon I spent about 5 times more time in front of each piece at the Sacred show, whereas the energy in the Tate kept us shuffling along to the next piece and the next piece and the next.. 

The most striking similarity was between Gregorio Fernandez’s Dead Christ (1630) and Jeff Koons’ Dirty – Jeff On Top (1991). Both are relatively real, of similar size and depict quite shocking imagery with strong religious symbolism. Fernandez’s Christ died for our sins, Koon’s shagging self-portrait represent Adam and Eve after she’s eaten the apple but feel anything but guilty. Bring on the sin, hell yeah, high 5’s all round!

So hey, I’m John, I am an Art Student, and so out of curiosity I decided to see if this whole blog thing is worth my time. Having a keen interest in all things contemporary on the Art Scene I would hope to show the whole diverse range of Art on the Internet. I will also be giving my own comments of course!

I am currentlystudying the work of Jeff Koons for my thesis and so for my first post will share a video of some of his work with you as a taster for things to come!

Finally made it downto the TATE for the POp expo that’s on -had a very jolly time! It’s not particulaly ground breaking, but was a lot of fun. A personal highlight – I got to be in a room full of Keith Haring, recreating pop shop -HERO WORSHIP! There are also some great Koons… Was also lucky enough to be brought a dog, who now sits on my door…

Fittingly, the shop is wicked for this show too, including…..

CHeck it out further at the POP LIFE (link!). There is also a talk on the 7th Dec about the curration, which i’m going to try and go along to, if you’re interested….

HX

Oh and NOTE: its very expensive, so don’t forget to borrow your friends members card first (sorry tate – i think this is an  illegal move ….) !

Sooooo

get that? its an interpretation of Hal Foster’s views on art, which I kinda agree with.

The (postmodern) artist becomes a manipulator of signs more than a producer ofart objects, and the viewer and active reader of messages rather than a passive contemplator of the aesthetic.

From that drawing I could go in a number of directions, which is why I went back to the smaller drawings.

I started combining disney and artworks, and artworks and other artworks to create art that was a culmination of efforts by me (the sign-manipulator) and the artists of yore.

Apologies for the photographs as I had already linked my camera to the computer and could not be bothered to unlink it so its done with photobooth.

From these I began to make different products:

With these drawings I’d taken a different step into both the commercialism of art, and the success of contemporary artists.

In the top one, “mickey koons” I morphed mickey into a work which although was a found-object piece before, had more symbolism to the Jeff Koons piece. Thus showing the power of contemporary painters compared to a great like walt disney whose company has become a major company of commercial success. Also brings back to the fact that artists are modern day heroes, in comparison with heroes I had when I was younger.

In the latter, “Minnie Hirst” I feel the success is even greater. Its all about success in this one. The famous business artist Hirst is draped over an unsuspecting Minnie Mouse. The tres chic polka dot dress is but one of Hirst’s most recognisable paintings. It is painted onto acetate in the same way my other cel objects where made. This represents the collector’s value of the artwork as well as the value of Hirst and Disney’s work. It raises questions of success and if the value of an art should be based entirely around its price-tag. I feel this second piece is more successful, mainly due to the simplicity and the cryptic nature. Even though the dots represent the over-success of Hirst, they can also be seen as what his work originally meant, faith in medicine (something that is completely unindulgent), and juxtaposed next to something that has become so much of an indulgence (disneyland) it becomes a battle for what is more important in life, indulgence of necessities. Tis also quite nice due to the fact that Minnie Mouse wears a polka dot dress already and its just a slight modification of a well-known image.

Am gonna start working with 3D things possibly next time, so stay tuned.

Till next time.

I wandered through the doors of the exhibit knowing I’d be confronted with mainly Warhol sprinkled with a little Koons for good measure. I like having limited preconceptions: then you are rarely disappointed. I was absolutely blown away – but not in a good way – at the sprawling nexus of rooms held together under the rather generic title ‘Pop Life,’ covering the commercialisation of art from the founding father Warhol to Kippenberger to the YBAs. If selling’s on the mind of these artists, it better be on your mind too: be prepared to sell your soul as you walk around the noisy, glossy, art-on-acid-type rooms that this exhibition comprises of.

The small sign warning us of the ‘challenging’ content of Jeff Koons’ room hardly discourages you from entering a space dominated by a larger-than-life sculpture of Koons in the missionary with his porn bride. I was slightly more entertained by the reactions of the under 1-year-old category who had a good turnout in this room – being pushed in their prams by their stay-at-home-mummies. A good day out for the kids?! The tots I analysed were slightly more taken with ‘Ilona’s Asshole’ – an impressive silkscreen whose title is fairly self-explanatory.

After this delight we were filtered through the rather cramped space displaying Cosey Fanni Tutti’s ‘Pornography’ exhibition; the normal performance art gig: pussies and titties, whose controversial questioning over public funding in the 1970s is reminiscent of my beloved Mapplethorpe.

Of course the YBAs cannot be emitted from this sensory overdose. Pieces from Damien Hirst’s ‘Beautiful Inside my Head Forever’ (2008) Sotheby’s auction where Hirst made a meager £120m or thereabouts, not only epitomises the commercial nature of art but made me feel more bitter about him more than I already do. A good few days’ work Damien – well done. Tracey Emin and Gavin Turk made a cameo appearance but the selected works apart from Turk’s ‘Che’ wouldn’t be the ones I would have chosen for such a mammoth undertaking.

A reconstruction of Keith Haring’s ‘Pop Shop’ takes you by complete surprise – an overdose of abrasive lighting, unnecessary techno music and, yes, wham bam, even a little booth selling T-shirts and overpriced badges. Hooray! You can immediately hop on the pop-life bandwagon.

This is proceeded by Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami’s room – including a bizarre short film ‘Akihabara Majokko Princess’ featuring the Pop Life icon herself; Kirsten Dunst (!) running around the streets of Japan in cool/slutty fashion attire singing the 1980s classic ‘Turning Japanese’?! Yes, seriously. Murakami sells pretty much exclusively to western buyers – so I guess not only does he satirically address the commodity of art with his collaborative Louis Vuitton sneakers but also Said’s  ‘Orientalism’ philosophy of underlying western attitudes towards the east.

If the curator wanted to end the exhibition on a high, you definitely would have needed some hallucinogenics to enjoy the array of comical colour, gloss and sparkle in this final room. I was glad I had ibuprofen in my bag to OD on as I swifly exited the show and found solace in the tranquil artist rooms’ on the floor below.

Before

After

I’m still having a think about how the railway park will look I might print off and sketch over it

River exhibition and park... just an idea!

Posted by Cila Warncke

Wheatfield with Crows

The view from the sixth-floor members’ lounge of the Tate Modern is spectacular. A cool sweep across Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the Millennium Bridge and the sludge-grey curve of the Thames. After that, walking through the ‘Pop Life’ exhibition is like touring a crypt: lifeless, rigid, ostentatious, dull.

There are scenes of a sexually explicit nature (in the demure phrase of the small black-and-white signs dotted around the rooms) but the only shocking thing about them is their banality. Jeff Koons aggrandising pornographic (self) portraits are faintly amusing only for the contrast between the unremarkable dimensions of his penis (photographed) compared to its heroic amplification in the accompanying sculptures. Around me, students scribble on notepads. Hopefully they’re writing: Jeff Koons = outsized cock.

Warhol, as ever in these tributes to shit-for-brains interpretations of post-modernism, has pride of place. One whole wall devoted to tiresome screen prints of his warped, ugly little face. I feel like Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde calf. By contrast, when I walked out of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam the sky itself seemed higher.

Take the self-portraits. Jeff Koons creates himself as a comic-book character with a giant phallus; Warhol wallows in profitable narcissism. Van Gogh looked at himself unsparingly and responded with an honesty that still speaks in every rusty brushstroke. It isn’t that Van Gogh was too unsophisticated to be commercial. He worried frantically about money and his letters to brother-patron Theo are riddled with anxious survival schemes. Yet immerse yourself in his wheat-fields or sunflowers and your mind unfurls. ‘Money’ is a tiny notion, reduced to its proper place by his swirling French skies.

It is fashionable to say that technique is unimportant, but how can anyone claim to be an artist if they don’t respect their art enough to study it? Van Gogh spent his living allowance paying models in order to hone his craft. Warhol found the easiest, most repetitive, least-demanding mediums imaginable (and was too lazy to even use them inventively). In another section of the Tate an artist whose name mercifully escapes me destroyed a bunch of his paintings in some kind of ‘performance’. How original. How irritating. How insincere. If you really believe what you’re doing is art then it must have value, must have something of yourself in it. How can you just destroy it? The corollary is if you can casually wreck something then you must not feel it truly represents you; it’s not your art. In which case, go back and try harder. Van Gogh bled for his art. He worked while confined to a sanatorium, he lived in raw poverty, he wrestled with demons. The fragmentary calm in his paintings is heart-rending because it evokes peace in the midst of passionate struggle. Koons, Hirst, et al, I warrant, never fought for anything more meaningful than a parking space.

www.artbook.com

Jeff Koons takes over Versailles. Loooove the  juxtaposition between contemporary and HISTORIC french-ness!

Balloon Dog 1999-2000

Lobster 2003

Ed Alcock for The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/09/11/arts/design/20080911_KOONS_SLIDESHOW_index.html

65.000 pensamientos cubren y dan vida (en invierno)  a la estructura de Puppy, el perro guardián a la puerta del Museo Guggenheim de Bilbao.  La vida de la escultura de Jeff Koons se extingue y se renueva dos veces por año, el período que tarda las flores invernales o veraniegas en brotar, crecer y marchitarse.

Puppy. Bilbao, año 2005

Con la excusa de una gerontoquedada con Elías y José Ramón (Dentro de 20 años las gerontoquedadas serán con Johnatans y Christians…)  hace meses que planeaba otro fin de semana en Bilbao, concretamente desde la última y primaveral visita al Guggenheim tomado por Murakami. Ahora también con inexcusable visita al Guggenheim para ver – otra vez – las mega-esculturas de Richard Serra , La Materia del Tiempo, y las esperadas exposiciones temporales de Frank Lloyd-Wright y la de pintura De lo Privado a lo Público Habrá tiempo de amigos, pintxos, katxis, vinitos,cubalises y quizá algún guiño “folclórico”… Aunque no iré a ver a Delorean, que tocan el sábado en Bilbao, ni hoy tendré el problema de  elegir entre ver a Dorian+Mendetz en la Sala Q o a J. y Florent de Los Planetas en el Teatro Central de Sevilla en el ciclo de La Música Contada. No se puede estar en 65.000 sitios a la vez.

Al menos oir algo de estos chicos bailongos de Zarautz por gentileza de los del vodka…

Deli - Delorean

PD: 2 entradas seguidas con perros…

]]> http://cubanlad.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/pornografia-pura-y-dura-en-la-tate-modern/ Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:32:31 +0000 cubanlad http://cubanlad.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/pornografia-pura-y-dura-en-la-tate-modern/ http://gordondouglas.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/indulgence/ Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:13:58 +0000 gordondouglas http://gordondouglas.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/indulgence/

So here is the continuation of the money/value/art hating piece haha

Is art an unnecessary indulgence? I was in complete awe of fountain by Marcel Duchamp and when looking at the picture it reminded me of pictures taken with disney characters at disneyland.

My act of taking this picture proved the point and potency of art. It answers the question of representation also. I believe the reputation and representations of the work are quite vital to the final piece, they increase popularity and the fame of the pieces.

Indulgence is the real question about art. Does art have an actual purpose in society. In my opinion right now, no it doesn’t. It seems like it only influences the art world and makes no impact outside it. I will have to think about it more though me tinks.

These pictures are some sketches from sketchbooks and some other wall based works.

They mainly deal with the idea that art is purely an indulgence that can be dipped into. It deals with the parallels between commercial success and art by creating a theme park where art is celebrated in a way but it also used completely for commercial success.

“Fountainhead” is an imaginary character in this land such as mickey or goofy would be in disneyland. The wall piece is a comparison between fountainhead and me as a young boy and young me and goofy at a trip to disneyland earlier in my life.

The final pieces here are a different take on this indulgence aspect. They look into the idea that art is similar in ways to sport. Art is a competition with the spectators being the bourgeouisie, the collectors, the art students, the people who want to be cultured.

I think these pieces are quite potent in the way they reference another artist Jeff Koons, I had to look into his equilibrium work to make sure it was the right thing to slot into my own artwork. I believe it is: it is a representation of how art is used by white middle-class kids for social mobility just how other ethnic groups in new york at the time used basketball for theirs. It is also about it being impossible to become the perfect person, equal in every way. Koons presents the balls in a water mixed with sodium something or other solution which makes them stay central, but gradually moving down to the bottom of the tank through a process which takes about six months. This shows that nothing can be kept completely central.

The idea presented in these two sketchbook images is one of combining art with sport, as I see sport being a completely useless part of society. Maybe if I get over my feelings about sport I will be able to overcome this hurdle in art.

Anyhoos wish me luck in my crit tomorrow, byah

On laisse souvent entendre que telle oeuvre d’art, majeure, a « choqué » en son temps. Notamment à partir du 19ème siècle : on aime à imaginer ces hommes et femmes de la bonne société, se jeter hors des salons et des expositions, horrifiés, s’arracher la barbe pour les uns, les froufrous pour les autres, réclamer le bûcher pour l’hérétique…

Je crains que la réalité soit plus fade, et que ces oeuvres qui ont choqué, aient en réalité fait doucement rigoler. Avec un rictus de mépris, on a dû se dire que ce Gustave Courbet n’était décidément pas très subtil. Ou encore on a soupiré de dépit devant les gribouillages d’enfant demeuré de ces « fauves ». Et aujourd’hui on apprend que tel Jeff Koons fait scandale avec son zob en plastique, mais qui est vraiment offusqué ? Personne. C’est simplement une expression journalistique.

C’est une tendance assez récente de prendre l’art au sérieux, de croire qu’il peut changer le monde, d’oublier qu’un tableau n’est tout de même qu’une image ou qu’une musique n’est qu’une musique, par rapport à la vraie vie des gens. Ceux qui surestiment le caractère scandaleux de l’art sont en général non pas les artistes eux-mêmes, mais les salariés de l’art et la culture : enseignants, journalistes, critiques, guides de musée, galeristes… Ceux-là font grand cas des « ruptures » et des « coups de pied dans la fourmillière », ils enseignent une opposition entre art et conservatisme.

Il est pourtant évident que, dans l’art et dans la vie elle-même, la rupture a un rôle relativement mince et parcimonieux par rapport à la conservation. La société est comme n’importe quel organisme : elle s’entretient avant tout, et ne se révolutionne qu’en dernier recours, lorsque les forces conservatrices sont épuisées ou lorsque l’harmonie et la conservation deviennent plus coûteuses à maintenir que la recontruction elle-même.

Un peu d’humour sur les “salariés de l’art et de la culture“