Old Porridge. The Inchoate, Idiosyncratic Descent into Nihilism at Michaelis Gallery.
Friday, October 12, 2007
I know I haven't written in a while, I had food poisoning on Tuesday, I suspect from too many pork viennas, a deadline on Wednesday, and general brain failure on Friday. However, I'm glad the run of show's entitled the Inchoate, Idiosyncratic Descent into Nihilism is finally over, and no more pork for a while. As for the final installment of this show, which took place this time at the Michaelis Gallery, it was better, but not quite there yet. At least there was some work on the show, an improvement from previous iterations. Oh, and some of it was actually ok, except for this enormous bed-morphing-into-man-attached-to-gas-canister-and-condoms monstrosity that lurked about in the centre of the space. Maybe that's why I was poisoned. My favourite work on the show was installed in the bathroom. Although it was a bit of an obvious metaphor, Gerald Machona replaced the toilet paper with Zimbabwean $20000 notes. Cute and to the point. Still, this is what a show by students should be comprised of, playfulness, a little seriousness, and not too many big words. Bianca Kloos had a stack of TV's, and it was kinda nice to watch and remember when people thought video was a fun medium. Andrew Lamprecht did something obscure on the alchemical marriage of Nietzche and The Queen Mother, which I did need explained to me, but afterwards was quite humorous. And the rest seems to have faded from my memory, except for Dan Halter's piece. Dan Halter had a great work, which I guess could be a metaphor for the run of shows: He gave the curator's a pot and ingredients to make a traditional Zimbabwean one-day beer. Entitled If You Don't Have Patience You Cannot Make Beer, the curators clearly lacked that particular quality, as it wasn't fermented. Tasted like old porridge.
posted by Robert Sloon at 10:51 AM
11 Comments:
For those of us who didn't have Andrew's piece explained to us, what was it about?
Earlier in the one night show I put up copies of a whole lot of 17th century alchemical engravings on blank's wall which people were free to take with them as they left the show. Alchemy is basically about the transmutation of things from "base" into "exhalted" (e.g. good into bad or lead into gold). Anyway and to cut a long story short, one of the major concepts is the idea of the "chymical marriage" or the joining of two things to make something vastly superior to the sum of their parts. The big print at the final show was a representation of this but made up of thousands of tiny pictures of the philosopher Nietzsche (who is usually most closely associated with Nihilism). I was struck by the fact that for three weeks in August 1900 (August 4 - August 25, I think) Nietzsche was dying and completely losing his mind whilst Elizabeth, later Queen and Queen Mother of England) was born and just beginning to form her consciousness. Hence the relationship between her images (in the books on the floor) and the images of Mr N. If you know her story you'll remember that she begrudgingly was "transmuted" from ordinary rich-girl to princess to queen through a series of unexpected events. I could say more but I suspect that no one is reading anymore and this all sounds rather pretentious and I was trying to be inchoate. Sorry. Really, really, sorry. And yes, I know it is pretentious. If you don't buy this then I could just say that it is a very big print of a nice image.
2 many white speakers
Ok Andrew, I understand your view that probably nobody reads or even wants to know this stuff anymore. But my problem is, and it is a FUCKING HUGE problem, what if you happen to be one of the few who DO want to know? We live in small town and there is not much access to information at all, and the small bits of access we do have don't want to talk about it because the dumb main stream doesn't want to know. So what the fuck are we supposed to do? The message I get is, if you like to think or to read, just fucking kill yourself cos you're a loser. So thanks a lot for the help fuckers, this one's on you. Bang.
Why a picture of loudspeakers?
I think all this petty bitching, "high" politics and Sloons rancid verbal vomit, has taught all young prospective artists and curators a valubale lesson, passion and daring initiative have no place in this pathetic community of failed and bitter artists, who cant stand the threat of "replacement". And while i have no illusions about the real word, this is high school all over again, from disillutioned Michaelis student!
Show me the passion and I'll show you a good review. Show me the daring and I'll show you a good time. All I saw was a bit of initiative, which is great, and has been commented upon.
And I'm sorry, we all had a tough time in high school.
Part of making it is knowing when you do something right and knowing when you do something wrong, so as to fix it. Lily and I didn't go into this expecting fantastic reviews. We did this because we wanted to. Because we had something to say and because we needed a platform of some kind, not only for ourselves but for those around us. We don't want to be handed fantastic reviews based on our undergraduate status, as a means of falsly stroking our egos so as to push us forward. We want to be treated like any other curatorial team. We want grounds to improve on.
Oh, and Anonymous. Read Andrews fucking description and you will understand his work. Reading the last few lines and going on a pity trip isn't helping anyone.
"Because we had something to say"
Sincerely - what is it that you had to say?
I don't understand the fuss
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