Attack of the "First Team Players"
Friday, March 21, 2008
Michael Smith
B,
I like your unwillingness to float along with the establishment's endorsing of these self-styled tricksters.
While I'm of the opinion that Avant Car Guard do make some decent works, I think the interest shown by the organisers of the Art Fair in ArtHeat is excessive, and possibly a bit misguided. Their presence at the Fair felt less like that of court jesters and more like that of midget mascots amongst the first team players of the art world. In fact, one senses that their co-opting by the establishment they seem(ed?) so keen on challenging is a clear sign that few take them or their subversive impulses too seriously.
M
Lizza
My goodness, I'm really amazed by you people. Does it not ever occur to you that different people have different ways of contributing to the discussion, and that all of them are valuable? If Artheat has managed to make a few people think and talk about art during the fair then it has done a good job. I have no doubt that is why the organisers were interested in having us there... to provide a variety of voices. We worked very hard to present food for thought in the style in which we enjoy doing so, which I do not regard as the slightest bit subversive. I think it is more or less impossible to be subversive as an artist, after all the debates which have been raised up till this point in history. Your negativity and resentment does not bode well for your willingness to build a strong artworld for all of us, as you seem only to condone your own kind of message. Perhaps you would also like to prohibit the use of editorial cartoons in newspapers because they are, God forbid, funny, and have them all replaced with tweedy, windy little essays by yourselves.
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Michael Smith
Yes, Lizza, one hundred percent correct. Watch your local press for a book-burning endorsed by 'us people'.
Ironically enough, in the context of this exchange, I really like your cartoons. I think you are quite effectively subversive: humour is often the best weapon against propriety and the silence it breeds.
-----------------Lizza
A silence which, as far as I am concerned, you are trying to throw over debate in this country.
Yes, my cartoons are easy to get, as the cartoon medium announces itself as funny. The rest you seem to need a little help with. The organisers of Artlogic, on the other hand, needed no help at all. They know exactly what ArtHeat is and where it stands. If you take a look at what they have achieved with this fair while still maintaining a high standard of art, it can be assumed that they are astute people and I doubt they need your advice about what should comprise the broad range of media which was available at the fair.
If you felt that ArtHeat had too much of a presence, why didn't you also come up with the idea of doing a daily paper for the art fair? Or perhaps you expect us to have first asked permission from first team players like yourself? I suggest you get off your butt and stop complaining.
Regarding ArtHeat itself and its standard of journalism, I think it is single-handedly breathing life into the deadness of this entire scene, and giving a voice to all sorts of ideas that never see the light of day through tightly censored sites like yours. I am highly respectful of the emotional intelligence and sensitivity that ArtHeat displays, as well as its ability to maintain a culture of tolerance and fairness in the choppy waters of open debate. At the debate on criticim in Joburg Art Week, Kathryn Smith paid tribute to ArtHeat as performing a function desperately needed and much lacking in our art world. It saddens me that what is so obvious to her is painfully unobvious to you.
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Michael Smith
You obviously feel very passionately about this, and that passion is probably the most important component often lacking in this scene.
Nevertheless, you clearly don't enjoy opinions that diverge from your own. I would respectfully caution you about this: dogmatic insistence on your own correctness can be a hard facade to maintain, especially given that the conceptual terrain of the art world is highly contested and constantly changing. You are bound to have your ideas challenged, multiple times, and to respond with such condescension and knee-jerk vitriol could eventually undermine your position.
Anyway, keep well, and keep doing good work.
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Lizza
Thanks for describing yourself so exactly, Michael. I'm glad to have your help.
Labels: Art South Africa, artthrob, Brenden Gray, Joburg art fair, Michael Smith
posted by Vince Condesini at 9:54 PM
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