WHERE IS THE FORM?
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Hi Jimmy,Shot for the response,
The problem here is that art thing, I think. It is a messy environment in which we exist. We are in the same boat, you are right. And what are we to make of this?
I think that one of the many aspects of the Very Real Time project is that it exposes artistic behaviour on a more personal level. And this is why the project is successful. What does bother me though, is that when an artist deals with this kind of personal exposure in his or her own way, it is often seen as problematic. There still exists a preconceived notion of what might fit into the category of “art”, or artistic behaviour.
When one deviates from this existing structure, it is seen as arrogant, self-indulgent and aggressive. How is this a problem. In a contemporary art structure where form is dissolving, we are still obsessively trying to hang onto particular forms. Is this really necessary? And is this good for art.
For me this project really exposed and developed my own insecurities. In re-evaluating my concerns as an artist throughout this project, it offered me time to really engage with myself (and yes, I did jerk off once or twice), for a change, and less with the world that surrounds me. And for the first time I got to like these insecurities. I suppose I cannot think of any artist that has not yet had to face these at some point in their careers. Show me a confident artist and I will show you a good time: Maybe some good old artistic Faust Fucking in Antwerp.
So it is here that I would like to make a stand. It is your unwillingness to engage with my project that is arrogant. What really pissed me off is that I find now excuses are being made. Even if leaving me the fuck alone meant more engagement. My problem is that I had to listen to Gregg and the complaints from the Very Real Timers. I find this rude and incompetent and not really engaging.
You guys are from the same school. This did make a huge difference. From the start you all huddled together and failed to really engage with many from the local scene. This is also not a big problem but did develop some tensions. I do not really see the reason why this is a problem as I do feel this changes the dynamics of the very real time discourse. It becomes far more interesting than a bunch of happy artists patting themselves on the back. I have seen that too often. I think we should embrace personal differences. Maybe some random beatings could have also been interesting.
And, as I remember, the invitation for a drink was also to you personally. I recall this being said outside your apartment before you went for a drive around the mountain. It would have been nice to take you to some local bars and show you the scene. And have a little chat. Instead I was invited to little dinner parties that I fucking hate.
And thanks for the invitation for fist fuck watching in Antwerp. I will definitely take you up on the offer.
Love,
Ed
posted by Ed Young at 1:04 PM
23 Comments:
For the first time as a watcher of this process I really see the logic of what Ed is doing, and it makes sense. Also, having met Jimmy and others around the place I can entirely see that they have an approach to art which comes across as rather prissy and un-immediate. I think they're the kind of people who get lost in the pretensions of their own crap rather than seeing through it. It's not like they're alone in this. Most artists in the world are pretty dull in that way. The problem is that most artists are not very interesting either.
So much for the fuckin Rijks Academy or whatever it's called. Groaning as Holland is under an excess of government funding.
Jimy should be an architect. He's exactly the type.
pretentensioush europeans should go home. Get out foreigners. And take your whale with you.
Ed is a typical afrikaner in the way that he whinges and makes excuses. He can't write coherently without waffling, he has no sense of humour, and he takes everything personally. He's like a nasty, uglier version of Naas Botha.
and Ed has to shave twice a day because he's so disgustingly hairy.
Naas is a national icon.
He is astute, coherent, and posses a cutting dry wit.
He is an asset and an ambassador to South Africa.
A little known fact about Naas: he used to sit on the board of SANG, and in his Dallas Cowboys days, was an active player in the Texas conceptual art scene. He is also an art collector of some influence-
one of the first to purchase works by now famous South African artists.
Even though he lives in pretoria.
Naas once confessed on M-net Open Time boots 'n all to wearing his Soap on a Roap like a medalion
( under his skipper of course) for the fragrance which seemed to always bring him good luck
Imagine if Ed became really famous and left Cape Town, what would we all have to write about?
I thought he was really famous
And I thought he had already gone overseas
Is it just me does "waffling" seem to have a rather liberal definition amongst the anonymous sort? This makes a shat load more sense than anything Gregg or Jimmy or any of those bastards have stated thus far. I know this is a meaningless post on a blog of collective "Fuckheads" (Young, 2006)but dammit if Ed hasn't reduced these international contemporaries to redundancy then Tracey Rose has artistic merit. And she doesn't. Therefore it is evident that the collective "anons" may shut the fuck up. Props to the comparitively (with regard to Hungarian women at least) unhairy guy,this has probably turned out better than you expected.
Reference
Young, E, 2006. "Letter to Art?Heat".
[http://artheat.blogspot.com/]
Last accessed 01/11/06
you forgot to write "[Online]" in the first line! ohnoes!
(the academic world collapsed into anarchy)
Are we what is 'overseas' for the VRT visitors? Cool!!!
polly staples, editor of Frieze mag and London curator thinks jim's work is pretty cool. i know this because i read it under her section (p 120) on solo shows in the "Looking Back" article of Frieze (Issue 96) ..."critics and curators from around the world choose what they felt to be the mot significant shows and artists of 2005". He's also mentioned on page 41.
i am rather fond of his work too. i think it is moving and nuanced and about life, in a way thats quite refreshing yet traditionally lyrical at the same time. some of i made me want to cry, and I like crying, some of the time.
I got to hang out with the artists a fair deal and I think this projects has been misjudged by the bloggers on this site.
i used to think ed was a genius, perhaps he still is, and i am rather fond of him too but here I feel he has lost the plot. (and it's not because I don't "get" what he is trying to do, i do). and an aside: ironic that he told ME not to exploit Gregg for Jimmy's rent money!
someone said to me the otherday that ed's going to end up a bergie pushing a trolley saying " it's an artwork" (it was a lame joke but funny at the time thanks to the telling)...
i think the danger is that if work leans too much towards fashion and relies too much on context context context to make it interseting, it eventually -entropically- becomes damn meaningless, like all those "hip" south african abstract expressionists in the 60's. Boring! Boring!
I love you Julia
hey. a funny story.
i was at an english tutorial, (yes i am a student so fuck you. fuck off and cunt) and before it started some of the other english people were discussing their upper campus 'Art theory' course.
one of the guys said that he thought that the film with the 'person stealing the shoes' is not art and should not be tought. on the other hand, he thought that steven cohen was brave, courageous and that his art was cool. yeah.
i thougt it was funny.
ralph borland is more hairy.
taught.
thought.
Ralph's sharks are not interactive. They are windvanes. What has this got to do with hair ?
Hey Jules...
Fantastic that you like Jimmy, although Jimmy was overheard at royal saying he was so upset for living with you because you used him as a sounding board. Careful girl...
Men have used woman as ironing boards and washimg boards and Boards of Appeal for eons. Wassa problem in taking a sounding occaisonally?
if i believed everything i overheard at royale i would be a jibbering wreck. and don't call me girl, you patronising git. instinctively, i don't believe for one second that jimmy was upset staying with me anymore so than the way humans naturally find it a strain to interact with other humans, specially those they don't know very well. grow up.
Why not change lens - a building on the foreshore (custom's house), one of the prime examples of not-quite-right late modernism (like something from Yogoslavia featured in wallpaper mag) : inside, a dome roofed hall, the window wall on the mountain side is drilled by police bullets where , late at night, they held a blindfolded detainee up against the internal handrail suggesting they were on the roof, threatened to throw him off , then shot past his ear a few times. They were based here, now long lines of African refugees snake around the parking lot, waiting, daily, weekly, monthly - always waiting - for papers. The domed room is empty, unusable, the designer's got it wrong , if one stands in the centre and claps, the echo sharp as glass, repeats for maybe 3 minutes.
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