Only A Little Lost. Gimberg/Nerf/Sacks/Young at Smac
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Famous mourning in front of Nerf's memorial work The MacGuffin.What a mission!I know I'm a "parochial worm" and seldom leave the fertile crescent, except under duress, but wandering around Stellenbosch trying to follow those directions got me quite lost. Maybe being a Michaelis graduate, though, could account for my directionlessness. Nevertheless, we did indeed arrive at Gimberg/ Nerf/ Sacks/ Young at Smac. As did half of Cape Town. Off the bat, I must say that it is an amazing gallery... a bustling office full of professionals, a beautiful space, and tasteful waiters bringing high quality Stellenbosch quaff and, bizarrely, popcorn. And also publishing a high quality book to accompany the show, something which will be reviewed in it's own right after I peruse it. I heard rumour that the gallery put up money for production costs too; an unheard of luxury. As for the show itself... the entrance hall was lined with rows of work by some of SA's finest young artists: Hindley, Halter, Henan and some others. The main show was busy, chaotic even, but with refreshingly good humour. Perhaps challenging...some works could have used some explanatory text, especially bits of Christian Nerf's work, though knowing some of the stories I thoroughly enjoyed his offering. Ed Young had some new work, which was surprising. It seems a different direction, stuffed bears and stuff, which wasn't entirely clear. But maybe it is the start of a new life for Ed's work... at some point being big only in Cape Town and Ghent must wear thin. Ruth Sacks had some new work too, not least being the announcement that she will be on Venice. Sweet Mecca. (If I might add, you could also see the book we did together I'll stop believing in you if you stop believing in me). Douglas Gimberg presented work which held up well against the work of the older artists. I hope the quality of his work, and unique humour, is something we'll see more of.
Finally, the long and purposefully rambling, boring speech by Ronald Suresh Roberts was a performance in itself. His words, leaving some red-faced with anger and others with laughter, just prove that people are more often judged by their images in the media, than what they are actually saying. A somewhat appropriate message, perhaps.
Wish we had a gallery like this a bit closer to home...
Labels: review
posted by Robert Sloon at 5:44 PM
13 Comments:
I liked reading this.
I have been reading the long and informative debate in the 'non-catalogue' of this show, and find myself wondering:
Are there any artists of repute in the entire world, other than this bunch and their buddies Kendell and Avant Car Guard, who are even REMOTELY interested in either being avant-garde or discussing whether they are or not?
I just can't imagine, say, Chris Ofili or Sarah Lucas or, well, anyone, being interested in engaging with an idea like this. It is just so self-evident that we are living in a world so large and complex as to render this kind of thinking really dated.
There's something very very small-town about the whole thing, that smacks of the smallness of apartheid ideology trying to hold out against the world. It's the kind of idea that could only gain purchase in parochial backwater.
Ed Young's Duchamp piece is a classic of fake scholarship complete with reference attribution. But when one reads the original the extent of his borrowing, the lack of any real additional input make the whole thing seem a joke, like Reader's Digest does Art Theory, or sad proof of deep self-delusion. Actually, it was The Emperor who was deluded, the Crowd were merely too terrified to point out his grand craziness.
"...start of a new life for Ed's work...at some point being big only in Cape Town and Ghent...".....forgotten Lochner's photo's in One Small Seed already Sloon?
Ed Young claims he's Hansie Cronje's cousin. Both made successful careers out of being arseholes. Fucking paranoid dutchmen completely lacking senses of humour
here's hoping Ed's plane crashes into a mountain
shit a brick!
golly Jim calm down. He's only and artist, for heavens sake. If you hate him that much the issues are all yours...
it's just not cricket
dammit it's not Pinnochio either
Anonymous said...
Oh no! Ed Young, what a prat. Self involved white suburban waist of space. You'd think that given the current lack of opportunities in the art world, not to mention issues on transformation, young artists would make the most of opportunites. Anyway its a sad state of affairs when galleries are supporting this kind of shallow self premoting bullshit, and art becomes reduced to a series of set backs. No one is going to take us seriously
Anonymous said...
Oh no! Ed Young, what a prat. Self involved white suburban waist of space. You'd think that given the current lack of opportunities in the art world, not to mention issues on transformation, young artists would make the most of opportunites. Anyway its a sad state of affairs when galleries are supporting this kind of shallow self premoting bullshit, and art becomes reduced to a series of set backs. No one is going to take us seriously
Anonymous said...
Oh no! Ed Young, what a prat. Self involved white suburban waist of space. You'd think that given the current lack of opportunities in the art world, not to mention issues on transformation, young artists would make the most of opportunites. Anyway its a sad state of affairs when galleries are supporting this kind of shallow self premoting bullshit, and art becomes reduced to a series of set backs. No one is going to take us seriously
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