If anyone thought that ArtHeat was the worst cess-pit of mudslinging and verbal abuse in the art world, meet mild-mannered Mr Gray.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
This from Brenden Gray's blog on the Art South Africa website. I'm gobsmacked.
I am tired of the methodology of the likes of Avant-Car Guard, Art Heat and the cartoons of Lizze Littlewort. It is boring to see the adolescence of this self-professed avant-garde pissing in the little puddle that is the South African Art scene. The first problem is these pathetic personas, which remove these practitioners from the very self-interestedness they attack other practitioners of having. At least regular artists use their own names and are unashamed of their aesthetic commitments. To me, they are parasites on the back of artistic integrity, offering little but light entertainment on the dynamics of the art industry. A someone who is somewhat addicted to criticizing the self-interestedness of the field of cultural production, I have realized that this is pretty standard stuff, hardly avant-garde and once you have unmasked the ideology at play in the art industry, there is very little else original to say. I am not arguing that that the game of art should not be critiqued and provoked but this purile pseudo-avant-gardism really has no substance. The Daily Artheat at the fair ("It Ain't Art And It Ain't Fair"), had clearly run out of steam by Sunday, offering little in the way of incisive criticism. What the team of photocopy collage experts did manage to achieve was implicit endorsements of artists that they liked at the Fair (Robin Rhode, Avant Car Guard et al). Here they aligned themselves with practitioners who they profess are like them, which is hardly true. A real critic is able to critique the base of their own power, rather than reproducing their own privilege. I am so pleased to see that Avant Car Guard sold work at the fair, lubricating the sale with the spectacle of inviting the Johannesburg Gospel Choir to dance on the grave of Kendell Geers. I wonder if Geers cares now that he has ejected himself out of this purile game of provocation? I will look forward to the day when I can dance on their self-dug graves as they achieve success and find their rightful place in the privilege of the establishment.
posted by Vince Condesini at 9:33 PM
15 Comments:
i'd like to know more about art heat....
http://sydwillowphotography.blogspot.com
(Not in relation to todays post)
use a spellcheck and do a bit more reading brenden, you'll get it eventually and then you'll feel much better
My response as posted on the Art South Africa blog:
Brenden, Blogging about other bloggers is a great way to bring traffic and comments to your site. I have been wary of commenting, as I suspected you were just trolling for a fight or a response, something you mentioned your blog lacked. Criticising critics is a good way to start a bun fight: we all have equal power and privilege to respond and unfortunately, nitpick. With this in mind I am not going to go about defending myself or my publication, of which I think your opinions of are a little misinformed and ill-researched.
I do however want to nitpick. Something that disturbed me in your writing: "A real critic is able to critique the base of their own power, rather than reproducing their own privilege". I see little evidence of this in your writing on this blog,and indeed I am glad not to have to wade through it. Beyond this, the idea that there is such a thing as a real critic, a camp I presume you situate yourself in, smacks of a cultural elitism, perhaps modernism and the avant-garde's worst crime. Is this real critic someone who has critiqued their power base and can now claim their opinions come from a neutral place? I think this is an exceptionally dangerous place to situate yourself, you'll end up gazing out at the rest of the world as others to your intellectual neutrality, and be able to in Michael Smith's words "enjoy others opinions". Like wildlife. I also think it's an impossible place to get to, having critiqued one power base, say for example my psuedo-avant-gardism, I come up against my whiteness, my maleness, my heterosexuality, my Capetowness, my South Africaness (many of which I think you share). Not that examining these things very closely isn't important and something that should be actively investigated, but I doubt I'll ever escape my context. In which case, Long Live The Real Critic. Regards, Robert Sloon
i love you robert sloon. and i would love to watch you butt fuck brenden gray.
I would just like to set the record straight: Brenden Gray is anything but mild-mannered. And neither am I. Come to Joburg, you limp-fringed, skinny-jeaned Cape Town nancy boys, and we'll show you how we discuss theory in some of the dirtiest, most vermin-infested Jozi back alleys, with barely a copy of Foucault to protect us. We call it... 'street theory'.
Wow! Sounds like some more wrenching, greasy, tough-love shower action for the muscular, dynamic showbiz wank duo of bgray and smithy - live at a library near you.
Yawn.. Go fuck yourselves both of you's.
I feel that Sloon is being rather defensive.
And rightfully so.
Dear 'B" and "m', just wondering what you've actually been doing since the 1970's
Well, my time has been evenly divided between rollerblading in a bikini, clipping coupons and honing my Volkspele chops. You? Any time devoted to understanding punctuation, between having your hair cut and joining an emo band?
And rightfully so?
I find it disappointing, this defensive manner. As it shows an inability to handle critique that is directed at you (Sloon) and your (artheat) work. You are engaging with an open forum, the pubic domain, and this is how the big boys and girls play.
I feel like you are reacting much like Nathaniel Stern did when Artheat critiqued his blog a few years ago.
Thanks for that Brenden. And now for a little word from our sponsors... FREE EAR WAXES with every stuffed shirt.
Dear Anonymous 9:29,
Sometimes it's hard: either you respond and come across as defensive or you shut up. Or you retract, like that sissy boy Gallileo. Personally I don't feel I was defensive, but rather I picked out a point where Brenden neutralised his intellect and exoticised mine by saying I'm not a real critic. Something you are similarly doing by making me out as childish.
Having been blogging for two years I don't think I need a lecture on the public domain. On the other hand, show me some engagement from anyone and I'll show you a good time.
love,
Robert
my philosophy applies: IF YOU CAN'T JOIN THEM, BEAT THEM
repeatedly
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