This week, Ai Weiwei on the internet, the risk of reporting on memes, Dave Hickey on art now, academic and artistic freedom in Wyoming, Trevor Paglen has a moment, everyone hates the art market, Kickstarter and ads,and more.
November 4, 2012
Posted inOpinion
Weekend Words
An exquisite corpse of apposite quotes from the Hyperallergic Weekend Editors.
Posted inBooks
Between The Past You Can’t Live In and The Future You Can’t Imagine
We know that the equation between word and thing can no longer be taken for granted, and that words are made up of both syllables and sounds. Does this mean a poet — one who uses transparent language and writes in an autobiographical mode — is incapable of exploring the conditions of meaning? By transparent, I mean a plain language that can be used to reach the largest audience possible without losing any relevant information. Or must the language the poet uses be opaque and resistant, like reality itself?
Posted inArt
Wayne Thiebaud and the Limits of Gluttony
I was lucky enough to see Wayne Thiebaud: 70 Years of Painting at the San Jose Museum of Art (February 27–July 4, 2010) and write about it for The Brooklyn Rail (July–August 2010). As with that exhibition, many of the works now on view at the Aquavella Galleries’ posh, mirrored townhouse on Manhattan’s 79th Street (the artist’s first show there), a few blocks north of the Whitney Museum of American Art, came from the Thiebaud Family Collection, the artist’s studio, museums and private collections. Evidently, only a handful of the more than eighty works are for sale. On the day that I went to the gallery a man came in and asked the woman at the front desk for a price list because his wife had told him to “buy her something for Christmas.” This might bother some people, but some of those same people probably don’t see any problem with how much money reality stars spend on their underwear.
