Astrological Aesthetics: February 2016 Horoscopes

Hyperallergic’s horoscopes offer astrological advice for artists and art types, in art terms, every month.

Aquarius (January 21–February 19)

Have you caught the fever yet, Aquarius? No, not that inevitable, late-winter flu — the Fischli/Weiss fever! We were feeling very ambivalent about the Swiss duo’s Guggenheim show, like do we really need another big museum retrospective devoted to a couple of sarcastic white dudes? But, damn it, the prospect of seeing so many of their hilarious ceramic sculptures gathered together in one place is irresistible. Plus, their seminal short film “The Way Things Go” (1987) is a lot like your February: a series of seemingly random events choreographed to produce a very positive outcome.

Pisces (February 20–March 20)

We don’t know if you followed the Knoedler trial, Pisces, but in our distinguished opinion it’s the most addictive legal drama since the O.J. Simpson trial. There’s so much money and intrigue involved, and it so plainly illustrates the many, many problems with the opacity of the art market in its current form. It also parallels, in some potentially uncomfortable ways, your present situation. Should you stick up for your morally corrupt colleague, or turn them in? It may not seem so difficult to make the correct decision right now, just know that you might have to testify in court one day.

Aries (March 21–April 20)

Have you ever experienced Andy Warhol and Billy Klüver’s “Silver Clouds” (1966)? It is, in many ways, the simplest of installations, just a bunch of shiny balloons floating around an enclosed space, knocking into each other and casting brilliant reflections. Much like those balloons, you will spend most of February bouncing about, glowing delightfully as you flutter around obliviously. And then in the final week of the month, you will gracefully land on your feet in exactly the right place and at the right time. Just make sure you don’t pop before then.

Taurus (April 21–May 21)

Did you catch Coco Fusco’s recent solo show at Alexander Gray Associates? If not, allow us to summarize it for you. Our takeaway — and perhaps we read it a tad too literally — was that Cuba in the 1970s was really good at doing two things: designing vibrant, art nouveau-on-psychedelics covers for books of leftist poetry; and banning said books of leftist poetry. Don’t be like 1970s Cuba, Taurus — stop shooting yourself in the foot.

Gemini (May 22–June 21)

We’ve long wanted to take a Land Art road trip through the southwestern United States, Gemini. We picture it going a lot like On the Road, except with fewer drugs — or, to use a different generational yardstick, like the Britney Spears movie Crossroads (except with more drugs). We’d visit Michael Heizer’s “Double Negative,” Walter de Maria’s “Lightning Field,” Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty,” Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation, and, while we’re in West Texas, why not also stop by Elmgreen and Dragset’s “Prada Marfa“? If the drugs emboldened us, maybe we’d even go trespassing in search of James Turrell’s “Roden Crater.” The trip would involve a lot of driving down long, straight roads through dusty landscapes, with the occasional transcendent art experience, which is a lot like what this month has in store for you.

Cancer (June 22–July 22)

You’re so god-damned perceptive, Cancer, aren’t you? You sat there watching Rachel Rose’s “Everything and More” (2015) video at the Whitney Museum, with its kaleidoscopically fragmented footage of astronaut training facilities and electronic dance music concerts, and just had to blurt out to everyone sitting in the darkened room, “Oh, it’s about the incredibly elaborate and technical mechanisms humans create to achieve a kind of primal and sublime experience of escape and freedom,” didn’t you? Next time, keep it to yourself — some of us like to wrestle with the muck of life.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Jim Shaw is so promiscuous, it’s kind of ridiculous. We mean that stylistically, not sexually, but if you caught Shaw’s New Museum retrospective you know exactly what we’re talking about. His series My Mirage includes more than 100 artworks, each employing the trademark materials, iconography, and style of a given art movement, design school, or type of visual culture — and doing so inconceivably convincingly, at that. Promiscuity is working out for Shaw, but it might not work out so well for you this month (and no, Leo, we’re not talking about stylistic promiscuity anymore).

Virgo (August 23–September 23)

Which is your favorite rendering of “The Temptation of Saint Anthony,” Virgo? There are so many good ones: Salvador Dalí’s is basically the plot of Mad Max: Fury Road with elephants; in Paul Cézanne’s it looks like an exhibitionist and her posse of cherubs are flashing a hiker; Hieronymus Bosch painted two versions and they’re both bat-shit crazy; but, incredibly, the most bizarre and Boschian version may be the one by Martin Schongauer, whose engraving from the 1470s shows a flying Saint Anthony being attacked by nine angry gremlins. We hope your significant other, if you have one, is as firm in her commitment as Saint Anthony, because she will face temptation this month.

Libra (September 24–October 23)

We once tried to explain the importance of Cindy Sherman‘s Untitled Film Stills to a non-art person, and let us tell you, Libra, it was really hard — like trying to convince a committed Neo-Expressionist painter of the virtues of Minimalist sculpture. You will have to deal with similarly frustrating situations this month, when you will speak urgently to your partner, family, and close friends, but all they will hear is gibberish. If this happens, don’t get frustrated — communicate your feelings in more nuanced terms with the Cindy Sherman emoji.

Scorpio (October 24–November 22)

So far, our favorite thing about this US presidential election cycle has been all the creative trolling and protesting that artists and impassioned demonstrators have been doing with a sense of theatricality, from the T.RUMP Bus to Marco Rubio’s robot followers. If we were Republicans, we’d be out there doing similarly distracting things to the Democratic Party’s frontrunners. What do you think of these ideas, Scorpio: for Bernie Sanders, the “Burn-y Sanders,” a troupe of dancers clad head-to-toe in sandpaper who follow the candidate around being extremely abrasive; and for Hillary Clinton, a group called “Hilarity Clinton” would infiltrate all her rallies and then hold up huge, hand-painted, TV studio-style “LAUGHTER” signs at every pause during her speeches. What, no good? You’re probably right. You have such good judgment — you should use it more often.

Sagittarius (November 23–December 21)

What’s the worst exhibition press release you’ve ever read, Sagittarius? We’ve read some real doozies in our day, but we recently had a very awkward experience when an artist friend showed us the press release for his recently-opened solo show at a New York City gallery. Clearly proud of the text, he watched expectantly as we read every painfully meaningless string of buzzwords and contradictory turn of phrase, struggling to suppress countless winces, eye-rolls, outbursts of mocking laughter, and the urge to turn his press release against him and papercut some sense into him. Sometimes you have to let the people you love recognize their weaknesses on their own.

Capricorn (December 22–January 20)

Some museum somewhere should organize a big, pan-historical exhibition of artworks revolving around rivers. There are so many seminal depictions of riverside bathers that could be featured, and dramatic landscape paintings in which rivers serve as symbols of the inexorable passage of time, the inevitability of death, or ideological divisions within a given population — like, say, Frederic Church’s epic “Cotopaxi” (1862). There are also all of Claude Monet’s paintings of the Thames. And there are many pieces of video and performance art in which rivers serve a more poetic function, like William Lamson’s “Action for the Delaware” (2011) and Marie Lorenz’s Tide and Current Taxi series. Just, for god’s sake, whichever curator steals this idea and mounts the blockbuster river show, do not include Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament. And Capricorn, don’t sweat it, your February will flow by slowly and smoothly like a river.

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