There are alot of shells flying through the air over on Brian Droitcours Facebook page. Either way the article is interesting to think about and form an opinion towards. Is it the job of art to break from overall trend in society (by trend I mean the marked directions in which society is shifting), or reflect it? I think your answer to this will correspond to your opinion on the subject of Post Internet Art. History would have us to believe that it runs parallel to Art History and therefore Contemporary Art reflects the larger contemporary human paradigm, i.e. Art now reflects humanity now. I always use this Jurassic Park metaphor: the scientists used African bullfrog DNA to fill in gaps in the dinosaur DNA, thus building a complete and legible chain. Historians frequently use Art like said bullfrog DNA, to fill in the narrative of what happened in periods where traditional historical records such as writing were incomplete. Today, people commonly photoshop the grease off of their foreheads for their profile pictures, clone stamp pimples away, whiten teeth and eyes, adjust breasts and bellies, etc, thus it seems only logical that artists would pump up the saturation in their artwork install shots, whiten backgrounds, remove extraneous distracting elements from the experience. And they have gone further, essentially making the work with the documentation process in mind, pre-protoshopping. I gathered that Brian finds an unbearable flatness in all this, a soullessness. My question would be- compared to what? The art of yesterday? Think about Hollywood action stars in the 20th century, and how much theyve evolved over the years. Yellow-teethed, au naturel, muscularly undefined actors of the 50s and 60s, gritty, greasy Charles Bronson types in the 70s and 80s, and then look at todays action stars. Even the stubble on their faces looks implanted. Ryan Reynolds, the most blah, ambiguous (pleasant in that non-offensive annoying p.c. liberal way) looking human being imaginable. As if spawned in a lab based on test screening result predictions, pre photoshopped. Porcelain veneers, perfectly diet-coached, strength-conditioned, and liposuctioned abdominals. Is art not supposed to reflect this? Or acknowledge it at the very least? In a lot of ways the best art is the art that best reflects nowness. If so, it fulfills its fusing with the large narrative of history. I predict I would be very hard sought to find a person who would tell me that all the detriments listed in his article were not also reflective of the overarching grand thrust of culture today.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 22:17:31 +0000