Hey-yo
everybody. Did you all have a nice
weekend? Did you get a chance to relax
and de-compress and refresh yourself? I
hope so. I really do because this Monday
has already brought a forecast of giant shitstorms aka online rants, raves and
real time feuds via wall posts and comment threads. It is hysterical how dumb it is but
shitstorms have a strange power and you just can’t stop watching them once they
start. The shitstorms that have caught
my eye today is Brian Droitcour’s just posted article on his revived blog
entitled, Why I Hate Post-Internet Art,
and secondly all these articles on collector Stefan Simchowitz.
On the
first: Droitcour’s article is its
title. It is about why he hates
post-internet art. Brian is smart. Brian has been a part of the ‘net’- whatever
thing that is/has been happening in art for a while and he has participated in
an engaged way versus a jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of social/cultural
legitimization sort of way. That being
said, the post is loose and surface and this might bother a lot of people but
not me. It’s a blog. It’s his personal, unassociated with a
corporation/advertisers/budget blog. When
a blog is this sort of blog anything goes.
Droitcour is a ‘real’ writer though and he knows how to say and to frame
things so that it has background, reference and all that. In the end though it is an opinion piece and
one that matters because as I mentioned, he is a part of this thing he speaks
of in an authentic/real/earned way. What
did have me audibly gasp is the way he called out certain progenitors of what
he deems post-internet art. This is
rarely done and especially not in a peer-to-peer target sort of way. It was refreshing in its open handed matter
of factness. Who knows if this will
actually create a storm of anything but it feels like a relief in a way that
someone is going against the grain even if it is quick and personal.
On the
second: Stefan Simchowitz is like a
wanna be Damien Hirst mixed with a post-2008 Saatchi and he is all up
everywhere because he just doesn’t give a fuck.
He is a collector in the little “c” sort of way. Rich people are really bored and as a pastime
some of them play with art. It’s like
having race cars or spelunking, gotta get that rush because if you don’t you
just realize that you live and then you die and that’s a sucky thought to get
stuck on.
Anyways, I will
NOT get into anything related to me actually in connection with Simchowitz but
I think it is marvelous what is happening between him and Jerry Saltz. I will NOT get into my actual feelings about
Saltz but this dick measuring contest currently going on between Simchowitz and
Saltz is just about the epitome of everything insane about the art world right
now. Saltz is pulling quotes from an interview
Simchowitz had with Andrew Goldstein on Artspace, which followed Katya
Kazakina’s Bloomberg article on art flippers a wee bit ago. Saltz is like ‘this this that’ on how Simchowitz’
own words reveal the level of his visionary delusions. This yes, is true but Saltz is being classic
Saltz here where he takes a story and writes(?) his own via copy paste, remark,
sealed with this crazy authority he has attained via his signing off on
it. Anyways. It’s not a real article but yes, Simchowitz
is one of the most deranged and quite frankly harmful art collectors but he
is just balls out about it versus most of the collector class who pretend art
buying is some Skull and Bones type of society. Saltz is of course the only match for such a
largess ego because he can take it and dish it cause he is very close to the
same creature Simchowitz is.
Regardless,
regardless both of these are fantastic little measuring sticks of what is bugging,
burning, and possibly roiling some people in the contemporary art
landscape.
Everyone loves a
shitstorm. Some even invent and stir
them up to propel themselves or their cause further. Either way they might be wacky and tacky but
more often then not they reveal what is true.
