December 18, 2006
Art on the Web
In May Mr. Saatchi, famed for spotting young unknowns and turning them into art-world superstars, created a section on his Web site for artists of all ages to post their work at no charge. It is called Your Gallery, and now boasts contributions by about 20,700 artists, including 2,000 pieces of video art.
comments
20,700 artists? Great Googamooga! The mind reels!
“Art-world superstars” — Andy’s Kids, would you say?
heh. I suppose I would say.
You just know I can’t resist teasing you about Warhol. Not till you knock off posts quoting folks who drop “images” and “superstars” and other such Warholian tag words.
As my mother used to say to me, “The other kids wouldn’t tease you so much, honey, if they didn’t like you.”
I suppose I could concede that he is a necessary evil.
No harm in teasing, in high school I was on the Varsity team: I am pretty thick skinned.
Oh, you kid.
It’s just that I can’t help but see in you traces of the Warhol legacy.
!?
(And I was mercilessly tormented in high school until I learned how to throw a punch.)
Oh, I’m talking about the Warhol aesthetic, not the (presumed) Warhol ‘persona’. I don’t confuse the two (leastways, I don’t think that I do).
I figured you didn’t mean persona but aesthetic which terrifies and confuses me (all in good fun, or course) and, so again, I say:
!?
Ai ai ai.
This sounds like something we ought to continue in private. I sure don’t mean to terrify or confuse you, and I’m both willing and eager to explain what I mean.
I do, alas, have to go offline for some time now, but I will be sure to get back in touch. Terror and confusion? Oh, those aren’t what I care to foment. Not at all.
I was thinking: I will probably make peace with Warhol the same time I make peace with Whitman.
Fair enough. I suppose what fascinates/terrifies me the most about the comment is that I may be more a ‘man-o-the-times’ than I previously thought.
Oh, Andrew, there’s nothing wrong with being a ‘man-o’-the-times’ — in fact it’s hard to be anything else, really. Yes? I mean, that’s what’s at the core of, say, Foucault’s message, yes?
Well, yes and no. I think there is as much good as their is bad that comes with being a ‘man-o-the-times’.
I vote for an embrace of Whitman whole heartedly. And if you’re having a hard time with Warhol maybe try out Jeff Koons for a while, or, more interestingly perhaps, pretend that Norman Rockwell is a contemporary artist. (The process of which will render you both a man of the times and transcendent of it.)
Oh, I don’t think that it’s possible to be anything else, ultimately. We can only try to imagine other perspectives, all the while bearing in mind our own vantage point.
Sheila: I agree but it doesn’t mean I don’t fight it. I am constantly trying to push the limits of the mind and cultural perspectives.
Deron: It will probably happen some day, even dear Mr. Pound was reconciled to him. I think he wrote a poem about it during his Blast period.
Oh and I do love Rockwell.
Norman Rockwell or Rockwell Kent?
Ba-da-bing! (Where’s that rubber chicken?)
someone like whitman is difficult for someone like pound to reconcile, but it is a useful reconciliation, I think.
back when I was at elimae we had a long discussion about writing among contemporary writers and I remember being disheartened by the idea that there were certain writers who by the force of their imagination, warts and all, could render us formalists inconsequential.
of course, joyce shows us quite clearly what a focused and obsessive formalism can accomplish, but still, the giants of the imagination can set the giants of the intellect aquiver.
At Walmart, apparently.
Deron, what you say is too right.
I think some of the distaste I have for Whitman has less to do with his style as it is the content. Most of it I can’t take seriously.
The cultural machinery has cliche-ified so much of his writing that it feels trite to me: this is some of the ‘bad part’ of being a man of the times. I look through my lens and have a difficult time being critical of it.
‘Yawp’ is a bad-ass word, however.
[...] a guy who ostensibly hates Warhol, I sure do post about him a lot. This time, however, the below picture which sold for more than $3 [...]