The Oncoming Hope

Inanity to one is art to another. One may complain about the torrential downpour of silliness on social media platforms. Yelp directs conversation to a particular topic - food - but that's possibly the most complicated topic in human history. End result: a veritable orgy of human idiosyncrasy.

And what else does one do with orgiastic human illogicity than read it aloud, slowly and dramatically?

Here's the original review of the Stratford Diner in New Jersey, so that you may read along (dramatically):

I ordered the broiled crab cakes and they were really good and i called and asked if i could speak to the supervisor and the girl that asnswerd the phone wanted to know what it was in reference to and I told her it was regarding the food i ordered and and she said what was wrong with it and i said nothing i just wanted to let him or her know that it was good and then she was like ok hold on. When the manager got on the phone and i thanked him and let him know it was good he said thank you and you welcome but seemed like he was in a rush. I don't think i will be eating their anymore because if the manager is not nice then what does that say about the business they are running and the people in it.

Enjoy:

What's a piece of art worth, anyway?

To me, fine art is something to be loved, to be appreciated, not a commodity to be bought or sold. It's the last act of creation that bears some semblance of freedom from commercial concern. Certainly there are limits on what captures the popular imagination, and there's pressure to fit in with the cool kids in the trendy galleries, but fundamentally, art remains the act of the self. A patron cannot command an artist to move a line to a different part of the canvas, nor can he or she modify the artwork on their own without killing the "value" of the work.

So unlike music, film or literature, there's no space for patrons or buyers to actually place their own stamp on the artwork. What they can do is curate popular taste at astronomical costs.

In The Mona Lisa Curse (which is available on youtube for immediate watch), the narrator talks about how Gustav Klimt is the height of this purchased bamboozling. It may be worth millions in the fine art trade, but "Adele Bloch Bauer" is still a pretty horrible work of art (Klimt's so cliché that even Joss Whedon, a writer who isn't prone to aesthetic commentary, makes fun of his work in Buffy).

By placing that dollar value on it, however, the public is tricked into believing that liking the world's most expensive is the ultimate arbiter of good taste. Art critic Robert Hughes describes this as the "fictionalization of art." These millionaires can't change the artwork itself, but their "plutocratic wings" can certainly change how you see it and what you think of it.

You might think, "so what?" Isn't this still an improvement over a system when artists could only make a living if they're commissioned by the aristocracy?

There are two problems that are evident:

1. This system devalues the act of individual discovery. When you walk into a museum and find a work that truly blows your socks off, you're forced to wonder what others think of it, why it hasn't received as much press as celebrity masterworks, and why you don't have to fight a crowd of tourists to press your nose up to the glass.

2. The curation of art ceases to be a democratic process, or even an informed process. All it takes for a painting to be newsworthy these days is a price tag that exceeds $20 million or so. It doesn't matter whether it's loved by the masses, whether it represents a moment in time, or even whether an art critic finds it the exemplar of a movement. All that matters is that some jackass with more money than sense kinda liked it, and a bunch of other jackasses decided to bid against the original jackass. That's literally all it takes for a painting to be considered "valuable" or "important" these days. It's one person's opinion, in a world where my opinion or yours could never be as valuable as the one-percenter's opinion.

Over the next week, I plan to bring you 5 revolutions in city-planning form.

Going to MoMA's always a crapshoot. The permanent exhibitions remain unquestionably fantastic, but the special exhibitions certainly vary in quality (that said, if you haven't seen the Cindy Sherman exhibition, get thee to 57th street)

Despite planning a leisurely afternoon in the museum, my last visit was brief (failure-to-brunch may have contributed to its abbreviation). Accompanied by a friend who's as obsessed with architecture as myself, I was drawn into the vortex of a one-room mind-fuck called "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream".

Weeks later, the exhibition continues to haunt me; I bring it up in casual conversation without any context to describe it with. Blog post ahoy!

In a nutshell (AAAARGH IN A NUTSHELL!), MoMA invited 5 teams of architects, planners, ecologists, engineers, landscapists and other urban professionals to create new ideas of home ownership and city design. They were assigned cities based on "The Buell Hypothesis," a re-assessment of the American Dream that argues that you "change the dream and you change the city" (you can read the full report here).

The Buell Hypothesis asked the design teams to imagine what a new American suburb might look like with different investment models and a changed responsibility for the "city."

Uniquely, this was not a contest. The five teams were invited to host open conversations with each other at MoMA, and the 5 designs, though wildly different, were actually the product of open collaboration. They have provided five new models of living, working, and commuting in a metropolis. Some of the ideas look like the product of a J.G. Ballard nightmare, but others are truly innovative.

Over the next few days, I will give you a loser look at each of the designs, their innovations, and what I perceive to be relative strengths and weaknesses. I hope that each piece becomes a thought-starter, and I look forward to your thoughts in the comments.

An intrepid photographer named Timothy Allen recently ventured into the abandoned remains of Buzludzha in Bulgaria, an enormous building designed to be a glorious monument to the success of communism. Like Communism, this too did pass. You should read his full account of his discovery here (and all images are credited to him, and there are MANY many more).

In better days, Buzludzha resembled something created by aliens rather than man:

And now, this is all that remains, the perfect evil lair for a Bond film:

Even indoors, the whole experience seems more evocative of the intergalactic than the earthly communistic:

Time did its work, however, changing this:

Into this:

(I do love it, it's all my time travel fantasies come true, the sort that feature in all my favorite classic Doctor Who episodes. But I digress).

Buzludzha remains abandoned due to ideological issues. The Bulgarian Socialist Party have taken control of the building, but haven't found a use for it (there's little point in pretending that a sidelined party has the right (or the money) to make such an extravagant statement as restoring the building).

And so it stands, derelict, a concrete reminder of a very peculiar point in human history, when a sort of madness overtook central Europe for the better part of a century. What will future generations think of such a useless monument, built to an enormous scale despite a total lack of proximity to human beings?

Go forth to Timothy Allen's original post, and make sure and read through the comments thread.

The Metropolitan Museum's running a fantastic exhibition called Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine. There are works from a number of artists celebrated and forgotten, organized thematically into caricature, grotesque, political and societal. It comes as no surprise that the art form reached its apex from the late 18th century onwards, with the dawning of the French bourgeousie and its copycats in Blighty.

One of my favorites is the work pictured, simply named The Bum Shop, attributed to one R. Rushworth. It's wonderfully silly, and not a little obscene, as men and women ignore the flesh they are born with in favor of tawdry decoration borne from an early version of J.Lo envy.

The lady at the far left has been suitably derriered, while the remaining young women strive to achieve the look of the French poodle. It's completely ridiculous, and completely wonderful.

Here's the text at the bottom of the etching:

"DERRIERE begs leave to submit to the attention of that most indulgent part of the Public the Ladies in general, and more especially those to whom Nature in a slovenly moment has been niggardly in her distribution of certain lovely Endowments, his much improved (arida nates) or DRIED BUMS so justly admired for their happy resemblance to nature. DERRIERE flatters himself that he stands unrivalled in this fashionable article of female Invention, he having spared neither pains nor expence in procuring every possible information on the subject, to render himself competent to the artfully supplying this necessary appendage of female excellence."

Get your DRIED BUMS here!

When I was 10 years younger, a wee lass armed with little more than a deadjournal account and a whole lot of indignation, my first ever blog post was, in fact, about the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival. Now, as then, I'm stunned by the majesty of these creations, the perfect marriage of nature's providence and human achievement.

The child in me is more than a little pleased at seeing a Mario 64 level come to life:

Made even more stunning with fireworks and embedded lighting:

A view from the top of one of the ice sculptures:

Please, please, check out the rest of the photos, then come  back and share our favorites.

(all photos credited and h/t to Boston.com, which you should click to, b/c holy amazeballs, batman!)

You can file this one under: "Holy crap!" and "Why didn't I think of that?" Azerbaijani artist Rashad Alakbarov takes the childhood mobile to magical new realms, using translucent objects to create wall paintings out of light. The work pretty much speaks for itself, and I know I'll be checking out the De Pury Gallery in the next couple of weeks.

Turn water bottles into David Lynch in 200 steps or less:

RIOT!

You can catch the show at the De Pury Gallery in London, through January 29th.