Re: <nettime> Josephine Bosma, review of Documenta XI [3x]

["nettime's critic of the critic" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Table of Contents:

   Re: <nettime> Josephine Bosma, review of Documenta XI                           
     Are Flagan <areflagan@mac.com>                                                  

   Re: <nettime> Josephine Bosma, review of Documenta XI                           
     "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net>                                        

   Re: <nettime> Josephine Bosma, review of Documenta XI                           
     "porculus" <porculus@wanadoo.fr>                                                



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Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 16:11:05 -0400
From: Are Flagan <areflagan@mac.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Josephine Bosma, review of Documenta XI

8/14/02 11:18 AM, "David Garcia" <davidg@xs4all.nl> :

>> It looks like critic Dave Hickey
>> is right when he says (in a quote in a New York Times article): "It's
>> basically a Protestant view of art". This is the Documenta of mostly
>> useful art, almost everything has meaning and purpose. Enwezor's need to
>> preach and teach then leads to the third, most poignant reason for
>> depression: Documenta XI is above all dead and dead serious. There is
>> very little humor or anything else ridiculous, useless or grotesque.
> 
> Strange that the "protestant view of art" is used here (and I admit quite
> often elsewhere) as a put down. Many artworks, particularly Dutch
> architecture and other expressions of a Northern, Calvinist persuasion may
> be austere, maybe a little pedagogic, and may also have been "dead
> serious" (not always a bad thing) but they still gave rise to many works
> which we still value. Is this piece meant as serious critique or a report
> from the "style council"?

For those that frequented Site Santa Fe during Hickey's own personal
Biennale, "Beau Monde," there was plenty of the ridiculous, useless and
(arguably not so) grotesque. Everything had a certain bubble gum flavor to
the eye, being bright, colorful and mostly devoid of any and all heavy
pretense. A piece that played with abstract patterns through spectral light
formed the centerpiece and the show generally left nothing and everything to
the, regrettably acid-free, imagination. (Think of the lava lamp as the
apotheosis of sculpture and you'll get the Hickey picture.) The Sydney
Biennale that was just completed tried to revive the fantastic in much the
same way as Hickey by concentrating on stylish yet dysfunctional expressions
"liberated" from the aesthetic norms that frequently give rise to
accusations of being didactic. Both these moves are intended to open up the
imagination by exposing it to concepts/images/objects that are supposedly
beyond it, but this tautology is obviously redundant in art contexts that
have already prepared a space for them and named them. So, sure, we can sit
down right here and compose yet another art history for ridiculous stuff and
spend the next few years promoting and arguing it, but are there not more
pressing concerns right now? At least Documenta attempts to "show" rather
than feebly "cloak" to engage our senses.

BTW: Hickey lives in Vegas. Most of us do not.

- -af


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Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 14:03:18 -0400
From: "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Josephine Bosma, review of Documenta XI

sigh... I'm here at Documenta now doing a performance with Joan Joans, and
well... I think the show is pretty damn good... Why does this review come
as absolutely no surprise? As an African American involved with art and
digital media, and seeing year after year after year of the same old white
bread digital media stuff, well... all I can say, hey one show that gives
people of color some room to breathe (and the show is pretty balanced -
yes there are white people in it - gasp!) is reason to celebrate. There
should be alot more of this (nettime itself is a pretty good indicator of
why things could be alot more diverse, eh Terd Byfield?)

Anyway, I think Documenta is cool. Not depressing, but cool. The quality
of the work is conceptually dynamic, and the ideas driving the show are
pretty sharp and grounded in alot of what makes the artworld somehow a
place for ideas. Yes, the show is skewed towards political art (and yes,
why not in this day and age?), and well...  the world isn't all Europe or
the U.S. There could and should be more multi-media... that's about the
only part of this review that I find vaguely interesting. What next Ars
Electronica actually being diverse! Gasp! hip-hop at Ars Electronica could
be a start, but hey, they might curse or something... Documenta is
probably the most dynamic thing going in the conventional artworld, and in
a way, that's great. From another point of view, it's kind of a tragedy.

Paul


>[written by Josephine Bosma]
>
>
>Documenta XI:  no laughing matter
>
 [....]


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Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 20:45:39 +0200
From: "porculus" <porculus@wanadoo.fr>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Josephine Bosma, review of Documenta XI

> "It's
> basically a Protestant view of art".

tzzz javol i am flabbergastez....itz in ze end of the blaue bearb talez :
"indeed my zizter you havn't seen anything coming ?" tah ! who yeal fart
und scatologizing around in a sehr strict & strait catholic obediance ?
who dare to say here netart grow on laugh und good mood az some rose on
stinking manure? pouah ! pouah ! pouah ! who sez rhizome ist ein sehr
kolossal minus habenz point of view of art ? where even freiheit und free
speech exist -only- for mean stream reason, where freespeech is not for
shiting in the boots of his neighbor az the enormous machiaveli sez ?
(beside i wonder the fuck is it use zis fucking freespeech) coz shiting in
the bootz of his neighbor -iz- the basis of art, except in the court shoes
of the women of course, coz court shozes of women are made for drinking
champagne, zis two statement are az the two legs of the colossus of rhodes
are made for showing the glory of the human nature . but really my zyzterz
look in what cul de basse fosse lay the poor penant, and you know why ?
coz of course it's the colossus of rhodes who keep the internet secret of
enlargement pillz, and az diesel is died assassinated, the colossos of
rhodes were sunk in the port of chicago with some reinforced concrete in
his panz.. it's not jp2, even if he achieve to do escriba da balaguer
saint fasterz than mohamed ali has his killer dance who keeps the secret,
no it's the colossus of rhodes, but for the faith we have to keep this
secret. bon faut que j'y aille ma soeur, d'ailleurs je dois le faire
pleurer le colosse. vale!





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