A while ago, I wrote a thing about how I don't "get" art. In the piece, I dared to suggest that maybe it was silly that a neon sign that says "my cunt is wet with fear" is worth $100,000. It got read by a lot of people, many of whom disagreed with me and got very very angry. After reading people's feedback, I thought maybe I had been a little harsh, and decided to give art ONE MORE CHANCE.
So I headed to Art Basel in Miami. In case you don't keep up with #art, Art Basel is the world's largest art fair. A bunch of galleries from all around the world gather in a big exhibition center in Miami and show off their bestest bits of art (pictured above), and have some parties and stuff.
First thing I noticed while walking around the main exhibition was the
INSANE amount of canvases-painted-one-color that were on display.
I mean, I get it. It's "making us question what art REALLY is" or some shit. Which I guess would have been kinda interesting
the first time someone did it 100 years ago. But do we really need to
keep doing it? It's been pretty well established what art is by now.
What I don't get, is who the fuck is buying this stuff? Is this really
worth $20,000? I know that nothing is worth what you pay for it, that's
just how the world works. Like, the computer I'm typing this on probably
cost the manufacturer about 1/50th of what I paid for it. But come the
fuck on, man. A black square? That costs as much as an entire
third-world school?
I know the term "laughing all the way to the bank" is overused, but I
find it hard you wouldn't at least chuckle while driving to Chase if you
were the guy who just made a year's rent by painting a $30 canvas
black.
And how does an artist even decide this is what they're gonna do with
their life? It's like when people become an acoustic singer/songwriter.
There is not one single thing that you can add to that world, so why
bother?
I guess it's probably "Blair Witch syndrome"—where someone
sees another person making a ton of money doing something that they
themselves could have done and it makes them temporarily lose their
mind.
Maybe that's just what the entire art world is. Like how the tech world
is made up almost completely of people who wish they could have been
Mark Zuckerberg, the art world is people who are bummed they didn't
think of someone else's obvious idea first.
Like how Tracey Emin made a bunch of money writing completely asinine statements in neon lighting,
and now there's an entire artistic movement of it. Like what you see
above. Which are just four examples of about 1000000 I saw at Basel of
people taking nominally profound statements and then turning them into
art 3D objects to be sold for more than I make in a year.
Weirdly, Pharrell is taken seriously by people in Miami. I saw him at a
bunch of shows, and he wasn't laughed out of the building a single
time. He even did a talk about design which, unfortunately, I missed, as
I'm sure it would have been fucking GOLD. Apparently Kanye showed up
and they had a debate about modern aesthetics, hahahahaha. This is the
same guy who once asked everyone to start calling him "Skateboard P,"
right? The one who was "rhymin' on the top of a cop car"? I didn't
imagine that? And people are paying to hear him give his opinions on
design now? Got it.
They don't have the accompanying literature that explains what the art
"means" at most of the exhibits, which is a shame as, TBH, I was pretty
bored most of the time I was there, and reading people waffle on about
what art means is what can really take a piece of art from Snoozetown to
the Land of LOL.
For instance, this piece was a woman laying in a dark room while some
stupid song about Megaupload played, which the accompanying text
described as a "monolithic structure" that was "representative of an
archaic relic from pre-Internet times" and "literally (and
metaphorically) trapping her in the physical world... the only possible
mode of transcendence from this uncomfortable reality is offered by the
artist herself... singing instructions on 'how to upload your soul to
the internet.'"
Which elevates it from "some woman lying on the ground surrounded by a
bunch of shit" to "some woman taking several days out of her life to lie
in a gallery and try to make some non-point about the internet
AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."
I really feel like I missed out on so much hilarious shit due to the
absence of explanations. There was so so so much stuff there that I
would love to hear someone attempt to justify. Like this: a plastic
child's head, with underwear on it, smoking a cigarette, on a MacBook.
Speaking of, do you think artists think of a point they want to make
and then make an art piece around that? Or do you think they do it in
reverse? Like this one, which is a misshapen plate that says "mother
fucker" on it—the artist's reasoning for it was this:
"Rainer Ganahl introduces his personal view on one of the most
renowned artist of the 20th century, Lucio Fontana. The famous sliced
open canvases, although bearing traces of obvious violence, are
nonetheless serving an idealistic quest. But Rainer Ganahl only keeps
the regressive and sadistic aspect of the gesture. Through Ganahl's raw
and dirty style, Fontana's works now appear outrageous."
Do you think he actually woke up one day thinking all that stuff, and
then set out to find a way of communicating that message to the world?
Or do you think it's like my high school design projects where I'd be
like, "I wanna make a pencil holder with Marvin the Martian on it," and
then would have to retroactively make a whole project around it acting
like I developed it n' stuff?
It's like with mediums and psychics. I can never tell if they know
they're lying, or if they're mentally ill and actually believe what
they're saying to people. If artists are in on the joke and know they're
full of shit and what they're doing is totally fucking ridiculous, then
that's kind of amazing.
Like, if the guy who made this was stoned with his buddies one day and
went "you think I could get away with it if I just made a wall mounted
vagina and charged like, ten grand? That would be so sick"? He would be
my hero.
"HAHAHAHA you're never gonna fucking believe this, but you know
that canvas I did, the one with the shitty little spraypainted squiggle
on it? Some idiot bought it! Drinks are on me!"
It costs 50 grand for an exhibition space here, apparently. Fifty
grand! Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have to be to sit there
all day if you were a gallerist and this was the art you were showing?
Just in case it's unclear, this is a couple of empty banana boxes, and
some spotlights, and it was the ENTIRE body of work that some gallery
from Zurich was displaying.
And that's just 50 grand to exhibit, that doesn't take into account how
much it must have cost them to fly the installation and staff over from
Zurich. And then you have to sit in front of this piece of shit all day
for a week while people come over and look at it knowing that they know
you paid thousands to be there? Brutal.
Bleugh. I dunno, if anything, going to Basel has made me hate art even more. Because the fact that it was a trade show just underlined how much money was going into the whole thing. Every time I saw some stuff that I liked or that I thought was funny, I would think about the money and time that went into it, and just get bummed out.
The other thing that people at Art Basel do is throw big, exclusive
partes so that art people can hang out with other art people.
Presumably, most people reading this will never get invited to one, so let me talk you through it:
It starts with a line. Which is much like the line at a regular
club/party, except that it's guest list-based, and everyone in it thinks
they are the most important person in the world. This was taken at some
party I went to that Demi Moore and Martha Stewart were at. We had to
line up for 30 minutes or so, and people LOST THEIR FUCKING MINDS. I
heard one girl compare her situation to Auschwitz, and another was
repeatedly screaming that she would sue the hotel if she got bitten by
any bugs. Eventually people just decided to Braveheart it and
charge in by any means possible, like these old-timers who are
scrambling through the fucking wilderness like they're running away from
Predator.
I really hope I'm not climbing through bushes because I feel too
entitled to have to wait ten minutes when I'm this guy's age :(
Inside is a lot like a regular party, except the music is really quiet,
the drinks are free, and people don't appear to be having fun.
There are also lots of people there who are famous that you won't
recognize. Like these two. Lots of people were asking to take their
photo, so I assume they're "somebodies." Can someone lemme know who they
are in the comments? I'm assuming by their clothes/skin color, that
they're both real housewives of Miami.
Unrelated, but I was at some barbeque that Chanel was throwing (lol)
and found out the next day that Lenny Kravitz had been there. I am so so
so bummed I didn't realize he was there at the time. I feel like Jon
Snow after he was on that plane with Idi Amin.
I could've just walked up to Lenny and murdered him right there in the
party, and the world wouldn't have had to see him tweet another picture
of himself wearing a leather jacket with no shirt underneath (come the
fuck on, Lenny, if it's cold enough for a leather jacket, it's cold
enough for a shirt, too).
Sorry everyone!
There were also lots of people at the parties who looked like this.
When I asked this girl for a photo, she didn't say a word, just did a
subtle nod while blue-steeling, posed like this, then walked away
looking like she was about to burst into tears.
When did really, really serious people co-opt dressing goofy? How're
you gonna turn up to a party dressed like fun-time chemo-Barbie and then
act like everyone in the room just killed your puppy? She should be
arrested and charged for false advertising.
This guy, too. He's dressed like a one-man party, but it would be
physically impossible for him to have a more self-serious facial
expression. Can you imagine if an old lady had to sit next to this guy
on a bus? She would think he was a blast, start a conversation, and then
he'd end up getting all mad at her about Rihanna ruining sea-punk on
SNL. Can someone fun please take back dressing whacky from these
assholes?
And that's pretty much Art Basel in a nutshell. Apparently it generates one billion dollars for the city of Miami. Huh.
To conclude:
My artsy bullshit:
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