Saturday, September 11, 2004

The inside of my right thigh hurts and I just limped back from the grocery store. I rode on the back of Peter's bike seat while he stood up and pedaled last night from Chelsea to SoHo. It was hurting at the time, negotiating ass space on this not very sturdy bike seat, but it is today, that I am paying the real costs. Last night, I saw two video art shows in Chelsea that I was real impressed by: Pipolliti Rist at Luhring Augustine, and Annika Larsson at Andrea Rosen. There is also a video show by Shannon Plumb that I saw Thursday night somewhere (I can't find a listing for it) on 20th Street. Normally, I am not impressed by video art, but all three of these shows, I really loved a lot. I must go back soon and spend more time with them and with everything else that I zipped by, and everything else that I didn't have time to zip by. God, there are so many shows up right now, it is really crazy.

Then after Peter biked me to SoHo, I met up with Ramsey and Niki and saw the Terry Richardson and Nari Ward shows at the Deitch spaces. It was a mad scene with Wooster street closed off because the entire block was filled with people, all presumably there for the Richardson show. A bunch of Vice reading, trendy rich kids (trying to avoid saying "hipsters") all out there to see one of Vice's big names. I am not that big a Richadson fan, especially not of the stuff on view last night, all shots of him getting blowjobs from chicks with dicks. I am a little wary of this whole school of contemporary photographers that have descended from Nan Goldin. Tillmans, McGinley, and pretty much everyone that's doing photography and adored by young, trendy kids.

I sometimes feel like a moralist at events like these, where there is a room full of my peers, a whole street full of them outside waiting to get in, and all presumbably liking the art on view. I want to ask what this stuff is saying. Is there anything behind the veneer of hip naughtiness? What's the fucking point? Does it do anything besides shock and provoke giggles? At what cost, though? Stuff like this photo show and Vice though solider on and add more people to its rolling snowball of stupidity, amoralism, and trendiness. When I saw that mass of people on the street, a whole street full, I knew that there was no stopping this force, that no matter how much I deride it in conversation, there are always three people that outnumber me, a force, telling me that it's just funny. I am not sure they realize the significance of the qualifying just, that that might be all it is, funny, and maybe not even that, when what the source of that humor is, is examined.

Just funny. That is not what I want from art. I don't want just anything. I want it all. I even expect my humor to be more than just funny. That says nothing. Where is the point of connection between me and that, or even you and that, you and I? Where the fuck is the reckless beauty, the showing me the treasure in your hands?

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