Killing Off God

It is one thing to go through other people's garbage to fish out junk for "art," although that's the perfect metaphor for the "art" of the contemporary artist, but the "split screen art" requires a little background.

Split Screen is the title of Annie MacDonell's photography piece posted at her website and also exhibited (posted) at the online at site Either/And on August 25, 2013.

From Annie MacDonell's program notes for Split Screen:

The images in...[Split Screen] are scans of found 35mm slides. I came across a box of them next to the trash a few months ago. They were unlabeled, undated, and unsourced. I’ve put together a selection of 15, which now form a slideshow you can click through on your computer monitor. Maybe you will recognize some of the images. Others you may not recognize specifically, but you will certainly be familiar with their sources – art monographs, fashion magazines, notebooks and textbooks, technical manuals.

The gallery's website describes MacDonell thus:

Annie MacDonell is a Toronto-based visual artist working with photography, film, sculpture, installation. Her recent work draws attention to how still and moving images are staged in the spaces of gallery and cinema, creating multi-layered, uncanny and formally elegant meditations on the act of looking. Annie MacDonell received a BFA from Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts in 2000, followed by graduate studies at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, in Tourcoing, France. Recent solo shows include the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Art Gallery of Ontario and Mercer Union Gallery, in Toronto. She has participated in group exhibitions at The Power Plant, Toronto, Mulherin & Pollard, New York, Le Grand Palais, Paris and the 2012 Daegu Photo Biennale, in South Korea. In 2012 she was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award and short-listed for the Grange Prize. She teaches in the photography department at Ryerson University and her work is represented by Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art.

***Disclosure: MacDonell was a classmate of mine while I was studying Film, Photography and New Media (New Media is now re-named Integrated Digital) at Ryerson University's School of Image Arts. I remember her as perennially perplexed, and even angry. Her projects were labours of, well labour, of precisely this "appropriated" art of which she is now an expert. She would at one time follow my progress with avid, and strange, curiosity, and for reason: I finished my two-year "term" with multiple exhibitions: Film, video and photography pieces. All my work was later exhibited at external venues.***

Don't be fooled by the sophisticated art language MacDonell uses to describe her Split Screen project. Artists are at such want for "topics" that they cling on to any subject which might give them a potential project.

The underlying theme of MacDonell's work, if MacDonell is even aware of it, is simply: destruction.

"...the spine’s interruption of the image reminds us of where they came from in the first place..." writes MacDonell.

And she continues:

The visibility of the spine is what attracts me to them. It marks one of the many transformations these images have undergone since they were produced by the original artist.

[...]

Each one contains an interruption of the image by the spine of the book in which it originally appeared

There are a variety of images in Split Screen, all with "naturally" occurring splits: a hospital operation table, a messy room perhaps in a house about to be vacated, a magazine shot of crotches (male? female?), an orgy of legs, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and the sculptured head of Christ from Michelangelo's Pieta.

Cleverly, MacDonell gives us no background on any of the images. She has a bigger purpose than juxtaposing interesting photographic shots.

The sculptured head seems the least aggressive of her choices. There is a serenity around this head, and the sculptural work is of high quality. And here, MacDonell treads very carefully. She has removed the head from its context and its significance, and it appears to be simply the head of a man sleeping.

MacDonell's "head" is all the more disconcerting because it is at a different angle from which we would be accustomed to seeing it. The photograph was taken from the top rather than the side, thus exposing to us Christ's full face. And it is also flipped to its mirror image.


Untitled piece from Annie MacDonell's Split Screen series presented at Either/And


The Pieta by Michelangelo in St. Peter’s Basilica as it would be visible to visitors


The Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica

What was a deeply religious work, the head of the dead Christ on his mother's knees after he was taken down from the crucifix, becomes the head of a man.

But why the split screen?

MacDonell is subtly and carefully "dismantling" Jesus. Removing, first his Godliness by presenting him as a mere man, then his intellect, his personality by splitting him, his head, apart. A form of decapitation, worse perhaps than the crucifix. At least after the crucifix, Jesus' body was left intact. But with MacDonell's rendition even Jesus' mind, his Godly intellect, is removed.

Despite its apparent tranquility, this is the most aggressive of the works played on Split Screen, where MacDonell attempts to kill off God permanently: body, mind and spirit.

The Multicultural Politics of the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Art Auction

Diana Hillman
Passing Lane 2, Study, Road Works Series, 2016
Oil and pencil on paper
Approx 30 x 40 cm
Estimate: $300

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Message: 2018-04-23

Dear Diana,

I am writing to tell you how wonderful I think is your painting that is up for auction at the AGM fundraiser, "Passing Lane 2, Study, Roadworks Series, 2016." I think you have captured splattering rain, a kind of relentless rain that can make driving difficult at such a late time in the day (late evening). I can feel the cold of those icy showers from the truck's wheels! I've travelled many times from Barrie to Toronto/Mississauga along these two-lane roads during such a time. But there is the comforting glow from the cars' and truck's headlights, and that town up on the hill welcomes us with the lights from the homes.

Congratulations!

I am surprised that the starting bid is so low! Others have been priced so extraordinarily high.

All the best,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

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Hello Kidist,

Thank you so much for your extremely kind words about my painting! It's so nice to get an unsolicited compliment.

I told the AGM that they could start the bidding wherever they wanted ... so I guess they did. I wish them all the best in their fundraiser.

Thanks again,

Diana Hillman

The Paradox of Tradition

The Paradox of Tradition
Excerpt from Camera Lucida, 2009

The funny thing about tradition is that it changes subtly through time. Innovations happen by building the new from the old; by adapting the past into our own present environments. This is what modern artists just don’t get. They are stuck in a rut with their experimentations and self-expression. The true inspiration and, paradoxically, change comes by pursuing tradition

The Life of an Artist as a Salesman

Voila!
The Infantile Exuberance of the Artist as Salesman

Infantilism is the psychology of our era. And when culture (art, music, literature, theater and even films) devolves to the infantile, what is left?

Materilaism.

More, bigger, brighter, things.

I wrote about this on the cardboard cutout cloud shapes framing the Grand Army Plaza sculptures near Central Park in New York, and of Albert Paley's iron works along the Park Avenue mall.

And this is exactly what "artist" Jeff Koons is doing.

I watched an intriguing interview of Koons on Charlie Rosen's show on PBS (here is the video).

The clever, and clearly intelligent, Koons, has spent his life upgrading the infintile to the level of art. He has used "balloon" animals, those animals we can crudely make from balloons, in order to show the complexity of life, since the balloon forces us to think about what's inside the empty space that contains air (air is not an "object" therefore the space is essentially empty). The simple animal-shaped balloon then becomes a repository for human philosophical thought.

How deep! Actually, it is as shallow as the empty space in those infantile balloons.

And as always, with contemporary artists, he takes himself very seriously, and adds all kinds of "layers" to his empty works. In his explanations for his million-dollar hoovers, he says:

"I think sales is the front line of society. I think it's a kind of a moral front line of society. My hoovers, they really are making a reference to the door-to-door salesman," (this section is around the 12:30 section of the video above).

So, I was right. I wrote the introductory words above on materialism without reviewing Koons' video. Koons goes on to explain:

...as a child, I was kind of brought up to be self-reliant. And I would sell drinks on a golf course. I would go door-to-door selling gift-wrapping paper. You know, kind of a lot like the images that are in my Celebration work. Bows, ribbons, candy.

Here is one of Koons' work from his Celebraions Series. He admits to his infantilism, and even venerates it.

I wonder at this materialism and infantilism of contemprory "artists."

I think it is to do with a profound lack of talent. These are not artistic people, but they are clever, and even intelligent.

In this era where art (i.e. creation) is venerated, what better thing than to be god-like and an artist, a creator?

And where materialism reigns, what better way to be rewarded for one's artistry than through money? One gets to be a god, and a rich god, at that.

So here we are, at a profound spiritual dearth. Contemporary artists realize that they have nothing bigger than themselves to aspire to, so all they can "celebrate" is the gaudy, shiny, material world around them.

And why produce the perfect painting when there is nothing left to paint? There is no family to aspire to (Koons is twice married, and his first wife is actually a parody of a wife), no community(says "I live down in the Wall Street area only for exclusion"), and no God.

The artist becomes the supreme creator. Where there is no god, or where he has been successfully killed, then someone has to take its place, and it is Artist that is worshiped, and who worships himself.

Here is what Koons has to say about God and his "humanitarian" beliefs:

Koons has never been religious. He was born Protestant and "grew up being taught an appreciation that other people's experiences in life and their rights." The artist is pleased to be honored by FEGS [the Jewish communal organization that deals with employment, job training and counseling.], an organization whose mission he identifies with. "There's a sense that whether somebody is Jewish or whether they're Protestant or whatever anyone's background, we have a shared history - a shared human history and our motivations, our possibilities, our desires are shared. So I really like trying to be involved with the world community as a whole, and so that why I'm thrilled to participate." [Source: The Jewish Week: FEGS honors Pop Artist Jeff Koons]

And Koons' (the Artist's) lack of artistic talent pulls him toward the infantile, pumped up to look big and impressive. Thus, Koons' supreme, infantile narcissism is evident. When Charlie Rose says to him: "You stand above the art establishment [i.e. you're so big]" Koons grimaces with an immodest "I don't know about that," as though he really does think he's great, but no-one seems to be noticing. He later on modifies his facial expression, but he is really in interview mode now, and uses the right words so as not to appear too pompous. After all, his mentors are avant-garde artists such as Picasso and Dali, and he is "trying to participate in this kind of tradition, the extension of the avant-garde." But Koons has to sell in his lifetime, and is not humble, or committed, enough to wait to be recognized after his death. He is not willing to be the impoverished artist with an afterlife, as were the majority (though not all) his avant-garde mentors.

And Koons is ready to take from anything, or anyone, to fill this dearth in imagination. He has put a giant "play dough figure" in the Whitney Museum of American Art where he currently has a retrospective.

His most blatant act of infatilism and, theft, is his "play dough figure." This is a replica of a play dough figure his son did when a very young child. This son, the progeny of Koons and an Italian porn star, is now in Italy, under the custody of his mother. Koons can only visit, but cannot bring the boy back to America. Koons has made a replica of a play dough to commemorate this disastrous family life.

Here is what he says about that:

"It was a period when I was really losing confidence in humanity, and I had only my art to hang on to. And that's what I hung on to. And so I decided to make things to try to communicate to him [his son] that if not in this moment, in the future he could realize how much I was thinking about him."

Then Koons' pomposity rises up again, and he adds:

"And at the same time, I wanted to make things that could hold up in a larger context of making art, because at the same time I wanted to be his Dad, there was also an artist performing on, you know, the level of making great works."

He continues:

"But, a piece like play dough. My son Ludwig, I bought him some play dough during a visitation, and he made a mound, and he said "Dad!" I turned and I said "What?" And he said "Dad, look. Voila!" Koons gestures expansively with his hands.

And:

"And I looked at this mound of play dough and Charlie, it was everything that I tried to do everyday of my life. To make something that you couldn't make any judgments about...Is it too much red, is it too much blue? Is it shaped right? It was perfect...And so I ended up going to my studio and making that mound."

Art not for his son, or for love for his son, but to make "great works" using his son's toys, his son's belongings! Voila!

And not only does he use his son's unformed, childish, play-figure, but exploits it, in the name of art, and makes millions out of it.

And of course, nothing is innocent or pure in Koons' infantile world. He explains about the "balloon" figures:

"I think that there's a mythic quality in Balloon Dog. There's an interior dark quality to it a little bit like a Trojan Horse..."

And about his art in relation to his son:

So that series, I was trying to maintain my confidence, my belief in humanity. To show my son how much I loved him. And at the same time to be performing on a, you know, the highest level that I could.

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Jeff Koons
Balloon Dog
High chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating
121 x 143 x 45 inches
307.3 x 363.2 x 114.3 cm
5 unique versions (Blue, Magenta, Yellow, Orange, Red)
1994-2000

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Jeff Koons
New Hoover Convertibles, New Shelton Wet/Drys 5-Gallon, Double Decker
two Hoover Convertibles, two Shelton Wet/Drys, acrylic and fluorescent lighting
99 x 41 x 28 in. (251.5 x 104.1 x 71.1 cm.)
Executed in 1981-1986

From Christie's:
Price Realized
$11,801,000 (Set Currency)

More at Christie's:
Notes on the piece: Lot Notes
Interviews with Koons

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Jeff Koons,
Play-Doh, 1994–2014
Polychromed aluminum
120 × 108 × 108 in.
Whitney Museum of American Art
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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