Buchel photos...

Jon Ward, someone who was working on a show at Mass Moca in February, has posted photos taken when he snuck into the off-limits Buchel space. That's funny... I did the same thing a couple months later, but I've only posted one of my photos so far. Yes, it is my painting inside "the house", I am grandstanding on Buchel's grandstanding.

Laura Berlin, writing for New York Social Diary, states -

"Swiss artist Christoph Büchel reinvents performance art and institutional critique by staging it as an installation/legal battle, despite the fact that Büchel is not endorsing the work as completed and has not authorized the museum to display it to the public."

"Despite the outrage voiced by Büchel, Büchel's lawyer, Donn Zaretsky, and Büchel's representation, Hauser & Wirth, all of whom maintain it was the museum itself which caused the project to spiral out of control — it is likely that the artist's obsessive compulsive collaborative techniques were merely a tactic in making a larger statement."

I don't give him that much credit, I think he just blew it and wants to get out of any responsibility.... but if so, it might have been a stronger statement if he had chosen a museum that was more than eight years old, maybe had a collection, maybe had an endowment, a yearly operating budget that wasn't less than a million dollars; maybe one that wasn't the only economic lifeline of a depressed milltown in Western Massachussets. Go Get'em Tiger!

From the statement for Buchel's most recent show at Hauser & Wirth -

"Büchel repeatedly manipulates and exploits the perceived power of the social and legal contract, subverting the relationship between artist and audience while insisting on a more active political role for both."

RELATED: ultra-lameness from Maurizio Cattelan, the previous Buchel... he used to be sometimes interesting, the way Buchel is now. Who will be ultimately lamer? It's too close to call.