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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Yale is the new RPI?

Yale dean Robert Storr wants to ban that undergraduate student from showing her work unless she will sign a "confession" stating it's all fiction.

Wow, she's pretty awesome to have made enemies with Robert Storr while still an undergrad. That's ridiculous that he would insist she sign some paper, or would ban the work. Yale is the new RPI?

Storr said in a written statement, "If I had known about this, I would not have permitted it to go forward...This is not an acceptable project in a community where the consequences go beyond the individual who initiates the project and may even endanger that individual."

- What does that mean? That an artist shouldn't make work that might have any consequences within a larger community? That an artist shouldn't risk offending anybody's sensibilities? I wonder what position Storr takes on the RPI/Bilal incident.

This is also making me think of Storr's affadavit for Christoph Buchel, in which he stated “In my view, under no circumstance should a work of art be shown to the public until the artist has determined that it is finished", written while presiding over the Venice Biennale showing a brand new Felix Gonzalez-Torres piece made (and sold) fifteen years after his death.

ps - i'm not mentioning the artist by name, or getting into the details of her project, because it's much less interesting to me than Yale/Storr's attempts to ban it, and the forced signing of confessions.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Felix is in no way an example of some sort of hypocrisy on the part of Rob Storr. 2 reasons: One, Nancy Spector, not Rob Storr curated Felix's Pavilion at Venice, and Rob had little to no sway over her selection of Felix's pools, which you reference. Two, Many of Felix's pieces are manifested each time they are shown. I.e. the marble pools shown in Venice are not a fixed sculpture. They have and will be made again and again, many different ways as they go forward in time. Each manifesation is destroyed and they are made again the next time they are shown, possibly with different sizes, locations, colors, materials, etc. Just like one of his candy pieces.(Who would want 20 year old candy?) This remaking of his pieces is part of their ongoing life, one of Felix's intention for his work - that they endure. In that sense, no such piece of felix's (candies, curtains, stacks) is ever 'finished'. They continue to exist, and are remade, each time anew. That said, Felix did choose very carefully when he let each piece go, when he considered it part of his oeuvre -- when drawings, ideas or concepts were dubbed works, brandished with Certificates of Authenticity. The pools shown in Venice, were very much a completed piece, that Felix included in his oeuvre, despite the fact that he died before he could first manifest them.

Martin said...

i understand and appreciate the work of torres, but am not as convinced that what was shown in venice should be considered part of his oeuvre.

it's my understanding that felix made five different sketches for five different proposals, each a little different, none of which ever panned out. are you saying that one (or all) of those sketched proposals was branded with a certificate of authenticity by felix befoe he died? i'm not aware of that.

and yes, i know it was nancy spector who curated that pavilion, but rob storr was the artistic director and i found it ironic - and yes, hypocritical - that he was so vocal on buchel and silent (as far as i know) on what i view as the contradictory issue of those pools. rob storr having any "sway" over something is no relation to rob storr's having an opinion about it.

rob storr's buchel affadavit continues that the public's "larger understanding of and sympathy for intrinsically challenging works of contemporary art may in the long term be substantially harmed by the confusion that inevitably arise from being confronted with works that have yet to be fully realized or resolved."

sounds like the pools to me.

marie-louise said...

I just found you because I am looking for photos from Kim Simonssons Sculptures and you have someone on your blog before…
I am not so good in English, but I like the pictures and I can understand the mostly.
Nice to see your blog!

Martin said...

hi marie-louise - did you find the simonssons? that was from 11/2005, a good show -

http://anaba.blogspot.com/2005/11/chelsea-visit-continued_17.html

Ian Aleksander Adams said...

Damn concise and excellent points. I'm sending you an email by the way, about writing for a little project I'm putting together.

zipthwung said...

clearly students should not be issued vasseline. Nor pencils.

Anonymous said...

Check out Michael J Lewis in the WSJ.

Anonymous said...

Thanks to the blog owner. What a blog! nice idea.

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