Conspicuous Consumption: Food TV and the Louvre Experience

17Aug09

“Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch” is an essay by Michael Pollan recently published in The New York Times Magazine.  I am the “couch” part of this article. Top Chef, Chopped, Iron Chef , Ace of Cakes, The Next Food Network Star, and Hell’s Kitchen are shows that regularly consume my time and conversations.  [...]

Filed under: contemporary art, critique, interdisciplinary, museology, museums, popular culture   |  2 Comments
Tags: art history, chopped, consumption, Culture, food, food network, food tv, icons, louvre, masterpiece, museums, popular culture, spectacle, spectator, top chef

Naughty Teens, Garbanzo Beans, Rancho and Language Games

21Jul09

The gaze is everywhere in Eric Yahnker’s installation Naughty Teens/Garbanzo Beans. It is behind the shades in low-lying plaster sculpture John Wayne Dressed for Tennis. It floats above our heads when projected from the large-scale graphite drawing Her Happiness Scramble. The naughty teens from the title piece stare us down, as does the viewer’s own [...]

Filed under: Artists, art theory, contemporary art, critique, exhibition, interdisciplinary, local, peripheral vision, popular culture, visual culture   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: ambach & rice, association, connotation, ed ruscha, eric yahnker, gaze, humor, image, installation, jean-francoise lyotard, language, language games, moby dick, pop art, popular culture, rancho, sartre, satire, text, the postmodern condition, visual culture, we are the world, words

Spectacular, Spectacular: Venice, Vegas, and the A-Y-P Expo

17Jun09

On Artsbeat, Randy Kennedy recently recounted a Kafkaesque experience receiving his press credentials at the Venice Biennale:
“The words ‘grande confusione’ are often heard. They were running through my head as a woman told me I was in the wrong place and that I should walk to the Arsenale, the other site for the event, several [...]

Filed under: contemporary art, critique, destruction, excess, exhibition, interdisciplinary, local, museology, popular culture   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: a-y-p, alaska, blockbuster exhibitions, casinos, dave hickey, dawn cerny, exhibitions, exposition, fear and loathing in las vegas, hunter s. thompson, journey, kitsch, las vegas, pacific, pilgrimage, popular culture, press credentials, randy kennedy, seattle, spectacle, venice biennale, visual culture, yukon

The Auction as Wunderkammern: Michael Jackson, Nan Goldin, and Liberace

11Apr09

Michael Jackson’s entire life was published in seven auction catalogs, five of which are available for free public viewing on the internet.  The objects up for bidding are organized into simple disciplines: garden statuary, outdoor furniture, decorative arts, antiques, paintings, amusements, arcade games, “Disneyana”, career memorabilia.  Individual lots offer a surprising range of objects: framed [...]

Filed under: art theory, authenticity, commodity, excess, interdisciplinary, peripheral vision, popular culture, visual culture   |  2 Comments
Tags: air guitar, auction, auction catalog, authenticity, curation, curiosity, dave hickey, display, lawrence weschler, liberace, liberace museum, michael jackson, mr. wilson's cabinet of wonder, nan goldin, objects, popular culture, rhinestones, wonder, wunderkammern

Identity Queue

15Sep08

As I sit in my living room, directly opposite a pile of three unwatched Netflix discs, I can’t help but think of John Swansburg’s recent analysis of this topic in Slate (via Paul Constant on Slog).  The desire for relaxation is undoubtedly a reasonable understanding of why genocide, trauma, subtitles, and experimental structure are unappealing [...]

Filed under: critique, film, interdisciplinary, peripheral vision   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: film, film theory, high fidelity, identity, laura mulvey, narcissism, netflix, personality, popular culture, psychoanalysis