Art Show

EVENING- Int.

WOMAN

Where did he get that desk, it really is perfect. I think it really speaks to...

MAN

I really like this. I would have it as my dining room table in my house.

WOMAN

Vois-tu comment la revolution francaise est integrale dans la conversation...

MAN

That's the one you have in your living room!

WOMAN

(conspiratorially)

Except my print is faded...

My question is, who the fuck is this guy? I went to the opening for Tim Clark's Reading the Limits, Works 1975-2003 (at Concordia; nice gallery!) and was a little bit taken with it, but now I am trying to figure out who this guy is and he has no presence on the web, basically. He must be dead or obscure by choice, or my chosen profession of information specialist is a mistake.

The point is that he makes good art, I am pretty sure. It is difficult to judge when each piece, and the intention behind the piece, is described by the artist himself. He would seem to have an authoritative say in the matter that the curator or audience cannot match. I guess you could make the choice to not read the accompanying labels, but I am a good little viewer, and if it's there, I'll read it attentively and feel guilty if I don't. And all of this just goes to show that having the artist intention on hand doesn't mean anyone automatically gets it. The viewer is still left watching a video of a shirtless man wearing a leather gauntlet (what the fuck is that, anyway? It kind of looks like the photo below) barking out a religious text, and wondering, what the f is going on? But also feeling like, this is a bit of alright, because I like the violence suggested by the voice, the leather thing, the nudity, all mashed up with a borrowed philosophy of ethics from the text he's reading (I can't recall which text it was- he uses a bunch of different texts in various pieces).

In any case, interesting curatorial choice and a bang-on case study for the DOCAM project. This is because Clark did a lot of performance art, which obviously has a life span, and is kind of difficult to present in a retrospective. Fortunately, I mean fortunately if you like his stuff, he was into film, video and photography, and with his descriptions, it is possible to get a sense of what happened at a performance, even if the atmosphere of the performance is lost. Although, he writes stuff like "This is the first appearance of the leather gauntlet," but with no explanation as to why this weird thing got incorporated into his art.

I thought his videos were dece, but I really liked his photography and installations more. One inspired by The Story of the Eye really jumped out at me (but for personal reasons; Bear sent me that story after the night in the chapel), as did a series dealing with maleness. I don't know what the technique is that he uses to blur some figures and focus on others, but it was effective as shit, especially placed next to these cropped circular images of what seemed to be Napoleonic-era paintings.

*******

In other news, I had tea at Nococchi, or whatever that place with the tiny cookies is called, with Jacob (still unsure about the name spelling...) after work. It was good. He was relaxed, although he has an unfortunate habit of chewing on his hair, or something. It is a funny, and decidely feminine, tick. But I pushed his hand away from his face and I think he was happy I touched him.

He is only 21, which is very young. That is all I have to say about that, really. He was telling me about his grad school applications, and I asked him if loves what he does (he does a lot of work on riots and famine), and he said: I don't think you really love what you do, you love people, no? I agreed and was secretly happy that I could come home and record that here. I didn't know how much I believed that until he said it out loud, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He liked the tea a lot.

He also spoke about his childhood a little, saying that he was raised by his grandparents more than his parents; the parents work and provide, the grandparents care for the children. It is a Russian thing, apparently. He said his grandfather was a man that he will spend the rest of his life trying to live up to, but will never equal. He finished the subject by saying "I mean, he survived the Gulag!" We are having lunch together tomorrow.

I should work on my website evaluation, but I am tired and I think I will watch Mansfield Park and go to sleep.