State of the Art : NEW YORK

Hey, this is my first post! So far I have been keeping a file of all my notes, lectures, tutorials etc and it is fast becoming the bulk of my journal.  Anyway last night I went to see the New York exhibition at Urbis with Sam, Jake and Matt and decided to begin my blog with a little write up of it.  In time I will add more to my blog with my previous work because I think it will be beneficial to share thoughts and ideas in this way, as well as adding another layer to my journal. (that was Mac talking). I'm not really used to keeping a blog or anything similar so i reckon I'll just keep it simple and informal.  I'll try to say exactly what I'm thinking and be as honest as possible, I cant be sure how it will turn out though so here goes.. Ok so... here's what happened...

This was an extremely detailed and intricate charcoal drawing and easily the most technically skilled and labored piece there.

We arrived at Urbis and were greeted with Manhattan cocktails which where fucking strong, probably to get us pissed because the exhibition was so ludicrously bizarre.  Dam I wasn't supposed to give that away so soon, or sound so cynical.  I didn't know what to expect as I hadn't found out anything about the exhibition prior.  The reason we were at the opening was because Sam's inquisitive nature had resulted in 2 free tickets, whilst we were there at the Black panther exhibition.  I presumed the work would be to do with the city New York... it turned out it was that the artists where all new yorkers and their works were just random installations, videos and other artworks that didn't have any relevance to New York, nor to each other.  The works where all separate pieces and there seemed no logical route to go around the exhibition. Everyone seemed to wander aimlessly about the arbitrary setup, in fact we almost missed a few bits of work that were hidden behind a wall.  Most of the artwork, although quite interesting and visually stimulating, went against most of the ideals of graphic design and advertising and what it means to "design" something.  To me design has to have a concept and a function.  This exhibition was completely the opposite but saying all of this is a bit pointless when it wasn't meant to be doing any of the things that design should - it was an art exhibition.  I would say the installations were entertainment pieces, typical of this kind of exhibition.  The wacky, self-indulgent creators and their "ingenious concepts" are something I always seem to be apathetic towards.  A lot of the work conjured up the usual "I could of done that!" and "what the fuck is that supposed to be?".  Even so I did quite enjoy the exhibition, I just thought it was of no use to me in my practice.

Ok the night was pretty much summed up with a performance piece by an american guy called Matthew Lutz-Kinoy.  It began with this Matthew bloke crawling on all fours towards the center of the stage, wearing black spandex and what I can only describe as a spaghetti bolognese mask.   When he lifted the mask to reveal his face I was surprised to be met by this Freddie Mercury lookalikey (well it was just his tash really).  Anyway Freddie's campness was a prevalent theme throughout the performance which involved dancing, singing, painting with his hands and throwing money about the place.  It was all quite strange if I'm honest.  There were moments when I didn't know where to look as I found it a bit embarrassing.  Maybe I just didn't get it but when I looked across at Jake and saw him chuckling with a grin from ear to ear (as if to say "oh god give me a hundred grand to do that and I'd probably still have reservations"), I knew I wasn't the only one. It was so undignified it was cringe worthy.  From what I gathered the narrative was based around the obsessive and narcissistic nature of a bipolar bar worker who spent his days pining over lost lovers :/  It seemed that he was driving himself crazy with the lust and loneliness inside his mind.   Deep I know....

The guy on the left is spaghetti faced Mr Mercury just before he began his performance (unfortunately my camera battery ran out - this was the last photo I took) and the other geezer accompanied Freddie with some part rehearsed, part improvised Elton John on acid type piano skillz to pay the billz.  

Anyway all in all I'd say the whole thing was enjoyable as a bit of fun, but taken seriously, unless its the weird and wonderful and pointless kind of art your into then its probably slightly worrying to draw any sort of inspiration from the ideas there.  Think Mighty Boosh takes on Tracy Emin but not funny or expressive and you wont be far off.  I couldn't help feel pretentious even being there.

So that's my first post.  It's a bit long but never mind. I'll try to keep them more succinct in the future, I'll probably just get bored of typing so they'll be shorter.

I'll post some photos to give an idea of the exhibition too.