Ryan McGinness

I remember meeting this guy at an opening at Rare when it was back on 14th Street, probably around 1997 or 1998. I think he was handing out matchbooks or stickers with his puking guy icon and the word, "art" on it. Maybe. Memory is a funny thing. I think he was working at PopSmear Magazine at the time, and we spoke on the phone a few times. He put me on his mailing list, so I have some cool early postcards from him, including a metallic foil invite to the book party for "Flatness is God" that happened at B Bar. The party was fun, and I bought a book, which was originally published by Soft Skull Press (now defunct.)

I remember one phone conversation we had, where I was trying to garner some sage advice from him, and he was telling me about this book project he was working on, that is was pretty intense, and how I shouldn't get so caught up worrying about making gallery art, or getting into the galleries, etc. I was extremely impressed and inspired by the first book, and have a growing library of his publications, a few prints, and at least one tee shirt. Most recently found the issue of Arkitip he was in for half-off at the Staple clearance space down on Ludlow. I passed up buying the Peter Saville issue, which was a lot cheaper, because I wanted/needed the McGinness one.

His show earlier this year at Deitch Projects filled me full of wonder and laughter; how cool is it that he gets to make work that is so much FUN and that I find meaningful as well. I have the press release and some notes I made about that show and maybe someday I'll get around to writing something more substantial about it, but I am certainly happy to have the Arkitip catalog for it.

Was reminded all of this when SwissMiss posted a video of him working and talking about his work on her blog. The video is from Upper Playground, SF-based art/design/fashion collective, or whatever they would like to be called.


SwissMiss writes:
Ryan McGinness is interested in creating a new vocabulary for everyday symbols and icons through context and composition. Using layering, repetition, and juxtaposition, his complex pieces construct worlds within worlds. With his massively intricate silk-screened paintings, sculptures, and installations, hes able to blur the division between design, pop culture, and fine art. Ryan McGinnesss artwork has appeared in numerous books, magazines, and exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe.

This is so meta it hurts

Rant: You Kids Get Off My Lawn!!!

The beginnings of a full-scale rant, in their raw form, an email back to a friend after a pretty innocuous comment from him. Couldn't really tell if he was being sarcastic or not, but the gray area allowed me to grow my rant.

From: Diran Lyons
To: Eli Noogabooga
Subject: ?

You really hate Girltalk? He's a legend in the remix world...reminds me a bit of Ethank.

From: Eli Noogabooga
To: Diran Lyons
Subject: ?

When did we communicate about Girltalk? I don't like him, but maybe I'm just an old man, railing against the yoot. He's one step further removed from cd-DJs, and even further removed from LP DJs, who really do show talent sometimes, in their mixing, etc. Girl talk as a studio artist is fine, he mashes up, he mixes and remixes, he creates a new composition from found pieces. Fine. But Girltalk getting $xx,000 to 'play' a Thursday night promo gig thrown by Canon and the magazine I work for? Fucking ridiculous. And, yes, full disclosure, I think I am a bit jealous.

My problem with Ethan's work (ed's note: ran a band's fansite before gradschool, continued doing so and as far as I could tell the only thing he changed for art grad school was the way he talked about this site. The Emperor's New Clothes theorum, as it were,) was mostly one of classification; what he was doing was mostly social engineering and social networking. His argument was that he was creating 'happenings', but most of the time it was just social networking that he was passing off as happenings. I think because of his SD background he saw himself fitting into the continuum of some of the seminal artists of that genre that are associated with that school. I think he also subscribed to the Jevbratt school of thought wherein Code = Art. This gets into a tricky area for me because its a bit of the tail wagging the dog; similar to printmakers, paper-makers, and ceramicists, the process becomes the focus of the art and the experience of the art, rather, the prescribed experience of the art by the artist, rather than a more laissez-faire attitude about viewer/user experience and appreciation really being up to them.

It is my belief that prescribing meaning is a slippery slope to a fascist and monistic attitude and posture, and that it should not be necessary to know all context specific to a piece of work for it to be understood and thus 'good'. (An argument for using language like 'good' or 'bad' in terms of art is too big to have here, so let's just assume its ok to judge ;)) I think we have had a lot of discussions about the relative value and merit of art that is text-dependant, where the Text is what drives the work, sometimes propping up the most flimsy facade.

To bring this full circle, Ethan's work is, I think, interesting, and has value, and is not merely style, but substantive. Whether or not it is art, and from there, whether or not it is 'good' art, is an altogether different discussion, but I don't think it is art, rather it is craft, technical skill, and from there, it is most definitely not good art. Girl Talk's remixes might be art, but definitely not good art, as they are 100% style, and are merely pastiche. He is a visual decoupagist, not even on the level of a true collage artist. That he is valued in the more public realm of popular music, commands money, etc. does not solidify him as an Artist, rather as an entertainer. He is a huckster selling snake oil, and he is louder than the other slimy hucksters clambering for the same bit of soap box in the town square.

old stuff: Makrolab

Going through some old papers I found this vector rendering I did of Marko's Makrolab. Unfortunately I can't find the original file, so I had to scan a tiny printout, the only thing I have left. Might redraw it in AI if I have the inclination.

art & commerce & looking

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — The most trenchant comment on the dazzling and enervating spectacle that is Art Basel Miami Beach is written in bold black and white letters on the floor of the Mary Boone Gallery booth. A wall-to-wall text piece by Barbara Kruger, it spells out two quotations. One, from Goethe, observes, “We are the slaves of objects around us.” The other, from a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, reads, “He entered shop after shop, priced nothing, spoke no word, and looked at all objects with a wild and distracted stare.”

From an article about the art fair. Seems to sum up my experience with the Armory show every time I've gone.
http://tinyurl.com/6aq6eh

I have a long, boring and muddled relationship with these ideas. Maybe those who are able to more adeptly navigate the art world exhibit a sort of cognitive dissonance; whereby they are able to separate the emotional and theoretical involvement with their own work from the act of selling it and themselves as part of the style and mode that may currently be in fashion in that world.

Or maybe I'm just lazy and bitter, and not really all that good at selling myself and my work. Either/or.

monogram 1: Oh My God

I have always loved interlocking monograms; usually I notice them as sport's logos, but they are all over the place. They are an optical illusion, an Escher-like puzzle for the eyes to sort out.

The more complex the design, the more letters involved, the longer it will take to figure it out, but our eyes and brain seem to have an amazing ability to sort these things out, similar to reading a sentence wth sme of th lttrs mssng without skipping a beat. I think that I am also drawn to these things because they take type and make it into an image, maybe through decorative means, but still. I think I can track this back to looking at the Star of David iconography at the synagogue I went to growing up, and trying to follow the lines around and over and under and through, trying to make sense of it, in my head. I spent many hours drawing and re-drawing these, tracing them until I could draw them on my own.

So I decided to try making some of my own. The question was, what would I make them for, what would the letters I chose represent? I immediately thought I would use instant messaging acronyms, since the juxtaposition of the slow labor-intensive process of drawing these with the hurryupnow nature of their etymology seemed at odds. This strikes me as a similar intent to the slow-blogging movement, though not as crusty or bitter. My intent is to do it as an homage, a glorification of our newfound method of simplified communication. All that being said, here is my first effort. This is a scan of a pencil drawing, colored digitally. I will see what they look like re-drawn in vectors, but I like the idea that they have an element of the non-digital in them as well.

Mad Men

This is pure poetry, mixed with a bit of saccharine nostalgia. Add 1 part shameless hucksterism, and a dash of conceptualism and there you go. I rewound and watched this scene four or five times when I watched it on tv. I came up with a little aphorism back in undergrad: A photograph is a memory you can hold at arm's length.