Hi Davin and everybody, Luv the idea of 'bad' (or pronounced in two syllables: bay-adddd). Back in childhood my parochial school classmates and I (in January, in overheated winter classrooms, sun streaming in over the snow) were hammered with Lutheran notions of sins of omission and sins of commission-- things neglected/passed on and things done in deliberate malice. We nearly passed out from the hot-water radiators (clanking with steambursts) during religion class, a solid hour every morning. One was left in squirming silence to contemplate what could be the possible differences-- farting in class, shooting spitwads, thinking hot thoughts about too tight jeans a couple of rows up, elementals: which was which?
Then there's the 'bad' of street talk , now (I think?) replaced by "sick!". Bad has become kinda like 'wrong' of which John Haber made mention a while ago. Which brings me to the inspiring Twitteresque brevity of the appellation "The Wrong Gallery." The idea that such a "Wrong Gallery" could hang out like a doorstop in the wilds of Chelsea cheered me during the darkest days of the Bush era. I like the blurb that just came out today via e-flux about Mauricio's show at the Menil. Quote-- > The 1997 Venice Biennale established Cattelan's significance as an > heir to Arte Povera. By combining the familiarity and accessibility > of Pop Art and the unpredictability of Dada and Surrealism with > iconic and controversial imagery (corrupt Popes, headless horses, > Nazi salutes), the disturbing aspects of Cattelan's work are > lightened somehow by their absurdities. > > For the last five years the artist has focused on publishing and > curatorial projects that have included the 2002 founding of The > Wrong Gallery (and its subsequent display at Tate Modern), and on > collaborations such as Permanent Food (an occasional journal > comprising a pastiche of pages torn from other magazines). > > Deeply involved in the art and politics of the country of his birth, > Cattelan functions in the world of global art and images. He lives > in New York but maintains an apartment in Milan, where he began his > career as artist-provocateur. > > Cattelan often first visualizes his works in two dimensions⎯seeing > how it will look on the printed or digital page⎯perhaps because of > the daunting figurative and literal weight of making sculpture. At > the heart of his endeavors has been the desire to create a body of > images that "lives in your head," in the subconscious, which > Cattelan maintains are triggered not so much by seeing his work in > the flesh but rather through reproductions in print and on a > computer screen. xc naxsmash naxsm...@mac.com christina mcphee http://christinamcphee.net http://naxsmash.net On Jan 6, 2010, at 11:30 AM, davin heckman wrote: > Sorry to take my time getting back to your question, Simon. I am > still mulling over David Chirot's comment, too (although I think > that the question of "dangerous" poetry hiding code is an > interesting and rare official admission that art is precisely about > some of the very things we have been talking about here. And that, > we should reflect on just why someone might be hasty to define a > certain work as "bad." > > I do think that outcomes matter. But there are many other aspects > to determining whether something is "good" or "bad." For instance, > I think that the level of ignorance under which a person acts could > be considered "bad," if the person shows no reasonable effort to > figure out whether or not what they are doing is in fact bad. In > this sense, carelessness could be a kind of badness (I certainly > make many mistakes in this way). If a person is employing a means > that is widely understood to be harmful, with predictably harmful > effects. Using another person in any way against their will (or > without their knowledge), especially if it is going to determine > their future, is something that is potentially really bad. Passing > the buck.... letting someone else make a decision which you could > have made yourself is also a kind of badness. But at the end of all > this, I think that the key factor is the interval imposed on > decision-making. If we take decisions away from the automatic, > impulsive, and assumed responses, and pause to reflect upon them > (the purpose for the action, the means of acting, the presumed > outcome, and the actual outcome) we move from being thoughtless to > being thoughtful, unreflective to reflective. > > On the other hand, we have, I think, lost our overall sense of > what's bad.... mainly because we cleave to imposed standards for > moral behavior. We (and I am speaking especially about the sort of > dumbed-down moral sensibilities that I know best.... the ones that > operate in the US) have a tendency to reach for the sort of > shorthand "values" that are defined in American political life (Do > they prefer one set of sexual behaviors over another? Do they > prefer one set of substances over another? Do they support certain > types of killing and oppose others?). You can take this shorthand > even further, and just boil it down to a handful of profiles (Are > they white/other, straight/other, christian/other, etc?) and then > you don't even have to worry about goodness and badness at all. If > you fall in one camp, you could be helping seniors cross the street, > saving kittens from burning buildings, changing tires for strangers > stranded on the motorway... it doesn't matter... you are generally > going to be regarded as "bad" (or at least "fishy") according to the > shorthand. Conversely, if you fall in the other camp.... you can > get away with a lot of badness provided you regard your privileged > status with some respect. (Look at Tiger Woods.... so he's a > married guy who had sex outside of marriage.... that's a solid > month of headlines and moral outrage. But, say, you're a good ol' > boy like David Vitter, and hire a prosititute dress you in diapers > behind your wife's back... you will remain in the senate.) But if > you put both of these things in the grand scheme of global > badness.... they are trivialities. They might be hurtful for the > particular families involved.... but they are not harmful in the > same way, that say, Monsanto might be, as the fight for a monopoly > of the world's food supply. What it means is that we have lost our > ability to even begin thinking about right and wrong. > _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
