by Jerome du Bois
Today's New York Times featured an article by filmmaker and blogger Greg Allen about bootleg video art. Matthew Barney is the principal victim, and one of the stars of the piece is a lazy, vampiric bozo named Jon Routson, whom Mr. Allen wanted to call, cutely, "The Cremaster Thief." I say he just gives fresh meaning to rip-off artist.
The article contains this disturbing paragraph:
In April at New York's Team Gallery, Mr. Routson showed his "made for TV" version of "Cremaster 4." He cut a grainy VHS bootleg of Mr. Barney's 45-minute film down to 22 minutes, dropped in actual commercials, compressed the end credits and even floated ABC's logo in the lower corner of the screen. The result: a hilarious, smart, and brazen work, which drew critical praise and which may be a sign of things to come.(emphasis added)
Let's be clear: Mr. Routson illegally snagged a copy of a complex artwork which cost blood, sweat, tears, time, and money -- none his -- then sat on his ass in front of his technology and cut apart a piece of work he couldn't conceive a thousandth of on his best day. (No matter anyone's opinion of Matthew Barney, his co-workers say he works harder than anyone else involved in his art.)
Worse, Mr. Allen just lets the video thievery slide. So let's ask: has Mr. Allen already handed over copies of his own films so Mr. Routson can have some fun with them? If not, what's he waiting for? because if he has any objections I'm waiting for him to call out for the nipping of Mr. Jon Routon's career in the bud.
But that won't happen. It's outrageous, but no longer surprising in this art climate, that the Team Gallery people have no ethics whatsoever. Mr. Allen, though, disappoints me.
Here in Phoenix Gregory Sale, another artist too lazy to do his own work (at least in this case), telephonically hijacked a phone-in part of Yoko Ono's retrospective in San Francisco last year, then somehow made a fifteen-minute video of an audio piece, and called it "Looking for Yoko Ono." He explained it, in part, this way:
I am questioning museum culture while playing with celebrity and artistic intervention.
which I translate this way:
I am an obnoxious party-crasher taking advantage of a venue I couldn't mount in a hundred years, and this is the only way I'll ever get into the San Francisco Museum of Art.
(Mr. Sale, by the way, is Visual Arts Director of the Arizona Commission on the Arts.)
Speaking of unscrupulous artists, in a few days Catherine King will post a long, psychologically-informed essay on the painter Beverly McIver, called An Unbecoming Portrait. It's part one of several pieces in our run-up to the October SMOCA show Hairstories.
And this Friday I will post notes toward a new art criticism, based on Daniel Dennett's Moral First Aid Manual, which I'm calling "Art Writing in the AllGoRhythm."
That's right: morality in art criticism. It's back.
Posted by Jerome at August 17, 2003 08:56 PM | TrackBack