by Jerome du Bois; edited with Catherine King
Our previous post on Jon Haddock has rallied John Spiak, an Arizona State University (ASU) Curatorial Museum Specialist [yes, that's what it says] to his defense, chewing up our bandwidth in two long huffy-puffy emails in the comments. This is curious, since every institutional player in town has studiously avoided our questions, our prodding, and our ranting for the last eight months, no matter the relevance of the subject.
(Neal Lester? Yes, but I said players -- and besides, he's still dodging our questions.)
Yet, when we simply walk out of Haddock's odious slide presentation, and post the reasons . . . well, now here comes VJ Johnny D to the rayskew. Curious.
So I've decided to bring the conversation, in a consciously futile gesture of commensalism (he's not in our league) to the main table. For context, new readers need to consult the previous post.
[Spiak's first reply]
Dear Jerome,
First, it was great to see you and Catherine there last night. Active participation in an art community by all is what makes such a community thrive.
In your latest posting you state "John Spiak's "Survival" show". For the record, Leonardo Bravo, a well-respected curator from southern California, curated that show titled "Survival Skills" -- http://www.zerodegreesart.com/bravo/resume.html.
You also quote in your posting directly from the SMoCA website information about the event that reads, "Arizona artists talk informally about their work, then participate in a group discussion moderated by collectors." I feel it would have been insightful for you and Catherine, instead of walking out, to have stayed and voiced your views to the artist directly in an open discussion format. This not only would have created constructive dialogue for both parties, but could have also been informative to the entire audience in attendance. This could have been a perfect opportunity to share both perspectives and to perhaps create better understanding. If you had stayed you would have heard directly from the artist, not from another artist’s point of view or from a curator’s informal talk at an art exhibition, about Jon's direction towards his subject matter. The impact that his two children’s viewing of media has played such a role on his view of such events as covered by the media itself. Opportunity for direct dialogue and debate I feel is always a great thing. In my opinion, when one side is not open to direct dialogue and draws all its information from secondary sources, problems, misinformation and conflicts arise.
Perhaps none of the other "thirty-five audience members followed" because they were interested in dialogue, debate, clarification or understanding. A chance to speak directly with an artist about their work, love it or hate it. Which, for the time being in this country, is an opportunity still allowed and cherished by many.
I give praise to SMoCA for allowing this open forum and for presenting this opportunity to the public at no charge. Evenings such as these are a true gift to our community and I look forward to future Slide Slams.
I too look forward to seeing Catherine's upcoming project and hope she deals with her topic with the same true feelings and personal passion that Jon does with his work.
Take care and all the best,
John Spiak
Posted by John Spiak at January 14, 2004 10:54 AM
[My first reply]
[Before we begin, I must extend my appreciation for the remoteness that email, MT comments, and the internet provide; otherwise, to quote Robert Barone, “I wouldn’t know what to do with all the vomit.”]
First, to our readers:
Behold the gall of some people, and consider whom he defends: a voyeuristic snuff-freak (but a father of two, so even if he’s jpeggin’ pr0n, death, murder, the blue-bruise punishment of flesh, degradation and humiliation, he’s an artist, so it’s okay, c’mon, relax . . . relax).
To Spiak:
First, it was great to see you and Catherine there last night. Active participation in an art community by all is what makes such a community thrive.
If it was so great to see us, why didn’t you greet us or acknowledge us in any way? No matter; I’m glad you ignored us. (I’d lose the Hitler stache, by the way. And the hypocrisy, but that is way too much to ask.) As for community, I’ve long posted my clever phrase on our sidebar: When I hear the word community, I reach for my car keys. We mean what we say.
I feel it would have been insightful for you and Catherine, instead of walking out, to have stayed and voiced your views to the artist directly in an open discussion format.
No, man, it would have been a long, rude monologue, with Catherine and I trading off tearing your fave so many new orifices he wouldn’t know where to put his pudgy-vulture hands to stop the bleeding. Since we’re civilized people, we withhold these atavistic feelings. It wasn’t our gig, so out of respect for everyone’s time, space, and equanimity, even Haddock’s, we govern our tongues, go home, and write. This, too, is the beginning of dialogue. Why don’t some of you clowns get with the blogosphere?
Besides, that is all moot, since our reaction was visceral. We couldn’t stand it. We had to get up and leave. I notice in your bureaucratic-phrase-laden response that you never mention anything about 9/11/01. Easy to be hard, eh? Easy to be cold.
Hey, Jack, it was about this. Can you twig it? It’s about a profound insult to life. It’s about the artwork, the thing on the wall, the huge dumb life-hating cartoon looming before us that this turkey shoves in our faces.
Why does he make this pissant outrage? To assuage his tender feelings he has to transmute the tragedy into cartoon language?
Haddock, Spiak, grown-ups looked the hell in the face, just as it was, just as the victims had to -- to never forget, and to always respect those who had no choice. And you, Haddock, and you, Spiak, have certainly not done those things. You both disrespect all the Towers victims.
As an instinctive gesture of respect for the WTC dead (we knew it in our guts -- we thought about it afterwards -- we just got up and left), we were not about to patiently wait through more manure from this creepy geek, then a bunch of la-di-dah from two more artists! Meanwhile, everybody else, it seems, is cool, or cowardly, or creepily interested.
I remember, Spiak, two months after 9/11, when you “dared” to exhibit Haddock’s riff on dePalma’s Untouchables/Potemkin [my mistake: I meant Godfather, but screw pop culture references anyway] staircase scene, on the staircase at Nelson Fine Arts Center. If I recall correctly, you and the staff consulted and “agonized” over a decision, but then went ahead and displayed that lame-ass piece. “I grew as a curator that day,” you said. (I must say, I’ve used variations on that punch line a lot . . .) Grew? Don’t make me puke.
Then:
This would not only have created constructive dialogue . . .
Oh, Jeebus, no, here we go, academic logorrhea . . . Why do they still peddle this crap, and think people can’t read?
informative to the entire audience in attendance
perfect opportunity to share both perspectives
Opportunity for direct dialogue
dialogue, debate, clarification or understanding
A chance to speak directly with an artist about their work, love it or hate it. Which, for the time being in this country, is an opportunity still allowed and cherished by many.(Sure, as if evil Johnny Ashcroft is sniffing around your door?)
You use the word dialogue directly six times, Spiak, and several times more indirectly. Okay, you want to talk dialogue.
We started this blog in May 2003. Since my very first posting, on Mel Roman, and for many other thousands of words -- some essays carefully revised dozens of times over two or three weeks -- that Catherine and I have presented to the so-called Arizona arts community, we have raised specific question after specific question, to all and sundry. Where have you been? I can tell you about the fooking substantive dialogue we have received from you, personally:
0.
You should start smellin’ what you been shovelin’. Look at the sidebar. Then scan the comments: slim pickens, mostly from chuckleheads and knuckleheads. While we have been raising specific questions, for eight months, on many local, national, international art/morality issues, where have you been, John Spiak, and all you other so-called promoters of the art community? I would not presume to guess -- sensitive gag reflex -- but don’t you ever bring up the word dialogue to me, John Spiak, as if we have not been engaging in it from day one, while you and all the other academic and institutional cowards hide behind your complacency, shored up behind the unstable, evanescent veneer of the passing greenback fancies of the priveleged classes. (Just keep sucking, all you sycophants.)
Finally:
I too look forward to seeing Catherine's upcoming project and hope she deals with her topic with the same true feelings and personal passion that Jon does with his work.
For you to use the phrase I’ve emphasized is almost obscene. I know you’ve read Catherine’s work, and that she wears a wise heart on her sleeve. For you to put her in the same sentence as Haddock makes my blood boil.
Catherine King cradles and nutures the heart of 21st Century Soul.
Jon Haddock pimps our pain out for money. He is asafoetida, the resinous heart, a pathetic, self-styled king of the pygmies who rejoices in and celebrates what we were born to overcome. In this, he isn’t unique, just another part of the self-humiliating fantasizing generation, sucking each other’s thumbs while the towers fall.
We don’t fall with them. We rise from the ashes. The wankers can fend for themselves. We have the future to think about, and to work for. Every word we write is part of that work.
Jerome du Bois
[Spiak replies]
To The Tears of Things Readers and Jerome,
First, to those who do not know me, my facial hair is in the form of a full goatee, chin to nose. No need for a shave, I’ve been told I look like Dr. Green from the TV show ER. Not sure where the reference to the “stache” came from, but truly found it odd.
I have in the past responded once to your blog with a personal e-mail to you, I believe it was one of the very first postings you ever did, but did not receive a response at that time. I also attended an opening of an exhibition of your work and drove by and parked to view Catherine’s “The Last Time” exhibition in the window front.
In viewing Catherine’s installation, which has links on your site, I wonder where your phrases such as “just another part of the self-humiliating fantasizing generation” and “the huge dumb life-hating cartoon looming before us that this turkey shoves in our faces” received their determinations.
To be fair, and to eat my words from my previous posting, I have not spoke directly to Catherine about her installation, but have read her postings concerning her work. For those not familiar with the store front installation, here is a link with images: http://www.thetearsofthings.net/archives/2003_09.html and a brief description from this blog.
“This photo shows several elements of The Last Time, a storefront-window tableau to be unveiled October 3rd as part of the Souls It Takes installation. The public will be able to view it from the street 24/7 for the whole month of October at The Artery, 623 E. Indian School Road.
The tableau shows a couple in a single setting, but a doubled scene, to illustrate the woman's decision. So there is a bellowing giant in a chair, and the same giant on his knees (but still clutching his baseball bat and his remote). There is the determined woman writing "The Last Time" on the wall of their nightmare dwelling, and then just a glimpse of the woman -- her scarred leg, her purse, a wisp of hair -- as she disappears through the door forever. Wall-sized collages reflect the couple's history.”
Depicting realities in life in other fashions to allow a viewer a different perspective is what artists do. I am sure there are tons of artists that could be boiled down into the terms “another part of the self-humiliating fantasizing generation” and the “huge dumb life-hating cartoon looming before.” I am not quite sure that is exactly the way I would have phrased it, but I understand your point. My confusion comes when one uses this to label an artist like Jon, but doesn’t use it to label an artist like Catherine. I do not know Catherine’s background and why she selected to deal with this issue of abusive men in her installation, but I am sure it was pure and from her heart. If she was abused herself, was in this type of relationship, or just has true personal feelings regarding such victims or the abusers, isn’t as relevant to the viewer if the work has impact. Either way, she was able to use these Incredible Hulk-like figures to address her expressive medium in a way that used the familiar green cartoon figures that our society associates with fits of rage. I am sure these were true feelings that Catherine needed and wished to express and share that came from within, and in talking to (excuse me using Jon’s name in the same sentence) Jon Haddock, but not speaking for him, I would say this is true for him as well.
Look at Jon’s “My Life In Comics” cartoon series link: http://www.whitelead.com/jrh/lic/index.html , many of these are based on true tragic incidents that Jon experienced. Until recently, I never associated the term “survivor’s guilt” with Jon’s work, but just recently it became apparent. It makes me even better appreciate his other work and that feeling of helplessness, or guilt that “why as an individual, we couldn’t prevent such a thing from happening.” He takes the situations and places them into cartoon figures or computer games which many of our generation associate with violence. If you were to look at the 1920 and 1930 cartoons that Jon is referencing, you would see extreme violence toward the individual, extreme racial stereotypes, hatred. Hence the work topics of his cartoon violence series, Zoot Suite Riots, 9/11, West Bank Suicide Bombers all deal with violence toward the individual, extreme racial stereotypes, hatred. It is similar to the approach that Catherine took with her “The Last Time” installation. Actually, that title might be appropriate for Jon’s work as well. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if this were the last time any of these violent situations would ever happen, riots, bombings, domestic violence, all tragedies in our society that continue to exist and need to be brought forward in attempt to resolve. It is through artists and visual expression that these dialogues can be provoked and inspired.
As with you, as I am sure is true with most individuals, I do not like all work that I see, and some work effects me in much different ways then others. I have extreme negative reactions and extreme positive reactions, but what I feel is most important is that I have a reaction. It is the work that I have no reaction to that is the work I feel lacks. I don’t get that in either Catherine or Jon’s work, they make me react. Both make me think, they make me wonder, they make me mad, they make me cringe, but they create that within me and I feel that is success.
For Catherine to be so enraged to want to write an essay on Jon and his work shows me that, like or dislike, his work inspired her to this creative expression. Much the same can be said for the work of Mark Rubin-Toles. In recalling a past posting by Catherine on your blog, I found the following statement regarding Rubin-Toles installation “Beer Molecule 8.02”:
“Not only had he created a beautiful artwork, but he also helped us solve a design problem. We had been gathering material for an installation of our own, Souls It Takes, for several months. We knew we wanted to put together a wallwork about men behaving without boundaries, but we still needed a visual organizing principle. Rubin-Toles's piece suggested a solution. Beer Molecule 8.02. was based on the ball and stick model of an ethanol molecule. The ball and stick model of a testosterone molecule would work perfectly for our installation.”
It appears that in one form or another, at the very least; Mark’s work inspired and perhaps created a solution, as I am sure Catherine’s “The Last Time” installation did for many individuals as well.
Art work doesn’t always have to be about happy thoughts and conjure up good feelings; it should also drive us to think about our fears and pain. These fears and pains are different for each of us and how we deal with, express, and struggle through these is up to the individual, since we all come with different life experiences. Catherine knows this and it come through in her work.
For me, this is the way I think with my curating. I take the approach of suggestions, not answers or solutions. I present group and solo show based around topics that I am thinking about or struggling with in my own life, good or bad. I don’t try to say hey, here is the truth, the answers and all the solutions to this topic. I don’t even say, hey, just because this is in one of my shows you have to accept it as art. As a viewer, you are the individual who must make that final decision based on what you have taken in, not only in that exhibition, but through your past experiences. Instead, I try to bring artists together who are dealing with a similar topic in different way, to hopefully create an exhibition that says “here is what a few people are thinking about and have been inspired by concerning this topic. I hope it makes you think about this topic from your own history and background, and to continue to think about it after you leave, share your own thoughts with another person, dialogue with others, or be inspired to do something larger.” Not always successful in my attempts, but without failure, I’m not going to learn.
[My reply]
Spiak:
If you’re going to chew up our bandwidth, try to avoid sharing your curatorial philosophy, your kumbayah about making the world a better place, and your sophomoric definitions of art, and stick to the subject.
Depicting realities in life in other fashions to allow a viewer a different perspective is what artists do. I am sure there are tons of artists that could be boiled down into the terms “another part of the self-humiliating fantasizing generation” and the “huge dumb life-hating cartoon looming before.” I am not quite sure that is exactly the way I would have phrased it, but I understand your point. My confusion comes when one uses this to label an artist like Jon, but doesn’t use it to label an artist like Catherine.
You outrageously try to drag Catherine King down into Jon Haddock’s muck. Ms. King is a mensch who depicts the hard-won triumph of the human spirit over human cruelty. She is about integrity, about showing up and standing up. She is about never giving an inch. She doesn’t take it, Spiak, and nobody throws shade on her.
Jon Haddock is a superhero-costume wannabe, a whinoid snuff freak in love with violent death. He shows it six ways from Sunday. There is no intersection or conjunction at all between Ms. King and your joe. For you to even suggest that she could be part of your self-humiliated generation shows how superficial, formulaic and unreflective you are.
But that doesn’t stop you from sneakily trying to submarine Ms. King by implying that “The Last Time” is autobiographical, thereby turning her into a victim like your favorite boy Jon. First: Catherine King is nobody’s victim. If you really examined that surrealistic tableau -- as a so-called curator, you’re supposed to at least have a trained eye -- you would have seen something that happens all across the country and all around the world:the sorrow in the street . . . the homicidal bitchin’ that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat. It’s a universal, perennial social problem.
“The Last Time” was created as part of a larger installation called Souls It Takes, for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It has nothing to do with Catherine King and everything to do with domestic violence. You're supposed to evaluate art, but you ignore interesting elements of the tableau -- the 24/7, 30-day street-level availability; the insane fabrics and moody lighting; the pyschological tension of the detailed doubling; the calendar entries with their growing desperation; the brutal, foolish consistency of thuggish men; the fact that this is a scene of momentous decision, of her total triumph; the formal and emotional associations -- on the same level -- with Yinka Shonibare, for example, and Sigalit Landau's The Country . . . No, you're too busy trying to victimize Ms. King.
As for Haddock’s so-called “survivor’s guilt:” Boo. Hoo. Big deal, little boy; grow up! Here we go again with the disability-of-the-month. You got your Sue Chenoweth with OCD and, according to her tireless publicists, a lot of other things; you got your . . . whatshisname Ortega with anorexia/bulemia; you got po’littleblackface McIver, whose momma was a mammy and that humiliated her so here’s a Guggenheim as compensation . . .
It’s a career schtick, Spiak. If Haddock was a survivor, that makes his work even more reprehensible in my eyes, because he is now a habitual, if virtual, reoffender who dishonors his own life, his own history, and whoever was a victim back then. In fact, he dishonors and debases the memories of all the innocent souls who have fallen away -- plummeted -- unrevenged.
Which brings me, again, to what you glaringly avoid: this. To make this piece, I am convinced Jon Haddock lingered over many images, still and moving, of that tragic day. I’m sure he has all the macabre websites bookmarked and foldered. He has examined their faces, ruminating, combing, shuffling, culling, choosing . . . should I make this guy a bulldog or just a mutt? And this lady is definitely a cat . . . as he carefully and sadistically picks away at their dignity and humanity at their most vulnerable, mortal moment. This is what Ron Rosenbaum and Berel Lang mean by the drawn-out, contemplative aesthetics of evil. This is sociopathy -- savoring the dark meat of helpless horror -- and Jon Haddock eats it up, over and over. Some victim.
It is similar to the approach that Catherine took with her “The Last Time” installation. Actually, that title might be appropriate for Jon’s work as well.
No, you fool, there’s no similarity at all. You really are blind; it’s telling. The Last Time, Spiak, is an action, not just some decal of a title. It's irrefutable, a done deal, she is out the door. Even as a title it is not “appropriate for Jon’s work” for the precise reason that it is never the last time in his “work.” Like a dog returning to its own vomit, the snuff freak trolls and retrolls the internet for the rankest black truffles of homemade hell. Never growing up, never becoming a man, Jon Haddock, age 43, with your help and SMoCA's, glides into a career as some ratty vampire bat trying to tap the veins of our pain. He comes around me, I'm swatting him down.
That’s your boy, VJ Johnny D. Neither one of you pipsqueaks could even handle Catherine’s shadow falling on you. Don't even try to swipe her art.
Posted by Jerome at January 15, 2004 10:50 AM | TrackBack