by Jerome du Bois
Way long ago Donald Barthelme wrote a short story about pseudo-artistic inspiration called "The Falling Dog." It reminds me of a lot of contemporary artists. Since it's been decades since I've been near an art school, I wonder if any art teacher refers to it? It opens this way:
Yes, a dog jumped on me out of a high window. I think it was the third floor, or the fourth floor. Or the third floor. Well, it knocked me down. I had my chin on the concrete. Well, he didn't bark before he jumped. It was a silent dog. I was stretched out on the concrete with the dog on my back. The dog was looking at me, his muzzle curled around my ear, his breath was bad, I said "Get off."
He did. He walked away looking back over his shoulder. "Christ," I said. Crumbs of concrete had been driven into my chin. "For God's sake," I said. The dog was four or five metres down the sidewalk, standing still. Looking back at me over his shoulder.
gay dogs falling
sense in which you would say of a thing,
it's a dog, as you would say, it's a lemon
rain of dogs like rain of frogs
or shower of objects dropped to confuse enemy radar
Well, it was a standoff. I was on the concrete. He was standing there. Neither of us spoke. I wondered what he was like (the dog's life). I was curious about the dog. Then I understood why I was curious.
wrapped or bandaged, vulnerability but also
aluminum
plexiglas
anti-hairy materials
vaudeville (the slide for life)
Well, what have we here? Well, the victim here is a Welsh sculptor, creator of the 2,000-object series THE YAWNING MAN, who was
in that unhappiest of states, between images,
but now, because the dog fell, or jumped, on him from the third, or fourth, floor window . . .
Well, I understood then that this was my new image, The Falling Dog. My old image, The Yawning Man, was played out. I had done upward of two thousand Yawning Men in every known material, and I was tired of it. Images fray, tatter, empty themselves. I had seven good years with that image, the Yawning Man, but --
But now I had the Falling Dog, what happiness.
Barthelme was probably poking gentle fun at Ernest Trova and his Falling Man series, which was realized in eleventy-two ways; but even Trova went on to a more edgy, neo-Constructivist style. But the question that strikes me like a falling dog is, Why is the falling dog an image and not just a bizarre everyday incident? Something that must take its place behind more important images and ideas? These days . . .
I'm talking about a thickheadedness, an inability to distinguish between qualities, which borders on the sociopathic. (And he wrote the story thirty-four years ago.)
My wife has a couplet:
People are so easily impressed.
People love mediocrity best.
What's scary is how often, and how sincerely, some artists apply this to themselves. If they get an idea -- an original idea -- even a dumbass original idea -- they set themselves back on their own heels.
Whoa! Did I think of scratching up all the fluff from a newly-laid carpet with my own ten fingernails, and fashioning it into a monkey with static and hairspray? Yep, that's me, Tonico Lemos Auad, a finalist for this year's Beck's Futures Prize from London's Institute for Contemporary Arts. (Auad also needle-pricks bruised portraits on banana bunches.)
Yes, he thought of these things -- but he didn't think twice. That would have helped us all.
Yes, I know what day today is, but you can look this up. While you're there, you may also read about
Susan Philipsz [sic] from Glasgow, whose recent work had her singing Radiohead's a cappella Airbag at hourly intervals over the PA system of Tesco in Bethnal Green, east London.
These people must be "between images" a lot. They're fascinated by some perpetual vertical blanking interval, a stuck-needle aphasia, and a need so strong to fill a niche so narrow . . . to paraphrase Professor Kissassinger, the reason the art-world infighting is so fierce is because the stakes are so small.
Imagine I'm pointing to a closed room with an LED sign over the door. As I change the names, love 'em or hate 'em you can easily imagine the kind of art inside the room: Yayoi Kusama, Jenny Saville, Paul McCarthy, Noble & Webster, Chuck Close, Damian Loeb, even (yuck) Christian Holstad, and you fill in the rest. You may be impressed or disgusted, but you will not be amazed.
But there are very few artists who you can't see coming, and those are the ones to watch out for. Every one's uneven, but I would nominate as examples Darren Almond, Mark Wallinger, Mike Kelley, Marina Abramovic, Maurizio Cattelan, Sergei Bukaev Afrika . . . Very few. Jasper Johns and Marcel Duchamp. And Goya.
What we want from art should be what we want from life. To stop us in our tracks for a good reason. To astonish us, but toward the future.
To hell with these tiny-minded wankers, no matter how many prizes they win. Look up. Look around. And watch your head.