I know I haven't written in a while. Life. I'm not sure what this blog is going to become either, but I'm here. Hello!
I was disgusted and immersed in this artist today.
Dan Colen, a current darling of the art world who is lauded for his new serious art career. He rose to fame with his friends Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow. They became famous for being bad boys and doing extensive amounts of drugs, which is how Snow died. They are making millions of dollars on their work. This is one of the disconnects in the art world.
I think part of what art does is hold a mirror up to human experience in all of its fullness. I’ve always been most interested in work that really looks deeply in. Work that is quiet at first and then gives and gives more. I think Simon Starling, Vita Celmins, Mark Manders, there are more but I can’t think of the names right now. Their work does this. It has that quiet AND power. It is a rich world, all on its own.
The work of artists like Dan Colen confuses and disgusts me. I think I am disgusted by my part in it, by being fascinated by things that aren’t actually fascinating. Things that you know are not as dense as they initially appear, it’s just all the refracted light, the smoke and mirrors. That being said, life becomes more complicated when we are really living it. I’m not saying that insane partying is really living, but it does involve risk, and when you live with risk, you make your world more complex. Beauty and lessons come from that complexity, and isn’t that what life is about?
I don’t know. I just know that I think this work is not very interesting. None of it. And it makes me sad about what this art world runs on, if this man is number one, alongside Koons and Hirst and Serra. If these are our role models, if these are the fathers of the next generation of what art can be and what it stands for those who aren’t already in it. Gross.
