Studio Fridays: Madcap sketches of Armory Week
The painting above is by a guy named Jonathan Meese. He seems like a real trip. Meese is some german version of an emotionally unstable Dave Grohl. I consider him my new fashion icon. he’s not okay. I like him.
His painting stood out to me because it was big and angry and silly and he made a swastika on it which is truly taking a dump on a thing you’re in theory trying to sell. Watch the video above to hear his rationale behind this and also his leering psychobabble and riff on scarlet johansson as pure art.
I’m not saying his work is heroic. It just stood out given the context. I do like the paintings in the end. He seems genuinely fucking crazy in a good way I guess. He is a raging ambivalent.
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A few hours walking through any fair will turn anyone into a marshmallow.
Here are some things that happened Wednesday night at the MoMA party
- I saw Jay Z and Beyonce watching Solange Knowles perform. They looked like humans basically and acted that way too.
- There was a cute little kid there aged 6-10 drinking a 32 ounce coca cola and being awesome in a stroller. Not sure if was a performance piece calling out Mayor Bloomberg and his nanny state
- Almost no one was listening to Klaus Beisenbach or Noah Horowitz as they tried to introduce Liz Magic Laser’s project and show her short video.
- People were drinking and talking instead. Some of the bartenders were gorgeous male models- standard new york but seemed particularly funny this night
- Liz Magic Laser is a real person and I liked her project and it didn’t really fuck with anyone very hard, but whatever, griping about art fairs is tough material and she played around with it, idk
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I sat across from a collector for an hour or so at a ‘private club’ (LOL) and listened to his strong opinions. He asked to see my work which I showed him on a cell phone and then he launched into his ideas about how to improve them. That was fun. I didn’t get a chance to share my opinions on how to improve his client’s investment portfolio, or even ask him to whip it out so we could look over it. I’m sure we’ll get to that next time. I buy a lot of products so I’m pretty sure I’ve got a keen understand of the business fundamentals that drive the general economy. As a lifetime consumer, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a solid understanding of how everything works. Just my opinion.
Art fairs aren’t really a place where artists go to get respect. There is a high correlation of people who have the money to collect with people who assume you are interested in what they have to say.
It’s not hard to understand why a collector would feel like their opinion has value in the fair system. It’s because they undeniably do. Please que up Money Talks by AC/DC on your spotify and listen to it for the rest of this post.
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I go into a deeply passive state when I’m listening to someone who I have very little in common with. Some strange trigger goes off in my head and I play into it. I want to hear more so I goad them to keep talking- I become a cheerleader and a peace maker looking for insane connections in our logical frameworks. I really want to hear it. It’s an odd tick because I always end up drunk in opinions I’m pretty sure are toxic. I guess bad ideas are my anti-drug.
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Next year I think I’m going to fly Jonathan Meese out here and hire a bunch of oiled up male models to carry him around on a throne and have him talk at people until everyone explodes. Look for me on the cover of art forum!
