Alpha.Auer

Is this a good thing or what? :-)

Read more here.

I do not normally put info about stuff which I make on this blog, but wanted to do so now anyway. I am having a really good time with this and have been spending most of my time lately noodling around with it. So here it is:
The Tales of Ruysch

And you can read more on what this is all about here:
http://syncretia.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/the-tales-of-ruysch/

And an important disclaimer, which is already written into the page above, as well as into the actual site:

At the end of the day, the aim of The Tales of Ruysch is nothing more than to create entertainment for me, it’s assembler. It is a frivolous (21st century -hhh) rococo folly and should not be seen as an ambitiously serious undertaking but rather as tongue-in-cheek play with material borrowed from here and there, ruthlessly chopped up and re-assembled to suit my needs, involving my many avatars as its actors. If anything, a funny sort of a doll’s theater.

I have been obsessing about Cloaca since I knew of it’s existence – which was precisely 3 days ago.

Not that I want to get overly dramatic and Spenglerian here by screaming “Untergang des Abendlandes”*** or anything like that – but civilizations are also often defined as organisms, yes? And organisms grow old and die. And one of the signs of old age dementia, as far as I am aware, is a fascination with feces.

Now, had this been something that one person had made, financed out of their own pocket as an anti-art establishment statement, it would be a different matter entirely. After all, how is this so very different from Duchamp’s urinal some may well ask? Well, the difference lies in the fact that Cloaca cost hundreds of thousands of Euro’s to build (it is a very sophisticated and complex robot) and apparently art and culture agencies world-wide were racing with one another to finance it. And now museums are lined up to exhibit it, paying colossal monthly fees (one, right here in my home town being amongst them, if what an acquaintance of mine told me today is anything to go by).

So, no, Cloaca is not one man’s brave/humorous stance against what he considers to be a rotten to the core art establishment but a direct product of that very art establishment itself. An establishment which sees art works solely as objects of entertainment and which as far as I can see, is part and parcel of a very old, very tired human race that has lost faith and direction… Sorry, I know this sounds more pessimistic than even pessimistic, but I happen to believe that this is in fact the case. I have been thinking this and feeling it deep inside my bones for a very long time anyway. Cloaca just really brought it home to me one more final time.

And in one way, this is a liberation of sorts as well: To (re)quote the Beatles – “but oh that magic feeling, no where to go…”. We are now all free to “be”. No more responsibilities. No more plans. No more big ambitions. No more big tomorrows…

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I cannot give this a category as a “good thing” – obviously. It has to remain “uncategorized”. There are no categories anywhere on this blog that this would fit into.

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*** I want to make it very clear that when I say Abendland, this is in no way an “anti-western” statement: We are a global culture, possibly with shades and tones of Abendland. One thing however, at least for me, is certain: There is no more “Morgenland”. We are all in the same boat, all of us equally affected and/or equally guilty and/or innocent.

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Afterthought: I have focused upon the funding of Cloaca and not the individual who made it, Vim Delvoye, since it is not so much the work itself but the system that supports it and applauds it that is an issue here. So, a thing to consider may also be whether this was not Vim Delvoye’s aim also? In other words, are he and I on the same side? We would have been, yes – IF! He had exposed the whole “thing” upon completion. Published all the budget sheets. Declared every penny, endorsement and commendation obtained from every art agency that was ever involved with this. And declared that THAT exposure had been the reason behind Cloaca. As far as I am aware he never did so. Had he done so, and if he ever does so at some point in the future, then yes. We will be on the same side.

I have a new idol – incidentally yet another good thing thrown my way by Naxos Loon: Ben Lewis. I sort of knew of him before, but, thanks to the ape, the last few days I have been living and breathing Ben Lewis.

His documentary ‘The Great Contemporary Art Bubble’, which is how I had vaguely heard of him previously, is still outside my reach, outside of a tiny trailer on youtube that is. He is selling it on his website as a DVD and I will probably be trundling over there to order my copy as soon as I am done posting this. I have watched one of his Art Safari films just now, this one about Takashi Murakami.

Superflat? I’ll say it is… So, apparently, the Japanese became superflat because they got zapped by the A-bomb. That’s what they claim in there. What happened to the rest of humanity then, I wonder?

Nothing more to add. Ben Lewis speaks straight out of my heart!

Amazing! Also – and quite importantly: Despite a sparkling career he withdrew from the world of haute couture in 1980 to follow his own path, which seems to have included creating a foundation for the promotion of apparel-art as well as staging annual fashion-art shows in various locations around the world, in “any city that will welcome me” as he apparently says…

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Read more about Roberto Capucci here.