Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The Whitney


Tori invited me to the pay what you can Friday at the Whitney (which may or may not be every Friday...) a few weeks ago to holler at Jenny Holtzer and some other artz.
BALLEREST!

The Whitney docents are super strict and scary, more so than any other museum or gallery I've been to in a hot minute, so I couldn't snap that many photos, and absolutely none from the Jenny Holtzer exhibition. That- by the way- was a really neat exhibit aesthetically, very cool. The text, when I spent the time to read it, was boring and political. For the record political art almost always annoys and bores me.

Jeff Koons, we went to the same school!


This is a portrait Chuck Close (who is one of my all time favs) did of Phillip Glass. I always am intrigued about artists who were friends with each other. Were they drawn to each other because they had common interests and were creative individuals? Was there something political or societal that brought them to each other? Were they friends before they were famous?
At the Art Institute of Chicago there is a print of John Cage done by Andy Warhol. Its not a particularly well known or famous piece, but it continuously intrigued me. Like were they just buds? Was Andy and his studio just playing around with print making techniques and thought it would be fun to practice with a print of John? Did they drink Buds and watch the game together? It adds this bizarre level of intimacy with the artists. A new layer of complexities with how the viewer relates to the work, to the story being told. We are allowed a new puzzle piece for the fantasy, we are given new questions to ask.
Does this add or take away from the elitism of the artist? That he interacts with other people, how does that affect our relationship with the artist?

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