So I promised I would actually keep this blog here for a reason. I still am not sure if I have a reason though?
"Ratings Pls!" 16"x20" Mixed Media (private collection)
I was reminded about this as I picked up the Art section out of the WaPo while visiting mom. I’ve just now been sideswiped making digital marketing for my gallery. Ironic.
So continuing thought…
Picking up the newspaper – and I mean paper by that – is a leisure activity for me. Meaning I need to have leisure time to do it. I try to get the local ones wherever I’m at and take a look. WaPo has been coming to my parents’ doorstep for as long as I can remember. I started actually reading the articles when I was in middle school… so anyone who is offended by mainstream media, I got the same excuse that goes for Playboy – I get it for the articles… But if you know me, you know I’ll at least try reading anything... At my leisure.
Anyway, I used to introduce my “Intro to Art” students at the university to WaPo arts writer Blake Gopnik. I can’t remember the name of the article (thanks Fibro! I’m lucky I remembered Gopnik), but he was rating the top ten best-known artworks or something like that. I did it because, in the early 2010s, I knew my students probably hadn’t even been exposed to actual newspaper, let alone the often maligned WaPo in this day and age of blaming “mainstream media” and physical clutter like paper copies of anything, for many of our woes.
So… I don’t typically click on WaPo articles online because of the paywall. Mom used to continue her subscription for the crossword (for some reason whimsically also in the Art section along with advice columns “Ask Amy” and Carolyn Hax’s which often includes a nice comic). The art section is full of “serious”, “Art-with-a-capital-A” material though, so sometimes I snag it just to read, sometimes I come upon it while lining my rabbits’ litterboxes. (Sorry WaPo, but “silent/greatest/war-baby generation” mom doesn’t even like the puzzles anymore… Stepdad I think reads the digital version, maybe? so most of the printed word winds up recycled or composted. This is an exorbitant amount of $ to spend on a subscription you just get because you’re supposed to as a matter of course, but “boomers or something!”, amIrite?)
Today We have (in order from back to front bc this is how I read the paper, sorry. (You see, I learned to like this word somewhere?) Also, I fold it small all kinds of ways so apologies to my ex-boss/newspaper editor who loved a full-size paper – nonexistent these days? - spread out completely for the best reading experience… We obviously were not reading on public transport in rural Appalachia at that time I guess…? But I have to disagree because I never was a newspaper editor probably and I need it in small pieces, as a whole – overwhelming.)…:
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*Books: about Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgewick. – Another story of ‘wow rich people sure are horrible parents who live in an A.U. where abuse and neglect are just what we do because, you know, the neighbors or something?’ Also, Andy Warhol was “weird” if you didn’t know already, but his films and Edie, beautiful works of art… (that you’d scroll by after roughly 7 seconds by habit these days on a screen the size of your wallet).
*Video Games: Pokemon is generational with TikTok about babies choosing their Intro Pokemon being kind of like a new meme? I don’t really get filming your kid and plastering it publicly when they can't even consent, but whatever floats your parental boat… And, anyway, The Pokemon International Company says “it’s not lost on us” so prepare for more generational marketing here. (However, your pastor may not approve as in Harry Potter and D&D. Be warned.) I taught my older kid to read in part through playing Pokemon on Gameboy and trading card formats so none of this surprises me too much. Also, I think Team Rocket is the most popular part of the Pokemon franchise now judging by OtaKon, but I think I may have got mixed up in a photo shoot just for that segment of the crowd – YMMV (I'm a Team James, I think?)
*Cover Article: Art – Trader Joes’ just above min wage entry-level chalkboard art job. Hey! I did this in that restaurant I worked at in undergrad college but they only gave me 10 minutes at a time to do it so I never got as good at it as these folks. As a die-hard Robert Indiana fan though, anything about “sign painters” is of mild interest to me, not to mention anthropomorphic veggies that look like The Powerpuff Girlz.
* Centerfold: (the best because the pictures are so good you don’t need to read the words!) Critic’s Notebook about Robert Colescott retrospective at the New Museum. Good stuff even though it's "discomforting" (to put it mildly). Check it out.
*In The Galleries: Of interest (again, the photos shown are worth a look if you can’t see the exhibits, though none of the works presented are strictly 2D and probably really need an in-person visit rather than vicarious through art critic/writer. Not that Mark Jenkins is doing a bad job here, but Installation work in particular needs more…IMHO) These are local DC/Ballmer ppl, for example,the main photo is an assemblage by Jeremy Jirsa, and it's worth noting the contextual similarities/contrasts in some of this work as you segway into the Colescott article (after getting your whimsical Ask Amy fix to cool off or get mad about in-laws). I feel like I need to see these artists (and Cultural DC Pop-Up in and of itself because I haven’t yet all this time I've been back in the area…)
*Great Works in Focus: Smee on La Tour’s “Magdalen With the Smoking Flame” reminds us that Church Art in the 1630s was often all about sex, because, well you gotta get butts in seats somehow and visualArts can help you… How else do you interpret an erect flame in this context? It’s spiritual, sure. But, come on, we all know Art-with-a-capital-A is also about sticking it to The Man, especially your rich patrons who just want a pretty girl to look at, really… But if it brings more folk to your gallery, store, house parties, house of worship… you do what you must. Sellouts. LOL. Actually, it’s a nice formal explanation once you get past the HBO Miniseries aspect of it all… (I prefer Judith beheading Holofernes visual musings myself, but hey, most art in the 1600s really wasn’t for me as with many things, male gaze…zzzzzzzzz.)
Then the first article in the section (Theatre, not visual arts) about artists “stepping onto the political stage” mentions “avocado toast” by the third paragraph so I’ve had enough of the mainstream media POV and put it down with my now empty coffee cup. Sorry again, WaPo. (Can you feel my guilt yet?) I think you’re losing me and I’m not even an avocado-toast-obsessed-millennial. Until next time…