On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 6:42 AM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote:
> MOMA is putting on a garage sale. Artist Martha Rosler has made a career > of > putting on garage sales as if they were art events. Her very tired idea > that > material culture is art, if it's put on in the right venue -- and what > beats > MOMA? -- has a lot of space on today's NYT. > > Here's where I willingly join with those philistines who lament the decay > of > discrimination when it comes to exercising aesthetic taste. Grandmas' old > dress > is hanging on the wall at MOMA and can be yours for maybe $5, after you > pay the > $25 museum admission. Yesterday, Grandmas' dress was picked from the local > garage sale, a real garage sale, for $1, we might suppose. There it was a > worthless piece of cloth. Together with other junk it provided some > entertainment for bored neighbors who like to poke around in someone else's > refuse. But with Ms. Rosler, in concert with some very delightful curator > with > a prestigious job and a big budget and still dizzy from her ivy grad school > seminar where she learned -- aha! -- that everyday stuff is really art if > you > just have that special turn of mind, thanks to Duchamp and a bunch of > delirious > literature theorists, and an art temple to display it. Never mind that > the idea > is now so tired, so very tired, so dog-eared tired that it just flops down > wherever it can like any poor, flea-bitten Fido. > > Sounds like a racket to me: - Every institution goes through three stages utility, privilege, and abuse. (Chateaubriand)
