the article takes the ica and, more particularly, eshun to task. but what makes the article interesting to outsiders such as myself is not what it has to say that's utterly particular to the ica or eshun, but how it tells a story that is ongoing around the world.
for instance, is the solution to the problem to get somebody else running the ica, like an artist? not just to recover financially, but to bring back the 'artist run' nature of the place. or are those institutions simply doomed to the sort of empty pretensions of late capitalism, wherein there just is no place for the cultures of art as we have known them no matter how you cut it? the ica is hardly the only art institution in which the director is more important than the art or artists. even in net art, which has 0 recognition in the art world, the few gallery curators and other non-artists, ie, with positions of some 'power' to show work to 5 people, are presumed to have much more importance to net art than they actually have. and look at the shows of steve dietz. the quality of the art itself was irrelevant to him also. he was producing concept shows, not showing the quality work of individuals. the quality of the individual works in his shows was not the important thing. the important thing was that the show was curated by dietz with a concept. the actual art was often quite poor. and, boy, do i feel stupid sending a link to gompertz. the quality of the work is utterly irrelevant to him too. it isn't the quality of the work that makes art important, in his book, but the nature of the corporate and institutional promotion and valorization. in all this, although net art has almost 0 recognition in the art world or literary world, it can be an interesting and progressive force in the world because the means of production and dissemination are not so dominated and centralized. ja http://vispo.com _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
