as if you were eating your own firm-ass tail
6. THE TEENAGE READER OF ARTFORUM Yes you, as you stand in the bookstore reading this entire issue so you don't have to pay eight dollars, or perhaps you will buy it, because the magazine itself is evidence of a future life, one where you have your own coffee table to place such a magazine on. And you can't help noticing that much of the art, whether nostalgic or rebellious, seems to be about you, the teenager, and now, adolescence. Which gives you a kind of meta-teen feeling about yourself, as if you were eating your own firm tail.
7. BERKELEY HIGH SCHOOL SLANG DICTIONARY (North Atlantic Books) Last year students at Berkeley High put together this book of slang used by African Americans, Chicanos, Jews, and fans of sports, movies, punk, hip-hop, and drugs over the last fifty years (with an emphasis on now). It's a terrific read and reminds us to use suffixes such as -ass, which "adds emphasis to an adjective." As in, This is a good-ass biennial. Let's try using jankity in a sentence: "jankity (JAN-ki-tee) adj., (Also: janky, janked, jankity-ass, jankity-assed) In bad shape, broken, old." My jankity-ass G4 doesn't even have a superdrive. (Etym. African American.)
- miranda july, "top ten," artforum may 2004
posted May 12, 2004 in art, printbeneath the museum's lobby
Franco de Benetetto, a 42-year-old Italian construction worker, more or less destroyed a temporary public sculpture by the internationally known artist Maurizio Cattelan. The work, unveiled at noon the day before, consisted of three life-size, lifelike sculptures of cherubic barefoot boys hanging by their necks from nooses on a branch of an oak tree in the venerable Piazza XXIV Maggio in Milan.
Mr. de Benetetto, aided by passers-by who distracted a security guard, climbed the tree and cut down two of the figures before falling to the ground ... dozens of people remained clustered around the tree discussing the work for several days after its removal ...
New York recently missed a chance for a Cattelan-style test of its tolerance for ambiguity and multiple meanings. The Whitney Museum of American Art invited Mr. Cattelan, who lives in New York, to take part in this year's Biennial Exhibition but balked when he proposed a piece that would have consisted of a life-size lifelike sculpture hanging from a flagpole in front of the museum. Mr. Cattelan's second proposal, which was accepted, was a permanent installation that rendered the art invisible. He buried an early sculpture—one that he had never been quite happy with—beneath the museum's lobby.
- ROBERTA SMITH, "Why Attack Art? Its Role Is to Be Helpful," new york times May 13, 2004
posted May 12, 2004 in art, print