First week

So we've had our first week of school. It went pretty well. We've got studios sorted, and they're not too shabby at all. A great improvement on last year in fact. There is some threat that we might be encroached on by others. However, we're prepared to defend ourselves.

There are eight people doing PGDips, including me. It's a good number, and seems like a good group of people. Most of them have come from elsewhere. It was interesting hearing their first impressions of Massey.

There are a couple of aspects of the course that they picked up on, particularly the lectures consisting solely of the staff talking about their work. People requiring you to be a captive audience for them to talk about themselves is a bit rank.

I reckon that's a very minor quibble though. The actual assessment requirements are all good, with nothing obviously silly.

One of those requirements is that we keep a journal of reflective writing about our work. This writing should not be 'overly casual or idiomatic, sensational, sentimental, or "faux-academic"'. When I queried what this meant, I was pointedly told 'not ranting, David'. So that counts this blog out then.

Back to school

Something in Auckland to go to

Over

Graham (a group show) finished yesterday. I came across this assessment ('a great little show'), which includes an explanation of the name.

Apparently, my stuff is 'where the show tends to lose its grip on "zen" and "calm" altogether'.

Submit your work to a New York art dealer!

Go here and follow the easy instructions.

As part of the exhibition #class, dealer Edward Winkleman will spend a portion of his time in his gallery reviewing digital images of work sent via the internet to #class by artists globally.

The rules are:

• Artists will submit one digital image to "Shut up already. I'll look at your art".
• Mr. Winkleman and guests will view the image for no less than 10 sec.
• Mr. Winkleman and guests will be monitored by a volunteer as they view the work to assure full compliance with the rules.
• Mr. Winkleman, his guests and the Monitor will sign a certificate of viewing stating the image has been viewed.
• Mr. Winkleman and his guests will have no obligation to provide representation to any of the artists, make any comment about, or critique any of the images.
• Once an image is viewed by Mr. Winkleman and his guests the artist cannot complain that their work is not being considered by a professional gallery for one year from the date of viewing, Mr. Winkleman and his guests will be absolved of any further obligation to take complaints by artists that their work is not being considered by a professional gallery seriously for one year from the date of viewing.
• As Mr. Winkleman and his guests view the images, they will be available on the internet to be viewed.

If I submit something, it should be a real fuck you one.

Credo!

The best bit starts at about six minutes 45 seconds in: 'I believe in not believing.'

Brilliant.

Beckmann

Oh, this infinite space, whose foreground you continually have to fill up with junk so you don't see its awful depth too clearly. What would we poor mortals do if we didn't continually equip ourselves with ideas about God and country, love and art, in an attempt to hide that sinister black hole. This endless desolation in eternity. This loneliness.

Nothing gets the...

Ye gods

Deep within their underground lair, fresh from bathing in the blood of babies and conducting strange satanic rituals, the evil Barrs update their blog to have another go at me.

'Mainstream'!? 'Hot cakes'!? I honestly don't think they have a very good grasp of what words mean.

I suppose they think the likes of Gambia Castle and their own sorry excuse for a gallery (does somewhere that's had just one show that was only ever open for a matter of hours even count as a gallery?) aren't mainstream, and that I'm 'selling out' by showing in a dealer gallery rather than some artist-run space.

I hate to break it to them, but artist-run spaces such as Gambia Castle and Enjoy are fully integrated mainstream public institutions. It's not just that they receive public funding but that they are a recognised stepping stone for curators and artists (but especially curators) to get into the major public institutions. They're curator factories even.

As an intertemporal avant-garde artist, I wouldn't touch an artist-run space with a barge pole. In fact, back in 2007 I clearly stated where you would find a contemporary manifestation of the intertemporal avant-garde: 'It will be found mostly in sympathetic dealer galleries, online, and in short-run publications.'

That hasn't changed at all.

And I've found Ivan very sympathetic. He gets it, unlike some.

In other news, I got a letter in the mail today confirming my eligibility to graduate. Apparently I've got my graduate diploma 'with distinction', whatever that means. Once they post the scroll out to me, I might hang it where it belongs, in the toilet.

Céline

I've got a few books by Louis-Ferdinand Céline from the library at the moment. I wanted Journey to the end of the night, but some bastard has nicked it. Instead, I'm reading Death on credit. It's pretty good.

Here's a nice quote from the preface to one of the others I've got:

Here Céline turns upside down what authors of every epoch have done when they seek to reconcile the reader to him, to make him a friend. Céline treats the reader as an adversary, and vice versa. For him, the important thing is that there should be between him and the reader an emotional link. For that, hostility will do just as well as complicity (athletes and soldiers speak of 'seeking contact').

I'd go further. Hostility will not 'do just as well as complicity', it is preferable to.

Hostile!

('Wanker!' comes the call from the cheap seats.)