Marcel Duchamp is a monster. A real beast of a man. Think Antonio Banderas in Desperado. How you can create something like one of his paintings is beyond me. Or, for that matter, create almost anything in the Venice Guggenheim without also being able to rise up and crush a city. That museum reads like an art history book for the first half of the twentieth century... granted, a very small book.
Those pieces were finished pieces. Everything about them considered. I didn’t feel like I saw this as much as I would have liked at the Biennale. Don’t let me see the nuts and bolts of your piece if that’s not what you want me to see. Cover that up. But, if it is, by all means pop the hood on this installation and let me check out its horse powers. I just don’t want to be stuck under the hood of a Chevy Nova when I’m really supposed to be looking at the knitted seat covers.
However, my biggest gripe with the Bienalle (which, by the way, was excellent) is this... who went and made projectors the default choice for the contemporary artist. That doesn’t just get my goat, it sacrifices it to a pagan god on a bloodied stone altar. Your projector is distracting me. It’s the dragging muffler on your car. I don’t mind if you use one in a theater setting. I expect that to the point where I might be weirded out if there wasn’t a projector. Anywhere else though I really like to see a reason why there’s something that isn’t your piece strapped to the ceiling across the room. Not like there aren’t other options. Moving on...
(-Country Pavilion-) To go back to a previously used metaphor -- wow, Shih Chieh Huang of the Taiwan pavilion, I could look under your piece’s hood all day. If a 2nd grader had been there he would have suggested that I try and marry your art. And, by god, I might have tried.
When it really comes down to it, Huang’s installation was all under the hood. And there was a lot under there. A repetitious use of relatively simple technological components in non-standard ways created machines with moving limbs made of plastic bags inflated with computer fans. It was similar to looking at deep sea pictures of strange pulsing animals or being miniaturized and sent through someone’s intestines on a fantastic journey. Looking closer it became clear that the machines were creating these organic feel through a very mechanical/technological means. A TV showing a movie of eyes would be read by a light sensor over the pupils that could cause water to flow, TVs to turn on and off, and bags to inflate. A hundred small Rube Goldberg machines.
Twist ties, plastic bottles full of green fluid, zip ties, and extension chords kept the aesthetic unified. Things manufactured by Huang’s hand were kept out of the installation. The pieces were crowded together much like the components that they were composed of. Thematically the work carried itself from the smallest piece to the entirety of the installation. Transforming the inorganic into the organic. Creating a space that felt like something new.
The Taiwanese pavilion itself dealt with culture. The five different artist included all represented their own cultural influences (with Huang the technological) that come from a similar area. The Artists were selected because of their diverse work so that Taiwan can depict its own diverse culture.
other things:
-Peggy Guggenheim is buried with about 20 of her pets (including Sir Herbert)
-I may have accidentally eaten a brain sandwich
-Yoko Ono is crazy
-My bag showed up and I'm going to throw away the pair of socks I have been wearing
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