Salcedo's Shibboleth

October 10, 2007 6:58 AM

Other artists have made holes in gallery floors, including Richard Wilson, and Einstürzende Neubauten. None so big as Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth though. How does one go about making a 548ft crack in the floor of the Tate Modern?
posted by roofus (80 comments total)

Just move to a city on the Pacific Rim if you really like this kind of thing. Out there, you'll even get some shaking and after-tremors with your fissure.
posted by dead_ at 7:05 AM on October 10, 2007

Whenever I'm near a fissure, there's always some shaking and after-tremors. After all, it's a gentleman's duty to give as well as receive.

I couldn't resist. Forgive me
posted by aramaic at 7:12 AM on October 10, 2007

'It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation and the experience of racial hatred,' said Salcedo today.

Shibboleth, indeed.
posted by DU at 7:15 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

This being the Tate, we also feel obliged, finally, to consider the possibility that it might be art.

When will our post-modern nightmare be over?

I mean, if you're not even sure that it is art upon approaching it, that says something not only about the installation itself (if it even is an installation), but about the state of art right now. I was just listening to a podcast discussing how Death appears so prevalently in the art of mid-1300's Europe. With the Bubonic Plague ravaging the known world, it's no surprise that a society consumed with the idea of death and mortality would infuse those themes in their art, correct? So, what does it say of our society that we infuse our art with--please pardon the severe editorializing here--inanity? When so much art exists solely to "push the boundaries" of art itself, we would appear to have lost our sense of culture.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 7:19 AM on October 10, 2007 [5 favorites]

"The installations represent a collective statement of defiance against the tactics of disappearance which the military exercises over its people...Salcedo's work contributes to an art of memory and consciousness."
Enhorabuena, Doris.
posted by adamvasco at 7:19 AM on October 10, 2007

Sometimes I really wish I was the kind of artist whose "work" seems to consist of sitting around with friends doing massive amounts of drugs until someone says, "Dude, you know what would be great for the next piece of art? Imagine if you were in this huge art gallery and there was a giant crack in the floor. Man, I'm so stoned! Let's say it's about racism." And then, massive profit.

But stuff like this, presumably said while sober, shows that it's just pretension:

When asked how deep the fissure buries into the floor, the artist replied: 'It's bottomless. It's as deep as humanity.'
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 7:26 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'd love to see this.
posted by agregoli at 7:27 AM on October 10, 2007

They should have gotten Andy Goldsworthy to do it.

...but I guess I'm a sucker for the act itself, not the result.
posted by aramaic at 7:29 AM on October 10, 2007

Terminal Verbosity - I believe that may be humour.

Though I'm not sure about the deep as humanity business, I'd actually like to go see this thing, because it looks kind of cool, and I've got a thing about concrete.

At least it's not Bruce fucking Nauman.
posted by Artw at 7:30 AM on October 10, 2007

Related headline: "Art lovers fall victim to Doris's crack"
posted by jquinby at 7:31 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

I just knew humanity was a maximum of 3 feet deep!
posted by algreer at 7:31 AM on October 10, 2007

Oh, the humanity!

"We saw the first victim, a young woman who went into it with both feet up to just below her knees. She had to be dragged out by her friends.

"As we watched to see whether she was okay, an older woman deliberately stepped on it, lurched forward and landed on the ground. She told us she thought the crack was painted on the floor."
posted by boosh at 7:44 AM on October 10, 2007

They should have gotten Andy Goldsworthy to do it.

By the same token, I'd much rather enjoy the new Radiohead album if it had been written, recorded, produced and released by Robert Wyatt.
posted by Len at 7:45 AM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Andy Goldsworthy has made holes in gallery floors. I saw the archive images at his show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, but I couldn't find a relevant link for the post.
posted by roofus at 7:50 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

I read those bullshit descriptions of art all the time. "Amy Smith's current work explores the boundaries of time, personhood, and color..." when it's fifth-grade quality naked body painting with tedious unimaginative techno in the background. It's an attempt to imbue more meaning than is there and, to me, is antithetical to the idea of art - if you have to explain it, then the explanation is doing all the work, not the art.
posted by notsnot at 7:54 AM on October 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

As a former student of a liberal arts college fine arts department I am quietly amused. I'd be more amused if I was sure the artist were being even a little tongue-in-cheek about this.

I have a hard time being convinced that most art these days starts with the artist saying "Wow! I'd really like to put a giant [insert whatever here] in an art gallery! It'd be so cool!"

and then later come up with an artist statement later.

In other art-related news:

Woman on Trial for Kissing Painting (npr real audio on this page)

"Morning Edition, October 10, 2007 · Sam Rindy left a lipstick smear on a $2 million painting by Cy Twombly. Now she's on trial. The prosecutor accused her of savagery. The painting's owner wants more than $2 million in compensation for the damage. Rindy says she thought her lipstick improved the white untitled painting." -- synopsis quote from the NPR page with links to further reading.

Again... if I were sure both artists were even a bit tongue-in-cheek about this I would be more amused.

But, who the hell values a plain white canvas at over 2 million dollars anyway?
posted by Sam.Burdick at 7:54 AM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

TheOnlyCoolTim - as someone who might be accused of occasionally having produced such projects myself I think you should realise that generally it doesn't work quite like that. Your quaint (though I'm sure ironised) notion that these things suddenly pop into existence in a moment of inspiration is ridiculous. And what happens after "having the idea" isn't usually "massive profit" but about a year or two of really gruelling and tedious production work which is spent alternately (in my case) sitting in front of a computer for months at a time, grovelling for money, assuring terrified curators that it's all going to be ok in the end, and regretting that you ever started the thing in the first place. And after that there's the opening, where one is usually shaking and delirious with exhaustion after having not slept for a week or so and yet have to try to answer inane questions from interviewers and not vomit on TV. And then there's the bit where you find out how much over budget you went and try to work out how to make up the difference (inevitably by not actually making any money yourself). Ah, what fun ! what jolly capers we have !
posted by silence at 7:55 AM on October 10, 2007 [5 favorites]

[ on EDIT ]

I have a hard time not believing that most art these days starts with the artist saying "Wow! I'd really like to put a giant [insert whatever here] in an art gallery! It'd be so cool!"
posted by Sam.Burdick at 7:55 AM on October 10, 2007

And on re-preview:

Silence and TheOnlyCoolTim...

having read both my post seems like TOCT's.

To clear up confusion. I know how much work goes into creating a show. My error may come in that most of the work that I did during college DID start with me thinking "wouldn't it be cool if..." and then my advisor asking me what I meant by wanting to put such a piece up.


this is why I'm not an artist anymore... or at least not in the art world.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 8:00 AM on October 10, 2007

Ah c'mon, the crack was ninety; fierce, I'm telling ye.
posted by Abiezer at 8:00 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

"What is important is the meaning of the piece; the making of it is not important," she says, adding that the work is "bottomless" and "as deep as humanity".

And just in case that's not enough:

For Salcedo, the crack reveals a ‘colonial and imperial history [that] has been disregarded, marginalised or simply obliterated… the history of racism, running parallel to the history of modernity and… its untold dark side.’

First dig your hole, then put your foot in your mouth.

Holes good, bullshit bad.
posted by jennydiski at 8:04 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

By the same token...

I really should have known that would happen. Ah well.

Let me be more brutally explicit: this particular result -- a large crack in the floor of the Tate -- is interesting. However, I submit that it would have been more interesting had the result (the large crack) been the result of visible process of assembly rather than a deus-ex-machina reveal. I further submit that imposing limits on the assembly process (for example, those imposed by Mr. Goldsworthy in his own work) would have made the process more directly intriguing. As it stands, to my view, attempting to conceal the nature of the crack (how it was produced) merely foregrounds it -- the question becomes simply "huh, wonder how they did that?" and so the piece itself becomes not much more than a nifty special effect.

...if you like, I can probably break this down into numbered steps and add a few explanatory references, but I'm really hoping further elucidation isn't necessary. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have assumed familiarity with Mr. Goldsworthy.
posted by aramaic at 8:05 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth.
posted by adamvasco at 8:07 AM on October 10, 2007

"With the Bubonic Plague ravaging the known world, it's no surprise that a society consumed with the idea of death and mortality would infuse those themes in their art, correct?"

Clearly this piece is a comment on low-riding pants.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:09 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

jennydiski - perhaps that's "holes good, pullquotes bad" ?

I have been struggling with the problem myself that the "bigger" the piece the more it tends to disappear behind its own spectacle. There is a serious debate to be had about the problem of spectacle in art, especially with large scale projects like this. But I don't think this is the place to have it, unfortunately.
posted by silence at 8:09 AM on October 10, 2007

roofus: yeah, I know Goldsworthy's worked with floors. I'm just making a cheap crack (ho ho) to distract myself from getting into an argument.

Ah, fuck it.

"Dude, you know what would be great for the next piece of art? Imagine if you were in this huge art gallery and there was a giant crack in the floor. Man, I'm so stoned! Let's say it's about racism."

I hate this attitude. As if this work – and a whole metric shitload of other art that gets diksmissed for being just a pile of bricks, or just a bit of wood on the floor, or whatever – is either a joke at the audience's expense or a meaningless gesture that had absolutely no thought put into it whatsoever. Or both.

Last week I interviewed Nathan Coley, one of the four Turner Prize nominees this year. Some of his stuff is minimalist, on first glance, but dig into it a little, and there's so much going on: he spends months researching and planning what he does, and how he'll do it, and the end result is only part of it. You might say to this: why should I need to know anything about that research if it's not obvious in the final work (and a friend of mine – hi jack_mo! – did aver that he'd enjoy Coley's work much more "if it came with a fat book of stuff related to what he'd researched"), but the kneejerk dismissal that even on Metafilter accompanies almost any post about modern art really depresses me.

(Incidentally, Coley also mucks around with the fabric of buildings: witness this installation of a work of his in Bethlehem. In Manger square, no less, qhich is quite a place to be making the sort of statement he drills into the wall ...)

On preview: most of what silence has already said. And aramaic: sorry for the quip, but I know fine well who Goldsworthy is.
posted by Len at 8:09 AM on October 10, 2007 [7 favorites]

Every single one of the Turbine Hall installations I've managed to get to have been awesome. You can see pictures of it and read descriptions, but because the place is so big you really have to be there to appreciate them... even my 'not particularly liking modern art' parents where blow away by The Weather Project.

I've sure this one will be everything it's cracked up to be. (sorry)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:11 AM on October 10, 2007

People who make art or books or anything have done what they do by making it. Display, publish and shut the fuck up, ideally. Especially when like Doris, you are going to talk nonsense.
posted by jennydiski at 8:14 AM on October 10, 2007

Woman on Trial for Kissing Painting

Funny you should mention that.
posted by randomination at 8:18 AM on October 10, 2007

"There is a serious debate to be had about the problem of spectacle in art, especially with large scale projects like this. But I don't think this is the place to have it, unfortunately.
posted by silence"

why not?


Len- does Coley provide his viewers with bibliographical references or do you have to do your own research? You don't quite say that in your post. And, art that's just a block of wood with no visual clues as to the direction that a veiwer should look for more infomation is hard to swallow. Especially if you're passing by it in a room full of other art. If it's got a story behind it then a nice tinyurl link (pointing to a page on more information) on a card next to the piece could be a good idea.

And more: it's the kneejerk dismissal of modern art by most of society that's the problem. The only bit that doesn't kneejerk-dismiss is the art world.

Interestingly enough this kneejerk-dismissal-reaction isn't limited to the art world. Check out what NASA is doing these days and see how much people care about it.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 8:18 AM on October 10, 2007

"Every single one of the Turbine Hall installations I've managed to get to have been awesome.

That's kind of the problem with trying to make a piece for the turbine hall, I imagine.
posted by silence at 8:18 AM on October 10, 2007

Sam.B - "why not?" - well fundamentally because this forum isn't really very well structured for that kind of conversation. I find it easiest to think either interactively, in a real-time discussion with others or spending a significant amount of time coming up with a well reasoned position. This format isn't really conducive to either. My comment wasn't really meant to be as sarcastic as it probably sounded, it was actually a genuine regret that it's not really possible to have a serious discussion like that.
posted by silence at 8:25 AM on October 10, 2007

Silence- I got the sense you weren't being sarcastic. Personally I have a lot of trouble talking in large groups (introverts-r-us). So online forums and one-on-one talking are how I prefer to hash out ideas. A fundamental thought difference between you and I, I guess.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 8:28 AM on October 10, 2007

I installed this crack and would like to comment.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 8:29 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sam.Burdick: does Coley provide his viewers with bibliographical references or do you have to do your own research?

Well, it's a bit of both. There's some information given; other than that, you're on your own for the most part. Regarding the block of wood, it was part of a show he did in Edinburgh earlier this year (pic of it here), it's stated on the title card that it's oak; other than that it's up to you. But you stand there and think about this oak beam, placed in the doorway of the gallery: it's the mark of a threshold (you might wonder why we still use the word threshold, when there's no thresh to hold inside anymore), it's the barrier between the craziness of the Edinburgh festivals in August and the calm whiteness of the gallery, it marks the distinction between the so called "real world" and the artifice you find in galleries, it's a hesitation – you might stop to think about it when stepping, or tripping, over it – and okay, it's made of oak. Why oak, you might ask? Well, oak's what they use in church pews, or at least historically in Britain it is/was; it's symbolic of permanence, it's got a long and storied history of cultural associations in various British traditions ... and so on and so forth. Now, none of this assumes a massive amount of knowledge; it's more about pausing and considering, and it's not so much research as asking yourself questions that might have interesting answers.
posted by Len at 8:35 AM on October 10, 2007

My four year old could make a better crack in the floor than that. god I never should have bought him that jackhammer
posted by fleetmouse at 8:38 AM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Sam - I've been doing a lot of thinking in the last year or two about how conversation is structured by different forms of mediation, so I'm probably a bit over sensitive, but I do find talking like this more frustrating than constructive, I'm afraid.

TheOnlyCoolTim - by the way I'm hoping that after spending a couple of years thinking about conversations in this way I'll eventually have one of those nights of getting stoned with some friends and then ... MASSIVE PROFIT !!!
posted by silence at 8:38 AM on October 10, 2007

but I know fine well who Goldsworthy is

Now I've plain lost track. Does that mean I accidentally came across as writing a kneejerk dismissal (when I meant a reasoned dismissal but left a quip), which you dismissed, which I interpreted as a kneejerk dismissal (but you meant a reasoned dismissal but left a quip), so I dismissed your dismissal of my dismissal, which you dismissed?

...but, all maundering aside, I still maintain that Salcedo erred on the side of spectacle/special-effect. Arguing that symbolic density has been overlooked, although probably correct, is ineffective because it's so tragically easy to claim.

Witness, for example, my work of art (which will follow shortly). You may not be impressed, but that's simply because you are all too ignorant to catch the staggering referential density involved. I'm serious. My work contains more information than can be encoded in every atom of the known universe -- it's sad that none of you possess the intellect needed to interpret it.

Nevertheless, I will honor you with it. Prepare to have your puny subhuman brains boggled. You will either burst into flames at my brilliance, or you will utterly utterly fail to understand me. If you think you understand me, you're just even more wrong.

Here goes:
posted by aramaic at 8:45 AM on October 10, 2007

I mean, if you're not even sure that it is art upon approaching it, that says something not only about the installation itself (if it even is an installation), but about the state of art right now

I think it looks cool. It's not the Tate's fault you're so closed minded.
posted by delmoi at 8:50 AM on October 10, 2007

...but the kneejerk dismissal that even on Metafilter accompanies almost any post about modern art really depresses me.

You know, I wouldn't say that I dismiss most of modern art. Just the pretentious crap that gets passed around as modern art.

This is modern art.

It has a time, a place, a reason -- yet it's also transcendent and senseless at the same time. It tells a story and challenges the viewer with the horrors of war.

Modern day "modern art" is a system whereby artists can have their ticked punched, become recognized and henceforth valuable, while producing steaming piles of crap (sometimes literally) and calling it "art".

I'm a nobody, which means I can't make art like that. If I did eventually rise to the rank of some of these more famous artists, I could fill a mason jar with my own urine, call it "Waterbuffalo #62" and tell people that it represents the Armenian genocide as well as being "an experiment in color and shape" or some meaningless crap like that.

Some might argue that anyone could do the same. And its true. Anyone without a shred of integrity could put a weather ballon in a glass box and demand 32 million dollars for it "just because". And very wise people would buy it, of course, as it's price will only go up once others have learned the enormous amount of money that you paid for it.

So this chick put a crack in a floor and said its about racism and a civil war in Colombia. Great. Here, I just took a shit in this bucket. It represents the War in Iraq and existentialism. I'll have my million dollars now, please.

Money and fame has made art into a pretentious, self-referential and elitist enterprise thats more about itself and the money it can pull in than anything else. As far as I'm concerned, her crack is an insult to people who really have suffered from racism, war and death. Its also an insult to her (and our) intelligence as human beings.

My only solace is knowing that this particular peice will be rather difficult to auction off for absurd amounts of money. Or maybe it wont? Hey, there's always enough faux suffering and angst in my art to afford another beach house in the Algarve, isn't there?
posted by Avenger at 8:51 AM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

On the actual work of art presented in the Tate, and mentioned in the FPP.

My personal choice would have been to make it a truly illusionary crack, something you can pass through but... it appears to be directly in front of your eyes (or self) no matter where you look. As if reality is broken.

I know that this isn't really an attainable option, given current technology. But, it would be more disturbing and might have been more thought-provoking than a crack in the floor.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 8:52 AM on October 10, 2007

Now I've plain lost track. Does that mean I accidentally came across as writing a kneejerk dismissal (when I meant a reasoned dismissal but left a quip), which you dismissed, which I interpreted as a kneejerk dismissal (but you meant a reasoned dismissal but left a quip), so I dismissed your dismissal of my dismissal, which you dismissed?

That about sums it up. (Though I didn't think it was initially a kneejerk dismissal on your part.) And yes, I think with Salcedo's work (though I haven't seen it in person), the danger of the spectacle overwhelming the meaning is pretty big – particularly when she comes out with pompous statements like she has, rather than appearing to have a sense of humour about the way people are talking about her work.
posted by Len at 8:53 AM on October 10, 2007

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I call this piece "EMAIL IN PROFILE FOR CHECKS, FAME, AND ARTWORLD CRED PLSKTHX 2007." (ASCII on Blue, 2007)

Inspired by "Shibboleth," currently showing at the Tate Modern, this piece calls one to question Metafilter. If a comment can have a crack in it, Mathowie, Jessamyn, and Cortex's moderation can also be cracked. In fact, the entire site is racist, full of white people but cloaked in a neutral blue background. The crack shows the whiteness beneath. How deep is it? The infinitesimal depth of the phospor or liquid crystal of your display. It's as deep as humanity and as long as a minute. Note that the white voids are formed by star shapes: I'm not even going to tell you what that means, it would blow your mind. This is not the place to discuss that; Metafilter isn't refined or smart enough. How did I make it? Not telling, but parts of it were transported through aerial wire underground, via electron and photon, from Pennsylvania to wherever the servers are to wherever you are.

------------

Reread my initial comment: I never said that I thought art like this actually came out of sitting around getting stoned with friends and having stoner ideas.

I just wish it did, because it makes more sense than the output of months or years worth of thought and work being a stupid meaningless crack in the floor or a white canvas and some inane bullshit for the leaflet so you can pretend it has meaning.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:00 AM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Avenger: Money and fame has made art into a pretentious, self-referential and elitist enterprise thats more about itself and the money it can pull in than anything else

This, if we're being honest, has been the case for, oh, about 600 years. You want to talk elitism? Let's talk about the renaissance masters who were funded by the Borgias, painting religious scenes which without the necessary education would have been impossible to interpret correctly; not that the peasants would get access to it anyway, it being on the walls of some palace or other. And as for money and fame? How about Thomas Gainsborough and William Hogarth, celebrities both?
posted by Len at 9:06 AM on October 10, 2007

You know what would be really meta? Pics of random people's butt cracks, taken while they peer down into the giant crack in the floor.
posted by steef at 9:07 AM on October 10, 2007

Hi Tim. My mistake, I guess. It sure seemed at the time like that was what you were saying, but on reading it again.... well actually it still does, but I understand now that it was some kind of rhetorical manoeuvre too subtle for me to understand.

It was silly of me to rise to the bait anyway, I'm just a bit tired today.

And yes, Len, I agree that some of the artists statements that I've read about the piece are pretty embarrassing, but in my experience this can equally well be the result of journalists looking for a soundbyte which they think will grab attention as pomposity on the part of the artist. I'm sure you're not that kind of journalist - but a terrifying number of links from this thread have gone to publications such as the Daily Mail.
posted by silence at 9:10 AM on October 10, 2007

Uppity artists. Why can't they just serve us what we want?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:15 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

I just wish it did, because it makes more sense than the output of months or years worth of thought and work being a stupid meaningless crack in the floor or a white canvas and some inane bullshit for the leaflet so you can pretend it has meaning.

Yes, that's it. I'm glad you traveled all the way from PA to London to see it before issuing your summary judgement.
posted by R. Mutt at 9:22 AM on October 10, 2007

More cracked buildings
posted by TedW at 9:30 AM on October 10, 2007

It's odd to be finding myself taking up a position which I don't find completely comfortable. I am not keen myself on work which requires the audience to have seen every other piece by the artist and have an encyclopaedic knowledge of 13th century spanish poetry before they can hope to connect to it.

But this can lead to a desire to please and seduce the spectator (which is what the audience becomes if you don't watch out) - which is only natural. everyone wants to be loved. The result can be that you find the work caught up in the rush of spectacle. Awe and spectacle demand that the viewer is overwhelmed - no room is left for critical thinking. The beautiful (and hopefully we can all at least agree that Shibboleth looks like it's very beautiful) and the sublime, by definition involve a kind of surrender.

In a piece I did, which was supposed to critique a particular modern manifestation of the sublime and the awesome, I found that (of course I was an idiot not to predict) it was very widely misunderstood and read as a hymn of praise. The turbine hall pieces all seem to also have suffered from being pulled in these two directions - on the one hand there's the desire for populist spectacle demanded by the space and history of the turbine hall, and on the other it's very hard to do anything with "awesome" except , well, be awesome. I think the slides were probably an interesting response to this problem.
posted by silence at 9:41 AM on October 10, 2007

silence,

good position. But, what I'd like out of modern art is the (admittedly godlike) quality of being both awe-inspiring and likeable AS WELL AS being thought-provoking.

I do grant that many viewers should stretch themselves to do both and really work for their art. But, the quality of being awe-inspiring is one that seems to come from art that is, by its nature, "easy"... in that the viewer is instantly overwhelmed by the experience. However, the quality of being thought-provoking seems to only come after you've had a chance to really look at a piece. And if you're constantly overwhelmed by a piece you can't think.

The two qualities can be mutually exclusive. But, I'd like to see more of them together in harmony.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 9:51 AM on October 10, 2007

Fear not, Sweden has found out about this art installment that vaguely relates to racism. A gang of elite nazis are currently in choppers over the north sea! The plan is to storm in half an hour before closing tomorrow and forcefully fill the crack with about three cubic meters of concrete whilst shouting "We don’t support this crack". Expect a youtube video set to heavy metal during friday.

disclaimer: I'm Swedish
posted by mnsc at 9:59 AM on October 10, 2007

Yes, that's it. I'm glad you traveled all the way from PA to London to see it before issuing your summary judgement.

I've seen cracks in floors, walls, and roofs before.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:59 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know what would be really meta? Pics of random people's butt cracks, taken while they peer down into the giant crack in the floor.

More meta: assemble the pictures of these butt cracks on the floor, and then arrange them into the shape of the giant crack they're examining.

I think you might even reverse time itself with such a thing.
posted by jquinby at 10:19 AM on October 10, 2007

Any piece which makes people half a world away and hundred of miles apart talk about the nature of art is successful art. Always.

By the way, some people, including artists, seem to mix up art - which is a personal emotion or production or both - with Art History - which is made of, well, the accumulation of stories - and the art market - which is a kind of bet on Art History. Sometimes, very rarely, the three overlap but most of the times they don't.

Most works of arts don't provoke any emotion to most people. So, "not getting" any piece of art is the normal overwhelming response.

The idea that there is only one kind of True Art that every one agrees upon is bogus. The pieces that end up as valuable in Art History are very rare. Thats' why they are expensive. Not because some mad curator has decided it. But because the accumulation of stories about an artist and a work of art, told and transmitted by ordinary people and art historians alike, shows in the end that it has a place in Art History. But this is a very long process, very documented, always re-assessed and discussed and re-evaluated, not a kind a lottery played by morons as some of you seem to imply.
posted by bru at 10:20 AM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Nicely said, silence.

Even though some think it's not all that it's cracked up to be, it's an interesting metaphor.

Lawsuits from people falling in?

Something beguiling about a crack in the earth that invites looking into it, peeking over the edge into the unknown. What's down there?

Forgot what shibboleths meant.

Time to crack a smile taking a ride in a water boat.
posted by nickyskye at 10:33 AM on October 10, 2007

bru,

I think that what isn't being written about, here, on that subject is that non-art-industry people (ie, most of humanity) don't understand how a plain white canvas (or in my case, how any of Jackson Pollock's work) is valuable in a monetary sense beyond the value of the materials*. I can understand how people can have a profound emotional experience because of a piece of artwork and be ok paying for it... but $2 million worth of an emotional experience? (to give but one example)


*note: I do recognize that labor also has value. But, I'm not sure that anyone's labor is worth that much. That is, however, a discussion for another day.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 10:33 AM on October 10, 2007

"...hopefully we can all at least agree that Shibboleth looks like it's very beautiful..."

It looks like a crack! If cracks are beautiful, then Utah's highways are the most beautiful things on the planet.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:34 AM on October 10, 2007

They should have gotten Andy Goldsworthy to do it.

Goldsworthy already did a big crack at a museum. I'd prefer it to be the kind people fall into, but you know, blah blah blah, public art, must not offend anybody, blah blah, can't have anyone getting hurt...

I'm just being silly, and my statement above should not be taken as any desire to be sucked into a discussion about anything having to do with Art.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:35 AM on October 10, 2007

I can understand how if a piece of art accumulates a sufficient story-density, it weighs more in the Art World and in currency, but what I find hard is the claim to accessibility that is being made by putting such a piece in a public gallery like the Tate Modern. It seems to be claiming that its for general consumption.

I guess, like Stalin, I prefer a tune the people can hum.
posted by YouRebelScum at 11:35 AM on October 10, 2007

TheOnlyCoolTim writes "I just wish it did, because it makes more sense than the output of months or years worth of thought and work being a stupid meaningless crack in the floor or a white canvas and some inane bullshit for the leaflet so you can pretend it has meaning."

I wish all your words on this subject amounted to more than what they do. I've learned a lot about the artist from other comments here. I've learned nothing from you except that you don't like modern art. That's fine, but there's no need to keep flogging that dead horse.
posted by krinklyfig at 11:37 AM on October 10, 2007

Len wrote: This, if we're being honest, has been the case for, oh, about 600 years.

You know, its funny, I realized this as soon as I had hit the "submit" button.

I will contend, though, that while driven mostly by profit and pride, there is an objective difference between (say) Raphael's Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione and Avenger's Bucket-O-Shit for Iraq #8.

If the great masters of the High Renaissance were driven by profit and greed, at least they spent an entire lifetime honing their skills and producing art which few, if any of us, could still produce to this day.
posted by Avenger at 11:42 AM on October 10, 2007

Anybody made a 'they must have been on crack when the commissioned this!' joke yet?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:48 AM on October 10, 2007

No, you're the first.

I would have, but I figured it was implicit.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:54 AM on October 10, 2007

Crack is wack.

I wonder if the Tate's lawyers know about this thing. It seems like the sort of thing that could result in hundreds of liability suits. It's got to be breaking ankles and building codes like crazy.
posted by Reggie Digest at 12:14 PM on October 10, 2007

(Meanwhile, in the case of Goose v. Gander...)

Salcedo must have a tiny vagina.
posted by Reggie Digest at 12:18 PM on October 10, 2007

Sam.Burdick: I can understand how people can have a profound emotional experience because of a piece of artwork and be ok paying for it... but $2 million worth of an emotional experience? (to give but one example)

Once again, you are mixing up an emotion with a market value and Art History. Your example is perfect in its minimalism:
If a white painting on a white canvas gives you such an emotion that you want to have one in your living room, please just buy a white canvas and paint it white. Total cost: between $25 and $50. Authentic personal artistic emotion. Very affordable. No scandal.

Now, I don't know the story of the Cy Twombly painting that you are linking to, but we learn 3 things in the article: one, that the painting is an authentic painting attributed to its original author; two, that the author is Cy Twombly; three, that it is in a gallery (not a museum) whose owner attributes to this work a value of $2million.

So, first point: this not "a" white painting. It is "this" authenticated, dated, part of Art History, Cy Twombly's painting.
Second point: who is Cy Twombly? What is his place in Art History? The information is available.
Third point: the painting belongs to a professional salesperson whose job is to sell the painting for the highest profit possible: $2million is a "market value", meaning that "if there is a buyer at that price then the market value will really be $2millions". And this is a market, so it is highly probable that the buyer will see that transaction as an investment. But it is not an absolute value.

Cy Twombly is appreciated in the art market because he seems to have a chance to become more and more important in Art History. If he does, the price of his works will go upwards. But if he doesn't (for a million possible reasons: this is not an original Twombly; Twombly has copied everything from somebody else; this kind of abstraction has become scorned and hated by a new philosophy/culture/religion; etc.), the price will tumble.

"Absolute value" has no price tag. How much is La Joconde worth? Do you think the Louvre would sell it for $1 billion?
posted by bru at 12:22 PM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

This thread just proves that to appreciate art properly, you need to actually see it. Not hear about it. Not look at pictures of it. You have to be in the same space. The Turbine Hall, where the crack is located, is a massive monolithic space. It's an old power station, and it feels incredibly solid. There's nothing crumbly or unstable about it at all. It's a testament to man's power over his environment.

To see this huge crack appear down the middle of it would, even if you knew it to be "art", freak you out. You'd be looking up to see if the ceiling - which is obviously very heavy, and is unsupported by pillars - was going to fall on top of you. It would feel profoundly wrong and bad (just like Eliasson's sun installation felt wonderful and good). That's why it's art.

That the artist "sounds kinda pretentious" doesn't matter a damn. Christ, everyone knows artists are usually assholes.
posted by tiny crocodile at 1:51 PM on October 10, 2007

tiny crocodile - There's defiantely no substitute for actually seeing a work. A lot of the pieces that have provoked this kind of "it’s not real art!" response are weak when described or as photographs but turn out to be a lot more interesting when you actually see them.
posted by Artw at 2:16 PM on October 10, 2007

I was in Tate Modern yesterday, and I stood for a while on the balcony above the Turbine Hall watching people's reactions to the crack.

The friend I was with (who hadn't read any of the artist's statements) said that it reminded him of a religious site, the way people were gathering around the fissure, hesitantly touching its sharp edges, kneeling to peer into it. Even the concrete steps to one side of the Turbine Hall reminded him of a pilgrimage route.

My first thought was "How did they do that??"

Reggie Digest: I wonder if the Tate's lawyers know about this thing. It seems like the sort of thing that could result in hundreds of liability suits. It's got to be breaking ankles and building codes like crazy.

The Tate had people at every entrance telling people "Please watch your step in the Turbine Hall."

jennydiski: even my 'not particularly liking modern art' parents were blown away by The Weather Project.

As was I!
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:47 PM on October 10, 2007

I was at the art gallery in Kansas City several years ago, and saw this square of metal plates sitting in the middle of the floor. After wandering around it gingerly, I noticed a plaque for it on a nearby wall, and read that, according to the artist, the piece was meant to be experienced by walking on it.
So I did.
Everyone else in the room started looking at me like I was crazy, one woman ran out to find a security guard, who upon seeing which work I was walking on, gave a quiet snicker, and pointed the woman to the plaque, then gave me a thumbs up.
posted by nomisxid at 4:33 PM on October 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

My Findings:
a. It looks fake. As someone who supervises hundreds of illegal Mexicans installing pavement, and then refuses to pay them when their poor work cracks, I can tell you: this crack only faintly resembles a crack. Thus, I fail this artist in the realm of naturalism, and find little supporting protestation on their part for owning a "fake crack." Thus, the fake crack does not meet the standards of an ironic or triple ironic assertion of worthy discourse. It just is not exciting as either a fake or "real" crack.
b. All artists are thieves. The artist demurs in explanation of this magical (to them) construction. Thus, magic is only implied, but the reality is that there is only a non-verbalized construction technique. An explanation of the technique would likely lower the implied volatility of the creation.
c. The linear foot number occupies such prominence. Under these conditions it would seem that we should assume and accept that a future realized 628' crack will be better. And if the 628" crack is created in, say, the Getty...well, it will be better. Therefore, this piece has already met it's conceptual limit and is quickly surpassed in the mind of the populace.
d. The artist does not, to my knowledge, possess a crack oeuvre. The thinness of the modern one-off is so characteristic of modern conceits. I do not find it enriching or attracting my contemplation and my hundreds of illegal Mexican laborers have nodded in agreement.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 8:49 PM on October 10, 2007

Bru,

Most commodities in this world are traded as a basis of their material value, the labor costs involved in their production (slave-labor aside), the cost of transportation and an artificially inflated profit margin. In most OTHER sectors of the economy that profit margin is usually explained away as "overhead" and "gain" (and other economics terms for we-get-your-money).

However, the art world is one of the few sectors of the economy were this final "profit margin" seems wildly overblown past what rational thinkers would ascribe to a reasonable value assesment. I do agree that part of this inflated margin seems to have something to do with the importance of an artist in the history of the field. However, this seems nothing more than a euphamism for "Fame". And to me, at least, fame seems to be a mostly artifical construct.

Other artists have also painted stark white canvasses and hung them in gallery halls. Most, I'm sure, have never recieved the accolades of Mr. Twombly. Thus, the painting only has value because of its attatchmen to his name. A point you have already made. It's important to note that in our economy there are things bought merely because of their name. My subjective sense says this isn't such a good thing. As for a professional sales person inflating the cost of the painting? That is all too common. Why should the art world be any different? BUT why should the art world inflate the costs beyond what seems even rationally understandable?

A note: Mr. Twombly has been making art since the 50s. He has obviously not reached his apogee in terms of his popularity. But, $2 mil seems a bit premature.



And Absolute Value .... you're dead wrong about that. Saying something has an Absolute value takes into account all the factors that went into creating the thing in and of itself.

Subjective Value has no price tag. That's what makes art so damn expensive.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 9:06 PM on October 10, 2007

First of all, I'd like to note that everyone sounds pretentious when speaking a language in which they are proficient, but haven't mastered. I know I'm assuming all kinds of things about Salcedo, but I wanted to make that point.

Second, I'm currently reading Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives which is making me question quite a few things about my life. It is about a group of people who are dead serious about poetry. I thought I took it seriously but I have nothing on these characters (who actually are somewhat thinly disguised versions of real people). The novel has made me take art a lot more seriously. I'm trying to fight it, because I'm running the risk of turning into a frightful bore. Yesterday I had to stop myself from shouting "Harry Potter is not real literature! Why are you talking about it?" at a party where everybody was talking about Harry Potter (in my defense I was severely jet-lagged). What's particularly odd is that I quite like the Harry Potter series and will usually defend popular culture against snobs to the point of ridiculousness (the other day I was defending Phish. Phish!). But right now I'm under the spell of Roberto Bolaño and I'm taking art a lot more seriously than I used to.

As kids know, someone who takes himself seriously is the easiest target for ridicule. The point of The Emperor's New Clothes isn't "beware of conniving shysters" or "people are dumb" but "if you take yourself too seriously you'll be ridiculed." God knows that this is proven on MetaFilter every day. Hell, I've done that myself many times.

However, I believe that one shouldn't just bat someone aside just because they come off as ridiculous. Instead of dismissing Salcedo's intent, I think it is prudent to first try to answer the question of why the artist says the piece is about a certain thing. Personally, I didn't really form any kind of understanding what Shibboleth was about until I read this bit from an article in The Guardian:

Colombia in the 1980s, when Salcedo began making art, was as divided and violent as the 19th-century North America of Poe and Lincoln. Born in Bogotá in 1958, Salcedo insists her work is a direct expression of other people's suffering, rather than merely her own emotional response to it; indeed, that each work of art she makes is based on specific first-hand accounts from victims of violence and forced migration. It was specifically in trying to document and commemorate Colombian victims that she got interested in making holes and voids in buildings - voids whose significance isn't hard to decode.

Salcedo was in her 30s when her art really started to take shape. In 1985 she witnessed a horrific clash between guerrillas and the state that ended in people being burned to death in the occupied Palace of Justice in Bogotá: "It left its mark on me. I began to conceive of works based on nothing." Her response was to go to a hospital in Bogotá and collect dead patients' discarded shoes, which she put into cavities dug in a wall and veiled in a weblike fibre.

I have never lived in a country fraught with danger like Salcedo (though I have friends who have) so I don't have the requisite experiential framework to grasp this intuitively. But my effort to do so have made me understand, y'know, humanity better than I did before.
posted by Kattullus at 9:57 PM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Don't forget Gordon Matta-Clarke
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:57 PM on October 10, 2007

didn't mean to disappear from this thread so abruptly yesterday. I'm currently in rural France and my internet connection went dead. This morning I discovered a mouse had died on the phone socket and the resulting maggots had messed up the connection.
posted by silence at 3:20 AM on October 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

"I mean, if you're not even sure that it is art upon approaching it, that says something not only about the installation itself (if it even is an installation), but about the state of art right now"

I think it looks cool. It's not the Tate's fault you're so closed minded.
posted by delmoi at 9:50 AM on October 10 [+] [!]

- - - - - -

See now, I actually went to pains to express how I felt on this subject and you took one piece out of context and made a blithe, thoughtless remark. (If you did put some thought into that remark, you have my apologies--and my pity.)

Before the post-modernists it was the modernists, the abstractists, the surrealists, the realists, the Dadaists, the cubists, the post-impressionists, the impressionists, the pointillists ... and that just barely covers the last 150 years or so. The phrase "the state of the art," meaning "trendy," "new" or "without precedent" is enough to imply that art in all media is a fluid beast, ever-changing. That's a great aspect of art, in my opinion. If we were still hand-drawing illuminated manuscripts or revering saints with oil on canvas as our main artistic output, no one would disagree that our culture is in a bad way.

Finding a new medium to express oneself is fabulous. "Who says you have to carve from marble or clay? I want to mold discarded water bottles into a grand sculpture." Fine! Go for it, dude! Just don't make the novel medium the only interesting facet of your work. If the artist has to tell you what the piece represents, that artist has failed. That's not to say that everyone who views the piece should "get it," nor should everyone get the same message or feel the same emotions. But if the piece effects no feelings or emotions in most viewers, and it takes the artist's description to convey those themes, then there is a disconnect between the artist and viewer. Art is a conversation. What the artist says and what the viewer hears may be different, but a corrupted conversation trumps one where the artist must stand up and shout to speak his or her mind. (If an artist's intended output is not the one others see, he has failed in artistically interpreting his emotions, but succeeded in making the viewer feel some of their own.)

"Is it art or isn't it," is a sound question, and usually an unanswerable one. But when the only hint as to a piece's artistic integrity is the artist's verbal description and defense, then the question becomes answerable. The answer is "no."
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 7:37 AM on October 11, 2007

"Is it art or isn't it," is a sound question, and usually an unanswerable one. But when the only hint as to a piece's artistic integrity is the artist's verbal description and defense, then the question becomes answerable. The answer is "no."
posted by Terminal Verbosity 49 minutes ago


Yes! errm... I mean I like that clear statement. However, I would like to suggest a change...

If the artists description and defense is the only hint at the artistic integrity of a piece; then the question of whether the piece is or is not art is moot. There is no conversation between the work and the viewer, therefore it is not art.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 8:31 AM on October 11, 2007

Silence:

sorry to hear about the mouse and maggots disconnect. that sounds definitively ucky.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 8:34 AM on October 11, 2007

I got bored reading all the dismissive comments above so perhaps there has been some interesting insight, too, rather than just the group's dismissal of the piece and, moreover, modern art generally.

What interests me in this piece is whether it speaks to a really true experience of immigration into Europe. As one of the most ethnically diverse cities of the world, does an immigrant reaching London experience such division? The artist speaks of Empire (or imperialism, at least) but to me and those I know of my generation the concept is an irrelevance.

I am not for a moment going so far as to say that we live in a dream world where no racism or discrimination exists, but apart from a few crazies in Migration Watch (or whatever the fuck they're called), is this really an issue?

Can anyone here speak with any authenticity about their experience of immigrating to Europe? I mean, what the hell do I know? I'm white, English-speaking, lived in the UK all my life. I just deal with being gay.
posted by Lleyam at 1:13 PM on October 11, 2007