I think this kind of reaction is exactly what the Chapmans are trying, simultaneously, to evoke and disdain. They play a double game, presenting brutal acts and challenging the audience to accept or reject the total nihilism implicit in the acts themselves, and their representation of them.

Imagine the Chapmans saying 'This means nothing. And until you accept that it means nothing, this kind of thing will keep happening. Because violence, as long as it inspires emotion in us, will lead to more violence. Your capacity to be moved by violence in art is directly linked to your capacity to commit violent acts. Your ability to construct noble, humanist meanings out of the completely superficial, flat and nul fact of death on a big scale is, itself, the problem.'

This is undoubtedly true. Look at the current death happening in Iraq in the name of noble, humanist values -- democracy, humanity, peace. Strip those 'humanist' values away and you just have the honest, idoitic fact 'We are killing them. For no particularly good reason'. The 'banality of evil'.

I think the proximity of our violent side to our noble side -- the secret link between superego and id -- is something every tabloid editor knows. Put the gory details of the rape in your paper, while condeming the act roundly. It's what Anthony Burgess meant when he showed Alex, in 'A Clockwork Orange', losing his capacity to enjoy Beethoven at the same time as his capacity to enjoy ultraviolence.

To break out of this vicious circle -- violence leads to 'humanist' condemnation, which in turn leads to 'just wars' and more violence -- we must reach a state where, instead of emotion and catharsis, violence simply leaves us indifferent and cold. If violence is meaningless, it should be shown as boring, banal, as completely flat and superficial as an Andy Warhol car crash painting.

I think in this sense, the Chapmans are trying to say about violence what I remember trying to say in arguments on ilxOr about race (for instance, Dan Perry's 'Are you racist?' thread): that we will only be free from racism when race becomes a non-signifying difference. And that as long as people have strong reactions to the topic, it can never be this.

So the Chapmans are trying, for progressive but not humanist reasons, to 'desensitise' us to violence. In order to defeat death, we must learn to be dead to death, rather than alive to it.

There's a whole other thing going on too, which is a questioning and mockery of the art world. For instance, it's fascinating that Norman Rosenthal built his Apocalypse show around 'Hell'. Is he (a jew) complicit, or is he buying the 'humanist' argument about 'Hell' being a condemnation of the holocaust? Are the Chapmans laughing at him, or are he and the Chapmans laughing at the thousands of people who saw 'Apocalypse', or are we all equally horrified / enthralled, or what? And the fact that we don't quite know the answer to this is one of the things that makes 'Hell' important art.

momus on the chapman brothers

is this american superflat.
how much of this is disney ?

that is 4 m by 3.5

ok thats not the one i was thinking of, a college and not a painting and smaller then the larger works, but it will do.

Laura Owens in reproduction, seems a master of the cute, reductionist landscapes in pinks, greys, greens and blues are intimate and new, and her pictures of monkeys and flowers have the soft pastels and rich creams of bonnard and other french post impressionists. They also have the economy of line that we find in japanese 19th century prints (the french painters of this time would buy imported prints by ream in port markets.) This colour sense, lines, etc. would be enough to recommend her, but their are a couple of other things.

She comes from ohio and lives in LA, and the exoticism of palm trees, lemon trees in the back yard, the sun always shining, not the hollywood dreams but the tropical heat infuse her work with joy. Living through winter, you thank God for the sun/

The other thing, is that if you note the size-they are gigantic, between 3 and 4 meters. The economy, the grace, the consistency-is it easier or more difficult to control in a ten foot or a one foot peice ? Is she grandstanding ?

this is not about oil, this is not about power, this is a crusade, a jihad vs mcworld

this is not about oil, this is not about power, this is a crusade, a jihad vs mcworld

andrew said to me last night you only like to deconstruct the binaries yr not part of.

oh and on the street yesterday, someone stopped me, asked if it was me in the paper, and told me he had AS.
gonna be a fucking rock star.

no interest whatsoever in a piece on fisherspooner, anthony -- we've given them way more ink already than they ever deserved. (see bill werde feature last month.) but you're welcome to snailmail me examples of other music writing you've done in the past. thanks!-chuck eddy, village voice.

alright, getting content notes rather then fuck off and die notes.
problem is that im not sure i have enough music writing to qaulify.
must get portfolio together.

ase

ok, ed out yesterday- drinks at the e&c with craig, amanda and bryan
over to eriks to pick up cds and drop off leauge of extrodoniary(sp) gentleman
aarons party, two and a half hours of scmoozing and more drinking, to celebrate coleen (aarons partners) bday.
brian picked me up ca 1, went to pats, army of darkness-got out of there 3:30, slept at bryans.

ed story.

minna did that of me .

this was enchanting, like the diaries of andy warhol written by an anglo fred rogers.

sitting in front of a display of classics illustrated comics with bryan today, i realized how wonderful they were

i edited last nights, just cause i need to be happy.

ok today, got drunk on someone elses dime, and i made out with and felt katherines tits, went to the washroom and felt davids cock, gave mark a lap dance, it was the booze, of course it was the booze, but it reflected the intrimacy of the class, and it added to the whole hitting on str8 people to the drunk pattern.

i talked to don this morning about baudillard and the politics of the real, and he had an anthony qoute, i have become a cliche.



i feel stupid, and admist the drunken grab fest, people told me that i was smart, smarter then swirski, well read, clever.

i want love, when i held daves cock today, i wanted to make him cum.
not because hes queer, but because i was so close then, so affectionate.
it was almost non sexual.
it wasnt sexual.

did it ruin how we deal with each other.
btw he thinks im big..
bryan wont confirm.

today i needed to go to mass,
i didnt.
i talked to bittner.

maybe why i dont like him, is that he does not make marks, he does not have the line or colour or anything else that i can point out and say, thats like martin or kelly or judd. He doesnt have the theory either, like Andre and the role of the gallery. He doesnt make readymades and he doesnt make pop, but my aesthic sense, really graviates towards him-look at the way these colours work:

and then look at this similar, painted Kelly:

calm, solid minimal stuff, this time with fabric instead of paint, so even the comfort of mark making is gone, unknown to me until this year, and then shows in London (@ Serpentine right now), New York (at Dia) and Frankfurt, two mentions in Art Forum in the last two months, a major presence in auction catalogs. No idea why Blinky Palmero is so hot, not sure I like him, but he is and here is a link. If you dont like it, go look at the cow. I have called him Frank.