edward winkleman The Avant-Garde is Dead. Long Live the Avant-Garde.

The Avant-Garde is Dead. Long Live the Avant-Garde.
In his latest artnet.com column, Charlie Finch explains why we will never see any more avant-garde artwork again, ever. In a nutshell, his rationale is that "the odds of [an artist] discovering something new are nil." His argument for this hinges on the notion that everything avant-garde artwork has been or might be about has been either answered or exposed as a fraud. For example,

ALL KNOWLEDGE IS CANNED
Whether it’s the all-inclusiveness of Wikipedia entries or services like KGB providing instant answers to the most trivial questions, the odds of discovering something new are nil.

GLOBALISM IS A MASK FOR AMERICAN DOMINATION
Is there a stupider culture than America? Sure, all the other cultures in the world who mimic America with their own saccharine, televised singing competitions or by downloading moronic American action films.

MALE CHAUVINISM NEVER WENT AWAY
Miss California opposes gay marriage? Why is there still a Miss California? And how many cyberchicks get off to World of Warcraft?

[...]

ART IS JUST ANOTHER NAME FOR ADVERTISING
Andy Warhol stole from Madison Avenue to make his art. Now you can watch a TV commercial in which a Maurizio Cattelan lookalike whines about the perfect set location while filming an imitation Cattelan piece, a squirrel riding a motorcycle.

THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN IS JUST THE RICH ELITES SUCKING MORE OUT OF YOU
New York superdealers open still more spaces (or two), Hip young art curators organize three or four more international art spectacles, and the supine art press just eats it up.

The notion of the avant-garde has always been framed as a "progressive" vs. "conservative" point of view, with artists generally pushing toward greater freedom (progress) while exposing the hypocrisies of the ruling classes for whom progress might mean loss of power. As has become fashionable to assert in the US (and Charlie echoes at the end of his column), the liberals and conservatives are more or less differently branded, but politically indistinguishable, servants of the corporations. But I firmly believe that a few of the conflicts of conscience or crises of faith coming soon to a decision-making body, and hopefully a few artists, near you include things that will make globalism or advertising or anything the politicians have yet had to seek broad consensus on seem quaint. In other words, I hope artists are not buying the notion that we don't need them working round the clock finding the metaphors that will enable us to understand and deal with what's coming.

Even now, I wish things were clearer. What, for example, does it mean to be human when the "friends" you spend most of your time with are people you've never physically met? When you never touch most of the people you communicate with almost constantly? When it's so pointless to identify with the culture of the place you currently and very temporarily reside, if it even has a unique culture anymore? When it's pointless to make laws based on nation-states and your personal interests are more inline with those of the company that makes your sneakers than those of your neighbors? When you're keeping in touch or even only keeping alive through an ever increasing tangle of technology attached to or coursing through your body: bluetooth ear jacks, artificial hearts, cancer-eating nanobots, etc.? When the notion of living to be 900 thrills some of the population (and they're earnestly working on it) even as it horrifies others? When you can compile how your children look or think from a menu of options? And on and on.

Now, I'm not particularly invested in whether new artwork is classified as "avant-garde" moving forward or not. It seems as relevant a term at this point in history as "modern" to my mind. But I do suspect there are plenty of truly faith-shaking events awaiting humankind that I hope our artists will be prepared to help us make sense of. I truly hope they're not drinking Charlie's cynical Kool-Aid.

Doc's Defense: Demonizing Michael Jackson?

For Dr. Conrad Murray, the best defense may be a no-holds-barred smear campaign against Michael Jackson.

Celebrity defender extraordinaire Mark Geragos, who successfully repped Jackson during his 2004 child-molestation trial, spoke to E! News yesterday, explaining why he rejected an overture to defend Murray, why he thinks the doctor may wind up charged with murder, and what exactly he believes the embattled medico will use as a defense strategy.

Which, in a word, would be Jackson himself. (And all the controversies, mysteries, trials and, per Geragos, general "weirdness" that will forever be part and parcel with the King of Pop.)

"Ultimately, that may be…what the defense is, to say things about Michael I'm just not going to say," Geragos said. "Whatever is required by somebody who is going to defend the doctor, is not something I can do ethically."

Or personally.

"I've been approached," he said in reference to the possibility that he would join Murray's defense team. "But clearly I have a conflict of interest.

"I represented Michael and I would not want to be in a position where I was deprecating Michael in any way, shape or form."

Part of that defensive deprecation may come in the form of rehashing Jackson's drug addictions and his alleged doctor shopping—some reports claim the star sought prescriptions under 19 different aliases—which investigators are currently sussing out. (A copy of the search warrant executed this week shows officials were seeking proof that Murray bought propofol at a Las Vegas pharmacy.)

A source told E! News that three prescription medications, including Xanax, were found in Jackson's system at his time of death, and Geragos said that he suspects detectives' efforts at tracking down the source of the drugs is the reason for the indefinitely delayed toxicology tests.

When the results do finally come in, expect the pointer fingers—and the legal action—to fly.

"I can imagine 10 different lawsuits coming out of this," Geragos said, adding that someone will likely need to be "blamed" for the death and that a wrongful death lawsuit would not be unexpected.

"Whether it's against doctors, whether it's the Jacksons against AEG, or AEG against the estate…Anytime you've got the kind of money that's at stake here, there will be lawyers, and where there's lawyers, there's lawsuits."

And where there's Murray, there's likely a criminal charge…though not, Geragos suspects, involuntary manslaughter, which is what he is currently under investigation for. Instead, Geragos believes attorneys may have the upper hand if they try to nail him for murder.

"It's one of the most bizarre things," he said. "It's literally easier if you look at jury instructions, to get a jury to convict on second-degree (murder) than involuntary manslaughter."

As for Jackson, the attorney has high hopes for his legacy. When asked what he hoped people would remember most about the star, Geragos said he wanted people to think of "all the greatness…and forget all the weirdness."

Untitled

Mark Grotjahn’s, Untitled (French Grey 10 - 90% Butterfly) (2006), on view in "Mark Grotjahn" at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Courtesy Blum & Poe and Anton Kern Gallery

Mark Grotjahn

Opening reception for the artist: Saturday, May 30th from 6 to 8pm


I have an idea as to what sort of face is going to happen when I do a "face painting", but I don't exactly know what color it will take, or how many eyes it's going to have, whereas the "butterfly paintings" are fairly planned out. They're still intuitive, but I generally know where they're going. It's a different kind of freedom...
--Mark Grotjahn

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Mark Grotjahn. This is his first exhibition with the London gallery.

In Grotjahn's first "butterfly paintings," clusters of vibrant, gradated triangular forms were anchored to vertical tangents, vehicles by which to treat problems in classical perspective such as dual and multiple vanishing points. As he continues to mine this hieratic motif -- which over the last decade has yielded extensive permutations that invoke narratives central to modernist painting, from the utopian vision of Russian Constructivism to the hallucinatory images of Op Art – the allusions to the natural world have ceded to more specific aesthetic issues such as the monochrome, the serial image, and the sublime. Increasingly, he has restricted his use of color, moving through phases of blue and black, and now to red and yellow. In the new paintings he has closely subdivided the "rays", making the chromatic distinctions ever more nuanced. With Untitled (Red Butterfly I Yellow P MARK GROTJAHN 07-08 751) Grotjahn revels in a highly controlled mastery of shade while continuing to embrace contingency. From the upper right hand side of the painting, moving clockwise, the palette shifts from a darker red to an intense vermillion, contrasting with the acid yellow undercoat, which he deliberately reveals in the block-lettered signature.

As Grotjahn continues to refine the butterfly paintings so does he, conversely, appear to find release in the raw energy of the "face paintings." Roughly painted on cardboard, with sections often cut away to reveal painted canvas beneath, they compel with their strident tones, scratchy textures, and cartoonish faces that loom from the surface. Inspired by Picasso's primitivist explorations, they resemble tribal masks and other ritualistic totems. In Untitled (Red Face 773), an abstract face in yellow, grey, white, and pale green is traced in linear dashes and concentric whorls, its glowering eyes incised from the vivid red background.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale School of Art.

Mark Grotjahn was born in 1968 in Pasadena, CA, and currently lives in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. Recent solo exhibitions include Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2005); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006); and Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland (2007). Selected public collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

For more information, please contact the gallery at +44.20.7841.9960 or london@gagosian.com.

Sasha Grey AMAZING GAPE, by Abdul Vas

ABDUL VAS Ektacolor photograph edition of 9 h: 58 x w: 78 in 2008

Vincent Gallo, by Abdul Vas

ABDUL VAS Ektacolor photograph edition of 9 h: 58 x w: 78 in 2008

Vincent Gallo + Terry Richardson For Belvedere Vodka

Page Six is reporting that New York’s own downtown hero, photographer Terry Richardson, will be shooting another usual suspect, director Vincent Gallo, for Belvedere Vodka’s new campaign. Guess the brand is looking to pick up an edgier, more youthful and yet still expensive vodka drinker. Makes sense. Terry recently shot the Tom Ford perfume ads and a campaign for David Beckham’s perfume.

Gallo is no stranger to mugging for brands. He was a Levi’s model before he was the man behind “Buffalo 66.” For another example, check out the vid above for the struggling Helio. While Gallo comes off as charming, this wished-upon-a-star-viral only made us stick to our guns that Helio and Deutsch LA have been moving in the wrong direction. It was uploaded onto YouTube on September 12, 2007 and has only garnered