It’s Art?
On Friday, my good friend Jive invited me to an art exhibition at DePaul, in which a few of his photographs were on grand display. I lugged my lazy ass to the campus and was immediately surprised by the crowd. Or, more accurately, I was surprised by the fact that the crowd was congregating in the hallway outside the gallery. My immediate thought was, “Wow, the art must be pretty bad,” but I soon realized it was because there was free food outside, and you couldn’t eat inside.
“Stan!” a female voice called, puzzling me beyond belief since Jive isn’t, as far as I know, a woman, and I don’t know anybody else at DePaul who would excitedly shout my name upon seeing me.
It turned out to be Jive’s mom, standing in a huddle with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend or girlfriend-like female friend. We greeted each other, and Jive’s brother introduced the girl, who wore a confusing dress made of what looked like tutu material sewn to a too-large corset that I probably made fun of.
“Jive is right inside the gallery,” Jive’s mom said. “You should check it out.”
So I went inside to check it out. I walked right past Jive’s photos, which were on the wall right by the entrance, and tried to find Jive. I got distracted by a loud, obnoxious POP-POP-POP sound. I realized I was stepping on bubble-wrap, which for some reason covered the floor of half the gallery. The entire room sounded like a giant popcorn popper.
“The hell?” I thought and immediately tried to get to a section of floor not covered by bubble-wrap. Then, Jive popped up behind me and we got some food. As we ate in the general vicinity of Jive’s mom and brother, some of Jive’s friends showed up. Then, there was the sudden announcement that the awards would be handed out.
“Guh?” I said.
Jive was as puzzled as we were; he didn’t know this was a competition. And, funnily enough, his photos won best in show for photography. Way to go, Jive!
After the awards were distributed, we decided to go in and look at some of the art.
Art, I’ve decided, puzzles me. A whole lot. Sure, I go to an art school, but to be perfectly frank, I’m no artist. You all probably know this after seeing my films and reading my screenplays. I’m not ashamed of this in any way. I am, however, periodically humiliated by my lack of savvy with art. When I don’t understand a piece of art, I either make fun of it or get very angry and shriek “HULK SMASH!” while punching it.
But what the hell? I really, sincerely don’t think much of what I saw could be defined as “art.” I liked most of the photography I saw (especially Jive’s!), and there was one clever “mixed-media” thing that, from a distance, looked like a picture of the consumption virus, but when you looked up close, it was made up of words involving capitalist consumption of goods (such as, “Look, a sale at the Gap!”). That, I thought, was clever. And art.
But, okay, the bubble-wrap on the floor? That was an art project. No, seriously. Stop laughing, it was art.
Other examples of not-art that confused me were the “sculptures.” One was a 2x4 with a little divot in it. The divot was filled in with little pieces of bamboo. Huh? Art? Wha? And, according to Jive, that won best in show for the sculptures.
It had stiff competition, of course. Another sculpture was a candy bar with what looked like dried drool on it. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be drool or not, but that was all. That’s right, if you go down to the grocery store and buy a Three Musketeers and drool on it, you have created an acceptable work of art.
But the coup de grâce of confusing art was The Performance.
We all gather round this circle in the courtyard of the DeePaul library and watched the most confusing thing I’ve seen since I first saw a Stan Brakhage film.
See, this blindfolded girl in a tan outfit laid a blanket down in the square, put a table on it, put a translucent cloth on the table, then kneeled in front of it. Meanwhile, another blindfolded girl in a tan outfit slowly entered the circle. She held a bowl of something disgusting and red in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. I thought at first the disgusting, red food-like substance was some sort of salsa, but it looked more fruity as The Performance progressed.
Here’s what they did: fed each other the red substance and gave each other sips of the wine. When they were finished, the girl with the bowl and the glass walked away, and the girl who initially set out the table and blanket removed the table and folded the blanket. The end.
My continuing reaction to this is a big fat “Zuh?” I simply don’t understand it. I admire their chutzpah and admit that on the occasions when one of the girls missed the other’s mouth and almost rubbed that red shit all over her chest, I was mildly aroused. Was that supposed to be the point? I don’t think so; I firmly believe that I’m just perverted.
After The Performance, we went back into the gallery. Jive’s parents (his dad arrived before The Performance, so he, too, got to witness the miracle of confusing performance art) left with his brother and the girl to get food, and Jive and I and his friends all meandered around the gallery. I felt, as always, awkward and useless. I don’t know Jive’s friends very well, and I’m always cripplingly uncomfortable around people I hardly know. I attribute this to the fact that whenever I loosen up, I’m a complete jackass.
So I basically followed Jive around uncomfortably for awhile. I felt like an idiot when he and his friends discussed The Performance, because I still just didn’t get it. And they were talking about how it says something completely different with two females than it did at a previous Performance in which it was a male and a female.
“But what did it say?” I wanted to scream. I also didn’t want to humiliate myself, so I just said nothing. I kinda wanted to cry, but that would’ve been embarrassing, too, so I choked back the tears.
I don’t demand much from art. I just want there to be some sort of clear meaning. I don’t buy into the “well, you should draw your own meaning” from it. Sure, you can derive a meaning from something that is different from the artist’s, but I really don’t think that can work if the artist doesn’t seem to have any meaning guiding the piece. Like the bubble-wrap or the 2x4. What purpose did that serve, other than, “It’s art!” The Performance, I imagine, had some sort of meaning the artists were trying to get across, but since I can’t figure out what the hell it was, I simply have to imagine that they did without really knowing. Art is supposed to communicate to the audience, not alienate them or condescend to them (my least favorite type of art is the kind where all I can get from it is, “I’m so much smarter than you because I understand this and you don’t”). That’s why Owen will never sell a script.
Anyway…
Eventually, Jive’s friends left and he and I met up with his parents and I mooched a free dinner. Yay!
Afterward, I got really bummed out, because I realized it was the last time I’ll see Jive for at least a year. Not that we were exactly inseparable before, but he was always kinda there, hovering around the general Lincoln Park area. I knew that if I ever stopped being lazy or he ever stopped being busy, we’d be able to hang out. Now, that option isn’t there. Unlike me, he’s graduated, and unlike me, he’s going to actually have some form of career. So he’s moving to New Yawk, where he’ll play Pac-Manhattan and live in a spacious refrigerator box.
Can I afford to go to New York? No.
Will he be able to come back to Chicago? Possibly, if he sells his refrigerator box to the highest bidder and then barters all the squirrel skins and pigeon feathers for bus fare.
But either way, I don’t anticipate actually legitimately seeing him for at least a year, if not more. And that’s pretty depressing, since I’ve known him roughly forever. It’s not like most of my friends, who drift in and out of my life every six months, and we hear from each other maybe once a month through incoherent e-mails.
And of course, there’s always the magic of the Internet, which has been my primary source of communication with Jive ever since we started college. But there’s still something depressing about him being 800 miles away, as opposed to 20.
So, on the train ride back downtown, I called Lucy for some reassurement. She said, “You know what’s terrible? If you move to L.A. after college, and he stays in New York, then you’ll be three thousand miles away from him instead of just 800.”
She’s usually much more reassuring than that.
I will miss Jive, whether I see him all the time or not, but I am glad of one thing: before he left, he managed to show me the light and convince me that The Reputation is possibly the best local band in the history of the universe. I can’t thank him enough for that one.
Happy trails, Jive.
Posted by Stan on May 31, 2004 1:02 PM | Permalink | Random Musings | Digg It
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