is the Venice Biennale spam ?
I am taking a lot of heat from some near sources for referring, in a comment over at ArtBlog Comments, to the Venice Biennale as Spam.
Let me make one thing clear. I write my blog for other artists, and I use that definition in a broad sense so that anyone with an interest in creativity or the creative process is included. I've been to the Venice Biennale a few times and every time I wonder why such a wonderful city would mar itself with such a gross display of dehumanizing amateurish shreck. I have no doubt that I could get plenty of Viagra pills in the Armory, that the value is terrific, even if they are shipped in from Canada but that is not what I would go there for.
Your credit history truly doesn't matter if your stolling the Giardini and happen upon the juxtopositions of modern culture with social commentary that truly causes you to want to re-think that second mortgage. The Corderie is a wonderful place to meet local guys and gals, all of them with pictures. I don't have any doubt that you could in fact meet them. It is not that spam is not true. What makes it annoying is that we don't care and we don't want it. We go to the Venice Biennale, just like we open Newsweek Magazine, and instead of information that changes us and opens us, we get events like this (from Wikipedia):
At the 51st Biennale, American artist Barbara Kruger was awarded with the "Golden Lion" award for life time achievement.
HA HA HA HA. Golden Lion! Achievement! God! You can't make this stuff up. Now, that isn't to say that there is no good content in Newsweek magazine. It's just that it has nothing to do with me. Newsweek and Venice assume that I have erectile dysfunction, and if I keep reading Newsweek or strolling the Giardini of Venice, well, I'll probably get it.
Golden Lions? They do that at the Venice Biennale? I guess that makes most people think of the Academy Awards (a pretty stupid award that nonetheless, rightly or wrongly, garners enormous amounts of respect) or the Cannes Film Festival but it makes me think of those damned advertising awards -- one of which is a Golden Lion. The Cannes trophy is a Golden Lion too, right? Is the advertising Golden Lion a part of Cannes? -- Because they give awards for television advertising at Cannes too, right? (It seems I don’t really know my trophies.) Well, add to that the fact that Barbara Kruger's work looks like advertising and that her art practice probably also resembles that of an advertising art director… Intriguing.
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