Poem by Loredana Gasparotto

ABOUT PAPILLOTTI and other artists

            What can I say …I can’t wait for these people to disappear one day from the pages of any art book… so we won’t have to feel abused by their nonsense any longer….

             

I felt that the first article about Charles Ray was cleverly written, except it was trying too hard to validate why we should pay attention to an individual like Charles Ray.  My point is that when you need too many explanations to validate something…you obtain the opposite result…you just don’t persuade anybody and you don’t prove anything.

My question would be: why is Charles Ray’s work so significant to deserve any kind of attention or consideration that I would like to know.

             

This article states that his lack of initiative or inspiration is purposely done, so to awake the viewers from their apathy...Now who are these arrogant a******s who assume that I am a passive viewer who needs to be brought up to life? I believe this is a false and presumptuous assumption on their part and in the part of this Charles Ray as well. I don’t think his work stands out against extravagance or exaggeration bringing simplicity or effortlessness, I find it  more like mediocre self expression than anything else and  thank god one day (hopefully soon) it will disappear forgotten by all…

           

And what about his mannequin? Please!  That was entirely made for shock value and please do not try to convince me of the contrary.  It will insult my intelligence.  In the article the author makes a reference to what mannequins generally look like.

Am I supposed to care about castrated mannequins? Poor them, so deprived of their sexuality. We definitely should start a movement to integrate them with their gentials, because let’s face it,  we can’t keep hurting their feelings and identities…if I really wanted to see a mannequin I would just go to a department store….What can I say: boring!!!!!! Well let’s move on…

         

I found Arnaldo Morales’s interview very interesting and the most interesting part of this article since I never had the chance to go to one of his shows. Given that his sculptures are meant to interact with the audience and I could not experience them first hand I had to take what was in the article for granted. From what I was reading, Arnaldo Morales seems to be a fascinating person, but I honestly wouldn’t know if his work is interesting as well. I looked him up on Google and his work made me nauseous…but perhaps (as it’s written in the article) this is what he wants to inspire in his audience: fear and repulsion…or any other strong repulsive feeling….I don’t know…

             

Tolstoy defines art as the ability to “evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art…. Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”

             

Now if we take this definition of art as true, I am not sure that any of these individuals can really be called an artist at all.  Maybe Morales is the closest one can get to this definition…others such as Charles Ray are completely off track…they lack the ability to communicate their ideas clearly because their work stops at being confusing and without any evident purpose.

I went on you tube to check Papilotti Rist’s work as well, trying to do some research, in view of the fact that I could not get any tangible information on her work from this article. I found her work appealing, especially her opinions and philosophy behind it…she seems to be an exiting person and a lot of fun to be around, but her work is not as fascinating as she is.

             

“I am not a girl who misses much” is an eye-catching piece of experimental video, but I was not particularly moved by it and the same goes for “Aujourd’hui” another weird video… (Maybe I am just not into “video art”). Another of her bizarre videos was “Be nice to me”…..again what is she trying to tell me? Please tell me. I want to know!!! Should I go to Switzerland to find that out?

             

Transposition, the last video I watched looked very much like any edgy commercial seen on television…just with an odd soundtrack.  Put a Beyonce’s or Missy Elliot’s song instead and you get the Target campaign….what can I say. The more I am forced to gaze at some of his contemporary “artists” work, the more I am convinced that art should first of all move me emotionally and shouldn’t be an unclear combination of concepts…completely obscure to me and the rest of us.