Trying to explain Jerry Saltz’ Facebook page to non-art world people is almost harder than explaining Facebook to non-user artists. In The Observer, Leon Neyfakh does a pretty good job explaining size and community involvement on his page, but also the kind of humor about it.
“The mere word freedom is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery—even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness—is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself.” – Andre Breton (seen tagged over an awful Diesel ad.)
Were I to come into an unexpectedly vast sum on money, Yohji Yamamoto’s meatpacking district shop is one of the first stops I’d make. Very sad to hear that that store and others are closing, as part of his bankruptcy filing. Recommended: Wim Wenders’s documentary about him, Notebooks On Cities and Clothes, in which he visits the Toyko studio and gradually comes to appreciate the vision and craftmanship, fashion as an art form.
Unica Zurn’s writing and art is what I turn to when I’m looking for inspiration, so it’s no surprise “Unica Zürn: Dark Spring,” at the Drawing Center, was one of my favorite gallery shows this year. It left me with a greater appreciation of her genius, and also with a longing for the days when art and literature (and film and music) were not compartmentalized. Curator João Ribas won the International Association of Art Critics’ (AICA) annual award for Best Show By A Non-Profit Gallery or Space. Ribas is now the curator at MIT’s exceptional List Galley.
Just a month ago, I was just asking Paddy what happened to Brody Condon’s “Neuromancer” project, which won the Rhizome award last year. I wanted to road trip out to Missouri to see the barnyard production. Well, that is on hold until next summer, but this Sunday “Case” plays at the New Museum. It’s a 6 hour long live reading of William Gibson’s classic with Sasha Grey. Catch me there, I’ll be in and out all day. Here’s an interview with Condon on Rhizome in the meantime: ” I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I am still interested in this notion of projection of self into other spaces via religious experience, drugs, role-playing, or immersive screen spaces, but I never imagined Case interfacing with the actual internets, he is immersing himself in Gibson’s idea of what he thought this future screen space could be”
What Was the Hipster?
Trucker Hat by Jon Rafman (Found on Art Fag City)
Last week n+1 posted a bewildering and intriguing event listing “What was the Hipster?” A “Panel, Symposium, and Historical Investigation.” As it coincided with my last trip to New York, I stopped by and ermm, live-tweeted some of it. (Read The Observer’s take on it here.)From the invitation:
Who was the turn-of-the-century hipster? Who is free enough of the hipster taint to write the hipster’s history without contempt or nostalgia? Why do we declare the hipster moment over—that, in fact, it had ended by 2003—when the hipster’s “global brand” has just reached its apotheosis?
A panel of n+1 writers invites n+1 subscribers and the public to join a collective investigation. Short presentations will be followed by audience debate, comment, and recollection, to be transcribed and published in book form this year.
Mark Greif started by pointing out the term hipster is almost always pejorative. (viz. This website) He defined the two major hipster tribes: the aggressive and non-aggressive. The former is epitomized by Kari Ferrell. The later, most of her victims. The first kind of hipster gained prominence in early-aughts, about the time Gavin McInnes moved to New York, Vincent Gallo released Brown Bunny and aligned himself with the neoconservative movement, Williamsburg still had some semblance of edge, and mustaches started appearing at shows. This kind of hipster clings to the angriest forms of Americana: trailer parks, guns, alcoholism, (overtly or discretely) racist humor. It also is self-contained in New York City. The point of this kind of hipster charade is obviously lost outside the US (sure, there were trucker hats in Europe and Asia in 2003, but the wearers never quite got what a trucker hat means.) Inside the US, pretending to be white trash only works in a city where white trash doesn’t exist. Otherwise you’re bearing the stigma of America’s deep-seated classism.
The second kind of hipster, emerged at roughly the same time. They volunteer at 826, eat vegan, wear sweaters in bright colors. If female they have Etsy stores. Male twees tend to be “beardos.” Think Wes Anderson, Dave Eggers. Grief called their breed of preciousness “knowingness and naivete… irony without sarcasm.” Both the aggressive and nonaggressive hipsters are defined by their taste. They do not create their own art, so they define themselves by what they consume. This is a way to build “status as possessors of knowledge.”
Self-aware graffiti in the East Village
Christian Lorentzen, an expert on the subject per his New York magazine article, Why the Hipster Must Die, talked about hipster mating rituals and hipster diaspora. The “hipster is disgusted by anything erotic and confused by what is known as love.” Every hipster must decide in early 30s, to stat a family and return to the suburbs (his likely origin) or continue as a sad aging hipster. A fascinating point was made about older, somewhat twee, literary hipsters — they are equal parts “Kurt Cobain and Adam Gopnik.” Grief wondered whether Cobain himself may have “applied his considerable literary talents” as a New Yorker staff writer, had he lived and gone on to enjoy fatherhood.
Jace Clayton (dj/Rupture) talked about hipsters abroad. Peruvians translating Pitchfork reviews into Spanish. And the false positives you might see in Spain, a country where the mullet is not an ironic revival but a haircut favored by civilians. Or those white guys with dreads that show up at hipster parties because there aren’t enough people sporting skinny jeans and real hipster threads to merit their exclusion.
The author of The Hipster Handbook, Robert Lanham, was in the audience and I wish they had talked more about the book. One of the weirdest trends in the high hipster days of ‘03 was in reference to it. “Deck” was a made-up synonym for cool. As soon as the book went mainstream, hipsters called things “deck” — as a laugh at the book? At themselves? Whatever, they did it.
There was some discussion of class. The “trustie” hipster is really a NYC novelty. In Portland or Austin or Chicago, most hipsters come from humble beginnings. Moving to the city and entering a culturally literate scene is generally an upwardly mobile step. Lanham called them the “wash class” as they are the waitresses and bartenders at the establishments frequented by trust fund hipsters who don’t have to work. This is a pretty curious internal class divide and probably worth a “historical investigation” of its own.
The hipster, as he was known up until 2003, is now dead. He is a victim of the Internet, the ease and low cost of finding This Heat b-sides or obscure cult comics. Moe Tkacik called the Internet a “deregulator,” of all the kind of cultural artifacts time, dedication, and money once kept hidden. Losing My Edge really was an elegy.
What remains is just the shadow of homo hipsteromicus. The kind who “sing[s] theme songs from syndicated television programs from the late 70’s, early 80’s” although she was born in 1988, and is nostalgic for something she never knew.
Paddy Johnson questioned the panel’s use of the word “nostalgia” as it suggests this is something people actually like. But no one actually liked Charles in Charge, did they? Her comment inspired the most n+1-y reaction from audience, “Can’t [hipsters] protect things culturally worthwhile?”
Hey, I’m in New York for the next few days. Drop a line (gmail: joanne.mcneil) if you’d like to meet up. You can catch me Saturday at n+1’s “What Was the Hipster? Panel, Symposium, and Historical Investigation.” And Monday at the Library of Dust event.
Video of a young trenchcoated Susan Sontag interviewing Philip Johnson. Another great video here.
Isobella Jade, best known as the homeless model who wrote her 250 page memoir entirely “while standing in heels infront of an Imac 17inch computer at the Apple Store in soho…Because just as she is living out of a suit case, she also doesn’t have a computer or internet connection,” has a comic coming out from Soft Skull.
Tomorrow afternoon at the New Museum: “Experimental Geography Panel Discussion: An Aesthetic Investigation of Space.” Check out the amazing list of recommended books for anyone interested in the subject. (via.) Probably should add Iain Sinclair to that list. Here he is in the Independent, writing about living in the same house for 40 years.
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