Re: <eyebeam><blast> museums on the move

["franklin sirmans" <franklin_s@hotmail.com>]

While I completely disagree with the ideas at the end of Paul's message 
regarding images becoming composite, and videos downloadable, and the
museum as "electromagnetic canvas"... I fully agree that in terms of
museums (Western Art Hierarchy) "extreme unwillingness to look at forms
of nomadic culture". And beyond nomadic even, they're pretty slow, just
to realize that it isn't all still white and male (not to bitch, but to
take a look at the artists who participated in the traditional big shows
like Venice, Documenta, and Munster). Alas, I would say that hope lies
in exhibitions like the Istanbul and Johannesburg biennials where some
of these ideas have recently been touched on in an art context. 

In Istanbul, you have someone like Semiaha Berksoy, an 87  year old
opera singer and painter in the exhibition... and it's hard not to
notice the work of Seydou Keita--art as the precursor to pop culture in
redefining itself through art (Janet Jackson's mugging of Keita's
aesthetic) who was shown at Johannesburg and recently even graced the
cover of Artforum... that may be problematic in itself... but I do think
it is a reflection of the changing nature of large international
exhibitions, going beyond Feudal European structures. 

The characters of Doyle and Traylor, even Pinter, are being eaten and
contextualized in much the same way that the graffiti artists were in
the 80s, but for various reasons (for one they can be exoticized more
universally) they may actually have staying power.

There is a place for recontextualized museum space. Somewhere, and not
only on the internet.

Franklin Sirmans




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