hipslikeboys: March 2012

I should have said something about Mike Kelley passing away because I was a bit upset. Who is going to dig holes now and say it loudly without words? I can only hope that is friend Paul McCarthy won't let them sponge the smear off. I can only hope Paul McCarthy will pop me off.

The other thing I have been meaning to talk about is Detroit, the city and the photographers sucking its sap.

This is going to be long and rant-y.

A few years ago, I saw a review/advert for the work of Andrew Moore about the ruins of Detroit. I spent 3 days on the net and I was shocked...Detroit was devastated by the post capitalist plague and layers upon layers of dust and rust had been gathering on abandoned buildings and cars; some outlaws and a few socialists prowled the city in search of water and shelter....at least this is what I imagined from the pictures I saw. Then, a few weeks ago, my dear friend Navaz took me to the opening of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre exhibition The Ruins of Detroit. I had made a bit of a fuss that she took me with her (she normally doesn't as I'm a bit too clumsy for private view), because I was convinced I would see the amazingly beautiful prints of Monsieur A. Moore. When I got there, I was more impressed by the guests shoes than by the prints; but everything was alright, you know...I liked what I saw, dust, rust, decay, bit of green, bit of yellow....I was deeply confused so as to the originator of those photographs...I was told they were french, I suggested they might be french canadians kind of guys. No, they are french, young and they have worked bloody hard to get the work done, no doubt about that. But what is the point? They, just like A. Moore and a few others have gain access to the city "museum", the authentic piece of fear, melancholia and first mainstream cultural and mediatised shopping mall of America.It seems Detroit has find a new development in the form of the DisneyWorld of social documentary. You can not wait for the new Chernobyl? You have missed the exclusivity on the Bhopal disaster back in 1984? come to Detroit, much better, much cheaper. What is happening is that those photographer(no disrespect) are producing near exact copy of each other work. If it seems too good to be true........On close inspection, I have noticed that Moore, and Marchand & Meffre have gone for the same details, some of their pictures are near identical, so much so that it looks like shots from a film set; or is it?

Naive me who thought that this kind of irreverent exploitation of life's ups and downs only ever happened on CNN or BBC. I am saddened that my favorite subject has come full circle... rust and decay has become the new financial investment of the elite. and there is a book to go with it. I can only hope Paul McCarthy is going to poop them under.

I'm done.

But I refused to believe that art is done. It is just confused at the moment. Because of the number of pixels.