Ray Pettibon, No Title (He began to), 2007, Pen, ink, acrylic, and gouache on paper, 13 x 22 1/4 inches. Image courtesy David Zwirner
Every once and a while I read a piece so good it makes me jealous I didn’t write it myself. Todd Gibson used to do that a lot when he wrote From the Floor, and most recently, Deborah Fisher at ArtCal Zine inspired these same feelings with Fuck You, Ray. Here’s Your Irony Back. Her piece doesn’t specifically address individual works in Raymond Pettibon’s show at David Zwirner, but better, she talks about the larger ideas Pettibon has raised over his life time of work, and how punk rock music and art effected us now, and how it should inspire us now. Though not the crux of the piece, I quote my favorite Fisher moment below; a knowingly flawed position that inspires a hypothetical conversation between Cheney and Ray Pettibon about his exhibition.
I have been writing and deleting this next part for awhile. Every time I continue my thought, it comes out something like this:
“The evildoers have caught on to this symbiosis, and understand that Pettibon has a role to play in distracting us from our own role in what they are doing.”
But that sounds needlessly like a conspiracy; as if Cheney (or whoever is filling Rove’s shoes these days) called Pettibon and said, “Ray: about your show at Zwirner? What we need to do is make everyone who’s rich or even remotely intellectually powerful think that they are doing something countercultural, but we don’t want any actual revolutions happening here — it’s not like we were exactly elected, you know, and we need to be careful. So if you could just make some drawings that made people feel how evil we are, and how futile it is to resist us, that would be great. In fact, it would be better if you could put them in a blue-chip gallery and not in a ‘zine, so you won’t inspire any other DIY self-expression, but keep it purely on the commodity level.”
Now, read the full piece here.
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The correct link for Deborah Fisher’s piece is: http://zine.artcal.net/2007/10/ray-pettibon-at-david-zwirner.php
The correct link for Deborah Fisher’s piece is: http://zine.artcal.net/2007/10/ray-pettibon-at-david-zwirner.php
That’s so funny, I just read Deborah’s piece on The Zine and had the same thought. HOLY SHIT. Its awesome when someone can write so poignantly about art without any pretension and implicitly make such an astounding argument on art’s behalf. Loved it.
That’s so funny, I just read Deborah’s piece on The Zine and had the same thought. HOLY SHIT. Its awesome when someone can write so poignantly about art without any pretension and implicitly make such an astounding argument on art’s behalf. Loved it.
made my day 🙂
made my day 🙂
I don’t know. I’m guessing Fisher is writing that despite Pettibon’s pieces winding up being commodity exchanges and eye candy for some wealthies crib in Architectural Digest, they still provide the moment of Zen for viewers, like punk rock. I guess it depends on what u call punk rock. Punk really had its roots in lower working class discontent and was as much about its own dysfunction and discontent as it was about getting the rulers. Cid and Nancy fucked up and fucked. Moreover, the media had no problem positioning them for us, often at odds w/ what the performers thought they were doing. Kurdt Kobain thought he was as pure punk as could be, but was translated into grunge, alternative, progressive; while Guns n Roses Axel thought he was punk, LA style, but was marketed as late Hair Band. Patti Smith, now considered proto punk, was too shamanistic experimental 2b political and so on. I don’t see Pettibon’s work in the same league w/ Punk since it lacks the working class ‘fuck you, ass wipe’. Like punk, though, I can see it being positioned as more a University-safe caricature of political satire raised or lowered to the level of a different marketing. How would u ever know or judge if the conscious raising effort here ever worked?
Moreover, the Goya effect seems to take over. The 3rd of May, represents peasants being systematically executed by French troops, the docent mentions the Disaster of War series and then earnestly lauds Goya’s masterful design and interesting placement of the lighting source w/in the picture. Plop.
I don’t know. I’m guessing Fisher is writing that despite Pettibon’s pieces winding up being commodity exchanges and eye candy for some wealthies crib in Architectural Digest, they still provide the moment of Zen for viewers, like punk rock. I guess it depends on what u call punk rock. Punk really had its roots in lower working class discontent and was as much about its own dysfunction and discontent as it was about getting the rulers. Cid and Nancy fucked up and fucked. Moreover, the media had no problem positioning them for us, often at odds w/ what the performers thought they were doing. Kurdt Kobain thought he was as pure punk as could be, but was translated into grunge, alternative, progressive; while Guns n Roses Axel thought he was punk, LA style, but was marketed as late Hair Band. Patti Smith, now considered proto punk, was too shamanistic experimental 2b political and so on. I don’t see Pettibon’s work in the same league w/ Punk since it lacks the working class ‘fuck you, ass wipe’. Like punk, though, I can see it being positioned as more a University-safe caricature of political satire raised or lowered to the level of a different marketing. How would u ever know or judge if the conscious raising effort here ever worked?
Moreover, the Goya effect seems to take over. The 3rd of May, represents peasants being systematically executed by French troops, the docent mentions the Disaster of War series and then earnestly lauds Goya’s masterful design and interesting placement of the lighting source w/in the picture. Plop.
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