Massive Links! Not New York Edition

by Art Fag City on September 3, 2008 Events

theflyopera.jpg
Daniel Okulitch (Seth Brundle), in David Cronenberg’s, The Fly, Paris Opera

  • Director David Cronenberg of Crash, Dead Ringers, and Videodrome, thrills Defamer by agreeing to be interviewed. They don’t talk too much about his upcoming project which remakes his 1986 movie The Fly as an opera (opening this Sunday in LA), but Cronenberg does live up to his reputation for giving formidably interesting interviews. My favorite clip below.

DEFAMER: Who is it more important to please, yourself or an audience?

CRONENBERG: There’s no difference. You are your own audience to begin with. I once met Oliver Stone and he said, “Do you mind being so marginal, with such a small audience?” And I said, “Well, how big of an audience do you need?” There comes a point where if you try to please too big an audience, you lose what was interesting about what you’re doing. You have to achieve a balance.

DEFAMER: Why does it seem like all your movies are in some way obsessed with the human body?

CRONENBERG: People don’t pay enough attention to the body. My understanding of life is very existential. I think that we are our bodies. There’s nothing else, and when we die, that’s it. No afterlife. I’m very anti-religious because religion tends to disembody you. There’s an emphasis on your spirit, or where you’ll be when your body’s gone, and that’s misleading. I think the world would be a better place if it we admit that’s not the case.

    and later on:

DEFAMER: …Alright, one last question. Who is weirder, you or David Lynch?

CRONENBERG: Oh, Lynch is way weirder than I am. That’s obvious.

Real space is the place for sculpture. Painting goes online to flatten, change color and die. Only photo and video have the potential of retaining the essence of themselves. Image streams work for images that are meant to be reproduced. Everything else still needs an art critic.

If that’s true, why is it that some of the best art criticism online is exclusively devoted to photography? Because nothing to do with art ever was or ever will be, fair.

    The stream of logic that led Hackett to conclude that only art requiring a viewer to go somewhere to view it needs a critic doesn’t make any sense, but then I’m not really sure what the point of this post is supposed to be past throwing out a link to a blog she likes. Notably, net art doesn’t make Hackett’s list of mediums, probably because you don’t have to leave your computer to experience it.
  • Jennifer Kabat writes an overview on American political swag — specifically buttons — for Frieze Magazine. My favorite fact learned from the article has less to do with the various pins (though there is a lot there as well), than the fact that even early on political kitsch was so pervasive that chamber pots were “emblazoned” with candidates names. Looks like McCain and Obama need to set aside a bit of time to graffiti a few more bathrooms, if they really want to compete with their forefathers.
  • Speed dating for artists at ICA in London. Judge and be judged on your potential as a mate on one or two pieces of art. Participants are encouraged to drink through the process. Via: Jaka

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