The AFC Guide to Disliking Laurel Nakadate Without Hating Women

I think she’s a predator who records her using people in a dehumanizing and degrading manner. I fail to see the art. Reminds me of a young woman in Poland who slit the throat of a pony and videoed it’s dying process, as her grad piece in art school. It took several hours to die. It has been put forth by cognitive therapists that loneliness and isolation are symptom of depression. She is therefore preying upon and taking advantage of the ill who are trying to get their needs met for communication, companionship and sex, then she calls them ‘pathetic’. Ya, I have no respect for her or her very stupid photos and videos.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iot1-y9O4Po&feature=related

I like art that is challenging and morally ambiguous. But what really gets me wet is when art is _generous_. Nakadate is just too self-obsessed to be interesting.

It has been ever thus: men, especially those of a certain age, become unhinged at the sight of a young woman in her underwear. We know and accept this, always with the hope, however, that this derangement won’t interfere with their professionalism. Compared with how Monica Lewinsky and her thong affected history, an art exhibition is a minor event—yet Klaus Biesenbach, who organized  Laurel Nakadate’s “Only the Lonely” atPS 1 (through August and Ken Johnson who reviewed it enthusiastically in yesterday’s Times (but is still wondering if Christian Marclay’s brilliant  The Clock could be just a “stunt,” see post below), might have considered that they were not thinking entirely with their heads.
            While she also exhibited videos (such as one I found particularly mean-spirited, of herself dancing like Britney Spears in front of desperately lonely men), most annoying is 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears (2010), where Nakadate worked up a state of sadness for a portion of each day, and then photographed herself—posing in her undies and often topless—before, after or during the shedding of supposedly real tears.  Johnson asks, sensibly enough, “Since she is a fit and attractive woman in her mid-30s who has an M.F.A. from Yale and is now enjoying this retrospective, you might wonder what she has to be so lachrymose about,“ but then backtracks by saying, “A more sympathetic view is that she has been tapping into a river of grief and loneliness running under the surface of American life.” Now there’s a sentence that begs for amplification and justification: just what “river of grief and loneliness” is Johnson talking about anyway? And why the requirement to be sympathetic?
            In her work, this poor girl who has so much she must force herself to feel unhappy every day, makes a mockery of real sadness.  While writing this I’ve been talking with a good friend whose aunt just died, and who is attempting to comfort his beloved 92-year-old grandparents. Do we want to see the pictures? Try glamorizing that scenario. 
            Despite its weak theme, the installation is impressive: framed in white and hung gallery-style in symmetrical rows that march toward an archway, these richly colored photographs turn the high-ceilinged rooms into a semblance of a Renaissance palace, streamlined for the 21st century. What’s really sad is that without Nakadate moping in them, most of the images could stand on their own. It’s pathetic that, given the times, artists feel the necessity to overlay perfectly good photography with art school conceits. Plus, whatever happened to subtlety? There are more evocative ways to convey sadness than the cliché of someone in tears. 
            The other really sad part is that if Nakadate were to have made herself happy every day, the results might actually have been interesting—but “happy,” unfortunately, is not very arty.
            My conclusion is that this girl needs a job! Her next “performance” should be one where she photographs herself 365 days a year working in a convenience store. Marina Abramovic she is not.

artvent.blogspot.com

It has been ever thus: men, especially those of a certain age, become unhinged at the sight of a young woman in her underwear. We know and accept this, always with the hope, however, that this derangement won’t interfere with their professionalism. Compared with how Monica Lewinsky and her thong affected history, an art exhibition is a minor event—yet Klaus Biesenbach, who organized  Laurel Nakadate’s “Only the Lonely” atPS 1 (through August and Ken Johnson who reviewed it enthusiastically in yesterday’s Times (but is still wondering if Christian Marclay’s brilliant  The Clock could be just a “stunt,” see post below), might have considered that they were not thinking entirely with their heads.
            While she also exhibited videos (such as one I found particularly mean-spirited, of herself dancing like Britney Spears in front of desperately lonely men), most annoying is 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears (2010), where Nakadate worked up a state of sadness for a portion of each day, and then photographed herself—posing in her undies and often topless—before, after or during the shedding of supposedly real tears.  Johnson asks, sensibly enough, “Since she is a fit and attractive woman in her mid-30s who has an M.F.A. from Yale and is now enjoying this retrospective, you might wonder what she has to be so lachrymose about,“ but then backtracks by saying, “A more sympathetic view is that she has been tapping into a river of grief and loneliness running under the surface of American life.” Now there’s a sentence that begs for amplification and justification: just what “river of grief and loneliness” is Johnson talking about anyway? And why the requirement to be sympathetic?
            In her work, this poor girl who has so much she must force herself to feel unhappy every day, makes a mockery of real sadness.  While writing this I’ve been talking with a good friend whose aunt just died, and who is attempting to comfort his beloved 92-year-old grandparents. Do we want to see the pictures? Try glamorizing that scenario. 
            Despite its weak theme, the installation is impressive: framed in white and hung gallery-style in symmetrical rows that march toward an archway, these richly colored photographs turn the high-ceilinged rooms into a semblance of a Renaissance palace, streamlined for the 21st century. What’s really sad is that without Nakadate moping in them, most of the images could stand on their own. It’s pathetic that, given the times, artists feel the necessity to overlay perfectly good photography with art school conceits. Plus, whatever happened to subtlety? There are more evocative ways to convey sadness than the cliché of someone in tears. 
            The other really sad part is that if Nakadate were to have made herself happy every day, the results might actually have been interesting—but “happy,” unfortunately, is not very arty.
            My conclusion is that this girl needs a job! Her next “performance” should be one where she photographs herself 365 days a year working in a convenience store. Marina Abramovic she is not.

artvent.blogspot.com

Hi Karen,
I’m happy that there’s been so much commentary, expressing, hopefully that feminism and feminist issues are still completely relevant for today’s art and creative practices. People should disagree; I’d rather have discourse than a plateau of complacency. No, of course Nakadate and Wilke aren’t doing the very same thing. I’m interested in the history of critical reception, of how artists are perceived by critics and press at certain points of their careers. The unfortunate lesson of Wilke’s career for someone like Nakadate is that if you’re using your attractiveness – self-aware or not – then, in all likelihood, people are going to leap on that one detail. And that sucks.

I’m going to try and be careful here, since I think commenting on this topic in the way that I intend might put me out there on a lil’ bit of a limb… But here goes nothing!

I had the chance to see the PS1 exhibition last spring and was confronted with a lot of mixed emotions, as – obviously – others did. But what I couldn’t let myself do was simply just walk away. I’d usually not give as much attention or time with a work/artist that I initially just don’t like right off the bat, but something about the show was incredibly compelling from a completely self/interior space. Although I thought that the 365 piece was not very moving, and eventually tainted my entire experience through an overwhelming apathy for what I felt to be forced/crocodile tears, I was able to ignore that main hallway enough to take more time with the video works.

I found myself enticed, wanting to watch, wanting to linger, wanting to be an audience member tempted and seduced. It’s not that I had a particular attraction to her at all, but the acts, performances, albiet cliched and occasionally stale, would sometimes add up just enough for me to like _the idea_ behind what was being presented. As a result, I became utterly embarrassed at this want/attraction, and this shyness created a complex situation of unrest within me that I felt compelled to go through in tandem with the works. As a result, I walked through the show with two parallel emotions, one of inherent distrust at playing upon my expectations/desires, and one of genuine intrigue. In this way, I wanted to see more, I wanted to metaphorically pull back the curtain as much as I could to really see what was going on, wanting to see if in fact I was attracted to this woman, or if in fact I was just interesting in the idea of a woman performing in this way. I continued to move around the various black box rooms and sitting down for about two hours in total searching for the idea of that performing woman to materialize fully, to accentuate herself not as passing as a teenager or a young girl, but as a woman of substance, a woman “worth more” than their surface. Perhaps this is central question of the work, “who is the real Laurel?” But the question never became more than a mere thought exercise, and thusly never became interesting, because I was only presented really with one perspective. I had no alternative, or very little personality to respond to, and as a result, the figure on the screen became ultimately one dimensional.

So I became uninterested “romantically” but then became interested emotionally or artistically by the realization that I was not even really looking at the work itself, but looking internally – or within myself – to the idea of a woman performing that way that Laurel does in her work. Truth be told, I think that a lot of the work is aesthetically boring, or also formally one-dimensional. Once I stopped looking at these works with a male gaze – which is what I think Laurel intends at first – but instead through the vision of a person engaged in contemporary ways of creating multiple/alternative identities, I started to check out. The veneer never got past itself. The falsified “tragedy” of a woman using her body for attention/affection never was never actualized since none of the initial elements of the tragedy were ever staged, and in a sense the paradoxical nature of this type of staging/performance (its self imposed horror/sadness as a result of one’s actions) never is fully developed or even put into play. As a result, the work never really became a critique, it only became exposition. Even if one can argue that this “peek into the underworld” is a critique, I was never certain who it was directed at: the expectations of these men (or men in general), the oppressive sexual depiction of women, or the art system that supports “attractive late 20s people” I always remind myself that “showing isn’t enough,” that a certain point action must occur, and that stances/commentary must explicitly come to light at some point in order for the materials of a process to work past their passive participation.

I’m going to try and be careful here, since I think commenting on this topic in the way that I intend might put me out there on a lil’ bit of a limb… But here goes nothing!

I had the chance to see the PS1 exhibition last spring and was confronted with a lot of mixed emotions, as – obviously – others did. But what I couldn’t let myself do was simply just walk away. I’d usually not give as much attention or time with a work/artist that I initially just don’t like right off the bat, but something about the show was incredibly compelling from a completely self/interior space. Although I thought that the 365 piece was not very moving, and eventually tainted my entire experience through an overwhelming apathy for what I felt to be forced/crocodile tears, I was able to ignore that main hallway enough to take more time with the video works.

I found myself enticed, wanting to watch, wanting to linger, wanting to be an audience member tempted and seduced. It’s not that I had a particular attraction to her at all, but the acts, performances, albiet cliched and occasionally stale, would sometimes add up just enough for me to like _the idea_ behind what was being presented. As a result, I became utterly embarrassed at this want/attraction, and this shyness created a complex situation of unrest within me that I felt compelled to go through in tandem with the works. As a result, I walked through the show with two parallel emotions, one of inherent distrust at playing upon my expectations/desires, and one of genuine intrigue. In this way, I wanted to see more, I wanted to metaphorically pull back the curtain as much as I could to really see what was going on, wanting to see if in fact I was attracted to this woman, or if in fact I was just interesting in the idea of a woman performing in this way. I continued to move around the various black box rooms and sitting down for about two hours in total searching for the idea of that performing woman to materialize fully, to accentuate herself not as passing as a teenager or a young girl, but as a woman of substance, a woman “worth more” than their surface. Perhaps this is central question of the work, “who is the real Laurel?” But the question never became more than a mere thought exercise, and thusly never became interesting, because I was only presented really with one perspective. I had no alternative, or very little personality to respond to, and as a result, the figure on the screen became ultimately one dimensional.

So I became uninterested “romantically” but then became interested emotionally or artistically by the realization that I was not even really looking at the work itself, but looking internally – or within myself – to the idea of a woman performing that way that Laurel does in her work. Truth be told, I think that a lot of the work is aesthetically boring, or also formally one-dimensional. Once I stopped looking at these works with a male gaze – which is what I think Laurel intends at first – but instead through the vision of a person engaged in contemporary ways of creating multiple/alternative identities, I started to check out. The veneer never got past itself. The falsified “tragedy” of a woman using her body for attention/affection never was never actualized since none of the initial elements of the tragedy were ever staged, and in a sense the paradoxical nature of this type of staging/performance (its self imposed horror/sadness as a result of one’s actions) never is fully developed or even put into play. As a result, the work never really became a critique, it only became exposition. Even if one can argue that this “peek into the underworld” is a critique, I was never certain who it was directed at: the expectations of these men (or men in general), the oppressive sexual depiction of women, or the art system that supports “attractive late 20s people” I always remind myself that “showing isn’t enough,” that a certain point action must occur, and that stances/commentary must explicitly come to light at some point in order for the materials of a process to work past their passive participation.

The work is not interesting. She’s not attractive. It’s gimmicky. Why even discuss Laurel Nakadate. There is so much good work out there and so little of it goes through the major gallery system and then people discuss this chic’s work. Lame.