By the time you get to “None of Dem” on Robyn’s album Body Talk Pt. 1, a bass-loaded, dubstep-lite (which is an affixation with roughly the same metaphysical heft as a “small tank”) kind of pissed-off, drug-addled hyphenation-inducing song for that time that’s too early to be morning but too late to be night, you are sublimely ready for the not-quite blissed-out extrospection (aka dancing) it provides for. A video for the track has Robyn in a sweatshirt and knit hat in a darkened room, alone and dancing and seriously feeling the music, man. That it is her music she’s feeling seems to make no difference; she’s just as in thrall to it as you are, or will be, if you have not yet had the chance to listen to this sensationally well-constructed album.
Body Talk Pt. 1 is full of songs you like, then love, then really love, and then normally would get tired of and move on, but I’ve been rocking out to “Dancing on My Own,” that exuberant paean to being alone (if not quite to loneliness) at a very high rate for weeks now, and I want to keep doing it. That song is unquestionably the album’s high peak, for its sheer catchiness and singability (“I’m not the giiiiiiiiiirl you’re taaaking home, oooo oooooo”) and the way it revels in something a little stronger than melancholy, makes it desirable and unstoppable and an expression of whatever it is that substitutes for primal joy nowadays. There aren’t too many songs that give explicit license to back away from others that also offer this exuberant validation, to retreat to the corner (which is what you really wanted to do anyway) and be satisfyingly, gloriously emotional in time with the beat. In a word, it’s great.
It’s almost for the best that nothing else on the album reaches the same peak, because then Robyn gets to have that song. But nearly every track on the album is solidly written and even better produced, so that there’s a sense of balance maintained consistently, even rigorously, both both overall and within each song. “Fembot” has her trying on the character of, well, a fembot, to deliciously clever effect (as in, “automatic booty applications / got a CPU maxed-out sensation.” Sweet.). This song does well to show why she stands out from the crowd particularly now, as material that could have easily been pushed to extremes of ridiculousness by her contemporaries here instead remains very grounded. It’s safe to say although her music rises very high indeed, it is built firmly on the ground.
The video that sets her as a fan to her own music has the right of it, actually; this is relatable music for once, tracks that push up from our level rather than sound from on high. Robyn’s syllables are anything but nonsense, and her music makes sense, always. The overwhelmingly positive critical reception to both the album and her as a star is no doubt built on this aspect of her music and performance, its intelligence and honesty; and if she initially comes across as maybe just the tiniest bit blank, as a little less than a truly great singer, the minor quips are quickly discarded as overly hasty judgments about someone who is now a good friend. Flash and fire and fierceness are great from afar, but up close and personal with music wrapping around you in the corner, you’d rather have honesty, and feeling too. Her music is sustainable in a way that elides most pop.
The coda of the album — the straight-up ballad and now soon-to-be dancefloor hit “Hang With Me” and the classic Sinatra tune “Jag Vet En Dejlig Rosa” — is understandable, a respectable way to bow out and set the stage for Body Talk, Pt. 2. If “Hang With Me” is just a touch saccharine, with songwriting just a shade weaker than its minimalist arrangement allows for, it is notable only to appreciate that her songs work so well because of the greatly effective context they are in. And though it would be nice to be able to point to “Jag Vet Swedish” as lovely, it doesn’t really matter, and if anybody makes it through more than a third of that song without listening to “Dancing on My Own” again instead (“giiiiiiiirl”) I would be surprised.
The music is better to listen to than to think about, which is really just a way of saying that this is music that is meant to be music. Her music doesn’t make you feel morally compromised when you listen to it, which is all too often the case with pop. If it’s not quite deep either, that’s probably for the best, so that you can stay giddy and sweaty while still feeling, hard, if you want to. But only if you want to. It’s not going to force you there.
She’s somebody that you like if you give her a breath of a chance. She is somebody relatable. She is catchy and durable. Normally, this would be the point where one would work in a stinger, a shot of critical pithiness to dilute the compliments and strengthen the critique. But that would be cheap, and furthermore, unnecessary. She doesn’t pretend to be what she is not, which is saying something more than it seems. It would also be tempting to do a blow-by-blow comparison with other pop stars of the past few moments (and I will now mention a few in order to get more search engine hits: Beyonce, GaGa, Kesha, Katy Perry, Rihanna. Inception, Twilight, Edward, Jacob), but it is more tempting to let her stand — or dance, perhaps — on her own.
Showing posts with label criticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label criticism. Show all posts
Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Glancing back at The Hurt Locker
With The Hurt Locker winning the big prize recently, and consequently finding its way into conversations more often than not, it seems like an opportune time to take a second look at the film. Admittedly, I’ll be doing this without an actual second viewing, so I apologize if things seem built on generalities instead of specificities.
To begin with the direction, the film is wired for action and she's done a thorough job. It’s solid to the point where you can feel the metallic vibrations from the explosions in your bones, and live in that environment at least as much as any movie before. It is not the kind of film that resonates with completion, with rightness, with that irrefutable stamp of the Hollywood arc and emotional push points. Instead, it feels taut, like sinew over bone, or a film budget for a female director. And to get this out of the way now, that Oscar was vicariously very satisfying, because while Kathryn Bigelow may not have been head and shoulders above the competition, she had a fierce hairsbreadth of a lead that she earned beyond a doubt. That she is intelligent and adult, a professional and an artist both in her interviews doesn’t hurt either.
It is topical, but to its credit the film is neither polemical nor pedantic, maybe just slightly juvenile in its message in the way action films tend to be (the message: blowing shit up is cool.) That’s not meant as a denigration, just as a counterargument to those who say the lasting impression left by the explosions is cautionary. The Hurt Locker is not unsophisticated in its methods or even its conclusions, but it’s telling that the film’s final image is to adrenaline-pumping hard rock music with our hero walking into the desert, about as classic an image of badassery as you can get.
It’s an action movie, pure and simple, which strangely, makes it one of the best treatments of a tricky topic that I’ve seen. It knows its aims and achieves them squarely, shooting neither too high nor too low, and in that sense it is a classic genre film, working within a known context. And little about the film pushes the boundaries—that’s not what it’s about—but like its protagonist, does a single job with unerring and unsettling efficiency. There’s something extremely satisfying, and worthy, about that kind of ethos, a film and a director who strangely favor competence over pretension.
And that is perhaps part of the reason why it was nice to see Bigelow get the Oscar, because it wasn’t just a validation but a mandate: go do more. Although I perhaps wasn’t quite as enamored with this film as many of the critics seem to be (though I did like it), I’ll be lining up to see her next movie. And one small part of me wonders what it would have been like if Kathryn Bigelow had helmed Avatar, not that it ever would have happened, or that she even would have wanted to. But a person can dream about what a movie that would have been.
To begin with the direction, the film is wired for action and she's done a thorough job. It’s solid to the point where you can feel the metallic vibrations from the explosions in your bones, and live in that environment at least as much as any movie before. It is not the kind of film that resonates with completion, with rightness, with that irrefutable stamp of the Hollywood arc and emotional push points. Instead, it feels taut, like sinew over bone, or a film budget for a female director. And to get this out of the way now, that Oscar was vicariously very satisfying, because while Kathryn Bigelow may not have been head and shoulders above the competition, she had a fierce hairsbreadth of a lead that she earned beyond a doubt. That she is intelligent and adult, a professional and an artist both in her interviews doesn’t hurt either.
It is topical, but to its credit the film is neither polemical nor pedantic, maybe just slightly juvenile in its message in the way action films tend to be (the message: blowing shit up is cool.) That’s not meant as a denigration, just as a counterargument to those who say the lasting impression left by the explosions is cautionary. The Hurt Locker is not unsophisticated in its methods or even its conclusions, but it’s telling that the film’s final image is to adrenaline-pumping hard rock music with our hero walking into the desert, about as classic an image of badassery as you can get.
It’s an action movie, pure and simple, which strangely, makes it one of the best treatments of a tricky topic that I’ve seen. It knows its aims and achieves them squarely, shooting neither too high nor too low, and in that sense it is a classic genre film, working within a known context. And little about the film pushes the boundaries—that’s not what it’s about—but like its protagonist, does a single job with unerring and unsettling efficiency. There’s something extremely satisfying, and worthy, about that kind of ethos, a film and a director who strangely favor competence over pretension.
And that is perhaps part of the reason why it was nice to see Bigelow get the Oscar, because it wasn’t just a validation but a mandate: go do more. Although I perhaps wasn’t quite as enamored with this film as many of the critics seem to be (though I did like it), I’ll be lining up to see her next movie. And one small part of me wonders what it would have been like if Kathryn Bigelow had helmed Avatar, not that it ever would have happened, or that she even would have wanted to. But a person can dream about what a movie that would have been.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The stiflingly beautiful "A Single Man"
In terms of visuals, art direction, and even emotions, A Single Man is frustratingly immaculate. The costumes and hairstyles scream their perfection; the color-drained and -flooded frame looks exactly as it should. The framing is artful, the editing precise and striking, and every choice announces itself in every second of every shot. The performances constitute the one realm that escapes this constricting network of decisions, their more human aspects coming through almost in spite of themselves. On the whole, the film is too exceptionally lovely to make an impact beyond the kind of touching beauty of the way the story is told.
But it’s also a testament to the strength of that story that the film succeeds largely with the better half of a mixed bag. Colin Firth is very excellent, and the supporting actors—Julianne Moore and Matthew Goode, principally—are just as good. When they are onscreen—and particularly when they are onscreen with each other—you almost forget about the sets, about all the choices being made, and feel the poignancy and urgency of the grief and life underwriting the story. Its observations seem fresh and strikingly modern; I guess the way people make friends and flirt hasn’t changed much since the 60s, cinematically at least.
If only the thing weren’t so damn beautiful. It’s frustrating, and irritating, the way it incessantly announces its aesthetic choices. Every time you sink into the story, every time the truth of an interaction or a facial expression captures you and makes you forget about the movie you’re watching, within a few frames the screen will be reliably flooded with sepia-toned angst or another devastatingly sharp ensemble worn by a devastatingly attractive person and there you are, watching again.
It feels strange to complain about the movie looking too good, and admittedly I didn’t mind too much in the moment. But it was a constant barrier that stood between my senses and my emotions, a constant reminder that I was watching cinema, high art damnit, and I better acknowledge it as such. Consequently, the impact of the story was only glancing at best, while the rest seemed like a particularly weighty fashion shoot. (I’ve been trying to avoid saying that since the beginning because it seems like such the expected criticism of this director, but damnit, you brought it on yourself Tom Ford!)
In short, the movie is a museum piece that’s just effective enough to make you wish it were something more.
But it’s also a testament to the strength of that story that the film succeeds largely with the better half of a mixed bag. Colin Firth is very excellent, and the supporting actors—Julianne Moore and Matthew Goode, principally—are just as good. When they are onscreen—and particularly when they are onscreen with each other—you almost forget about the sets, about all the choices being made, and feel the poignancy and urgency of the grief and life underwriting the story. Its observations seem fresh and strikingly modern; I guess the way people make friends and flirt hasn’t changed much since the 60s, cinematically at least.
If only the thing weren’t so damn beautiful. It’s frustrating, and irritating, the way it incessantly announces its aesthetic choices. Every time you sink into the story, every time the truth of an interaction or a facial expression captures you and makes you forget about the movie you’re watching, within a few frames the screen will be reliably flooded with sepia-toned angst or another devastatingly sharp ensemble worn by a devastatingly attractive person and there you are, watching again.
It feels strange to complain about the movie looking too good, and admittedly I didn’t mind too much in the moment. But it was a constant barrier that stood between my senses and my emotions, a constant reminder that I was watching cinema, high art damnit, and I better acknowledge it as such. Consequently, the impact of the story was only glancing at best, while the rest seemed like a particularly weighty fashion shoot. (I’ve been trying to avoid saying that since the beginning because it seems like such the expected criticism of this director, but damnit, you brought it on yourself Tom Ford!)
In short, the movie is a museum piece that’s just effective enough to make you wish it were something more.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Un prophète (A Prophet)
A Prophet—a long movie of the kind that gets called gritty by critics, signifying its value as honest, honestly, even while potential viewers slump their shoulders a little bit because they now know it’s going to be less fun—is actually quite good. Malik, our unremitting protagonist whose presence fills every second if not every frame, is surprisingly and intensely sympathetic. If his environs are undeniably and pointedly contemporary, his story nonetheless has the ring of the classic to it, of fathers and sons and even of the biblical. But it is young and exhilaratingly unformed at the same time, and though there might be father figures, the film is conspicuously absent a true father; this story is Malik’s alone.
And from unwilling and unknowing entry inmate to killer and back again, it is his persuasively. It is a simple but strong compliment to say that a fictional character is empathetic, that his evolution is believable and compelling, and Malik’s youthful intelligence, his ambition that arises apropos of nothing except his youth, is convincing in the slow, visceral way it should be. He and his film demand respect both.
His initiation comes early in the long narrative, a messy, labored killing of a man in response to another threat of death. The starkly gruesome scene—there is little pleasure in watching it—hangs in a surreal aura over Malik for the next several years and all of our time with him, which director Jacques Audiard lets loose with startling and even wondrous technique from time to time. I would not have thought that surrealist impulses would make sense in this case, or that occasionally mannerist touches like a title card with the name of a significant character, or softly blacking out the screen except for some small, crucial detail would work in a film like this; but I would have been wrong. Perhaps they work because of the director’s and actor’s (called Tahar Rahim by the way, no idea what else he’s been in but fantastic here) discipline in execution, because this is not a film made on sheer impulse to genius or creative meanderings. It is regimented and open at the same time, constructed and told in such a way that it mirrors and does justice to its subject.
Its moral and visual palette are strict and circumscribed, and grow in response to each other. Their formality progresses with the narrative, and by the end of the film have each discovered some sort of stability (if not quite the usefulness of a tripod) and found a heft lacking before, filling in the monochrome with richer blacks and softer whites. By the end neither has quite found solidity, or even a structure to follow up on the narrative, which is maybe as it should be. But the insistently realistic treatment almost makes you wish for a framework to lend it weight, for a camera exterior to his world by which to view it.
It is this location within his world that guides the film aesthetically and otherwise, and which makes it tempting to declare something lacking, but not in the sense that it didn’t aim high enough. A Prophet shies away from the more spectacular means and effects of film, a decision to be lauded, but not one that necessitates going to the other end of the spectrum either. To be sure, it doesn’t quite go there, and the directorial presence is subtle but unmistakable. But somehow, the emotional impact was just a touch behind the intellectual and narrative one, just a shade less effective than the rest of it. Perhaps to force it into lockstep would have been a melodramatization and had the ring of something untrue; as it stands, I saw it and I lived it, but I never quite felt it.
In the film, as Malik passes trial after trial, it is tempting to see each moment as the moment of truth. So often, coming of age is portrayed as the decision made in a single instant, a dichotomy offered without a chance to consider it: forwards or backwards? Childhood or adulthood? Are you a boy or a man? But A Prophet eludes that reasoning. Malik’s growth can be measured in the instants for sure, but their plenitude renders his metamorphosis continual rather than instantaneous. He moves and changes and kills, and will continue to do so even after the last reel has played out. There is something of a reward at the conclusion, for both the audience and their protagonist, but the more lasting revelation is of Malik’s simultaneity: he is still the same person he was at the start. His contradictions are essential, his negotiations between extremes the thing itself. It feels true but not right, over but not finished; so all is as it should be, while at the same time it isn’t, an astute observation and spur to action both, and very much a film worth seeing.
And from unwilling and unknowing entry inmate to killer and back again, it is his persuasively. It is a simple but strong compliment to say that a fictional character is empathetic, that his evolution is believable and compelling, and Malik’s youthful intelligence, his ambition that arises apropos of nothing except his youth, is convincing in the slow, visceral way it should be. He and his film demand respect both.
His initiation comes early in the long narrative, a messy, labored killing of a man in response to another threat of death. The starkly gruesome scene—there is little pleasure in watching it—hangs in a surreal aura over Malik for the next several years and all of our time with him, which director Jacques Audiard lets loose with startling and even wondrous technique from time to time. I would not have thought that surrealist impulses would make sense in this case, or that occasionally mannerist touches like a title card with the name of a significant character, or softly blacking out the screen except for some small, crucial detail would work in a film like this; but I would have been wrong. Perhaps they work because of the director’s and actor’s (called Tahar Rahim by the way, no idea what else he’s been in but fantastic here) discipline in execution, because this is not a film made on sheer impulse to genius or creative meanderings. It is regimented and open at the same time, constructed and told in such a way that it mirrors and does justice to its subject.
Its moral and visual palette are strict and circumscribed, and grow in response to each other. Their formality progresses with the narrative, and by the end of the film have each discovered some sort of stability (if not quite the usefulness of a tripod) and found a heft lacking before, filling in the monochrome with richer blacks and softer whites. By the end neither has quite found solidity, or even a structure to follow up on the narrative, which is maybe as it should be. But the insistently realistic treatment almost makes you wish for a framework to lend it weight, for a camera exterior to his world by which to view it.
It is this location within his world that guides the film aesthetically and otherwise, and which makes it tempting to declare something lacking, but not in the sense that it didn’t aim high enough. A Prophet shies away from the more spectacular means and effects of film, a decision to be lauded, but not one that necessitates going to the other end of the spectrum either. To be sure, it doesn’t quite go there, and the directorial presence is subtle but unmistakable. But somehow, the emotional impact was just a touch behind the intellectual and narrative one, just a shade less effective than the rest of it. Perhaps to force it into lockstep would have been a melodramatization and had the ring of something untrue; as it stands, I saw it and I lived it, but I never quite felt it.
In the film, as Malik passes trial after trial, it is tempting to see each moment as the moment of truth. So often, coming of age is portrayed as the decision made in a single instant, a dichotomy offered without a chance to consider it: forwards or backwards? Childhood or adulthood? Are you a boy or a man? But A Prophet eludes that reasoning. Malik’s growth can be measured in the instants for sure, but their plenitude renders his metamorphosis continual rather than instantaneous. He moves and changes and kills, and will continue to do so even after the last reel has played out. There is something of a reward at the conclusion, for both the audience and their protagonist, but the more lasting revelation is of Malik’s simultaneity: he is still the same person he was at the start. His contradictions are essential, his negotiations between extremes the thing itself. It feels true but not right, over but not finished; so all is as it should be, while at the same time it isn’t, an astute observation and spur to action both, and very much a film worth seeing.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tino Seghal at the Guggenheim*
A friend from Philadelphia was visiting for the weekend, and she had said to meet her and another friend at the Guggenheim on Saturday. Going, I didn’t know what the current exhibition was at all; last thing I had heard, there was a big Kandinsky show up. Since I was running somewhat later than I should have been on Saturday, I received a text from my friend, which said something along the lines of “We will watch the people making out until you arrive.” I kind of laughed and didn’t think too much of it (people-watching in public places is a very legitimate urban activity), so imagine my surprise when I arrived in the Guggenheim to find that she was not referring to one of New York’s overly affectionate couples, but to the artwork.
The spiral of the Guggenheim was stripped bare, devoid of art to my eyes. In the center of the ground floor, a couple was rolling around, making out, groping each other, and occasionally striking poses from famous pieces of artwork, all in slow motion. My friends were positioned maybe twenty feet away, as were many other museum patrons, sitting on a free bench, watching the couple about as unawkwardly as it is possible to watch a couple make out in slow motion. This was a sculpture (dance piece?) by the artist Tino Sehgal, to which my reaction was, “Well. Okay,” and trying to watch without appearing too interested.
We headed up the spiral, and as I looked for whatever I was supposed to be looking for, a kid, maybe ten years old, walked up to us, said, “Hello. This is the exhibition. Can I ask you a question? (Yes.) What is progress?” I was totally disoriented and a little freaked out that someone had conscripted a child to work as a part of the exhibition, but followed him up the spiral with my friends somewhat hesitantly, talking about progress all the while. Then the kid led us up to a teenager, summarized our responses for her, and she took us up from there.
That’s the gist of the exhibition: talking and walking, a few big ideas posed to you by progressively older participants. It concluded at the very top of the rotunda, with a senior citizen, who finished by telling us the name of the exhibition and what a pleasure it was to have conversed. Simple, straightforward, direct in its methods and basic in its execution; disconcertingly one-note, but not a bad note to dwell on. I began thoroughly unconvinced, but finished energized, at the height of a spiral, looking down at a couple obliviously making out in slow-motion, feeling the same kind of subtle euphoria and optimism that I do after a good, long run.
It was effective because although it was one-note, that note wasn’t static; it grew and evolved and worked its way into my thoughts. It was staged, and it felt staged, which is part of why I was so disconcerted by both the couple and the child at first; but at a certain point, I came around to the realization that ideas spoken by actors are still ideas, that inauthentic shared experiences are still experiences shared. There was something about the medium of choice being conversation that made it invariably effective; a simulacrum of a conversation is, you guessed it, still a conversation. So that I do not know if what each actor said was utterly scripted or spontaneous, truthful or fabricated, but I do know that I had an interesting conversation with four or five different people (of increasing ages—a key point) no matter what. It wasn’t life-shattering, or even that revelatory, but it was true nonetheless. The best analogy I can think of is that it would be like taking a photo of the color red, and trying to distinguish between the photo and the original color; the distinction is in a way irrelevant: it’s still red. The truth of the perception is still there.
But with contemporary art, the question I almost always feel compelled to ask myself, explicitly or implicitly, is: is there something to mourn here? What is the loss? And with this: when all is said and done, what is left? I suppose there’s something to be said for art that is purely experiential (and this guy is all about the ephemeral, if documentation of the work is made, it becomes “inauthentic”), but something that constitutes a significant part of my art consumption is going back again and again, having the thing itself (or my experience of it) at my fingertips and eyes and ears. Perhaps part of the problem here is that this experience was good, but not great; compared to a great concert, or a great performance, I don’t think this would measure up. A lot of art that gets on my nerves confuses the intention with the result, and though I don’t think Sehgal’s committed that particular error, I don’t think it entirely works either. I often have to let things sit in the back of my head for a while before I can fully understand their impact, or before I can feel and not just know how they'll last. The problem here is that Sehgal’s piece isn’t in the back of my head; it’s still at the Guggenheim.
- the Guggenheim's page on the exhibition
- NY Times review of the exhibition
- interesting longer piece on him from NY Times magazine
*I believe the two works are called The Kiss and This Progress, though I could be wrong.
The spiral of the Guggenheim was stripped bare, devoid of art to my eyes. In the center of the ground floor, a couple was rolling around, making out, groping each other, and occasionally striking poses from famous pieces of artwork, all in slow motion. My friends were positioned maybe twenty feet away, as were many other museum patrons, sitting on a free bench, watching the couple about as unawkwardly as it is possible to watch a couple make out in slow motion. This was a sculpture (dance piece?) by the artist Tino Sehgal, to which my reaction was, “Well. Okay,” and trying to watch without appearing too interested.
We headed up the spiral, and as I looked for whatever I was supposed to be looking for, a kid, maybe ten years old, walked up to us, said, “Hello. This is the exhibition. Can I ask you a question? (Yes.) What is progress?” I was totally disoriented and a little freaked out that someone had conscripted a child to work as a part of the exhibition, but followed him up the spiral with my friends somewhat hesitantly, talking about progress all the while. Then the kid led us up to a teenager, summarized our responses for her, and she took us up from there.
That’s the gist of the exhibition: talking and walking, a few big ideas posed to you by progressively older participants. It concluded at the very top of the rotunda, with a senior citizen, who finished by telling us the name of the exhibition and what a pleasure it was to have conversed. Simple, straightforward, direct in its methods and basic in its execution; disconcertingly one-note, but not a bad note to dwell on. I began thoroughly unconvinced, but finished energized, at the height of a spiral, looking down at a couple obliviously making out in slow-motion, feeling the same kind of subtle euphoria and optimism that I do after a good, long run.
It was effective because although it was one-note, that note wasn’t static; it grew and evolved and worked its way into my thoughts. It was staged, and it felt staged, which is part of why I was so disconcerted by both the couple and the child at first; but at a certain point, I came around to the realization that ideas spoken by actors are still ideas, that inauthentic shared experiences are still experiences shared. There was something about the medium of choice being conversation that made it invariably effective; a simulacrum of a conversation is, you guessed it, still a conversation. So that I do not know if what each actor said was utterly scripted or spontaneous, truthful or fabricated, but I do know that I had an interesting conversation with four or five different people (of increasing ages—a key point) no matter what. It wasn’t life-shattering, or even that revelatory, but it was true nonetheless. The best analogy I can think of is that it would be like taking a photo of the color red, and trying to distinguish between the photo and the original color; the distinction is in a way irrelevant: it’s still red. The truth of the perception is still there.
But with contemporary art, the question I almost always feel compelled to ask myself, explicitly or implicitly, is: is there something to mourn here? What is the loss? And with this: when all is said and done, what is left? I suppose there’s something to be said for art that is purely experiential (and this guy is all about the ephemeral, if documentation of the work is made, it becomes “inauthentic”), but something that constitutes a significant part of my art consumption is going back again and again, having the thing itself (or my experience of it) at my fingertips and eyes and ears. Perhaps part of the problem here is that this experience was good, but not great; compared to a great concert, or a great performance, I don’t think this would measure up. A lot of art that gets on my nerves confuses the intention with the result, and though I don’t think Sehgal’s committed that particular error, I don’t think it entirely works either. I often have to let things sit in the back of my head for a while before I can fully understand their impact, or before I can feel and not just know how they'll last. The problem here is that Sehgal’s piece isn’t in the back of my head; it’s still at the Guggenheim.
- the Guggenheim's page on the exhibition
- NY Times review of the exhibition
- interesting longer piece on him from NY Times magazine
*I believe the two works are called The Kiss and This Progress, though I could be wrong.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (OK Go)
I’ve been waiting for months—waiting for years—waiting for you to change; but there ain’t much that’s dumber, there ain’t much that’s dumber than pinning your hopes on the change of another. And I still need you, but what good’s that gonna do? Because needing is one thing, but getting, getting’s another.
—from OK Go’s latest album, the pleasingly titled Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, the fourth track and my initial favorite, “Needing/Getting.” Like a lot of their lyrics, they’re clever, and unlike a lot of them, more than a little heartfelt. That seems to be where their latest is aimed, bringing the self-conscious, guiltlessly indulgent brashness of their particular brand of pop towards a place a little more enigmatic. It’s a worthwhile effort, one that even succeeds occasionally, but the problem is that the album equates restraint with sophistication, ambiguity with adulthood. The band distorts their lyrics nearly beyond recognition, a veneer of production—and it does sound very fine more often than not, crackling and crunching in all sorts of shades of white—usurping the feeling the words were meant to betray. The end result isn’t bad, just a little gray, and less saturated than you had hoped. It’s all surface, textured and nuanced but surface nonetheless. And that’s too bad, because what’s there is good enough to make you wish the band had decided to grow up in their own way instead of somebody else’s, forging their own paradigm instead of their idols’.
The album traffics in nostalgia, which is not a surprising move, for them or for us these days. It’s the flipside of that knowing sway, of that determined air that lends a direction to progress, the new adult who’s just a little too old to be young. It’s not a little expected, and because of that, disappointing in equal measure. When things seem as though they’re not working out, the wise choice, the right choice, is acceptance: acceptance without compromise. It’s an admission of fallibility but a wholehearted determination to invention, to moving forward even if it’s a little stupid to do so; because every once in a while a little stupidity is demanded, and never more so than when at the beginning of something. Nostalgia, while lovely and acceptable, is the easy route in a bad way when it constitutes the greater part of your reasoning.
And essentially, that feeling is: being lost. Whether citizens or rock stars, the one thing we can agree on is being stuck in that funk and wanting something to happen. The difficulty results from a plurality of options rather than their dearth, an experience that seems like growing up all over again and is confusing because it’s not. We understand that impulse to action and needing something to happen, and the call to hearken back is understandable but not excusable; there should be leaders, not shepherds, because when you’ve discovered something that feels disconcertingly like youth you’re not ready to be gently guided; you’re ready to be told what to do so that you can joyfully and ecstatically rebel. Moderation only means something in between extremes.
The first side of that equation is securely in hand. We have the brashness of youth underneath our belt, the boom years when everything was a discovery. But now we’re on the verge of finding everything a recapitulation, of letting that luxurious distortion of stored-up knowledge and sound obscure inherent originality. It’s easy to forget that things started in chaos, that seeming atrophy can be at least as much of a spur to newness as can order. You have to reject the false duality of escapism versus realism; there are escapes in this world that involve no compromise. It’s time to move forward.
Before the earth was round, there was no end to things; no one tried to measure what they knew. Everything was warm, and everyone would love, and every contradiction was true. The sun worked twice as hard, and the moon was twice as far, and the sky was still honestly blue. But when the time came, everything spiraled in, and everyone forgot what they knew.
—from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, track nine, “Before the Earth was Round”
- WTF?
- This Too Shall Pass
- This Too Shall Pass v2
—from OK Go’s latest album, the pleasingly titled Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, the fourth track and my initial favorite, “Needing/Getting.” Like a lot of their lyrics, they’re clever, and unlike a lot of them, more than a little heartfelt. That seems to be where their latest is aimed, bringing the self-conscious, guiltlessly indulgent brashness of their particular brand of pop towards a place a little more enigmatic. It’s a worthwhile effort, one that even succeeds occasionally, but the problem is that the album equates restraint with sophistication, ambiguity with adulthood. The band distorts their lyrics nearly beyond recognition, a veneer of production—and it does sound very fine more often than not, crackling and crunching in all sorts of shades of white—usurping the feeling the words were meant to betray. The end result isn’t bad, just a little gray, and less saturated than you had hoped. It’s all surface, textured and nuanced but surface nonetheless. And that’s too bad, because what’s there is good enough to make you wish the band had decided to grow up in their own way instead of somebody else’s, forging their own paradigm instead of their idols’.
The album traffics in nostalgia, which is not a surprising move, for them or for us these days. It’s the flipside of that knowing sway, of that determined air that lends a direction to progress, the new adult who’s just a little too old to be young. It’s not a little expected, and because of that, disappointing in equal measure. When things seem as though they’re not working out, the wise choice, the right choice, is acceptance: acceptance without compromise. It’s an admission of fallibility but a wholehearted determination to invention, to moving forward even if it’s a little stupid to do so; because every once in a while a little stupidity is demanded, and never more so than when at the beginning of something. Nostalgia, while lovely and acceptable, is the easy route in a bad way when it constitutes the greater part of your reasoning.
And essentially, that feeling is: being lost. Whether citizens or rock stars, the one thing we can agree on is being stuck in that funk and wanting something to happen. The difficulty results from a plurality of options rather than their dearth, an experience that seems like growing up all over again and is confusing because it’s not. We understand that impulse to action and needing something to happen, and the call to hearken back is understandable but not excusable; there should be leaders, not shepherds, because when you’ve discovered something that feels disconcertingly like youth you’re not ready to be gently guided; you’re ready to be told what to do so that you can joyfully and ecstatically rebel. Moderation only means something in between extremes.
The first side of that equation is securely in hand. We have the brashness of youth underneath our belt, the boom years when everything was a discovery. But now we’re on the verge of finding everything a recapitulation, of letting that luxurious distortion of stored-up knowledge and sound obscure inherent originality. It’s easy to forget that things started in chaos, that seeming atrophy can be at least as much of a spur to newness as can order. You have to reject the false duality of escapism versus realism; there are escapes in this world that involve no compromise. It’s time to move forward.
Before the earth was round, there was no end to things; no one tried to measure what they knew. Everything was warm, and everyone would love, and every contradiction was true. The sun worked twice as hard, and the moon was twice as far, and the sky was still honestly blue. But when the time came, everything spiraled in, and everyone forgot what they knew.
—from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, track nine, “Before the Earth was Round”
- WTF?
- This Too Shall Pass
- This Too Shall Pass v2
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Avatar: A small footnote to a large movie
Upfront and to say it right away, I enjoyed Avatar. I was mesmerized for the better part of three hours, drawn thoroughly into a world so vividly rendered. Furthermore, the 3-D—about which I was more skeptical than not beforehand, expecting at worst to have to dodge crap flying at my face and at best a gimmick the novelty of which would wear off quickly—was kind of beautiful, underwriting the lushness of the film with an almost minimal elegance, a new aesthetic. The world had a depth which made immersion that much more effortless, and the varying planes of depth brought to mind those staggered dioramas, or those animations where everything takes place on two or three discrete fields of action.
It is a testament to the success of the world created by the film that I found the story within it compelling more often than not, a triumph of technique that emerges as artistic. That said, it’s a shame it wasn’t a better movie. If it was as awesome as it was with a narrative as lousy as it had, it makes me wish to see the movie that could have been made if the graphics weren’t the only thing doing the heavy lifting. And though it’s beside the point to say that if Avatar were rendered as a stage script with a minimal set it would be nigh-unwatchable, it’s worth saying once anyway if only to get it out of your system. What happens in its world is oddly, inexplicably compelling (I almost said subtly, but say what you will about it, Avatar is not a subtle movie), but that stems not from anything exceptional in its plot or characters or all that jazz, but the need to stay in its world for just a few minutes longer. That need could have been tied to virtually any motivation and be rendered nearly as urgent, as its environs would still demanded to be lived in, breathed in and stared at longingly through surprisingly cool glasses in wave-of-the-future 3D.
That its narrative is one of the most self-congratulatorily tolerant and fundamentally imperialistic narratives in the cultural lexicon is a matter of convenience rather than any deep-seated malice on the film’s part. The natives in this film—a mashup of virtually every quote-unquote indigenous or primitive cultural stereotype the film could get its hands on (real and fictional both)—are, as usual, in tune with nature and love one another and in really good shape and stuff. As the story dictates, their worth is uncountable as compared with the malignancy of what is corporate, and they deeply deserve to be left in peace after the friendly imperialist shows them the way to war, salvation, and their need for an enlightened leader.
But this is (rather unfortunately) nothing unusual; these convictions are skin-deep at best, because apparently that’s all three dimensions are good for. After we cast aside any noun to which the modifier “nominal” can apply, what are we left with? With what is still an engrossing world, a thoroughly awesome film. I admire the work’s dedication to that childish joy of creation and fantasy, and its success in reinvigorating the experience so thoroughly that to complain seems almost beside the point. I truly fell into the scope of its world, and there is also the critic’s satisfaction to be had of a pop-cultural phenomenon that can be legitimately got behind. But now, after having had some time to let it mull and stew in my head, it turns out the film was perhaps shallower than it seemed, that the resonance that comes from true depth was lacking. So while it was awesome, I wish it were better.
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