 Artist Jack Goldstein recently died at his home outside LA, sadly a suicide. Jim Lewis has a tribute in Slate (the slide show is also worth a look). He writes "Goldstein is probably best-known for his early film segments. In [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1975], the MGM lion is isolated on a red background, his roar looped over and over, until it attains the status of an annunciation that heralds nothing but its own presence." Those are beautiful words, but if we think of the clip as an annunciation it's because of information extraneous to the work itself: that the lion comes before the movie. Except, we don't think of that knowledge as extraneous because it's so ubiquitous in our culture. That's what the piece is about: what Craig Owens meant (I think) when he repurposed the term "allegory" for the "pictures generation" of media-savvy artists--a code instantly recognized by everyone, which would be discussed in the '00s in terms of memes or branding. "Heralding nothing but its own presence" probably also doesn't get at how annoying the loop is if you stay in the gallery longer than five minutes. Like the techno or industrial music that followed, meaning is reduced to pure noise, which becomes a new kind of meaning.
Also, I suspect (hope) Lewis is just trying to ingratiate himself with Slate's conservative readership when he calls the words spectacle and simulacrum "risibly dated." As our recent experience with shock-and-awe bombing and staged statue-toppling shows, the concepts are very much alive, and no better buzzwords have actually come along.
On that subject, here's a later work by Goldstein, one of the photorealist paintings from the '80s (still checking on the particulars): 
|
Artist Jack Goldstein recently died at his home outside LA, sadly a suicide. Jim Lewis has a tribute in Slate (the slide show is also worth a look). He writes "Goldstein is probably best-known for his early film segments. In [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1975], the MGM lion is isolated on a red background, his roar looped over and over, until it attains the status of an annunciation that heralds nothing but its own presence." Those are beautiful words, but if we think of the clip as an annunciation it's because of information extraneous to the work itself: that the lion comes before the movie. Except, we don't think of that knowledge as extraneous because it's so ubiquitous in our culture. That's what the piece is about: what Craig Owens meant (I think) when he repurposed the term "allegory" for the "pictures generation" of media-savvy artists--a code instantly recognized by everyone, which would be discussed in the '00s in terms of memes or branding. "Heralding nothing but its own presence" probably also doesn't get at how annoying the loop is if you stay in the gallery longer than five minutes. Like the techno or industrial music that followed, meaning is reduced to pure noise, which becomes a new kind of meaning.
Also, I suspect (hope) Lewis is just trying to ingratiate himself with Slate's conservative readership when he calls the words spectacle and simulacrum "risibly dated." As our recent experience with shock-and-awe bombing and staged statue-toppling shows, the concepts are very much alive, and no better buzzwords have actually come along.
On that subject, here's a later work by Goldstein, one of the photorealist paintings from the '80s (still checking on the particulars):
- tom moody 4-12-2003 8:25 pm