Rob Pruitt at MOCAD

(link)

Pruitt's insecure teenage aestheticism. The high school unknown of the instructor's measure of quality, the criteria vague, the grades a mystery, and the student in fear unknowing "good," knows only that enough will be enough decides instead to produce "enough," the fearful attempt to avoid the qualitative mess of "good" by supplanting the factual criteria of enough: measured, quantified, and no one can say the student didn't put in enough, its right there in it, even alongside his mates more masterful aesthetics, the student not knowing the criteria was "good" was inside him all along, its that kind of movie, and everyone feels empathy for the kid whose insecurity shines so bright, its got a kind of pathos, and teacher smiles paternally, stating Yes, Pruitt, That's enough.


see too : Rob Pruitt at Gavin Brown

Rob Pruitt at Gavin Brown



No one is ever going to stop Rob Pruitt. You can’t evict the returned prodigal son, that would be too.... ironic, like being stuck in an Alanis Morisette song, stuck in the 90’s with a teenage artist that just turned 50, 50, and still kicking holes in the drywall and smoking ciggies in rebellion (to what?) and getting the couch sandy, and we put up with the loud music in hopes he’ll eventually grow wings and grow up and make something of interest. But he’s got the loudest soundsystem on the bloc, screaming, and a lot of cool people like to ride in the irony of his obviousness mistaken for interest. The Pepsi style of corporate “throwbacks” - doodling on notebook cover “paintings” - couldn’t even be called nostalgic it’s such an empty gesture, runaway on the cheap high-school amphetamines of vampiring of his studio assistants, the young people that make these, mining their 90’s childhoods for Pruitt’s empty laugh, and what’s mistaken for dumb is actually sinister, that no matter how old Pruitt or his schtick gets, he’s like “That’s what I love about High-school kids, I get older, they stay the same age.”