Friday, July 5, 2019

Yngve Holen at Modern Art


(link)

Commodities made permanent. Are we to put some social science program toward this? some anthropology towards bronzed culture. The PR seems to think so: "one of the questions posed [...] is, what kind of concepts are introduced to the developing brains of children, and in what way does this guide their understanding of the world around them?" Art becomes (has become) a process for turning culture into artifacts of that culture, sediments of it, wiped across paintings and assemblaged in sculpture, like flypaper art collecting the carcass of. Preloaded with content for walltexts or children's television. Collectible too.
If the dominance of mass culture includes threat to diminish art that we could call castration, then art's turning that culture into a fetish item is classic Freud: "a token of triumph over the threat of castration and a protection against it." You can't cut off what I own of yours.


See too: Yngve Holen at Fine Arts, SydneyYngve Holen at Kunsthalle BaselYngve Holen at Modern ArtDavid Lieske at MUMOK,