It's not often that I talk about The Bad Brains. I suppose I could talk about the legendary, whacked out, ferocious uber-hard core band to whomever I choose. Whether said conversationalist would really care, or appreciate the many threads that this timely band knotted the rock world up into, is the issue. Apparently Andrew Wagner, new editor of American Craft magazine, cares. Recently he spoke at a craft conference and opened his talk with a video viewing of the Bad Brains performing "Pay to Cum", drawing parallels between the punk rock world of yore and the DIY alt-craft world of today. "Of course", you say, "the links are apparent." BUT to an editor of a national magazine? This is not the market-driven, editorial stance of a man burning with desire to climb a Conde Nast-style stairway to success. Andrew Wagner would not be interested in that kind of a fuddy duddy staircase, as he was one of the founding fathers of DWELL magazine, a forward marching interior design mag that knows a thing or two about innovative stairs. Wagner's commentary left many attendees feeling cut out of the craft loop. I suppose artisans who have trained for years, studied at prestigious schools and labored through the assigned career tracks do no take well to untraditional upstarts trying to change the way the world is viewed. My question is, where does this lead us?
I am positively overtaken with glee at Wagner's cross-pollinating the
world of craft with American Hardcore. Too often, the standard of measurement used to assess the artistic worth, value, achievement, and place of something is in the dollars of the original idea. That is to say, everything made today is compared to what has already been made in the said sub-division and therefore the limits of how to read this "thing" have already been established, and then mildly modernized. So we rarely get to look at an heirloom potato through the lens of 16th century Venetian glass, or talk about quilts made by share croppers in the same breath as Sun Ra. I suppose we can if we are in a French art film, but it is usually assumed you have smoked an awful large heap of ganja to seriously compare or contrast different mediums, methods and constructs, never mind, varied time periods and ideas.
In last week's New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wrote a piece on magic that I wouldn't have given a second glance at, except I truly enjoy Gopnik's writing. On top of the colorful characters and hidden worlds he exposed, Gopnik described an analogy about the making of magic that opened up the imaginary debate that was raging in my head about the art of how we evaluate. "The better it is done the harder it is to see that anything has happened." Eureka! Often when we look at art, watch dance, or tune in to the Tour de France we see a hidden expertise that, when truly profound, makes the hours of repetition, study and exertion melt away. When we listen to a band that picked up their instruments for the first time last week, or receive a hand made valentine from a child, we see the labor and oddity. The space between their achievement and accepted excellence is noticeable and assumed to be a problem. What if it wasn't? Is the problem that rules haven't been met?
So much of what is evaluated when we judge heavy metal guitar, painting, or knitting is technique, which is a result of rules of order that need to be met before the public feels safe being invited in to assess. Is it because we all then know the rules and won't be taken off guard by some breach of security? What if I don't like the rules or perhaps the boring dialog? How then does this discussion grow to include more varied responses to the world? How do we move beyond technique? Or mere good looks?
There is a "new" rock station on the New York City FM dial. I can't even tell you it's name or where it is, because it isn't really new in the sense of offering you anything you haven't already heard. But I did hear an ad that sounded more like a tutorial, about how today's new rock station is all about variety, and that's good. But of course I didn't truly understand that phrase because the music they then played was rather just like the canon of rock that we all know and...know. I was bemused by their idea of variety. How do we make variety look like something you already know...isn't that what the modern marketplace is based on?
I am reading a fascinating book right now, very overdue at my local library, called "The Discovery of France" by Graham Robb. I started this book because of an interest in France, but kept on reading because it is a gorgeous weaving on how modernity shapes, splits apart, unites, and rids humans of simplicity, and individuality, in favor of progress. Robb spins truly intriguing tales of villages across France that had never looked much beyond their borders until the French Revolution ushered in a government that looked to tax and describe these varied peoples as one. France's borders had coupled disparate groups, posing as a country, but the industrialization of the late nineteenth century started to lessen the unique groups and homogenize some of their standards of living. Not just historical, it is a sociological tale of how humans from small idiosyncratic tribes grew into a systematic nation. Talk about marketing.
Are you that Trouble who made the Lord Quas mixtape? Maybe it is a stupid question.
Posted by: Jan | March 24, 2008 at 12:52 PM
no, i am not.
Posted by: trouble | March 24, 2008 at 02:30 PM
This post is oozing with melty goodness!
Posted by: citykitty888 | March 24, 2008 at 04:02 PM