Last time I griped about how art museum curators have hijacked art by selecting artists not on talent but on their ability to produce conceptual bullshit. In writeups on exhibit pieces, curators no longer suggest what the artist might be trying to say; they state it with authority. It comes with a fat slice of their political views, and is yours for the price of an admission ticket.
A favorite example comes from a 2003 exhibit of works by Sam Durant I saw at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibit included Durant’s Partially Buried 1960s/70s Dystopia Revealed (Mick Jagger at Altamont), now on display at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Durant’s piece involves drawings, piles of dirt, and full-size tar paper shacks, obviously tied (derivative, some might say…) to Robert Smithson’s famous Partially Buried Woodshed on the campus of Kent State University. As the Chicago curator explains it:
Durant parallels this symbolic historical comparison with the way in which Smithson’s Partially Buried Woodshed came to memorialize not only the students who were killed at Kent State, but in many ways the promise of the 1960s, an entropy unto itself.
While viewing Partially Buried 1960s/70s Dystopia you listen to some tape loops of Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones and are supposed to think about the contrast between the peaceful Woostock festival and the Altamont concert where four people were killed in violence as the Stones performed Brown Sugar. I did in fact think of those things; I was instructed to do so.
The LACMA writeup explained how Durant’s drawings “provocatively bring together the racist misogynist lyrics with references to process-based art from the same period.”
I’ve never really cared for the Rolling Stones, but I object. I have nothing against Durant’s piece, though he’s been at this for about fifteen years and some fresh dirt might be warranted. But its meta-art, the insipid write-ups that follow it, that I see as truly shallow works of idleness and impotent stupidity recycled among curator whores looking for handouts from limousine liberals.
This blog post is an appeal to wealthy ex-hippie donors to say you’ve had enough. After all, you guys were there when Jagger sang Brown Sugar.
I recall that the Rolling Stones toured with Ike and Tina Turner. They obviously outright worshipped Howlin’ Wolf, as is obvious in footage of Brian Jones introducing Howlin’ Wolf on a televised 1964 performance. The Stones seemed to revere Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon too; the references in the Stones’ music and lyrics are obvious. Jagger toured with Stevie Wonder and later Living Colour I believe. Also Billy Preston, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, and Peter Tosh. So it might be just a touch of a history rewrite to call Jagger a racist.
“Well the gal’ in danger, de gal in chains, but she keep on pushin’, would you do the same?
These are the words to Sweet Black Angel, a 1972 Rolling Stones song where Jagger pays tribute to political activist Angela Davis, then in prison on a murder charge. Oh the irony of it. It almost warrants an art exhibit.
The Rolling Stones were one of the first, along with the Beatles, to make SURE the writers of the blues and rock-and-roll songs they covered were paid the proper royalties.
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