Let me see: what could I lay before you to concretize the acedia that characterizes Conceptual writing? Well, how about this:
Yes, as trumpeted by both conceptualist “author” Vanessa Place and her dopey-eyed peeps at Harriet, Place’s … well, what it is? a “book”? a “work of art”? … let’s just say “latest release” (such as one might enjoy some onanistic evening while pondering the idea of a canvas Duchamp had sense enough never to paint: “Nude Barthes Descending Staircase”)…; to reprise mid-sentence, Vanessa Place, lawyer and con-woman, managed to “sell out” (are we surprised?) this work (is it fair to call it a “work”? oh why not—though it lacks the perfume of sweat and midnight oil) at the launch of this, “the first product of VanessaPlace Inc. […] on May 3, 2013 at Cage, NYC.”* Neither Harriet nor the freshly incorporated Ms. Place state how many copies constituted the “limited edition,” and as a poet I am loath to resort to math, so suffice it to say that VP managed to sucker a large enough number of those who live at the intersection of Credulous and Tasteless to earn (earn?) her “product” a mention on the Official Blog of the Poetry Foundation. All this attention isn’t surprising. After all, the ever-groundbreaking Vanessa managed to squeeze 50 bucks a copy out of her audience. (Audience can’t be right; there is nothing here to hear … except, oh yes, what Conceptualists love best: the rustle of money.) Anyway, what more could we ask for as we stumble toward another bankrupt weekend in corporatized America?
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* Cage, NYC is evidently so ultra hip that a Google Search reveals nothing about it. Could it be a location akin to Nabokov’s Zembla? Was Place’s “launch” a fantasy launch? Does Place really exist? Is there a There there? Only the proprietors of Cage, NYC know the answers—and they’re probably too drunk to remember. That’ll teach ’em to serve absinthe at one of Vanessa’s soirées.
for those yet interested:<br /><br />here is that "circumference" piece:<br /><br />"the center has no circumference"<br />http://edbaker.maikosoft.com/walk_thru_2007/00003/00003.html<br /><br />just behind "her" click the / any image and it will<br />stand out big..
life/reality/poems/art ?<br />these days are in those<br />re:called<br /><br />& I am in "it" for the<br />phantasies neurosis <br />that simply come&go<br /><br />and I am of a mind that<br />(as I painted / wrote a dozen<br />years ago:<br /><br />"what if you discovered that<br />the center has no circumference?"<br />
One of the essential differences (maybe the most important difference) between art and science is that the goal of science is to create results that can be repeated over and over, theoretically an infinite number of times under the right conditions. So, for instance, 2 plus 2 always equals 4; the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is always equal to the sum of the squares of the other
pee est:<br />here is Nada Vigo circa 1970 :<br /><br /> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKW9-6NBHQE<br /><br />what a crock of crap… no wonder I dropped out <br /><br />one should not connect Bill's "stuff" with all of this <br />…. crap<br /><br /> <br /><br />
<i>A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again</i>, as David Foster Wallace put it. You're right: Place has reprised what needed no repeating. If there's anything to the avant-garde it's that certain productions <i>need never be done again</i> because they've been done once and for all. This isn't just an A-G thing, of course. William Stafford (no A-G-er) has a poem that
The main problem I have with Place's piece is been there done that ages ago. From Wikipedia, which is good enough:<br /><br />Artist's Shit (Italian: "Merda d'artista") is a 1961 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, each 30 grams and measuring 4.8×6.5cm, with a label in Italian, English, French, and German stating:<br />Artist's
as Lester Barron said to me in 1967<br />after I couldn't come up with an answer<br />to his question : "What is art?" :<br /> "Whatever sells is art."<br /><br />(then he wrote me an hundred dollar check for one of my paintings. I took the checque. Two weeks later Lester died. Nobody went to his funeral.<br /><br />I have, I think saved in my computer, two pieces
Oh, I like that kind of thing too, Lyle! But it's not "conceptual" the way Place is. Place is all surface—which is the point of her conceptualism: to leach every last grain of meaning out of art, discourse, intellect, and emotion. Her <i>$20</i> doesn't compare with the flashing WAR sign, which in its form and performance made a salient point, i.e. it <i>had meaning</i>. Place
Every once on a great while, I come across a piece of art that might qualify as "conceptual" that I really like — it has in fact happened, now and then.<br /><br />One that comes to mind right away is a piece I saw in the mid-1970's at the Chicago Art Institute, in a gallery that featured hyper-modernist art pieces. A lot of it was oddball WTF? stuff, or things where I had the