Her Mom: A Found Poem
She’d spent most of her time in factories
or in kitchens, stocking shelves
or making beds in hotels
She’d never had health insurance
Her $11,000 a year paycheck was too much
for Medicaid
so she had to quit her job
apply for disability
and pay the first hospital bills with her savings
F–k, I’m so sick of this country.
The following URLs link to various articles about anti-art. Some dispute the opinion that I offer in my previous posting.
Making art out of anti-art by Travis Hugh Culley
(a very well written article)
Anti-Art Is Not Art by Michelle Marder Kamhi
The “stuckist” argument against anti-art
(The “stuckists” are an interesting phenomenom of their own – a bit too proud of being stupid)
What is anti-art anyway? Can anti-art even exist? Isn’t anti-art still art?
These are all good questions. Anti-art is obviously still art. It exists within the cultural context of the art world and it cannot exist without art. Before one is tempted to be smugly dismissive of the anti-art movement though, one needs to consider that just as anti-art exists within the world of art – art cannot exist within the broader context of culture without its own opposite – which is anti-art. So, anti-art must exist, even it it is a part of the art world. This is akin to the idea that post-modernism requires modernism to exist or there would be nothing for it to be “post”.
OK, so in a nutshell, anti-art is still art but anti-art does exist. So what is anti-art anyway? I like to think of anti-art not so much as being “against” art, but as being more of an “antidote” to the dominant culture of art. Anti-art is art at the margins. It is art that exists independently of the dominant commerce driven art world. It exists even independently of the dominant so-called anti-art of the academic world (even if many artists involved with anti-art are a part of that world). Anti-art is art that exists and is created purely at the desire of the artist, for the edification of the creator. It does not depend on approval from anybody else. It doesn’t even require the approval of other anti-artists. This does not mean that communities of like-minded creators cannot exist. Artists or anti-artists, or anti-art artists are still human – are still social beings. Why should they be excluded from broader communities?
On April 3rd of this year (2006) the members of Fluxlist established a collaborative community Blog. Incredibly, in less than two weeks the Fluxlist Blog has 36 members and has agathered more than 120 posts. All of these posts incorporate the Fluxus spirit of intermedia and collaboration. I recomend a visit by anybody interested in the new directions that Fluxus is taking while still maintaining the heart and soul of the original Fluxus movement.
[[image:fluxing-ffz.jpg::center:0]]
http://fluxlist.blogspot.com/
Be sure to click on the “Archives” at lower right.
It is a busy blog with much to experience!
This project by Allen Bukoff is absolutely fabulous!
I have included one graphic and a bit of text, but you need to visit the site to get the whole picture.
[[image:bukoff-hole.gif:Portable Hole by Allen Bukoff:left:0]]
The (w)hole story is can be found at: http://www.fluxus.org/FluxusMidwest/PortableHole/index.html
