The Keeper of the Ordinary

Barbara Kishenblatt-Gimblett, what a name. What a gal. She was the focus of Suzi Galibiks interview for this weeks readings, and what a star she is. Barbara described herself as a “curator of vernacular arts”. Naturally I was first confused on what this meant, so I went ahead and looked up ‘vernacular’ (the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or region) and then ‘curator’ to get the most technically meaning (a keeper or custodian of a museum). What a unique way of describing oneself! The keeper of the ordinary. Sounds so professional. Actually it reminds me of some tribe, living untouched by civilization, keeping the ways of the original humans. Or something ridiculous like that, very scared, very important. 

Anyways, that’s enough of a side-note. Let’s get down to business.

She touched on topics that have been discussed throughout the whole book, I found her ideologies very approachable to new-comers. Or at least the way she talked about her position and feelings about the art world where non-aggressive. Which was appreciated. Too many times in this book I have felt that idea were thrown at me. It was like a brick in the face. Speaking of which. Tannaz. Whoa. What a interesting individual. I don’t think I have ever met or heard a more random artist. I honestly didn’t get it, any of it. She would show a piece and say that it came from like 28 different influences, which makes sense, we draw on multiple experiences and visions to create. But the things she pulled out had no connection and made absolutely no sense. First it was a test tube, then she read a poem, then it looked like robots and then were tulips in cinderblocks. It was like jumping trains, but each train was a new idea and they where going different directions. I tried to follow, guess I just couldn’t make the jump. Not today at least. 

But I don’t want to criticize her work. Its like what Barbara said, “I don’t have to like everything I see in order to find it worthwhile. Liking it is not a measure of worth, of value”. Tannaz’s work had a great amount of careful thought and care poured into it. And for that I appreciate it. But I will say this, the main problem I had with her work was that it couldn’t  fully be understood simply by looking at it. She had so many random and intricate influences. It was actually became very frustrating because I couldn’t see the connections. That’s why I looked her work up on the Oregon website, I loved what I saw. This might be partly because I was taking it at face value, and not trying to analyze and pick out exactly what idea she is trying to put across. So, I guess I do enjoy her work, just not the explanations that came with it. 

Back to Barbara. (I liked her) ((I’m just going to talk about things I found interesting in the reading)) She had this idea that we need to scrap distinctions and start all over again. She said this when asked if gardens where for aesthetic pleasure or for food production...I liked this because its back to the basics that everything is beautiful and we need to go back to appreciating, essentially, everything in the earth.. She also touched on the ‘art of living which she explained gives value to form. I took that as it gives us as humans value. Neato.

Visual Response. For some reason two images kept popping up into my head during lecture today, 1. Monet’s haystack sunset series ( no idea why, but it happened) and 2. Kanye West, this was mainly because I felt that Tannaz had a slight ego,. I felt like I was being talked at, not to during lecture. So Kanye seemed fitting, you know what they say, Kanye’s almost as big as Kanye thinks he is. Yup, that’s all I got.