SWEET & SOUR: Vintage Art — with Exhaust Pipes
Sweet and Sour reporting in…….
__________
Sweet: “What are some of the outstanding or not so outstanding art things you encountered last week?”
Sour: “The vintage cars at the Doo Wop on Kanawha Boulevard last weekend. They were only outdone by the fantastic fireworks fired off the bridge Saturday night. Wow! Firework design today is getting really amazing.”
__________
Sweet: “Are you being satirical? But is it art?”
Sour: “I am completely serious. The Ultimate Pop Art. Especially the fireworks — Pop Art, get it? Pop, pop! Bang, bang! Ha ha!
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Sweet: “Funny. But I know what you mean. The Guggenheim Museum showed a big motorcycle show a few years ago. The Clay Center itself showed vintage cars inside last year. If they are considered art inside the arts establishments’ walls, the same thing should be art outside of it. Right?”
Sour: “Or is it somehow different — more refined — to be chosen to be shown in a ‘culture palace’ by some rarefied, power tripping… Whoops, I mean power-wielding arts administrator? I ask you? Personally, I loved the outside display on the river. Plus, you didn’t have to pay to get in! I think it was art as much as anything. Art even more so outside of a legit arts establishment building. The display, the carnival atmosphere, the fireworks were excellently presented, displayed and done.
Some of the paint jobs on those vintage cars were creative and excellently done. The design of the old cars is continually astounding. What a great marriage of visual design and technology. Old cars amaze me even more so each year since all cars from all countries these days are uniformly ugly in terms of visual design and getting more so. You can’t tell a Jaguar from a Ford these days! Horrible state of affairs. There are just a few cars that have good visual design today. And most of them are trucks!”
__________
Sweet: You stole those quotes from someone.
Sour: I stole those quotes from everyone. Today’s cars may run better than the notoriously finicky old-school high performers, but they look awful. And those Hummers! And the ever increasingly huge Expeditions, Escalades, etc. The higher the gas prices go, the bigger these giants get. Giving the ultimate finger to the environmentalists with these behemoth gas guzzlers.”
__________
Sweet: “Yes, I know what you mean, although I can outdo you here. No, the inevitable ‘FRIEND OF COAL’ bumper sticker on each huge SUV around here is the
thing giving the ultimate finger to the environmentalists.”
Sour: “Plus the design is not good on these behemoths, it’s just SCARY. I was riding in one the other day with some of my Friends of Coal friends, (of course! I was trying to sell them some art!) and I felt like I was up in a sand crawler. The tires were
as tall as I am and the round icon on the front grill was bigger than my head. They spent more on filling up the gas tank than buying my art! Somebody needs to
tell these people, sometimes LESS IS MORE. But not when it comes to BUYING art!”
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Sweet: “I do sort of like the hugest of the huge Cadillac Escalades. There is something feminine about their design. Feminine but scary. Like being run over by Cruella de Ville and her diamonds.”
Sour: “Well, little lumps of coal are diamonds in the making. Diamonds are a girl’s best friends, a real -life performance piece reality TV show starring Cruella de Ville, sponsored by Friends of Coal.
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Sweet: “Friends of Coal are a girl’s best friends, capable of buying her big diamonds.”
Sour: “Ha ha. And buying her big behemoth SUVs. The little environmentalists, going to the recycling plant in their little ugly non gas guzzlers or stylish Prius….. stopping at the same red light as a SUV behemoth the size of a tank with a Friend of Coal sticker. They each give the finger. David and Goliath. In this state, Goliath wins. The SUV drives over and squashes the little environmentalist. Like a
cartoon. CAR-toon, get it, ha ha.”
__________
Sweet: “Did you smoke weed or something? You are quite the comic today. On to the fireworks as Pop Art idea.”
Sour: “Well, it’s not exactly Pop Art in the Andy Warhol ironic sense. But it is popular culture that is art in my opinion. It is one of those things people just do and in this case they did it well enough to be considered art. The color, the rhythm, the balance, the form, the texture, the overall design. You could critique those fireworks in terms
of basic terms of Formalist Art Criticism — it was excellent, inventive and creative.
__________
Sweet: “I know, but speaking of environmental issues I always hope birds don’t meet their demise by being in the wrong place at the wrong time for fireworks, arty or not. But still the fireworks were fantastic.
Sour: “A little blood must be shed for genius. These pyrotechnics were art. And so were the cars. These were outstanding examples of decoration and design. The best of the best and presented in a creative but unpretentious way.”
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Sweet: “I agree and kudos to Mayor Danny Jones or whomever it was for bringing a first -rate car show and fireworks to Charleston. I admire the city powers -that -be here, and I appreciate them trying to do some new, and inventive and classy arts and
entertainment projects in our city.”
Sour: “I agree. At least the city is trying with things like Doo Wop and FestivALL Charleston and the Live at the Levy and things. A bright spot on the art scene is
being championed by City Hall, of all things. Maybe they should run the Clay Center the take over the miasma of the WV State Museum/Cafe in the Archives renovation debacle.”
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Coming up soon: Bondage photos in a Huntington coffeehaus! But is it art? Huntington’s Java Joint has up photos by Chelsea Howell, a 19 -year -old from South Point Ohio, who became fascinated with the legendary Betty Paige and is a self -professed fan of this genre, producing a series of photos with the vibe of retro light domination and bondage. “I know I have found my calling.” Howell states in her artist statement. Sour wonders, “can you get a Betty Paige Girl Scout badge these days? If you can, Chelsea certainly deserves one.”
October 14th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I have to agree that fireworks can be art, pop-art (yes, the “pop, shshshsh, bang” helps to categorize it). This should be a simple case of categorization. Isn’t art that is displayed in a museum considered “fine art”. So, wouldn’t it be kind of hard to display fireworks in an enclosed space?
October 15th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
How simply darling of sweet and sour to write me into their blogs! Diamonds ARE a girl’s best friend. Regards, Cruella de Ville, Friend of Coal.
October 16th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
[…] Sour’s most recent art pick was a Doo Wop event in Charleston. Sweet had two faves of her own: “The Great Heart War” now at W.Va. State University’s Della Brown Taylor Gallery and “Land Matters” at the Marshall University Birke Art gallery. __________ Sour: “Well, we went on about my favorite art event encountered recently. What is yours, Sweet?” Sweet: “The Great Heart War” at Marshall Univeristy’s Birke Art Gallery is entirely comprised of works in fabric by Kristie Carlisle Duncan. But they are not your traditional fabric media. This stuff is post-modern and really good.” __________ Sour: “Fabric post-modern art? But is it craft?” Sweet: “Ha ha. No, it’s not craft. Well, it has craft elements — in that fabric is traditionally a craft medium not usually considered fine art. And she used vintage cotton prints in her compositions. Although these days there are so many cross-overs and blurring of boundaries. What is craft? what is Art? Who knows most of the time? Maybe who cares? Today, part of the fabric of the art world is that there are so many innovations and experiments.” __________ Sour: “Fabric of the art world, ha ha. Nice one. Sweet: You note that her work is more post-modern than craft.” Sweet: “Craft is traditional and often labor intensive, where there is a supreme effort in terms of craftsmanship.” Sour: “In fact, they don’t call it craftsmanship for nothing. Post-modern is more like slap things together, often stealing — OK, culling – from someone else’s art or effort and putting vastly different things together. The hope is they will play well off of each other and make an interesting statement. Post-modern is almost always where the statement is supposed to stand for more than the craftsmanship. Just one of those 21st century things. A lot of styles out there. However, generally speaking post-modern is the anathema of most crafters.” __________ Sweet: “And vice versa. But in this case it works. Both craft and art. The post-modern element is that she uses all these pieces of fabric and felt and other things and creates something really original, fresh and new with them. And the compositions are excellent. Formally, they are excellent. And the narrative is wonderful, she tells a story with these paintings. It is sort of an epic surreal murder mystery. Works for me. This is an excellent show.” Sour: “I really like it, too. It is really unique. I don’t know who she is but her web site is listed on the invitation: www.thefamilychicken.net. (Later at home I checked it out. Love the egg menu! Chickens, whatever. She should ask the Southern Kitchen for all their chicken memorabilia before they close. And there are pictures of hanging the show, et cetera. Adorable. These kids today, websites and everything with their art. Excellent. Good work. Good luck with the knitting class, Kristie.) […]
October 18th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Vintage cars are the pinnacles for pop art in American culture. Nowhere else in the world has developed the relationship with cars as Americans have in the past. The design of cars in the 1950s and 60s was more about style and art more so than function. Today’s cars seem to be designed more for function than for beauty, and art.
November 15th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Thank you for taking interest in my work.
And is it art?
Yes, I firmly believe it is.
Interested to see what you write about it.