The Plagiarist Is Present

came more than once. Her expression never December. Of course, the apology? Not his. Not magazine’s art critic, the ubiquitous Jerry Saltz, be speaking to an insider audience. Certainly 21. Now to the five little paintings shaped changed, nor did her posture. She didn’t cry, by a long shot.... looks as if he’s being played by Paul Giamatti, that seems to me the case when faced with like vaginas, five little paintings that relate to but people in the audience did. This is what and Shia LeB and Jay-Z have ripped off (or the possibility that Shia LaBoeuf might be copies and values from high to low. The the art world calls ‘durational performance’. 11. This gets me thinking about five little paintings, borrowed from) Marina A. Both have been trying to make ‘art.’ But, one of the things I shaped like an eye, a slit, a vagina.... In fact, inspired by her The Artist is Present stare-down, love about art (not in quotes) is its ability to 22. I am looking at them now, and something 5. The invitation to Jay-Z’s performance says: their vaginal suggestiveness is impossible the one memorialized in the HBO documentary, compress complex ideas and address them like a wire runs diagonally through them. Each Plagiarist “The performance is an experimental and to ignore. Hold on and I’ll get to how they the one with the Tumblr, “Marina Abramovic´ in one piece, that it can ask us to ponder seems strung against a gray sky that gives collaborative one, where rap’s own history connect to Shia and Marina and Jay-Z. Just Made Me Cry”, the one that has made her the these ideas. It’s what I love about those five them the eerie look of hovering UFOs. They are with endurance and duration will be at play.” keep those paintings in your mind. Here’s an most famous female artist today, where people paintings. It’s why every day since I first saw all so small you’re forced to get close to see Is Present image of them: lined up for hours on 53rd Street waiting to them I’ve been thinking about them and what what’s going on. One is a painting of a photo, sit and stare before her. The experience was they have to say about art now and art-making one covered in something heavy and brown BY JENNIFER supposed to offer up something real, a genuine now, feminism and performance and fame and like burlap as if what’s beneath needs hiding. exchange in this our age of social networks originality and values and China. That too. I’ll A small hint of light emerges from the cloaked KABAT and supposedly ‘not-real’ exchanges. Shia was get to it all, I swear. Keep those five paintings rectangle as if it’s shining and can barely be impassive as he addressed us (well, the ‘us’ in your mind. concealed. Another is an iPhone photo and the 1. Shia LaBeouf cries wearing a brown paper who queued for him on the streets of LA. That fifth is a painting combining all four copies of bag on his head with two holes cut for eyes. ‘us’ isn’t actually me). 19. First though, Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga naked. copies. They are, of course, about originality, Jay-Z dances for ‘art world luminaries’. The But what is he offering ‘us’? Somehow Lady Gaga naked in a stream in upstate New about value(s), but there is also they way they The Abramovic Method #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2013–2015 • five dancing and crying are performance art — or his entire play at fraud and copying, originality and York. Lady Gaga naked wrapped around a look unmistakably like women’s genitals (not to works: acrylic, charcoal, Polaroid on canvas/ acrylic, stolen from it. 6. Jay-Z only lasted six hours. Shia a week. linen, linen thread on canvas/ acrylic on canvas, apology seems like he’s trying to say something giant crystal. Bathed in sunlight she straddles mention the one that’s covered as if it needs to painted by Yin Xunzhi, Dafen, China/ archival digital bigger, something that he thinks might be art, the rock, her brown hair rumpled and tousled, be hidden....). I can’t separate them from when I 2. LaBeouf sits in an art gallery in Los Angeles 7. In “Picasso Baby”, Jay-Z, aka Shawn Carter, print, mounted on Sintra/ oil and charcoal on canvas, but what? plate glass windows behind her. I promise first saw them hanging in an art gallery’s office. as fans line up for hours down the block and sings, “Fuck it I want a billion/ Jeff Koons 24 x 36 in (61 x 91.4 cm) each. this is not some restaging of 1970s soft-core I didn’t want to look too closely. Partly because through an alley waiting for the chance to sit ballons. I just wanna blow up/ Condos1 in my 15. His plagiarizing Daniel Clowes looked at porn. This is the Abramovic´ Method. It’s a they were in the office and asking to see what’s alone before the star and stare into his eyes. (Or, condos. I wanna row of/ Christie’s with my They’re by Rochelle Feinstein. They’re also first like straight-up theft as if he didn’t realize cross between EST and ESP, New Age and hanging behind closed doors feels like intruding, what you can see of them through the paper missy, live at the MoMA/ Bacons and turkey called The Abramovic Method and serve as taking someone else’s words was wrong or yoga. It involves crystals and deep breathing and though gallery offices are generally considered bag). Cameras aren’t allowed. They’re smuggled bacons, smell the aroma.” a meditation on originality, truth, abstraction. that he might get caught, as if he, a star, were openness. It’s also rigid. You have to follow each extra exhibition space. Then there’s the subject, in. He remains impassive. The bag is tear-stained. She riffs on Abramovic´ to get there. I riff on above the realms (and rules) governing you step exactly. (I love that something designed which resembles what we women generally He wears a tux. As you enter, you’re offered a 8. Marina Abramovic´ arrives at the shoot in her paintings to get there. and I and was literally celestial. Then, there’s to make us open is so controlled. That’s very hide, while one painting is actually hidden. Plus choice of props to bring with you. They include a limo wearing a long black gown. When he the skywriting an apology in the skies of LA funny). Everyone who sees Abramovic´’s pieces painting only a vagina and isolating it from the angry tweets written on paper like messages performs for her, they stare at each other, 12. A funny thing happened on the way from A on New Year’s Day. And, wearing a bag on his going forward will have to be trained in her rest of a woman’s body makes it harder to from fortune cookies, a whip, whiskey, candy locking eyes and foreheads. She is barefoot.2 to Z, from Abramovic´ to Jay-Z. Here are some head scrawled, “I am not famous anymore” at eponymous method and sign a contract saying contemplate than a traditional nude, which and a Transformers toy. Apparently you can more of the lyrics of that song “Picasso Baby”: the premiere of Nymphomaniac at the Berlin she will agree to ‘commit’ to watching them comes with centuries of art historical tradition do with these implements — and Shia — as 9. Afterwards people in the art world describe “It ain’t hard to tell, I’m the new Jean Michel/ Film Festival. Or the second act of skywriting, for at least six hours. Naturally you will have (read male gaze).6 you wish. Throughout he doesn’t respond. He feeling “punked” by it all, punked not their Surrounded by Warhols..../ Twin Bugattis outside “Stop Creating” and a third time skywriting a to surrender your phone, watch and camera simply stares and cries. But, if you can’t see the word but mine. A friend writes to me: the Art Basel.” dictum to “Start Creating” again. It came on in advance. tears, is he really crying? Also, he’s an actor; he the heels of his LA performance art ‘show’, In the film Lady Gaga and Marina A should be able to well up on command. The sign Jay-Z had water, many 13. Art here is just another commodity. where he sat in a room for eight hours a day are both in coveralls sitting on bar stools in a on the gallery door declares the piece is called breaks, adulation, clapping, Abramovic´’s performances have often been letting us confront him. So, what is going on stream, their backs to each other. I’m not sure #IAMSORRY. ego-patting, not to mention about duration and endurance, suffering, not here? Plagiarism, joke, art? Or maybe he’s just quite what this says about the method. I like the glam life he raps about exactly something that’s easy to buy or sell. trying to distract us from his bad sex and bad streams in upstate New York probably more 3. One summer afternoon the ‘art world to return to, and the artist It’s hard to commodify stabbing yourself or accent in Nymphomaniac. than the next person.

Load more