092-094_2008 FEATURETEMPLATE11/10/114:15PMPage2 92 D e c e m b e r 2011 A R T n e w s P C n M C L o a o O a n i l C n n l s e K z t e g e W o n e d n I s S i A B e E , r M r F p t o R o e A n O e r s z M d m s e e o T s I O c d I P : a i ’ a a A t “ t r t L l i e h t o i i e e s n C u t C a e a t e u a n N n d b s o a i , a e . n 1 r n 0 e 9 t ” c 1 t 6 e 4 V C 4 , , o . l 2 M a l 0 t r a a k 1 y i 1 r S , . e 1 t H , o 9 Z u e 6 u g c 1 r k o . i c l J e B h a y a , s 1 p a l l 9 e d r 1 r d e 6 r J a e o . d P s h i s n i n e i g s n r , o g a TOP: CLARK STOECKLEY; CENTER: ©JASPER JOHNS/LICENSED BY VAGA, NEW YORK/BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/PRIVATE COLLECTION; BOTTOM: PHOTO: ©MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/LICENSED BY SCALA, ART: ©2011 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/SIAE, ROME/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK/MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, GIFT OF JO CAROLE AND RONALD S. LAUDER *FE Pranks Dec 2011_2008 FEATURE TEMPLATE 10/27/11 4:39 PM Page 3 THE JOKE’S ON US Scholars are looking at the history of modernism through the history of its pranks BY ANN LANDI During a panel called “The Art of Pranks” As some art historians take pains to point out, pranks and at the College Art Association (CAA) conference in New York jokes are not the same thing. Merriam-Webster defines a prank last February, a participant identified as Clark Stoeckley, as “a mildly mischievous act” and a joke as “something said or “artivist,” maintained an impassive demeanor as his scholarly done to provoke laughter.” In his introductory remarks, panel copanelists delivered papers on Dada, Fluxus, and other notori - chair Beauvais Lyons, professor of art at the University of Ten - ous movements past and present. Stoeckley stood out on ac - nessee, Knoxville, and curator of the “Hokes Archives” (the count of his cop’s uniform, and when he got up to speak on the name gives a clue to his endeavors), made a PowerPoint presen - topic of New York City pranksters, identified himself as a mem - tation on a slew of artworks and activities, and performances ber of the NYPD Vandal Squad Task Force. He explained that he that fall under the rubric of “pranks.” was a former undercover detective in the East Village who be - These included Hugo Ball’s recitation of his nonsensical came a “street-art archivist” and was eventually promoted to the “sound poems” at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916; rank of lieutenant for his insider knowledge of graffiti crews and Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) and his application of a mustache activist groups. to a postcard of the Mona Lisa; George Maciunas’s Fluxus Stoeckley’s talk covered the gambits of street artists from street theater; works by Manzoni, Klein, Beuys, Warhol, and Banksy and Shepard Fairey to the Guerrilla Girls and the artist Hirst; and Andrea Fraser’s impersonation of a museum tour known as Mat Benote (Make Art That Benefits Everyone Not guide. As part of his presentation, Lyons made a pitch for aca - Only the Elite). Although he seemed a bit awkward in front of demics and critics to consider the possibility of what he called an audience, he punctuated his stories with wry observations “prank theory”—a theory that would enable scholars to study that drew appreciative laughter. “This is the stuff that really and put an official seal of approval on art history’s great brightens our day,” he remarked about the graffiti, “and in many pranksters. “I’m hoping people will reconsider the history of cases teaches cops like me a lesson about the Constitution.” modernism through prank theory,” Lyons remarked later. The presentation was so entertaining and unexpected that But are all these examples truly pranks? Wasn’t Damien Hirst this reporter wrote it up for ARTnews —only to be informed by deadly serious when he floated that shark in a tank of editors that “Lieutenant” Stoeckley had no affiliation whatso - formaldehyde? And wasn’t Warhol, when he presented his ever with the NYPD and was himself an artist with a long his - Brillo boxes and soup cans in an art gallery? Does Reverend tory of performance-based work. It was like getting rooked Billy, whose comic performances critique consumerism and cor - into buying a line of cosmetics from Rrose Sélavy. porate greed, qualify as an artist, when he has never defined But even after this revelation, one was still left wondering, himself as such (nor has any art establishment)? Were Joseph What exactly is an art prank? And why has the past century in Beuys’s “social sculptures” intended as pranks? Is trompe l’oeil particular been rich in jokes, hoaxes, forged identities, subver - a joke? What about most forms of urban graffiti? sive graffiti, and mass and solo performances with an aim to Pranks in art turn out to be as richly varied and diversely shock or annoy, as well as shenanigans that some would be resonant as their distantly analogous verbal and written equiv - loath to qualify as art? alents, which might include puns, shaggy-dog stories, bon Ann Landi is a contributing editor of ARTnews . ARTnews December 2011 93 092-094_2008 FEATURETEMPLATE11/10/114:15PMPage4 94 D e c e m b e r 2011 A R T n e w s T 1 t e R L p p C h L u a 9 n o h a O e 1 l r t o s p u C r g 0 i S t h y K n e o . t , a a W g h S t g S ë l e I o P r a a S u l a n r r E s d n B p a a o s F d R o h c G e R n e r e r t O t o k o i r s d c e M e o n s I e e M y e n n a T , n l d O ( a S 2 t i” b “ é h P r 0 é J e c ) p e 0 o L l r e a e p E 6 a g A l v FT n a . c e D d y d i h r n , r u M a i R i 1 t m a c n s 9 a a h t t - 2 a n i f s a c f 0 n , m e , R s r f . a p t o y y r , TOP RIGHT: ©2011 MAN RAY TRUST/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/ADAGP, PARIS/CNAC/MNAM/DIST. RÉUNION DES MUSÉES NATIONAUX/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK; TOP LEFT: BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/ROGER-VIOLLET, PARIS/PRIVATE COLLECTION; BOTTOM: TOM POWEL IMAGING/COURTESY THE ARTIST AND RACHEL UFFNER GALLERY, NEW YORK *FE Pranks Dec 2011_2008 FEATURE TEMPLATE 10/27/11 4:40 PM Page 5 mots, satire, doggerel, and funny lyrics. But there is a world of interventions to urge people to turn the tide of consumerism difference between a knock-knock joke and Jonathan Swift’s and stop spending money on junk. Those who do prank in the “A Modest Proposal” (which suggests that the starving Irish name of art also often have a more serious message—witness eat their own children), as there is between most of Banksy’s the Guerrilla Girls’ campaign to draw attention to institutional street art and Duchamp’s upended urinal. The former is usually gender biases in museums and galleries. good for an amused double take; the latter asks us to think Indeed, many artist “jokes” seem designed to tweak or cri - hard about how we look at art and how it is presented. tique the art establishment or the marketplace. Jasper Johns’s To some, Fountain is not a joke or a prank at all. Duchamp’s cast-bronze beer cans were reportedly crafted in response to porcelain urinal, signed “R. Mutt” and submitted in 1917 to Willem de Kooning’s remark about the dealer Leo Castelli: “That the Society of Independent Artists (which promised to exhibit son of a bitch Castelli. You could give him two beer cans and he anything accompanied by an application and a five-dollar fee), could sell them.” Piero Manzoni’s Merda d’artista (1961), a num - “had a higher purpose than whatever a joke is,” says the art bered edition of 90 cans of the artist’s feces, pokes fun at the historian and dealer Francis Naumann. “A joke usually has that avidity of some collectors. “If collectors want something inti - one quick response, for the laugh, and not much more. If it mate, really personal to the artist, there’s the artist’s own shit, was for that purpose, then it failed miserably, because it influ - that is really his,” Manzoni wrote to the artist Ben Vautier.