Day: January 24, 2010

Paddy Johnson has posted her thoughts on the Boris Groys lecture at SVA, linking some of his rhetoric to the surf clubs and other artists working on the internet. Agree his ideas give those activities some theoretical heft (this blog is all over the "weak repetitive gesture" and "low visibility" as strategems, avant garde or otherwise) but it may require some creative misinterpretation since he doesn't seem to actually read blogs.

Last August Johnson tweeted a Frieze article quoting Groys ("Reflecting on the profusion of the blogs and the mysteries of the readership, Groys mused, 'I am convinced they are being written for God,' later clarifying, 'who, of course, is dead.'") which I made fun of ("meaning no one is reading me"). In his lecture he noted the author of personal cat site A never commented on personal cat site B but seemed OK with that; at least they weren't watching TV.

SVA's press release claimed he would be talking about "artistic rights [beginning] to manifest themselves as general human rights" which seemed ridiculous but that was not part of his talk. Elsewhere he differentiates between artists using the "weak" sign subversively and political agitprop-ists (or terrorists) pursuing the "strong" sign but overall his critique seems to be that politics have left art, which is the opposite of what SVA was saying he would say.

Frieze called him an “imp of the perverse” dispensing “nihilist irony” so his actual beliefs may not be that easy to pin down. Will read his recent book Art Power and report back.