Went to the Met today to check out an exhibit of Japanese mandalas that may or may not be navigational maps to the heavens. I was a little surprised to see a set by Robert Longo from "Men in Cities" right in the main entry hall as I was leaving.from the placard: "..inspired by the increasingly realistic violence in cinema and the kind of thrashlike dancing in downtown clubs such as CBGBs, Tier 7, and the Mudd Club."
It is forever associated with No Wave too as Longo did the cover for Branca's The Ascension. Poking around the Internet for more info on the set, I see that another work from the series featured prominently in the film adaptation of Less Than Zero. That sort of brings it full circle in my mind, but more so in a way that is alienating to the present. Let me expound: I am reading this book now called Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi that I requested from the library on account of an interesting write-up in the NYTimes. Main character is currently at the Venice Biennale, wandering around, getting really stoked about doing coke on an art yacht, like this is the pinnacle of human existence. yawn. And I thought, if this were some extreme zeitgeistian shit like Less Than Zero ther'd be some folks dying and that'd be interesting. I surprised myself with that inner comment. But really, reading about people using drugs isn't at all interesting without some sort of moral repercussions, as haughty as that sounds.
And where is Barbara Ess? Teaching at Bard now maybe? No Wave completely shaped my youth and now I am feeling age advancing and it appears that no wave has frozen itself in my cultural bones so as to be a representation of the "best" art, not that I was even there, or born. There was a sweet demographic of peers for a moment that was (re)creating similar sounds. Really I think the appeal/ continued affect of Longo is that it is/was a visual association with an avant-garde sound. It is hardly interesting to bemoan a lost no wave, and too its form has been shaped by the future present out of longing for a unification of the memory. In twenty years will the noise shows I go to be some greater movement to be analyzed by young art scholars? Do we need to get bigger for that to occur? What is the (satisfactory) visual representation of these times? {I am pretty into some of the art that Black Dice has been supplying with their albums, yet I feel it doesn't address the whole.} Being in New York means the noisemusic supposedly has/is a stronger point-of-reference, and kids blow up fast. I guess I should work on organizing my rants/ belief structure...
I am in a swamp that is also called New York City, America. Life is so beautiful I can hardly stand it - it is funny to go off like this, only allowable really in lulls.
2 comments:
Noise music has so much visual art representation: Hell, that's what got it into the Whitney (Forcefield at the 2002 Biennial). At this point in time I think the music is actually being investigated following people seeing the visual counterpart, as it's more accessible. But yeah: Paper Rad, CF/Kites, Brian Chippendale's stuff, Forcefield- Some people like that Wolf Eyes album art stuff even. There is a European art magazine called Nazi Knife that is all drawings and collage made by noise dudes. (I think Sonic Youth is curating a book along similar lines, also)
And the narrative is more fantasy-based than the dudes-doing-drugs imagery of the '80s. More based on drawing and collage than photography. Less Richard Kern.
ah thanks - there is a lot here, I agree, perhaps even a movement, but it doesn't define the sound in the same way as longo's postures. It hasn't hit the crux of it, but maybe the sound hasn't either? I dunno, I wrote this post while drunk, and had to wake up the next morning and remove several expletives.
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