tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post6264317804129274299..comments2024-01-29T00:22:36.258-08:00Comments on e y e C O N T A C T: By hook or by crookJohn Hurrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07411877334096071312noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post-4940309969965403642008-09-30T21:14:00.000-07:002008-09-30T21:14:00.000-07:00Forgive me Marnie, I can't resist being an irritat...Forgive me Marnie, I can't resist being an irritating little fox terrier snapping at your heels. Why should anybody need an excuse for drooling? What is wrong with pleasure? Hand out the bibs I say. Make the gallery floors sticky with drool. Such reflexes don't necessarily preclude thinking. The cerebral impulses are bodily too.John Hurrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07411877334096071312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post-67477123818357525212008-09-30T14:51:00.000-07:002008-09-30T14:51:00.000-07:00Just wondering...when you decry the lack of 'space...Just wondering...when you decry the lack of 'space' do you mean it is so overwhelming as to be fascistic? That there is something totalitarian about its crushing dominance as an experience.<BR/><BR/>I don't get that though in the 'wave' work (Static No.10). It is qute intimate. You can walk away easily, despite its seductive use of natural rhythms.John Hurrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07411877334096071312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post-8778209484563477172008-09-30T12:57:00.000-07:002008-09-30T12:57:00.000-07:00I am no purist John. I don't think that art is hig...I am no purist John. I don't think that art is high or that high is a space reserved for art. I do, however, expect a kind of space for myself with art and Crook did not give me this. <BR/><BR/>I am not sure about your easy skip between painting and film, and also between some kind of shared standard for the "immersive". Certainly et al. does immersive in a different way, for a different context than, for example, Peter Jackson? <BR/><BR/>The Crook work offered me a place to do nothing from. Sure there are other major works in New Zealand and abroad in the past and I am sure in the future that will offer the complete jaw dropping, empty stomach feeling, but that is a) not an excuse for drooling and b) not the only way to go big...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06357045841793230154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post-11183014961637690552008-09-30T12:17:00.000-07:002008-09-30T12:17:00.000-07:00Thanks for your pithy comments, Marnie. You are de...Thanks for your pithy comments, Marnie. You are dead right in that it is an exceptionally immersive show and the viewer acquieses in a state of total passivity. But that is no different from the experience provided by any big painting or exciting movie, in the way you are totally controlled. It is pure, gorgeous, mesmerising sensuality. What other large artworks in NZ public galleries are any different?<BR/><BR/>How do you define 'innocuous'? Should one like say,large Hammonds, only because they take a moral stance on historical events? What is wrong with pure pleasure? Especially if it is technically a new kind of sensuality. Or do you insist on the didactic as an essential element in 'serious' art?<BR/><BR/>I know what you are getting at, and that is why I compared it to music. You climb on board and drift with it.John Hurrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07411877334096071312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post-11584395769398961042008-09-30T08:11:00.000-07:002008-09-30T08:11:00.000-07:00This show really frustrated me. I think for a numb...This show really frustrated me. I think for a number of reasons, some of which I have tried and failed to articulate - but I am going to give it another go here! As a viewer, spectacle can be a complex experience but within the CAG show, I found Crook's spectacle to be idealistic and very simplified. Like a kind of humanistic magic-eye, the work seemed to be telling me (you mention hypnosis) to think and feel in a very particular way about the relationship of technology to the social and cultural. Accompanying this, was also a sense that this work is incredibly passive to the point of being innocuous - for example <I>Static No.10 (falling as a means of rising)</I> that you have pictured.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06357045841793230154noreply@blogger.com