Is It Art?

[toosuto]

So last night I went to hear Santiago Sierra speak. He claims he is not an artist but doesn't seem to insist that others are wrong when they discuss his "art" or ask him to give art lectures.

His "work" raises valuable questions: who owns a person? When people are poor you get them to do things they don't want to do for the sake of money. Which are valid and good questions. It points to how systemic exploitation of those less fortunate is.

Here's thing where, for me, it stops being "art" and starts being obscene. Sierra does not consider himself an advocate for change but merely a "chronicler." He is given FAR too much money to merely exploit the exploited in a different venue. Instead of a prostitute giving up her body for sex for money, Sierra will tattoo their bodies and pay they the same amount for sex. Or people needing money or jobs will be given a meaningless task (holding up a wall for five days in a gallery in exchange for minimal/minimum wage(s). How much value can this "art" have if not only is it not intended to make change but builds upon the very system of exploitation it reveals? Does the art have value outside of the intent? Or does its lack of social conscience invalidate it?

Comments

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

These are very interesting questions, and I might have some thoughts about them later on, but having perused a number of the pieces in the gallery you linked to, I think the first problem is that his "art" sucks.

It's boring, it doesn't provoke any interesting aesthetic response, and it doesn't make me think. It's just super lame-o. I mean, I can see some of the issues he's trying to get at in some of his pieces (others are just sort of inexplicable), but they don't inspire me to care about them.

It gives performance art a bad name!

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

The thing is the photos are not his art. His photos are documentation of it.

One of his installations (which he has done twice) was to pay people minimum wage to sit inside closed up boxes that were in gallery during the showing which was then attended by all sorts of people who could never be bothered to be paid to sit in boxes. There are photographs of it but the pictures aren't his art, they are merely eveidence of it.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I totally get that the photos are just records of the actual art pieces.

I think you could do something interesting with the idea behind that installation, of paying some people to do something that the audience members would never be bothered to be paid to do that.

I just don't think what he actually did with that idea was at all interesting, so I declare his "art" to be "lame". (Y'know, in my own personal unprofessional non-art-critic opinion.)

[drdeleto.livejournal.com]

I'm with Beemer on this one. What this guy proves is not just how hard it is to do conceptual art and installation art that has real aesthetic significance, but, even more, how succeptible that genre of art is to ideological corruption. Nothing ruins art more thoroughly than a didactic ideological "message." He only calls himself a "chronicler" because he probably doesn't have the first clue how to fix the problem he's obsessed with (that people will do demeaning things for money and tthose who live more comfortable lives don't seem to notice them).

I also agree with Beemer that those are still interesting questions you bring up.

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

I don't even think he is interested in trying to solve any of the problems he documents/points out otherwise he wouldn't live as comfortably as he does. There is also a small part of me that wonders how much I would be willing to profit the same sort of thing if given the opportunity. I can honestly say less, but cannot honestly say not at all.

[belladonnalin.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely with you there. I wanted to go to his lectures, but they all conflict with something else I have to do. I wanted to see if he could validate thsi "chronicler" bullshit - apparently not.