Comments

1
This year's Neiman Marcus Xmas catalog showstopper is $1.5 million for a Chihuly glass pool bottom thingy. That is some classy shit.
http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/sitele…
2
I'm going to puke. The Kuwaiti airport. How absolutely perfect. He should move there.

The reason there's nothing intelligible to say about Chilhuly is there has never been a discussion about his art. There CANNOT be a discussion about his art, because he controls the conversation. Every book, and virtually every article, ever written about his work is the product of his own office. He lives entirely outside, not just the art-critic world but the art-idea world.

You cannot have an idea about Chilhuly. His work suffocates ideas, like suffocating unwanted babies with a pillow. His world isn't just devoid of ideas; it is actively hostile to them, to their very existence.

For all the frustrations of the modern art world, with its soggy garbage strewn across fields and so on, it provides a framework for understanding. Even at its worst, it exists as something you can argue against. You can't argue for or against Chilhuly as art; the words cannot sound in the vacuum.

In a very real way, though, that makes Chilhuly the perfect artist for 21st-century America. We are a country founded on ideas, but which is now dedicated solely to the proposition that ideas of any kind must be starved of oxygen until they die. Ideas are the enemy not of the state but of the cocoon. The vacuum of Chilhuly, devoid of idea, devoid of vision, devoid of understanding, devoid even of the concept of something pretty to look at: perfect for us.

The only "artists" that Chilhuly helps are his own storm troopers.
3
@1 ftw.

I'm going to make a mint off of this baseball bat rental stand, especially since all the baseballs will be sold to avoid liability.

(*SMASH*) Way to go, Jimmy! That's how we show Appreciation for Chihulhy's "art"!
4
"After all, this is an artist who is installing 16 chandeliers in Kuwait right now."

You are implying this is a horrible thing. Care to explain?

Since when does great art require that the artist have a hangup about money, or subscribe to an obsolete, self-defeating, 19th century German economics manifesto? Who says the bureaucrats at the NEA or the establishment insiders who own the art galleries and write the reviews are in a better position to fund and promote great art than, say, a Kuwaiti billionaire?

Reading this, Chihuly comes off as a radical who tweaks the nose of a stodgy and insecure arts establishment with his success.
5
@2: "You cannot have an idea about Chilhuly."

Kind of ironic that you should follow this sentence with a torrent of ideas about Chilhuly, no?
6
Can't believe Picasso and Chihuly are being used in the same sentence.
7
To be clear: with the quote above, I never intended to lump Picasso and Chihuly into the same category artistically. That status update was the start of a long and involved discussion that basically hinges on the point that while Picasso's range and sheer inventiveness are undeniable, there came a time in the early 1950s when he made the deliberate decision to start mass-marketing his work to middle class consumers as status symbols that would be instantly recognized by educated and art-illiterate audiences alike. (By his actions, he was basically saying: elitists be damned! I can make more money courting regular folks. If you follow me where I'm going, that's your business, but you're no longer my target audience.)

The marketing innovations Picasso pioneered (along with other hugely successful 20th century artists like Chagall and MirĂł) paved the way for artists like Chihuly and Thomas Kincade who are brands first and artists second.
8
So, some Texas oil gazillionnaire will have the privilege of shelling out $1.5 M for a bunch of ginormous glass seashells to be installed in the bottom of his swimming pool - which he'll no longer be able to swim in, because, you know, GLASS!

(I can just envision the scenario, post-installation:

"Gawd-dammit Jimmy Joe, git the HELL outta that pool! I jes' paid a whole shit-ton o' Benjamins for that there Chilihoolee stuff, and if'n you break any of it I'm gonna whip the livin' TAR outta ya'!")

But, I guess if you've got that much disposable cash to throw around, you can just buy yourself another swimming pool - for swimming...
9
It just seems to me that Picasso was a master in several different medium. That is one of the things that make him great in my mind. Chihuly works with glass.
10
@4,

Arab oil barons are the tackiest motherfuckers on the planet.
11
@5, no. My torrent is not about his art. You cannot have an idea about his art. If you look at it the idea-processing parts of your brain die. No one -- NO ONE -- except Chilhuly has ever had a discussion about the artistic aspects of Chilhuly's work. It's not possible.

@7, you know that Kinkade is going bankrupt in a flurry of lawsuits, right? And I don't think he really follows on from the Picasso mold, even in the crassest sense. He's more like Hummel or Franklin Mint -- collectibles, not art, and sold on grounds of sentimentality, not aesthetics. Chilhuly sells on the grounds of aesthetic sophistication that has everything to do with art, and Picasso.

The difference is, of course, that Picasso was cashing in after many decades of OTHER PEOPLE cashing in on his masterpieces. People made absolute fortunes on paintings of his that he gave away or sold for peanuts (sometimes literally for meals). Chilhuly never wanted to start at that level, so he built his machine from the beginning towards this goal.

I would compare Chilhuly's machine more to Warhol's than Picasso's. People are just talking about Picasso now because he's here. Warhol (and a raft of other pop artists who preceded him) created the framework of emptiness that Chilhuly emptied out and reused. However, Warhol's art, even his ridiculous late stuff, had ideas in it.

Vince, it wasn't just that he mastered several media. It's that he was so creative that he could master a new medium the second he took it up. He literally could pick up a paperclip and make something unimaginable in a few seconds. It's like he had a whole 'nuther room in his brain that we don't have, or don't have access to until he shows us.
12
Yeah, I hear your point TL/Cienna and get the comparison which sounds legit.

I was recently at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid and was overwhelmed by the Picasso displays there. Hopefully the SAM show will include some of his earlier work, which is some of the most amazing representational work from any artist I've ever seen. His early work demonstrates his mastery of the craft and it's a revelation to see his later work in light of that.

To me, Guernica (also at Reina Sofia, where I snapped a surreptitious cell photo) is what sets Picasso apart. This work had a dangerous political aspect and identified his counter-muse as Francisco Franco. I feel it was Franco who made Picasso famous, and it was Picasso's opposition to the dictator which wins so many hearts. Paintings like Guernica are about courage and justice in the face of oppression and inhumanity. His later work is about humanity, vision, love, and life.

Some Seattleites truly believe Chihuly is "our" Picasso, but unlike Picasso Chihuly has no political or social voice or meaning. His "art" is actually a "craft" and is often pretty in the same way jewelry is pretty -- it plays with refraction of light through form and shape. It's eye candy, not art. It's one dimensional and shallow because it says nothing about justice or life or oppression or hope or love.

What's saddest about Chihuly at the Needle is that Seattleites (and others "we" hope to attract) are showing ourselves to be ignorant of meaning in art. We're opting for baubles while we're hungry for meaning and hope.
13
@11 A genius, no doubt, but his father was also a master and fostered Picasso's abilities from an early age.
14
@10
Oh. I think I see what's happened here. When you all were talking about art, I thought you were literally talking about art, when in fact the subject of art was really just a pretense for talking about how your clique is cooler than their clique.

Think I'm getting it now, sorry to be so slow on the uptake.
15
@11: "No one -- NO ONE -- except Chilhuly has ever had a discussion about the artistic aspects of Chilhuly's work."

Basically what you're saying is Chilhuly has refused to outsource the sales and marketing of his work to the usual crowd of reviewers, dealers, and gallery owners who take a handsome percentage for convincing rich people that this painting they are looking at is Art as opposed to the messy result of a four year old's temper tantrum.

Cutting out the middle man seems to be working pretty well for him. No wonder the art world hates him.
16
@14, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not in a clique. I sometimes look at art, sometimes hang it on my wall, sometimes have a conversation about it. You can't do those things with Chilhuly.

@15, the problem with people like you is that you think looking at art is "sales and marketing". EVERYTHING is sales and marketing to you, isn't it? Yes, Chihuly knows how to sell and market. But no one who has ever thought about what art is, what art means, what art is for, has ever thought about Chilhuly's art. Ever. Not for a second. It's not allowed. You're not allowed to think about it; you're only allowed to respond to sales and marketing.

"Philistine" doesn't even begin to describe it.
17
@16:
Re @14: My point is that if the quality of art is judged by the "tackiness" of its patrons, then art is nothing more than fashion.

Re @15: As the definition of art becomes ever more ethereal, it increasingly depends upon "experts" to spin stories about which pieces are important or good. That's the reality of modern art, and it's not my fault. There are those who create intellectually honest stories about art (e.g., Jen Graves), and there are those who are simply looking for a story that will sell it, because, hey, an art dealer's got to eat. It's becoming increasingly difficult to tell one kind of story from the other, assuming they can even be distinguished, and in either case, the end result is still, in effect, marketing.

So, this establishment of story tellers largely determines which artists are recognized and which are not. They've certainly influenced (if not dictated) your opinion. No, the story telling isn't all a sales pitch, but neither is it gospel or scientific truth.

It's interesting, radical even, when an artist succeeds in spite of this establishment. And the fact is, some of those pieces of glass are fucking stunning, even if no one has bothered spinning a story as to why.

P.S. The reason I'm pissing you off isn't because I'm a "Philistine", it's because I'm a heretic.
18
Farnf,
Before there was the "machine," there was the hippie selling his art to summer tourists on a grass meadow near Pilchuck Mountain. It wasn't until Chihuly convinced the Haubergs to help him establish the Pilchuck Glass School (instead of a museum for Mark Tobey) that he began to see any kind of success. In the meantime, he helped hundreds of artists of every persuasion develop their talent and find buyers for their art. Regardless of the negative attributes you chose to use to describe his art and his marketing acumen, it cannot be denied that others have benefited from it, as well.
19
@17, why do you assume that this "art establishment" is something you have to passively receive? If anything, the passivity is with Chilhuly admirers, who not only haven't waited around to hear someone "spinning a story", they are apparently incapable of absorbing one if it had been told.

Saying something is shit is part and parcel of dealing with the "art establishment". It's a conversation, and everyone is welcome. The "art establishment" that I've bumped into has always been extremely keen on conflicting viewpoints. With Chilhuly on the other hand there are no viewpoints at all, let alone conflicting ones. Just the soundless sound of the eternal credit card.

Chilhuly isn't crap because he's commercial; all art is commercial. He's crap because there's no discussion. He won't allow a discussion.
20
When Chihulhy is dead they can build a museum for him.

Not before.
21
Fnarf, you complain that "there CANNOT be a discussion" about Chihuly's art, then you go on (@2), and on (@11), and on (@16), and on (@19) about it. If an artist generates that much heated response, it pretty much looks like a discussion to me. Perhaps thou dost protest too much.
22
@21, I haven't mentioned Chilhuly's art once. His art isn't up for discussion.
23
@19: You are probably right - people don't like Chilhuly's art because of its witty commentary on society, or on art, or on glass art, or on a particular glass artist, or on Chilhuly himself, or on any of the other increasingly remote and self-referential and esoteric subjects that make so much modern art irrelevant and boring to everyone outside the art world.

They like it because, wow, look at that thing, holy shit, it's fucking awesome! And what more needs to be said?

As for your claim that Chilhuly "won't allow a discussion", Google says that's absurd.
24
@23:

If "Wow, holy shit, it's fucking awesome!" is the typical response engendered by Chihuly's work, then watching a monster truck rally clearly must be considered the epitome of "art" in the minds of these same people.

Liking or not liking something is probably the LEAST pertinent criteria when it comes to discussing art, precisely because it's such a vague, middling evaluation that by its very utterance precludes any sort of actual critical examination, which, far from being "increasingly remote, self-referential and esoteric", is ESSENTIAL to the process of analysis and critique.

Anyone who says, "I like such-and-such" because they believe that IS in fact "all that needs to be said", are simply saying in another fashion, "I can't really formulate and express any sort of coherent, critical opinion on this, because I have no idea what I'm talking about." It's the opinion of someone with no opinion; in short, completely valueless and unworthy of consideration.

Remember the old joke that has the punchline, "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like"? That's the Philistine's philosophy in a nut-shell.
25
@24: By yours and Fnarf's definition, art isn't so much in the thing being created as it is in the subsequent discussion. How much longer then until the whole "creating something" step becomes purely hypothetical and we skip right to the real art - i.e., the critiquing, theorizing, intellectualizing, or as some might refer to it, the marketing?

If that's your game, then by all means enjoy yourself. I'm going to go refill my drink.

As a music freak, I will say this. There are scads of guys out there with enormous vinyl collections and encyclopedic knowledge of bands and albums and songs and esoteric genres who can and will prattle on for hours about rock. And there are "composers" with music degrees who know all the scales and can talk at length about music theory and even have a few self-released neoclassical compositions.

And then there are people who don't know or care about any of that shit, but for whom music can be felt and understood and interpreted in its own terms through some sub-cortical, non-linguistic part of their brain that sometimes gives them goose bumps or cause them to cry or makes them involuntarily interpret what they hear by moving their body. And these people gather with like minded people and play music really loudly and dance their fucking asses off until dawn. Philistines, I guess you'd call them. Anyway, you will find me hanging out with them.
26
Hah, well of course Picasso is capital-Art, while Chihuly is decor, and will date rapidly. In 50 years, will people still be going to a "Chihuly museum"? But I have to admit that the ceiling installation in the Bellagio Las Vegas lobby is a guilty pleasure.
27
I don't want to see Chilhooley take over the current public space of the Seattle Center. We have enough of him already. Some artists work is like" seen one and you've seen them all" and then to have something permanently displayed will just create a "dead space "where it is now a multi use space. Nobody will go there. It will become like the Seattle Underground tour.
28
@25:

No, and once again you completely MISS the point.

"Art" is characterized BOTH by the thing created AND the subsequent response it generates. But a reflex "gut reaction" isn't the same thing as a critical response; in fact, it's diametrically the opposite, because it's both anti-intellectual and antithetical to serving any sort of analytical function. It's a Pavlovian reflex, nothing more, and is completely demonstrative of the Philistine's point-of-view: "I don't know the first thing about this subject, and I don't have the capacity to discuss it in any meaningful way, but none of that matters to me, because it elicits some vague, amorphous feeling that I can't even describe in any articulate fashion, and that's all I care about."

It's the equivalent of watching those 40-something hippie chicks swaying back-and-forth at Folklife and believing their blank, distant stares and somnolent expressions constitute some sort of legitimate critique of the music. It's like deciding to go see a movie because it got a "thumbs up" from Roger Ebert, but not bothering to read the actual review to which it's attached.

If that's as good as you can muster @25, then you deserve to hang out with the Philistines - and they deserve you as well. So go dance, go have a good time, but please don't think for a moment that has anything to do with the higher faculties of which your brain is capable, but which you clearly have no interest in exercising.

Please wait...

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