I can't tell you how much I loved and learned from this work of art. I am going to the shooting range later to express it.

It takes a lot of courage to create art like this as un-ironically or self-consciously as she did. It also takes courage to write about it like it matters. I know that art matters in some abstract, difficult-to-define way, but honestly, sometimes it's hard for a literal-minded soul to understand why.

Anyway, I'm glad you cover this stuff, if for no other reason than it makes me think about something totally outside my realm for a minute or two. Hell, I guess that's part of the point.

Conceptual crap. "Art" like this is what keeps people from funding work that matters.

Yeah... She sounds like a "strange" "fruit"(cake) alright.

I love conceptual art. Thanks for the great post Jen.

I am so proud that I was able to identify the Seattle park from the 2 pictures without reading the text!! yayyyy parks!

How does art like this keep people from funding work that matters? How does this not matter?

YOU ARE CRAP.

This art, unlike random painted found steel or a sculpture made from broken bones, is more art than anything you'll ever see. SHE put herself on the edge, no buffer or anything between her and her audience. No safety nets, no harm meant, just pure self expression. This is art.

I wasn't there but what you showed looked like a fashion shoot - not at all like Ana Mendieta.

From the description it sounds like an amazing performance. And the earnestness that someone mentioned is a big part of the appeal. It's invoking this pre-modern pantheistic conception of nature -- she is literally a water nymph -- without turning it into the pure nostalgic schlock that it would usually be.

This weird crocheted river is part of it, emphasizing the manmade nature of this idea of nature. And the one-time performance is all about the fact that this is trying to capture a feeling or idea that cannot be easily and endlessly reproduced. The idea that it can be is exactly the problem with nostalgic schlock.

#2 "It takes a lot of courage to create art like this as un-ironically or self-consciously as she did."

Courage my ass. When you're such an obvious exhibitionist, and when your "work" is so simple and ridiculous but still gets such adulation from local media, it's pretty easy to "create" it. Must be nice....

#7: "YOU ARE CRAP."

Indubitably. The difference is that I don't put my self-indulgent psychodramatic crap on display and call it 'art.'

"No safety nets, no harm meant, just pure self expression."

Exactly. Perfectly safe, white, middle class nonsense-- simple masturbation. Hey everybody, look at me! Look at me! I'm an artist! I'm making a Statement. I'm jerking off in a local park and calling it Art!

This is about as 'artistic' as a gathering of emo kids smoking clove cigarettes and posing in an underage club. One hundred-- no, fifty-- no, FIFTEEN years from now, there will be about ten people in the world who even care that this ever went down.

But whatever-- it's passive aggressive "expression" from a passive aggressive town.

Well done, I love your description, it's beautiful to live vicariously through! It sounds like the performance gave people a lot to chew on.

Maybe you guys are just more mature/less perverted than I am, but all can see when I look at that suit is hentai. Doesn't it look like a giant tentacle beast devouring/ravaging her?

Great post, Jen. Mandy's crocheted work is crazy gorgeous in and of itself. Her installation Dare alla Luce (installed first at Bellevue Arts Museum, later at Portland's Museum of Contemporary Craft) was incredible. But the addition of performers takes it to a whole new level.

(The people on this thread who call this "easy" have obviously not attempted the life of an artist. Even if it's not to your taste, the overwhelming amount of labor involved in this project should be self evident.)

I agree with Emily about the beauty brought to life. And don't forget last year's The Silvering Path, another beautiful art/performance collaboration of Mandy's with Haruko Nishimura!

I challenge anyone to consistently dedicate all the spare moments of their non- 40-hour-a-week life to a vision, a goal, or a dream. I don't think people who call art "easy" have any idea what people have to do to manifest the work, not including factors such as on time, on budget, on demand.

Amen!