by Norberto Gomez
STATEMENT ON “I WILL NOT MAKE ART IN BROOKLYN”
An excerpt from the BOOK OF CANNIBALS (by the artist)
EVERYTHING IS PURGED FROM THIS STATEMENT
BUT ART, NO IDEAS HAVE ENTERED THIS WORK.
“The contemporary artist is the most fearful of them all. There is a sense of humor, but only in a sense. Jokes as art, but unlike John Baldessari’s critical statements, we have inside jokes so deeply embedded, like the digital meme, within a micro-collective, or in one’s own psyche that the content goes nowhere as it simultaneously goes everywhere. Comedic tribalism. But, their friends love it, and, as we know, friends are relative. Glocal art scenes love the inside joke. Insiders might all claim art is dead, yet, they are the most achingly informed of the art-world, deeply in-the-know, completely self-conscious, and miserably boring. The big scenes are now all local, all Brooklyn (today), and we all suffer because of it. There is a fear of articulating anything or having a subject matter. Why? There is an anti-intellectualism of art-making which has set in, and it is rooted in an existential terror of that nothingness we all carry and a fear of being wrong, too smug, too smart, too articulate, and too meaningful. But the greatest fear is of glocal Art History and Los Angeles and New York City, old gangster bullies, and, especially the digital hive who are populist goons.
…the result in this case is work which references its own making like the high modernists before, but the artist denies having any context, denies any belief system(s), a bastardized nihilism, a high-school anarchist, a liar doing it all for the lulz. Visually, the work is self-consciously haphazard; show only enough skill, but not too much out of embarrassment (or the real terror of having to defend oneself). The artist is safe and comfortable with friends who are enemies and who are all uncomfortable together. Together, the joker tribe ignores those who are deemed, “too serious,” or, “too academic.” The result is the new civil rights issue of the twenty-first century –the illiterate artist. There is also an obsession with following the trends and scenes, because it has never been so easy to access and tap into digital geography and neighborhoods vis-à-vis one’s network. Emerging trends. This is the new globalism of style –a new international style: fascist at the core, always monitored and self-surveilled, always live, paranoid, and fearful and so damn small. The digital stream is a 24 hour art-news cycle. Brooklyn looks a lot like Houston looks a lot like Richmond. The same exhibitions, the same names, all the time, like Clear Channel Radio-America…”
Related text: Norberto Gomez, “Section Two: The Magical Mystery Revival,” Digital America.
Bio
www.norbertogomezjr.com
info@norbertogomezjr.com
Norberto Gomez is an artist, media archaeologist and ghost hunter who has lived in Houston, Texas, Richmond, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland. But, he has also lived a large portion of his life in chat rooms, based out of Los Angeles, and other digital social networks and communities. He is interested in the intersection of technology and mysticism, DOOM DRONE & DEATH metal, popular culture, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and the occult nature of style. He writes regularly for Digital America, and sometimes reviews horror films for Fangoria Magazine. He has written an artist book on cannibalism and is working on another with the subject of digital-death. Recent select exhibitions include: solo shows at (e)merge DC, Gallery A in Richmond, Virginia, and a two person show at the Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX. He has also curated three Bring Your Own Beamer (byob) events (created by Rafael Rozendaal) in Richmond and San Antonio, Texas. In 2013, he attempted to raise the ghost of Mark Rothko. The seance, however, failed.