LOOKING AT ART WITH SPARK NO. 19:

The art world is awash with fabulous fraud. The auction houses peddle piddling trifles for millions of dollars with scant regard for authenticity or provenance. The recent disclosures regarding the rampant and clumsy forgeries that are flooding the Chinese market come as no surprise to the few remaining dinosaurs who still value the cute sentimental rigors of connoisseurship, discernment, quality and depth.

The age of mechanical reproduction is a thrashing monsoon of monotonous accessibility. 

With two quick clicks one can instantly actualize The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb and The Exaltation of the Lip Syncing Man reducing them both into what Silicon Valley euphemistically calls "visual assets."

Even our most gifted artists are compromised by this Benjaminian dystopia. A recent show at Méchant Mec, the New York gallery specializing in what has come to be known as SoCal Neo-DaDa, exhibited a series of oil paintings by Los Angeles artist David Schoffman that were fabricated in workshops in Seoul, South Korea according to specifications communicated strictly through Twitter. In an apparent concession to the realities of global marketing, Schoffman has agreed to the unlicensed franchising of three of his most recognizable images. These more affordable facsimiles are now available in galleries and selected boutiques in Asia and the Arabian Peninsula.

And so it must be. 

Walter Benjamin's final resting place in Portbou has the following epitaph inscribed on his gravestone: "There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." 

Grab on to your portable electronic devices, strap yourselves in and watch as we scroll our way into the abyss . . .

LOOKING AT ART WITH SPARK NO. 14

Two incredibly different but equally challenging exhibitions opened this week in Berlin.  Readymades and Jeremiads at Kunststinkt and Reconfiguring the Generic: Mutual Blackness and the Aesthetics of Race Bias at the Museum der Alltäglich Plattitüden on Rykestrasse, suitably situated down the block from Germany's largest synagogue.

I'm here in Deutschland working on a piece for Vernissage, Dolphy Cane's relatively new Los Angeles art magazine which tries to focus on what he calls "serious cultural criticism." It's a tough standard to maintain these days since the art world, like politics has become a kind of show business for ugly people.

While the readymades show was a straight up critique of post-colonial contemporary studio practice within the asymmetrical Western generative art market, Mutual Blackness was something a bit more idiosyncratic.

Ruthless Bluster, Cissé Diab, 2012. Tar, sand, burlap and coconut shells of sheet metal

Most of the participating artists are fairly well-established figures whose recognizable styles seem artificially altered to fit the theme of the exhibition. Though far from unusual, in this particular instance there is a serendipitous consequence that is far from disagreeable. 

The works are like strange non-sequitars or fragments of conversations accidentally over heared on the street. We are forced by the sheer weight of the show's title to force a specific narrative and meaning to the otherwise arbitrary assembly of paintings, sculptures and video installations.

For me it was fun. I can only imagine what the Germans thought.

Spark Boon: SEVENTY-SIX