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.