Thursday, December 17, 2009

Robert Waters's Control



A possible follow-up to Maurizio Cattelan's The Ninth Hour... 'Control (2008) features a small resin sculpture of the late pope, John Paul II, creeping along, holding up a crucifix as he confronts another mounted on the wall. From the end of the pontiff’s robe extends a serpent’s tail, sliced like a sausage to reveal a meaty interior. The effect of this meticulously painted, paper-and-balsa-wood protrusion is unusually visceral. Is Waters’s pope otherworldly, or somehow more earthly than ordinary humans? Or is he maybe even monstrous? ... Titled “Taparrabo,” meaning “loincloth” or, literally, “cover your tail,” Waters’s exhibition includes a dozen works, some in series. Finely crafted, and executed in a range of mediums and formats, they also reflect the postmodernist, appropriationist mode of art-making still prevailing in Mexico, in which humor mixes with social commentary, and self-conscious cleverness borders on gimmickry. Waters plays down the latter tendency, instead emphasizing an inventive use of materials and allowing for interpretive ambiguity.'
[Edward M. Gómez in www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/robert-waters/]

Postmodernist critique is over??? Here's the official notice. Postmodernism is over. In the past. Dead as objects. Did you think it would last forever? C'mon it's 30 years old -- you weren't even born yet... So what now? Hybrid-beyond-abject-virtually-positive (e.g. Ryan Trecartin) interventional (Yes Men) relational (Burning Man) new media art?

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