Not For His Own Aggrandizement

One of the things I miss the most London is the ART! I used to love heading down to the Tate Modern to wander around the galleries and see what was new in the Turbine Hall. The galleries in the East End were crazy, and the openings were just rediculous. The best kind of rediculous.

Here in Orange County, we don't have the same kind of art on offer. But we try to make do. James and I went to the Orange County Museum of Art the other week, and we saw this:

Whaaa...??

The exhibition was Richard Jackson, "Ain't Painting a Pain." It just reminded me of art I saw while at art school. Made up of site-specific wall paintings and "anthropomorphic painting machines," it was room after room of paint. Or stacked canvases with paint. (Which I liked the most.) Or a giant room-maze of painted canvases.

Sadly, this led to a "room" in the middle that felt like an afterthought. I supposed you could say the message is to just enjoy the journey, but I kind of doubt this was the artist's intention.

There was also a room made of entirely of identical clocks that all read the exact same time. They changed time exactly together, and even though you knew it was coming, the sound made you jump. It was kind of fun, made you laugh at yourself a little.


Room of Time

 But what I really hated was the room at the end that had a small airplane in it that the artist intends to fill with paint and then crash. 'Scuse me, Richard Jackson, but if you have all that money to waste like that, would you like to send some my way? Thanks.

So I kind of left the gallery in an art funk, and then I saw this again:


"Bad Dog"

 Plus, looking through the catelog now, it makes me laugh. Because where else will you see phrases like "anthropomorphic painting machine," "culterual orthodoxies," and "his own aggrandizement" if not in an art catelog?