Sex, drugs and art (and you)

Inspired by the utimely death of Dash Snow.

I've always been very critical of art (mainly visual, I suppose) with a strong focus on sex and drugs. I don't really feel a connection to it, in the same way that I don't have the patience for someone who always talks about sex, or doing drugs. It mainly annoys me, and leaves me feeling like the artist in question is consumed with superficial subjects.

However, I've come across certain nude drawings and photographs that I adore.

How do you respond to this sort of thing? Pictures welcome.

(altho i guess that wouldn't be very SFW)

yeah...

I think music is better than art

This ties into the hipster movies thread too (re: Sideways, shitty people, etc.) - I don't look to art/media/books to comfort me, be life-affirming, showcase decent people doing noble things.

The problem with sex and drug art isn't the sex and drugs - it's how boring the art often is. With Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow, etc. I just see a bunch of rich kids doing stupid shit - there's no meaning to the work (IMO, obviously). They're pale imitators of people who were exploring drugs and underground cultures fourty years ago (cf. Larry Clark, Tulsa).

there's a brooklyn-based photographer whose work i can't stand, b/c all it is is photos of scantily clad gay boys. i know, how bad could it be? for some reason, it infuriates me.

I like sort of art that deals with sex honestly and positively and in an egalitarian manner, because to me it feels many artists (particularly male ones) often seem to have hang-ups and weirdly repressed attitudes towards about sexuality, evident in stuff like Daniel Clowes' comics or Todd Solondz' movies. This sort of positive sexuality seems to be easier to find in gay/lesbian/queer art than in straight, for example in comics by Ralf König and Alison Bechdel, Tom of Finland's drawings, the movie Shortbus, etc.

It is wrong to assume that an artist who focuses on sex, decadence or whatevs - say Mapplethorpe or Goldin or whomever - is "obsessed" with teh subject. It's like assuming Woody Allen is always funny (insert comment that he is not even funny in his films hah).

So uh no, I don't take your stance. (Not saying you are wrong/right though!) I just like(d) decadence, sex,... I like "slumming." I like to read about it or watch it, from a detached point of view. I would never really engage in it.

Also, you say superficial, but how can you make such a sweeping generalization? It is in the way the artist portrays the subject matter that you interpret the depth. I mean, Jeff Koons is just loathesome but Mapplethorpe otoh is insightful.

vice magazine-esque photography that just apes clark or nan goldin is mostly a snooze, but you never know...you can find good stuff anywhere. i'm not gonna discount something or somebody based on subject matter. maybe that next sex and drug art movie will be the best sex and drug art movie ever.

or just be a great movie that just happens to be about sex and drugs.

i agree that i'm generalizing, and i am looking for other perspectives. i was just articulating how i typically react to this sort of thing.

the Mapplethorpe polaroid show from last year was ungodly gorgeous.

i dont tend to go for the goldin-style "vice mag" photography usually, partly b/c the discourse that surrounds it and the self-aggrandizing cocaine attitude that the photos tend to evince (ime) is way fuckin irritating, but i always find myself defending it from h8rs mostly cause its such an easy target, i mean, sure its "just" rich kids getting high but uh you know arbuss work is "just" a bunch of freaks and georgia okeefer "just" paints flowers

y'know i know i'm slumming and i do feel kind of silly i do (or did) but hey everyone is a cliche. i can't help it, i love reading about pornography (not so much watching it hrs on end though) or watching larry clark's photography.

also surm sorry for being judgmental. blame it on my head/migraine which has been tormenting my brain for weeks on end now. words come out wrong. all wrong.

not at all! it's all good

i mean i fucking HATE that everyone dissects all these aforementioned artists. this is so fucking blase. go on, critique and analyze until i feel guilty for being touched by these subjects/objects. (not talking about/to you, surm!!!)

georgia okeefer sutherland

i think i tend to like nude photography with subjects that i feel are very realistic or human in appearance, doing like everyday things.

you know who used to bug me? lisa yuskavage. cuz i often thought that the source material for some of her paintings - old softcore men's mag photos - were actually more interesting than her paintings. they were cooler in a weird way! she made them dopier somehow. i dunno. i would have liked her more if she had just blown up the photos and put them in a gallery. but that's just me.

we're all on this flipping trip to outdo eachother (here, there and everywhere), and you end up with what? nothing. go and watch some bruce nauman and be amazed. i mean, i went to the tate modern with someone and we had a big fight over modern art being "stupid" or not. grrrrr.

i know that if i'd meet someone LIKE larry clark but who didn't photograph and publish his work, but instead just... oggled doped up skaterboys, i'd frown upon the guy. but there you go, i like larry clark.

when i head a friend traveled to some poor country to photograph the people, i fucking puked. i'm a bit of a hypocrite, i guess.

there's a brooklyn-based photographer whose work i can't stand, b/c all it is is photos of scantily clad gay boys. i know, how bad could it be? for some reason, it infuriates me.

― I love rainbow cookies (surm), Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:04 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

surm, do you mean this guy? i really like his work and it seems v. far removed from the kind of stuff that (i presume) you're talking about (if that isn't who you mean then n/m, he's the first one i thought of based on that description)

(link kind of NSFW obv)

Lisa Yuskavage is a shit painter tho xps

I like pSepuya way more until I started reading his blog

http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/

I see a difference in Arbus exploring an outsider world (that she herself was not a part of, and which was starting to disappear even then), Larry Clark documenting the daily life of poor south-midwesterners and "rich kids getting high."

If Dash Snow weren't related to the de Menils, does that Polaroid where the Shell sign says "HELL" ever get shown anywhere but his Flickr page?

that's who i mean, donna, but to be completely fair, i've only seen a few pieces. i just didn't feel much besides anger -- i thought it was like overly romantic softcore. i think i am judging him rashly though :/

I don't really understand judging art on its subject matter though

why are rich kids and trust-fund beneficiaries any less deserving of artistic representation than sword-swallowers or hicks?

well i guess like milo said, i probably judge it more on how the subject matter is handled

but also, why wouldn't you judge art on its subject matter? some people love pictures of chickens, others love pictures of naked people

Not judging the art on its subject matter, I'm judging it on its ability to communicate.

"Rich kids getting high" isn't in any kind of dialogue with the viewer. There's nothing inherently bad about sex/drug art - it's just that the current purveyors I've experienced (or the current purveyors who get championed by cultural institutions) don't have a thing to say.

I like pictures of naked chickens

having something to say is overrated

If there were a more thoughtful, better artist out there doing a Tulsa (hate to keep referencing it, but it is a great monograph and a clear touchstone of what the current crop are doing)(also, I haven't had any reason to think seriously about photography in a while so my references are rusty) of rich kids getting high, it might be worthwhile. But the people doing that have been caught up so early and easily in a gallery-centric world that they don't work in series, try to tell stories, whatever - they make pretty/'radical' pictures to sell to people.

which is a great way to make money.

Who did Larry Clark emulate btw? I want to know now.

have you ever read that book Twelve by Nick McDonnell? I thought it was a pretty good attempt at attractive rich kids getting high poetry

dean sameshima
NSFW
http://www.peresprojects.com/g_full/1402.jpg

We're just talking visual art5 here?

no! whatever u want

I think the medium I love most is photography. Which is funny since my best friend fucking hates it. And I do mean HATE. She sniggers when the subject comes up. I so much want to do this grand expose riddled with sneers and fuckyous but then I think:"Whatevs, she's my friend."

I wonder how much longer it will take for me to get away from all this now that I have kids. Maybe I'll get back to it. But then I wonder how I will explain all these arty farty books to my kids. "Mom, what the hell is this?" while showing me Tulsa, Cooper, Bukowski,.... hahaha

I do hate de Sade though.

Phwar, I love Rimbaud and Verlaine. How cliche I know. hah

having something to say is overrated

I dunno if he emulated him, but I think Clark was indebted to Ralph Gibson, and then the street/documentary photographers of the '30s-'50s who influenced everyone.

Milo bringing the Schlumberger connection straight from Texas.

Max, the poster wasn't arguing that Dash Snow should be disqualified from art world because of his impeccable pedigree and the way that world naturally brown-noses people with that much money, x1000 if they're also legendary bohos over generations. He simply said if he didn't come from that family, no way would that work be in galleries. I don't agree strictly, normal dude may well have gotten attention for the work but not the kind that writes future Vanity Fair features, and normal dude might have actually had to show his face at art school.

Dean Sameshita is !!! awesome. You guys also need Wolfgang Tillmans in your life.

yeah clark's said that he was influenced by w. eugene smith and dorothea lange among others

JEAN GENET, people.

also, Twelve is the most awful book ever written. cold, cold, cold, and poorly written at that.

(i'll leave it to other ppl to unpack that exact "influence" here)xp

how do people feel about john currin?

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/john-currin/

(sort of xpost) y'know i... fuck it, it's degenerating to pointing fingers. if he wasn't rich, then it would be different?

don't mention cobrasnake. that's where i draw the line. christ.

ilxkidsgettinghigh.com

i mean, it has more to do with sex, drugs and art, not rich kids producing art.

. if he wasn't rich, then it would be different?

xpost reason why i am an outsider even though i have been here seven years. even here i watch.

if he wasn't rich, then it would be different?

Yes, because we never would have heard of him.

table do u really think of wojnarowicz as really about "sex" or at least "intensely focused" on it even in the imgs u linked idk maybe im making a useless distinction btw sex and sexuality but hes def not a dude not that i wld have tht of in co. with like dash snow anymore than id think of andreas gursky (least sexy photog i could think of lol)

http://2006.vt.se/Bilder/PDF/gursky.jpg

can i just

he writes and uses sex and sexuality pretty prominently, lamp.

also, the question was more about sex, drugs and art, which Wojnarowicz also tackles pretty head-on in his art and writings. yes, the question mentioned Dash Snow, but there's a reason why people like Nan Goldin and Wojnarowicz are mentioned in the same breath a lot of the time....

also, i must admit, i obsessed with Wojnarowicz and mention him any chance i get.

one thing that i forgot is that i tend to like songs with a lot of sex in them. hmm...

ha yeah im really into his stuff too - ive been thinking about why it struck me i think im def making a false distinction/categorization - i just think of him as "political" in a way where that stuff is kind of not the "main" point or w/e like i kind of feel it is w/goldin. like i sd this probably more about my thinking than woj's work

yeah, i see that distinction, though. Woj is much less about celebrating the crapulence of gay hustling and drug use than a lot of these more contemporary peeps, but he is working with the same issues..... he has sympathy and empathy for the person going crazy and acting crazy in this world, and i think that perhaps THAT is where i make my connection to some of this stuff.

anyone read this?

http://archive.salon.com/sex/feature/2004/01/08/waters/story.jpg

looked through it a while back and couldn't afford it :(

i totally understand that appeal table

and i would like to clarify that my opinion on all this is extremely uninformed, so i will be curious to look into some of this work

One point I would make about Nan Goldin is that she always maintains that these are pictures of her friends. I really like that, there is definitely something moving and personal about her work, but yeah, I don't see how that would exempt her from milo z's accusation of "slightly more interesting party photos", cos a lot of her stuff is just that. It's pretty great for being that though, because I suppose a big part of the difference is that her friends aren't right kids who's lives are already validated and important, her photographs are really elegiac because they can almost come across as a sort of testimony of importance for people others would rather forget (AIDS victims, trannies, etc.)

watch the Genet film, surm, it is some awesomely subversive shit for the 1950s.

also, it gives me a boner.

meant to say rich kids

also, its gives me rich kids

The parallels I was drawing in that post were exploring/documenting (as great photographers who worked in this realm before had done) - and then "rich kids getting high" (which were your words). Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus led me into worlds other than my own - either their own or a largely hidden subculture. Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow show me party pics. IMO, obviously. I just can't help but see them as art-world-acceptable Cobrasnakes for the most part.

― My vagina has a dress code. (milo z), Tuesday, July 14, 2009 3:57 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ok im not sure that you and i are ever going to reach a conclusion on this but, like, how is it that snow isnt showing you "a world other than your own"? i mean even if it IS "party pics"? or are you out on the LES every night watching your friends get bjs?

I was trying to work out what grammar manglement you were pointing out for ages there table

btw this might be vahid-level contrarianism but maybe if we see similarities btw what dash snow and cobrasnake do the impulse shouldnt be to downgrade snow but to elevate cobrasnake?

i mean cobrasnake is about 18 months away from his own "retrospective" at some shitty LA gallery anyway

but i dunno i do think the question kind of gets are much larger questions about what photography is, and what it does, and what makes for good or great or "artistic" photography vs. whatever else

not really interested in downgrading or elevating anyone iirc

fwiw i think its kind of hard to argue against the aesthetics of snows polaroids which imo are v pretty btw?

max is just trying to rep for rich kids who aren't milquetoast

lol i just love good lookin rich ppl tbh will ryde 4 them 4 all time

max that last statement is pretty wrongheaded and simplistic imo

duh

imo what ive seen of snow's stuff - esp the polaroids - is like 10000x better than the stuff w/ male models dressed like shirtless nazi prison guards and looks like an interview pictorial even when it isnt. that stuff really does make me kind of uncomfortable and plays into toxic ideas about sham lyfestiles and wealth and &c

do you guys have any talents

snark, zing, img flood

ok you are basically bulbasaur from pokemon diamond

just one drugged out brearley grad away from cosplay photos being accepted as art

i saw a small exhibition of portraits of cosplayers at a bookstore in LA last month

*checking the facebook pgs of drugged out brearly grads i know*

ok im not sure that you and i are ever going to reach a conclusion on this but, like, how is it that snow isnt showing you "a world other than your own"? i mean even if it IS "party pics"? or are you out on the LES every night watching your friends get bjs?

The one image that keeps sticking out in my mind is a Ryan McGinley photo of a topless, underfed hipster girl jumping up and down on a trampoline. Which is just... who cares? It was utterly unremarkable, IMO, aside from being the work of someone then being celebrated as an up and coming artist. I have a hard time caring when 'fine art' could just as well be a Fader spread for fall designers or Blue States Lose.

fwiw i think its kind of hard to argue against the aesthetics of snows polaroids which imo are v pretty btw?

i hear you milo

i like the polaroid aesthetic in general but tbh there's this dude who sells found polaroids for 25 cents a pop at this weekly craft fair in my neighborhood and sometimes i pick a few up, and a lot of them are amazing. i don't think snow's are any better or worse than some of the ones i've found.

Oh man, Currin and Yuskavage both bug me. The painting itself isn't "bad" but I look at that stuff and it just seems pointless.

I used to like Currin for riffing on Dutch masters generally and now all his stuff is OTT chancres and boils a la Dorian Gray's latter-day portrait. YES WE GET IT.

yuskavage is a pretty "bad" painter tho

i like the polaroid aesthetic in general but tbh there's this dude who sells found polaroids for 25 cents a pop at this weekly craft fair in my neighborhood and sometimes i pick a few up, and a lot of them are amazing. i don't think snow's are any better or worse than some of the ones i've found.

― Then, it dawned on me: "I HAVE BEEN PLAYED!" (omar little), Tuesday, July 14, 2009 5:03 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark

A friend of mine found the best polaroid ever taken on the street in NYC. It was lying face down but when he picked it up he realized that it was an old picture of Donald Sutherland walking through an airport holding his luggage and looking really startled. It was also signed by him. I think I have a copy of it somewhere. It's awesome.

A friend of mine found the best polaroid ever taken on the street in NYC. Erm he found it on the street - it wasn't taken there.

Not read the thread like, but just want to say my favourite record about drugs is Time Machines by Coil. It chimed well with my own limited experiences.