extra-introspective weiner
i'm a great fan of the text artist lawrence weiner. i stumbled into his work by sheer luck one rainy night in new york. it was my second year of college, and i did a lot of solo museum trips--i walk slowly and think longly. i went to the whitney on one of their 'free' days (if you have cash. $3 minimum if you don't), and poked around at my leisure. there was a daunting wing with nothing but alice walker, which was really neat, but what really floored me was an entire floor was devoted to lawrence weiner as part of a retrospective called 'AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE.' the walls were all white, and each wall had no more than two 'sculptures' (pieces) on it. they're all in one of two typefaces: 1) franklin gothic condensed, or 2) margaret seaworthy gothic, the latter is weiners' own design.there is a wonderful artist talk of his on youtube, the first part of which is here. in it, he says 'art is not about fucking up people's days; their life is hard enough. art is about fucking up people's dreams [...] because you can only dream about what you know.' the ability to express a difficult and eloquent idea in every-man's language is something i admire in artists of all kinds, from charles mingus, to george carlin, to penn jillette (of penn & teller), to matt stone and trey parker (of south park), to david mamet. but the point actually being made is a very lovely one: people know what to do with art. art meant to deliberately confront people, shock them, make them uncomfortable, purposefully and meticulously manipulate the emotions of its audience is not always bad art, but it's usually patronizing and strident, and therefore ineffective.weiner did an artist book with peter gordon called 'THE SOCIETY ARCHITECT PONDERS THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE' (weiner is not lacking self-esteem). it documents a pseudo-opera they did relating to a lawsuit weiner was in, and he makes a second point on manipulative art: he talks about 'setting up a space to wonder, so that we can find our place in the sun.' what a beautiful sentiment. it's one i'm very partial to.in art, i have no interest in telling anyone what to think. art for me is a spectator sport--whatever the audience walks away with is correct. this leads me to write and play more contemplatively and introspectively than others making music today, at least when i'm left to my own devices. it also means my path will most likely be more difficult, because even some of the most popular artists of the day--banksy, lady gaga, et al--tell the audience literally what to think about, and how to think about it. that's cool, and i loves me some banksy, but it's not for me.we have evolved these beautiful brains, and it's so much fun to send a thought in like a pinball and feel it ricochet across every part of your memory. curiosity and introspectivity are not at a premium right now, and i'm a little scared as to why. maybe because they look to be in such dire straights, i'm very interested in 'setting up spaces to wonder.'i bet you just came because it's called 'weiner.' ha!weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weinerlastly, here's a piece i wrote based on a lawrence weiner piece. if you're so inclined, please look at the original here first, then take a listen. it's about a year old now, but i'm still fond of it.[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/16176515" params="show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=00c3ff" width="100%" height="81" ]& READ (for lawrence weiner)colin woodford - drums, cymbals, etcandrew conrad - tenor saxophonelouis lopez - trumpetmaxwell gualtieri - guitfiddlerecorded february 2009 by john baffa in the ROD concert hall at calarts.also, this was the very first concert for my drumset!