Slog - Comments on "Exhibition Copy"

Comment by terry miller

terry miller — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:40:58 -0800

it is a stunning show at the gug. their are some striking originals in the show, which have been re-imagined for ny and the current times.

one piece that comes to mind is the wolves bashing themselves against a "wall", which in ny is made of glass, and originally, in berlin, was a chunk of the berlin wall.

and the giant sunken ship ashore on a beach of broken porcelain is wholly an original, with photographs to prove it.

there were some interesting copies however in the room with the river and yak skin boat.

the show in ny is a stunning success, wish it would come here, but nothing interesting EVER comes here...

Comment by Jen Graves

Jen Graves — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:58:02 -0800

Terry Miller:

You're missing my point. My point is that there is a difference between copies and "exhibition copies."

This sort of thing drives me crazy: when radical ideas in art, through co-option, become lazy ahistorical excuses.

Jen

Comment by Bek

Bek — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:02:03 -0800

http://yaledailynews.com/storymin.html Creepy art news.

Comment by Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:07:47 -0800

This is the most important work of art since the Mona Lisa

Comment by F

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:12:37 -0800

All art is conceptual and copyable. Furthermore, it is the art world's fetishization of originals that is the only thing that makes art economically feasible.

Comment by Emily

Emily — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:17:34 -0800

Oh darn. When I read the first paragraph of your post I was all excited that the Seattle Art Museum was getting a break from this pointless piece of shit while it was being exhibited elsewhere. No such luck.

Comment by infrequent

infrequent — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:30:11 -0800

it looks better there.

Comment by infrequent

infrequent — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:31:55 -0800

@6 +1!

Comment by Emily

Emily — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:40:23 -0800

@7 I hope so. Maybe I wouldn't hate this piece so much if it made more sense in its surroundings. That's why I think the Cai Guo-Qiang piece installed on Broadway is more successful.

Comment by inkweary

inkweary — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:55:46 -0800

The sculptor Barnett Newman created 3 iterations of his work "Broken Obelisk" in 1963. One of them is in Red Square on the UW campus. None of them was labeled as the original copy and they were always meant to stand alone, which was a point Barnett was making about the purposelessness of numbered editions in an industrial society where identical things are easily manufactured.

Comment by infrequent

infrequent — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:27:52 -0800

@9 i wanted to scold you for not understanding our surroundings at broadway either, but i was too busy laughing.

Comment by Catman

Catman — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:24:05 -0800

It also looked better at LACMA four years ago.

Comment by Brad

Brad — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:37:47 -0800

@10 But there are more than 3 "Broken Obelisk"s! The text on the sign at UW prominently talks of it as an edition of three, with the others in NYC and Texas.

But did you know there is an "exhibition copy", created in 2004 and rather permanently installed in Berlin, as well?

Comment by terry miller

terry miller — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:59:35 -0800

hey jen, i get what your saying,

also does the fact that it's place differently, vertically instead of horizontally, make a difference? the one at the gugg ends with the car on the ramp heading downwards as if it's going to start the crazy loop all over again. something you can't actually see in any of the photos of the work at the gugg.

Comment by NapoleonXIV

NapoleonXIV — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:57:25 -0800

And the Hammering Men, too! There's simply scads of 'em.

Seattle: By and By, We'll have One of Everything!

Comment by Jen Graves

Jen Graves — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:10:20 -0800

Terry Miller: Here's my thinking on that: Differences in configuration are super-common; the piece at SAM is not the same as it was at Mass MOCA. Granted, the Gugg installation is the most different, but that could still fall under the site-adaptation rule. The piece is still exploding cars in a row inside an institution. Not sure that relates to the question of the "exhibition copy."

Jen

Comment by stacy

stacy — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:41:12 -0800

Imagine my surprise last month when I walked into the guggenheim and saw this piece hanging. "oh fuck" thought I. not a fan of it. But still felt kind of proud that the guggenheim borrowed something from little ol' us.
The rest of the exhibit is really quite incredible. Cai won me over and made me come back to "inopportune" to give it a second chance. This is when I noticed the little "exhibition copy" note and the year of the copy. I couldn't help but wonder what having a copy of the piece does to the value of the piece in the SAM. I still think this is one of Cai's least impressive pieces. And I really wish the gguggenheim could have done a trade with us - like baseball players - we give them Inopportune and they give us Head On (the wolves).
oh! there was another piece in the show that was the subject of another "copying" debate. I think it's called Rent Collection... maybe that'll add to the debate.