Comments on Strikethrough

wtf is this shit?

The only thing I don't get is: why advertise at all, reverse or otherwise? Or if you're going to "reverse advertise" why list the time, date and location when people aren't supposed to come? Seems like kind of a reverse psychology sort of thing to get you to want to go.

Also, what's with blog posts that are word for word reprints of articles in the paper?

It’s the advertising that ruins this for me. It’s selling the exclusivity of the event, rather than the nothingness of it. It’s saying this is happening but you are not important, cool, intelligent or some other exclusive term enough to see it . . . unless you work at The Stranger.

@ 2 and 3: I asked Sears about that—he said the point was to go through all the protocol of performance (including modest advertising and press releases), which is what makes Strikethrough different from just dinking around in your basement.

Also, Levi: Because not everybody reads both (but I'm flattered that you do). And it was a good excuse to post an image of this Kasimir Malevich.

Still, they could "enact the ritual" without telling people where and when not to be. You could have the where or the when, but having both just seems like they actually want you to be there. That's what I thought when I saw the ads. I would wager that the main reason no one tends to show up is not because they know they're not supposed to, but because it's a Monday at the Rendezvous.

Malevich's paintings are not about emptiness or voic or nothing. They are about facture about paint. This painting does not illustrate your point.

Dinking around in their basement:
Most artists who have done performances like this in the past have in fact been making the point that all Art or Performance is really just dinking around in a basement. Just with an audience.

Usually when people want to be isolated in a box, bag, or cell by someone else it is called a fetish and if someone is paid to do it they are called a sex worker.

Oh my god, I cannot believe people go to art school to be enabled to write multiple paragraphs about a freaking black square.

This is why I avoid modern dance a lot.

It's all about the nothingness of existence.

(imagines performers giggling behind stage at how stupid we are to be watching it)

Artistic masturbation. We're too self absorbed as it is to glorify this sort of wank.

@11: Absolutely, 100% agree.

How can Sears claim that his "reverse-advertising" (which is the lamest term ever concocted and, if taken literally, is not what Sears is doing) is meant to fulfill all the protocols of performance, when the entire point of Strikethrough seems to be abandoning those protocols to begin with?

I can almost buy that this is a unique exploration for some of the artists, but for Sears this is nothing more than a constant pat on the back for how gosh-durn clever he thinks he is.