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Special report: College Art Association Blog
Post #739 • February 25, 2006, 12:26 AM • 31 Comments
Finally, the truth.
2.
February 25, 2006, 9:59 AM
Thank you for saying we should all know how to draw. I was shocked to find that maybe 10% of the students throughout my 6 yrs of college educational experience knew how to. Charcoal, pencil, anything.
I understood the common thought, but c'mon. I loved my anatomy drawing classes, even though i am not a figurative artist and do not stick with one medium. The basics and knowing how to see are everything.
3.
February 25, 2006, 10:44 AM
What an odd blog. The CAA one I mean: an officially financed blog where the authors can slag the very institution they're there promoting. It is good that the CAA honchos can handle internal criticism. It is bad that naysaying is probably just the new phase of scenester cool-ness.
"To draw or not to draw" is a good topic for discussion. Somebody go off the rails now so I can keep my weekend interesting.
4.
February 25, 2006, 11:19 AM
i'd rather clean my toilets than bask in the electronic glow today.
however, i agree, the draw or not to draw topic is a good one. i blame it on the abex'ers. ha!
ahab, hope you fix your url link so we can visit.
peace.
5.
February 25, 2006, 11:24 AM
I fixed Ahab's link. I hate my comment form and I intend to redo it.
I'm off to the Norton.
6.
February 25, 2006, 11:25 AM
Amen, MEK.
But look how they "slag" it, Ahab, with cute, mannered tomwolfian arttalk that they and the organization itself, in all its stygian smugness, know damn well is nothing more than the harmless affectation of the fashion victim. The whole thing is rotten to the core.
7.
February 25, 2006, 11:26 AM
Well, hell, that's a blog too. I would have plugged it yesterday. Congrats, Ahab!
8.
February 25, 2006, 1:15 PM
The learning curve on this blog thing is a steep one, and I'm getting a little dizzy. Thanks for steadying me.
9.
February 25, 2006, 2:26 PM
[I used to be spam about UK car stuff.]
10.
February 25, 2006, 3:05 PM
Hey, I know this is off topic, but can anyone recommend a good place to rent a car in the UK?
11.
February 25, 2006, 7:51 PM
No, but I know where you can find some canned Spam.
12.
February 25, 2006, 9:56 PM
I saw the French Impressionism show from the Boston Museum of Art at the Norton today
Altough I thought there was not alot major works in the show I thought the show was excellent
It did have some strong works like the Corot landscape painting, a small Millet painting
and small degas painting of horses were a few of my favorites.
did anyone else see the show??
13.
February 25, 2006, 10:16 PM
Me! Me! Expect a writeup this week.
14.
February 25, 2006, 10:36 PM
Franklin
I look forward to see what you write.
Also at the Norton anyone see the Damien Hurst exhibition "The Bilotti Paintings: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John" of very very large paintings that had butterflies, razor blades, pills, dirt and other stuff stuck on their surfaces each had very large frame and all works were in a room painted black?
I thought they were very big, ostentatious and did nothing for me.
15.
February 26, 2006, 7:37 AM
I'm covering the Hirsts as well. In short, I agree.
The link at "truth" above is a parody, what I thought was a pretty obvious one. I see that nothing in the art world strikes anyone as unacceptably insane. Maybe I did too good of a job copying the design. Maybe it wasn't funny enough, although SuperGirl liked it. Oh well. PS - April Fool's Day is just over a month away. Don't say that you weren't warned.
16.
February 26, 2006, 7:57 AM
Are you saying that you made all of that up? Crreated the whole thing, archives and all?
That's hard to believe, but if it is true it is absolutely brilliant.
17.
February 26, 2006, 8:08 AM
The design, the titles of the posts, and the names are taken from the original. The content of the posts, the writing, is mine. Permalinks and whatnot go to the real site if you want to see the parodied posts. There's an admission of parody at the bottom. It's powered by something called Movable Swipe. There's a fake sidebar link to a post called "Tongue bath on a shoe" followed by "CAA:DOA." I thought it was pretty over the top.
18.
February 26, 2006, 10:14 AM
You sounded apologetic because no one got it, but that is precisely why it is so good. It demonstrates once again that this idiocy is so self parodying that it is impossible to parody. Even though I know you did this I see no real contrast between what you wrote and what is available through their links. You could have written it all. Or not.
What difference does it make what anyone's "intentions" are? It is all surreal, through and through.
I hope the CAA people read this. Maybe they will sue you. That would be fun!
19.
February 26, 2006, 10:53 AM
BTW our painter graduates report that interviewing at the conference was pretty brutal. Pomo is still in full swing and conformity is obligatory.
20.
February 26, 2006, 12:20 PM
I thought the Blog was real
I love a post the starts with "Jesus Tits"
gave me a real giggle.
21.
February 26, 2006, 1:30 PM
Brilliant, Franklin. If I had been drinking milk, it would have come out of my nose with Everything means something if you look at it close enough. I have a brother who says that. He's retarded, but sometimes he says good things anyway.
Very Forrest Gump.
22.
February 26, 2006, 1:31 PM
A truth spoof. No way. It was hilarious to read, and now I have to laugh at myself too. I'll have to carve my ship a new masthead - a gull.
23.
February 26, 2006, 1:36 PM
Now, what I wonder, is whether the spoof was informed by anonymous emailers telling Franklin how they "fared at the meat market this year" (a la the original CAACAA post), or if this all sprung fully-formed from one mind... like, I totally believe the bit about the microphone could have been a real event.
24.
February 26, 2006, 2:34 PM
Great Franklin, I love the one where the writer has to go upstairs to rest his jaw. You deserve the blog world's version of the Pulitzer for this one! If such a prize exists?
25.
February 26, 2006, 4:48 PM
It's called the "Blulitzer Prize", Guy
26.
February 26, 2006, 5:43 PM
I based the content extremely loosely on things that were said in the real blog. No one contacted me about anything and I don't expect them to. The only bit of reality on the real blog came from this post:
But the interview process and some of the transgressions that continue to take place are problematic. No one likes to be asked, nor should they be asked in an interview, "how old are you?" or "are you planning to have children?" You know who you are.... And I haven't met anyone who likes the unnerving feeling of being spotted at an interview table by a colleague from their own department, whose institution didn't pay for space in the "hall of shame," but who has been deployed to stalk the rows to unnerve those who are trying to jump ship. Likewise, I haven't heard anyone say that they liked being left waiting in the hotel corridor for over twenty minutes past their scheduled interview time, only to come face to face with a competitor for the same job exiting the room. And people really seem to have a tough time with an institution's rep completely blowing off their appointment. Go figure. These are just the tip of the iceberg.
Absolutely shameful. Asking someone how old they are or their childbearing plans are not just something no one should be asked in a job interview - it's against the law, and somebody ought to be hauled into court over it. The CAA is supposed to uphold standards in the profession, but when it comes to regulating its own behavior and the participants in its activities, they might as well be sponsoring gang rapes.
One other poster complained of having to explain her conceptually based work to media based departments, so apparently not everyone feels that Pomo is in full swing. But something we could all get behind, in theory, is that the laws of the land ought not be flouted and that the CAA doesn't do enough to protect the underclass of non-tenured faculty as they go through the process of finding a position.
I'm torn, because I would love to create an alternative to the CAA job fair in which the participants could come without fear of exploitation - complete with oversight that would allow wronged interviewees to voice grievances and have the offending interviewers removed. Lets see how many panel discussions would have audiences if the job seekers were down the street getting interviewed with respect.
But I have to make art, and that would totally eat up my life. Screw them. If someone wants to take up the mantle, I'll help out, but otherwise, I'll be in the studio.
27.
February 26, 2006, 9:35 PM
I read the top item on the parody site yesterday and unsuccessfully tried to leave a comment here saying how impressed I was that the writer was willing to post that on the CAA's own site. If I didn't comment now, no one would know I didn't get it. But reading the whole thing now, I have to say it's incredibly funny, one of the best things I've seen in some time.
When it comes to the interviews and such, I'm afraid the problems go far beyond the CAA and are endemic to academia (at least in the humanities and social sciences, and probably beyond.) There are a lot of people chasing too few positions through a process that is totally FUBAR. I actually find a number of the people who succeed at the game admirable, in a way--they are obviously much more disciplined than the likes of me. But it's a horrifyingly disfunctional process, especially including the sort of grotesque discrimination Franklin's comments above highlight.
28.
February 27, 2006, 12:02 AM
By copping to the joke, you're just begging for someone to step up and do a movable swipe parody of Artblog.net. Who'll be laughing then? And who at?
29.
February 27, 2006, 2:43 AM
It's called the "Blulitzer Prize", Guy
...or, maybe the "Bulshitzer Prize"...
30.
February 27, 2006, 7:19 AM
Even better, Marc. Good name for a beer, too.
31.
February 27, 2006, 10:25 AM
Turnabout is fair play, Ahab.
1.
oldpro
February 25, 2006, 7:10 AM
Like I said, it's a nightmare.
I gave a talk at CAA a couple of years ago which was really just a plea to get back to common sense, and, by the way, we should also learn how to draw. I had a hugely enthusiastic reaction but I got the distinct feeling that when they left the room and circulated in the Sacred Halls of Approved Thought they would straighten up and watch what they said and do what they had to do.