Tim Hawkinson
Post #1046 • September 5, 2007, 5:54 PM • 8 Comments
Los Angeles - I hesitate to say too much about the Tim Hawkinson's show at the Getty, as I saw, but did not hear, the installation that trivialized the four other works by the artist on display. Überorgan sprawled through the Getty's entrance hall, resembling a giant squid rendered abstractly in kitchen trash bags and reclaimed ductwork, and it was meant to play a score recorded player-piano style on a long roll of paper. (They have a recording at the exhibition link above.) The rest of the show consisted of a bat made out of melted plastic, an animal skeleton formed from little rowing men, a big, wiggly, dragon-ish ink drawing, and a photomontage of an octopus in which images of the artist's lips served as tentacle suckers. Likable stuff, but minor, especially in comparison with Überorgan, and too diverse to cohere as a room. Clearly he should have made the whole space into an undersea scene depciting creatures formed in the same manner as the octupus.
2.
September 6, 2007, 9:04 AM
they are both the same thing. tim is the leonardo of the future. and leonardo is history so go figure.
3.
September 6, 2007, 9:59 AM
I saw Uberorgan years ago at MassMoca and liked it , it was like being inside an instrument or a stomach. The other things you linked to seem much less ambitious and a little corny. That stand for the animal skeleton is just awful - it ruins whatever might be going on with the fake bones.
4.
September 6, 2007, 11:05 AM
U-Tube has a video of his Gimbled Klein Basket from Pace-Wildenstein
which is the best thing I have seen him produce.
Pretty awesome!
5.
September 6, 2007, 3:44 PM
You will all have to forgive me for being quite, quite beyond even the slightest curiosity about such things. I'm sort of like a recovered alcoholic, except that the alcohol has lost all appeal, as if it had been turned into rainwater in a gutter.
6.
September 6, 2007, 4:04 PM
No, it doesn't seem coherent at all. I found some brief videos of uberorgan and Gimbled Klein Basket on youtube.com. It sounds more obnoxious than whimsical, but this might be an artifact of video reproducing its sounds poorly. The crowds around it seem happy to see it, so I have to assume the video is the problem. But still, back to the objects, they don't look like they relate at all to it. Were they displayed in the same space? They don't even seem inspired as individual pieces. I thought humor and wit was Hawkinson's stock in trade. Aside from the octopus (which I suspect I'd give him points for if I saw it in person), these objects don't give me that sense.
7.
September 6, 2007, 5:04 PM
Ubergimcrack. The bigger and more theatrical these things are the more preposterous they look.
If this is the Leonardo of the future we are not giving the future much of a past.
8.
September 6, 2007, 10:53 PM
If Leonardo was in front of this 'stuff'", he would want to be blindfolded and then maybe shot and put out of his misery, I would be next and in great company.
1.
beware
September 6, 2007, 8:47 AM
Minor is right. Leonardo could do better blindfolded.