John Perreault tackles The Generational: Younger than Jesus on his blog, Artopia. He tackled it last week, but in the spirit of this post, the concept of “today” covers a lot of ground.
Perreault:
The NuMu “The Generational” has an attention-getting but foolish extended title: “Younger Than Jesus”, which seems to mean that all the 50 artists from 25 different countries are younger than The Christ when He was crucified. I find this truly offensive. And I am not even a Christian.
Will future titles be equally insulting? How about: More Boring Than the Buddha; Bossier Than Moses; Louder Than Luther; Madder Than Mohammad; More Baffling Than Madame Blavatsky?
…
Well, yes, art is indeed global. But so is late capitalism and so is tuberculosis. In spite of transnational trends like the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Enlightenment, and then Modernism, it was once thought nations were little, much cherished pockets of stylistic development, language tics, and even aesthetic surprise. Not so anymore.
…
The official Artopia doctrine is that art has been done in by a fatal disconnect from poetry and from the metaphysical. Whatever art was, it is being continued somewhere else.
In a similar vein, Edward Winkleman capers through aesthetic theory, here.
OK, so clearly I have no idea what I’m talking about (and yet, amazingly, that doesn’t slow me down one bit, does it?)
bravo regina. thanks for posting. juicy criticism that makes an artist (i.e. me) think is always welcome.
great posting: thanks for sharing that.