Month in, month out, galleries try to move product. Even the desperate, hanging by thread, know they have to impersonate serenity to hope for success. Nobody wants to buy from a dealer too eager to sell.
Restraint is good, even when the art apes carnival. Dealer attempts to step into the conga line and shake a retail tail feather almost always falter. Case in point, Traver Gallery’s announcement for its May exhibit, opening Thursday night:
I draw your attention to the imperative at the bottom in capital red letters – PIMP MY GLASS! Difficulties abound. Where to start?
A. The whole “pimp my” is played out. To attach it to an artist’s work is to encase it in cliche.
B. The brothers Einar and Jamex De La Torre are Hispanic. The cultural implications are cringe-inducing.
C. Pimps are creeps. My heart goes out to sex workers, but those who most commonly mistreat them deserve contempt. Who’s the pimp in this construct, the dealer?
Regina, given that in the Gallery Guide that’s the name of the show, my impression is that the De La Torres came up with that.
No matter who’s dim idea it was, my objections stand. It’s the gallery’s responsibility.
You wrote once that you weren’t a cop or even a hall monitor. You’re being a cop here, a taste cop. Lighten up.
What dealer wouldn’t want to be called a Big Ol’ Pimp or Madam? Collectors are pleasured, Artist are fkt, and Dealers are payed. And those who most commonly mistreat artists? Dealers probably. The analogy isn’t that bad. If the artist suggested the name of the show and the dealer gave the go ahead, well…?
I think it’s hilarious!
I’m sensing humor rather than pimp glorification. This is not your typical well behaved Northwest glass art.
I have loved the dela Torre brothers since I showed a couple of pieces of theirs way back in the mid eighties at Alonso/Sullivan Gallery.
Can’t wait to see their pimpin’ show!
From Urban dictionaries: Pimped
1. To utterly destroy your competition
2. To be way tight and decked out in expensive stuff.
3. To go all out on in a fashion manner.
4. To take easily, without force or additional coaxing.
5. revved up and customized
PS: Even if I thought the artists were misguided in their title chice, I must applaud Traver Gallery for not censoring their choice
Ok, Juan, but what does it really mean, at the root? A pimp: Person who lives on the (often forced) labor of others. Someone who thinks of women as non-precious objects. User. Abuser. Brutal jerk. I realize the meaning has slid, but that slide rests on the muck of oppression, which is not only taken for granted but celebrated.
“No matter who’s dim idea it was, my objections stand. It’s the gallery’s responsibility.”
This is why I show in an artist run gallery.
NO “adults” to censor my ideas.
Course I did show with Larry Reid for a few years, but he was usually the instigator, not restrainer, of “pimp” ideas.
Lighten up, girlfriend.
Your outrage is misplaced and overblown- especially after all that cheerleading you were doing for ol Mack Daddy Dale, king of the glass pimps…
If there is one thing the glass world needs to do, it is take itself LESS seriously, and the De La Torres not only do that, they are really good artists, too.
Regina,
I do get it but so many words evolve and gain other meanings. I often wonder why when I’m depressed I’m still gay.
Maybe shifting the meaning of certain words is good. Anyway, I don’t think misogyny was the intended implication by the artists or the gallery but maybe they should be asked.
Dear Ries: There are days that I hate men, the kind who think the word pimp is anything but repugnant, them and their female fellow travelers. Pimps traffic in women. I have nieces and nephews, all beloved. If any of the latter grow up to be pimps, I’ll consider hitting them over the head with a shovel. They can repent their choices at their leisure, in a coma. On the other hand, I return to my original point: Huge honking cliche.
Short of surgery, there is not much I can do to remove myself from the category of “men”- but looking at the images of the work on Traver’s website, its pretty obvious that, unlike many artists who have achieved financial and critical success by portraying exploitative imagery of women, there is NO connection between this work and trafficking in Women, Children, animals, or even inanimate objects for the sexual gratification of the evil patriarchy.
They used the word pimp, it is true- but I am sure even you, feminist crusader that you are on this particular issue, have used both cliches and insensitive words in other contexts in your writing- we all do.
A search of your own back pages would reveal less than sensitive word usage on more than one occasion, I am quite sure.
When the TV show “Pimp My Ride” plays, do you picket the TV station?
Word usage changes with time. Language is alive. And artists use cliches, intentionally, every day. Just another tool in their toolbox.
Take, for instance, this artist-
http://www.artsjournal.com/anotherbb/2009/09/mark-flood—street-sign-be-a.html
He seems to be advocating that the audience become whores- surely this is a form of pimping?
Where is the outrage?
Oh, wait- thats you, endorsing the work by posting it on your blog…
I still says- lighten up. There is actual slavery, violence, torture, war, and pestilence out there to protest- but neither Bill Traver nor the De La Torre’s are the perps.