Here is a great 10 minute video of a lecture by David Robbins from 2007 at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies. David Robbins is an artist and writer who wrote "The Velvet Grind," the book of contemporary criticism that Art280 is reading this semester. Though some of you may find this video un-exciting in its lecture format, anyone worth their salt in this or any other "art" class (or just any class) should watch it with rapt attention. Maybe you'll disagree, but Robbin's ideas really strike a chord with the new way that we can think about being creative in this era. I like how he eschews the term "artist" in favor of "independent creative." I feel similarly about the need for revision in the way we think about these descriptors. Below this video I have posted a piece of a creative project by Robbins, a fantastic video from his work, "The Ice Cream Social," which was a conceptual project that involved regular public socials at Baskin-Robbins' ice cream parlors, where Robbins would hang paintings designed specifically for the space. The project spurned a television show, music (some of which can be viewed at the end of the video) and numerous other bi-products.
Video description from Youtube:
Visiting artist and writer David Robbins will talk about "high entertainment." A practice for the future that combines the critical capacity of fine art with the pleasures and reach of show business, "high entertainment" could be what you are already making. Robbins's objects, images, and writing reflect on spectacle and the position of the artist in the visual system, and suggest possibilities for a new relationship between art and the entertainment industry.
TV Dance Party Talk Show, "The Ice Cream Social," by David Robbins.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
David Robbins certainly speaks very well. I would love it if he came to Whitman!
Also, I really like how, at least according to the video clip's implication, when he left his pieces on the street for people to take, he packaged them up carefully and professionally, which seems to allow street-goers to enter into the same handling practice as the art gallery system.
Post a Comment