DOMENICO QUARANTA

What happens when mid-career art stars suddendly discover the potential of the digital medium?

This question is rolling into my head since when I read, last week in Art Basel, a short article on The Art Newspaper, enthusiastically endorsing Thomas Ruff‘s recent series of prints, Zycles (2008 – 2009).

I already knew about David Hockney‘s even more enthusiastic praise of the virtues of the computer, but Ruff’s naive remake of the computer art of the Sixties put a new light on it. Nevertheless, I still don’t have any answer for my question – just many incongruous feelings. Can anybody help me?

More soon. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy this funny quote by his majesty Hans Ulrich Obrist (about Hockney’s Photoshop paintings):

“I’ve never seen anything like it… At first I thought it was a painting. The more I examined it, the more I wasn’t sure.”

Damn, Mr. Obrist, Adobe Photoshop was first released in 1990. Where did you live in the last couple of decades?

“At particular times, a great deal of stupid people have a great deal of stupid money”.

NOW IN BOOKSTORES / DOUBLE EDITION ITALIAN ENGLISH:

Valerio Terraroli (ed), Tendenze della contemporaneità, 2000 e oltre – L’arte del XX secolo Vol. V, Milano, Skira 2010.

Valerio Terraroli (ed), Contemporary Tendencies, 2000 and beyond – Art of the Twentieth Century Vol. V, Milan, Skira 2010.

Essays by Lea Vergine, Nicolas Bourriaud, Angela Vettese, Klaus Honnef, Gabriella Belli, Luca Molinari, Paco Barragán, Walter Guadagnini, Marco Scotini, Filippo Maggia, Domenico Quaranta, Valerio Terraroli.

Download a low-res pdf preview (English version: cover, back cover, index, sample essay page, sample artist page)

Download the cover (English version)

Buy on Amazon.com (English version)

Buy on Skira.net (Italian version)

A talk I had in Brescia (Italy) on April 22, 2009, in the series “Art and the City. Sguardi sul contemporaneo” curated by Enrico de Pascale. Presentation on Google Docs.

Domenico Quaranta, “DON’T SAY NEW MEDIA!”, in FMR Bianca, n° 5, Franco Maria Ricci, Bologna, December 2008, pp. 92 – 107.

“Don’t say new media – Say art!” Gazira Babeli

“Forget the new, drop the media, enjoy art.”¹ Régine Debatty

Queste due citazioni, entrambe molto recenti, sono emblematiche per vari motivi. La prima è l’ammonizione con cui Gazira Babeli, un’artista che vive nel mondo sintetico di Second Life, accompagna la spettacolare punizione che infligge a chiunque osi pronunciare la parola “new media” davanti ai suoi lavori: un tornado che solleva per aria il nostro alter ego digitale, o avatar, finché quest’ultimo corregge il tiro, dicendo semplicemente “arte”. Régine Debatty è una critica d’arte di origine belga che ha raggiunto la celebrità grazie a un blog intitolato We Make Money Not Art, per poi stupire – e, in certi casi, contrariare – il suo pubblico spostando l’enfasi della sua indagine dalla tecnologia all’arte senza prefissi. I due commenti rivelano, innanzitutto, che esiste un’area, ambiguamente definita “New Media” o “New Media Art”, a cui sia Régine che Gazira sono ricondotte loro malgrado; un termine e un’area in cui forse, un tempo, si sono riconosciute, ma che ora non le soddisfa più.

Read the rest of this entry »