SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

Now it wasn’t as if I had never heard this term. Among my many magazine subscriptions there is the libertarian journal Reason (which seems to cover the arts more cogently than many magazines I know) and I think I’d first encountered the term in these pages. And then, as these things tend to do, it popped up all over, even on my City of Chicago water bill which exhorted me to detach my downspout and use the rainwater to nourish my street-level garden (done); start a rooftop garden (done); and send in $287.36 by the 15th of the month (done). Now I don’t want to get completely hung up on the actual term; what was more important is that is was the type of term that seemed to just suddenly spring up, with no real point of origin (unlike many art world terms where authors strenuously vie for the honors of deriving an “ism”) and suddenly people in the know seemed to be tossing it off effortlessly, and you, the complacent listener, nod your head all the while realizing you are not really sure what it means.

Which leads me into the real subject of this posting, the year’s end issue of Artforum (2005 In Review see this). A little known fact about me is that as part of my duties as a curator at MCA, I supervise the library, a small, noncirculating resource designed largely for the use of the staff. I approve the list of subscriptions, and I handle the magazines and work with a superb volunteer, Melissa, to catalogue them into our system. But I rarely open the magazines, even after they are displayed on a really wonderful wooden display stand awaiting the next month’s issue to arrive.

Artforum of course is amongst the publications we subscribe to. And if there is any magazine it were to be said I crack the least, it is Artforum. How can I explain this? I’m a contemporary art curator. Don’t I need to keep up with this publication, if anything at all? What am I doing listening to AM talk radio and not perusing the pages of Artforum? But then in defense of myself, I think, but I never really read Artforum dating way back to the 1970s, when John Coplans was editor. Who does really? Aren’t people rather proud of the fact that they don’t read Artforum? Isn’t it actually paradoxically ‘cool’ not to read Artforum? It’s not like I don’t read any of the art magazines. I mean, I read ArtNews, which lists “passages” of colleagues, quite a reason to open the magazine. And Art in America, with its always gorgeous layouts and genteel style? — well, I needn’t be so defensive. But come on, this blog is called Sharkforum. Doesn’t that mean I have a special duty to keep up with its putative namesake?

And then I think, well maybe people are proud of the fact that they don’t really read Artforum, but at least they look at the pictures. I don’t even look at the pictures. So as part of my New Year’s resolution to be a more thoughtful person, I thought, I’ll look at Artforum. And so I did. With mounting panic I realized I am totally out of touch. The December issue of Artforum had a year-end round-up of films.When did that happen? Well, okay, but I hardly recognized any of the titles never mind had I seen a single one of the films listed. And a year-end round-up of music? By another crew of writers whose names I don’t recognize (Dennis Cooper, Stephen Vitiello, Christoph Cox, Susie Ibarra, and Debra Singer. Well, I recognize Debra Singer…). Gee whiz, I’m completely out of touch…I’d certainly never heard of most of the musical groups, either).

I’m not even mentioning the top ten lists, which reassuringly were by writers whom I mostly recognized, but they listed not just art exhibitions and events, but things I wasn’t even sure of what they were….books? street performances? concerts? poetry readings?

And what is this article “Biopolitics: Between Abu Ghraib and Terri Schiavo” by Slavoj Žižek? Now really starting to panic, I sought out further information, and learned that this article was part of a triad in which the ‘art of 2005’ was placed in the context of a broader visual culture. Okay, I guess I can accept that art should be examined in a broader visual culture. But Žižek’s article, according to an editor’s note, “draws on Giogio Agamben’s (who?) theory of the homo sacer (what?), the 1999 movie "Double Jeopardy," (now this is a Hollywood movie, isn’t it?) and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human, (what, he’s hip to cite again?) to examine “biopolitics.” (What’s this mean? Oh, I guess I have to read the article….)

According to this editor’s note, Žižek “finds disturbing affinities between the fates of Terri Schiavo and the prisoners tortured by American forces as part of the war on terror, offering these phenomena (phenomena? what phenomena? Terri Schiavo’s medical care and the pain and suffering of the tortured? What???..yeah, I guess I need to read the article…) as ‘two extremes of America’s regard for human rights.’”

Okay…a naïve question here…but is it about art? Am I not perusing Artforum? Or perhaps Artforum should be renamed “CulturalWorkersforum.” Or “LiberalThoughtforum.” But I am calmed in my panic of complete and utter insecurity about my intellect, capabilities, and inherent hipness to realize that just like in the articles that are ostensively about art, I can’t understand this gobbledygook either. A sample of Mr. Žižek’s prose: “If the classic exercise of power lay in the threat made operative precisely by way of never actualizing itself, by way of remaining a threatening gesture…[author’s italics and ellipsis] with the war on terror, the invisible threat causes the incessant actualization not of itself but of the measures against itself.” What???!

And I’d bet if I read the Year In Review issue cover to cover, I’d find the word “graywater.” It certainly seems some sort of cultural buzzword. It has even gotten to the point that high school students in their science classes are assigned the design and construction of graywater recovery systems, which seems to mean putting layers of sand, charcoal and gravel in some sort of bucket and pouring the graywater through it. This leads me to believe that graywater is easily obtainable, if even high school students are assigned to handle it, and that it isn’t going to sicken them, as of course our society wouldn’t allow such flagrant disregard for our youth’s health.

So, finally, I looked up the definition of graywater:

Water generated by household processes such as washing dishes, laundry and bathing. Graywater is distinct from wastewater that has been contaminated with toilet waste or kitchen garbage, which is known as blackwater. Graywater typically breaks down faster than blackwater and has much less nitrogen and phosphorous. However, all graywater must be assumed to have some blackwater-type components, including pathogens of various sorts. For more on this, click here.

Whoops, I guess I was wrong about our culture’s flagrant disregard for the health of our youth. I bet I wouldn’t have made that mistake if I’d read Slavoj Žižek’s Artforum article “Biopolitics: Between Abu Ghraib and Terri Schiavo.”

More later,

Lynne

Illustration of graywater system from the website of the Center of the Study of the Built Environment (CSBE) Graywater Reuse project, a project funded by the Enhanced Productivity Program at the Jordanian Ministry of Planning.

See also “A Field Guide to Aquatic Phenomenon,” that answers the question “Why is water different colors?”