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CRITIC_OF_THE_BURN
September 20, 2006
February 14, 2007
As I was saying over in:
DOUBLET
Consider Burning Man art:
Popular. Effective.
But if I think about it,
it seems dissapointing.
The Serpent Mother
was a beautiful job... BURNING_SERPENT
But what does
it mean, really?
It came equipped with
an Artists Statement
describing some convoluted
conceptual tie-in to the
great Theme of BM in 2006:
"The Future"... but that (But then, maybe if
connection seemed tenuous I'd caught the opening
and forced to me. ceremony it would make
more sense to me?)
Apparently the "Serpent's Egg"
was supposed to suggest seeds
of things to come...
Then there was the piece we
all universally called
"The Belgian Waffle", much It is both exciting
to the annoyance of the and worrisome that
pretentious Belgians who Burning Man is now
assembled it... attracting these Outsiders are
massively funded invading our
I can't even remember projects by visiting outsider art
their name for it, groups. scene.
though that too had
some grand reference to
the future.
Everyone else was much
more impressed with this
thing than I was.
A huge sprawling,
But in trying to cavernous structure,
explain why I think tacked together out
this was overrated, of an organically
I have to spend an organized network
awful lot of time of 2x3s. A thousand
admitting there's a people could easily
lot that was cool wander around inside
about it... it. Art cars the
size of houses (some
In describing it to of which look
third parties that like houses) could
have never been there, drive around inside
you can't do it it.
justice without their
eyes getting wide.
SIZE
So: it may all just
be jaded whining on But I thought it
my part. was more big than
interesting.
And looking at it at a
distance, it (almost
literally) looked like
crap: this bulbous
brown thing plopped
down on the ground.
And this year's Temple Calling it "The Waffle"
project was disappointing. was being generous.
With David Best no longer
in charge-- it's fizzled:
smaller, less impressive. At the last minute the Burning
A clustering of Man administration apparently
disconnected towers without decided to bump it off axis
much obvious plan to it. away from it's originally
planned location (still shown
on the printed maps).
And that bamboo
porcupine-like tower,
that was kind of But you know...
nifty... but much
like the Whaffle I One afternoon there
wonder what it it was a spontaneous orgy Perhaps this
really meant much of climbing going on was triggered
of anything. on that bamboo structure. by a rope
left dangling
"Starry I doubt it was sanctioned down one side.
Bamboo by any one -- in the bold
Mandala" new Burning Man world,
by anarchy has little place --
Gerard but hordes of people were
Minakawa scrambling around on it,
monkeying about fifty
feet or more in the air.
A dark-eyed woman with
green mohawk, and
miniskirt, sporting
pretty, slightly
mismatched breasts,
batman's up the side
One night, far out on the of the steeply angled
perimeter, a row of tiny bamboo, to cheers of
glowing cup-cake shaped her friends...
chill-spaces, each with two
or three people squeezed in
them, chatting away.
A functional
gumball machine,
standing in
the middle of
a desolate plane.
A slim blonde in fetish clothes
passes a smoothie to a man on
a giant motorized banana.
Photographers instantly
descend on the photo-op.
Out on the no man's land
side of the playa, out
past the end of the
streets of the
horseshoe, and as far
off the esplanade as one
can get, someone has set
up -- shaded by an Whenever I look,
attached umbrella -- a a different
small, old-fashioned person occupies
school desk with it, busily
attached notebook and writing.
pen.
Right in our back yard in
the back streets, standing
on a corner, there's a
small triangular building
made entirely of doors, You step through
each painted with a any of the doors
different mural. and you're inside Does it sound
the same small obvious?
triangular room...
But it had that
On the inside, quality that
every door is good art often
painted with a has: it hovers
different set around the edges
of images. of meaning;
there's some
sort of
resonance
lurking there;
something is
going on that
you can't can't
quite put a
finger on...
"God help the Dangerbaby
critic of the begins
dawn." calling it
-- Phil Ochs "The doors of
perception".
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