Images from tonight’s lecture at collector Rosa de la Cruz’s, The Moore Space, Miami Design. Two artists from this years Whitney Museum Biennial (NYC) are showing there in the show titled, “Scream.” It’s supposed to be about the scary, the grotesque, the morbid, but I didn’t find the work very close to any of those. I found myself thinking that I didn’t miss much. Moore Space very often has some very interesting shows. The space is on the second floor of a building that features mostly designer furniture dealers however, Moore Space is very raw, wide, huge windows looking down to the lobby, and some smaller intimate spaces that I would love to do a project in. It’s doubtful that I would ever be shown there, though. (I was asked by local curator where I was showing, and if I show much, to which I replied, “I am showing at a group show at the Museum of Art Ft. Lauderdale. But, I’m not represented by a gallery because I don’t think any local ones are much interested in my work. My work has always been received more favorably out of Miami than in.”)
The guest lecturer, Shamim Momin, Associate Curator, Whitney Museum (NYC), was very long winded. She spoke almost non-stop from 8 pm to 9:30 pm, including taking a number of questions. The lecture, although informative, was full of “art speak.” How can art be discussed without that heavily ladened rhetoric?
Words (and phrases) used by Ms. Momin regularly throughout the evening:
Ms. Momin only acknowledged using a word that wasn’t a real word only once but, I heard lots of words that weren’t real words. But, they flowed so quickly we never had a chance to question the real meaning of what she was saying. She wrapped each artist’s work as it was shown in a tight package of jargonistic language, sprinkled with enthusiasm and curatorial ideas of intelligence and smartness. The central element in this discussion, the art, as shown was projected from a computer and, didn’t allow us that never made it to NYC to actually see the work without all the language that seemed to prop up the artwork that wasn’t really very interesting to look at, for the most part.
