I want to follow up on my struggle to be defined as an ARTIST with the facebook dialoge/argument that I had with Hennessy Youngman over his re-nigging of the call to curate ARTISTs who could bring work to his part of the ‘Virgins’ exhibition.
I also wanted to add the last comment that Hennessy fb’ed to me which came after I made this post originally:
Hennessy Youngman: so im illuminati? I asked the internet to be a curator and put together this show with my own money to give some people a chance to show past the great wall of 10th ave. I got to split to look at some walker evans photos.
I think we all learned lessons here.
1. name calling isn’t cool
2. In my definition being in the illuminati means to say one thing but do the opposite for personal gain. And there are some other ritualistic practices involved going far back to the pharoah days and shit, correct me if I’m wrong Henny /aka the pharaoh.
3. I detect a slight amount of bitterness from HY that he had to pay the expense of his piece out of his own bank account. so Lesson number 3 is that being an ARTIST means being exploited by the illuminati until you are so large that you become one of them. Nobody likes entry-level status, I’m just sayin’.
I love the strength of Sherrie’s original artwork. Her plywood work is one of my main inspirations for “The Message” project. I see it when I hear her name rather “after walker evans” or whomever.
As for lunch with Sherrie, she brought a letter that I read aloud. The letter was hidden from her during her exhibition at the Whitney. The show, titled MAYHEM was utterly Sherrie, beautifully orchestrated redux of male art. Not necessarily feminist and only feminine in the fact that Sherrie is a woman. In some press she mentioned that anyone can be an ARTIST, that’s the hook right there.
Cut to some prison in Arizona. Savvy prisoner picks up on the ‘anyone can be an ARTIST thing’. (Was the Hennessy Jumanji act to – unleash the prisoners on the art world?) The prisoner, who can draw and airbrush, wrote an amazing 4 page letter to Sherrie that is legendary. The gallery/ illuminati in this case/ held it back for fear Sherrie would fall for the charming psychopath- who does resemble an x-LOVER.
(him and me wearing Sherrie’s glasses reading the letter.)
I was so happy to perform it for the table as I am currently in the habit of showing more of my ARTIST side.
motherloverartist 