Carla Gannis and Peter Patchen are colleagues at Pratt Institute where they are Assistant Chair and Chair, respectively, of Digital Arts.  artcritical let them loose in Play Station,  the exhibition of artist-made video games, curated by Marcin Ramocki and Paul Slocum at Postmasters.  True to form, the venerable professors soon adopted avatars from Street Fighters II in a series of tweets and SMSs on the show.  What follows is the edited version of their exchange.

Chun-Li (Carla Gannis): In high school for two days or so I had the top score in Pac-Man at my local arcade. I played home console games too, but public gaming spaces really appealed to me. Competing and having fun was a different experience from my painting and piano classes, where I was expected to be serious and thoughtful and focus on “Capital A Art.”

The Postmasters opening last Thursday night, touted as “fun, exciting, post-video game, interactive,” whether it was or was not, provided its own counterpoint to art in all caps, and a relief to the after taste of Miami Basel blue chips and over-priced cocktails.

The cacophony of sound and action, of hands wielding controllers and keyboards, of voices shouting in victory or sighing in defeat, transported me back to a pre-internet ‘80s arcade, then forward to a post-formal art space where notions of precious art are subverted by prescient ideas.

Ryu (Peter Patchen): Nostalgia was certainly in the air at Postmasters. I felt like I was carried back to a 1990’s LAN (local area connection) party, video games on all of the walls, projectors everywhere and everyone seemed to have brought their own wonky computer. Beeps and squawks, guns, fighting noises and…was that a cowbell?

I expected to see another showdown with Feng Mengbo in Q4U (2002) but it was you in Street Fighter II (Travis Hallenbeck’s contribution to the show).

Chun-Li: Thursday night definitely was bonus round night, including not only the Play Station exhibition, curated by Marcin Ramocki and Paul Slocum of 12 digital artists (Mike Beradino, Mauro Ceolin, Mary Flanagan, Travis Hallenbeck, Jeremiah Johnson, Ernesto Klar, Joe McKay, Jason Rohrer, Rafaël Rozendaal, Eddo Stern, and CJ Yeh) but BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer), where ten artists (Chris Burke, Zach Gage, James George, Travis Hallenbeck, Matt Parker, Billy Rennekamp, Erik Sanner, Alan Shaffer, Paul Slocum, and Charlie Whitney) brought there own games pieces to project.

The “salon style” installation of video projections and screens in a packed house made it difficult to find a focus at first. One piece from the BYOB group of artists that really stood out to me was Erik Sanner’s piece The Problem With Destruction Is That Once You Destroy Something, You Can’t Redestroy It (2010). A video of an orange traffic cone was projected above an enticingly big red button. Upon pressing the button you shot the traffic cone. Press it repeatedly and you could shoot the cone to bits until the video looped and you shot it all over again. I compulsively pressed the button again and again until a friend intervened, assuring me I’d never get a vote from him for president.

Ryu: That big red button certainly was irresistible. Sanner’s idea of recursive destruction as a creative act kept the crowd busy all night. I don’t think there were 5 minutes without the Sanner family gunshots ringing out. This piece stood out as an artwork from the rest of BYOB projections that were straight-up video games like Street Fighter II.

Chun-Li: It seems that your suggesting straight-up doesn’t represent “games as art.”  I found it refreshing that some pieces, such at Street Fighter II, were ready-mades so to speak. And James George’s ShudderShutter VS (2011) part of the BYOB crew, certainly crosses into the realm of art. In his words it’s an antagonistic mobile game. The gist is two players compete against each other by violently shaking their respective iPhones while live feed video of them is projected from both phones.  A shudder is rapidly closing over both projections and the more aggressive “shaker” distorts her footage but keeps her image on screen longer. (I use the female pronoun here because I remember beating you in this game Ryu).

Ryu: Winning and losing aside, no, I don’t think all of the BYOB pieces were “games as art.” The dividing line for me is whether or not the work engages any concepts beyond gameplay.

Chun-Li: Right, that said the dividing line for “art” has become so much more about price tag, status, and where an artist earned his/her degree. The works on display opening night and in the official exhibition appealed to me because they did not seem to embody art ideals established by the “1%.”

The pieces on view, and in use sans tokens, provided platforms for social critique, personal narrative, or as in Rafaël Rozendaal’s Finger Battle (2011), an impetus to explore ones own OCD behaviors. There was a resonance in the physical juxtapositions of old, new and hybrid hardware and software. I don’t think you could achieve the same affect online.

Ryu: I still contend that there is a divide, an interesting one, between art and game within the game context. You can’t deny a stark contrast between Street Fighter II and  Mauro Ceolin’s RGB webdroids 2 (2009). While both are “video games” webdroids 2 comments on current socio economics while Street Fighter II just lets me body slam you Chun-Li!

Chun-Li: Touché Ryu. I’ll admit Thursday night felt more like the “party til it’s 1999.” When I returned to the gallery on Saturday I formed different impressions for quite a few of the pieces.

Ryu: I agree about the return trip. On closer inspection each game had it’s own sense of time and distinct place in time. While some games like Rozendaal’s Finger Battle used the very contemporary iPhone, most had a sense of nostalgia ranging from Atari or Nintendo controllers to familiar game tropes like asteroids or missile defense. I think the quiet gallery helped the more contemplative pieces like Mary Flanagan’s [domestic] (2003).

In contrast to the arcade quality of the main gallery, Ernesto Klar’s Luzes Relacionais (2010) provided a more contemplative space. While Klar’s work is more contemporary, technologically speaking, than many of the nostalgic pieces in the front gallery, Luzes hearkens back to Anthony McCall’s Long Film for Four Projectors (1974)– 16mm film wedges of smoke-filled light ending in interactive minimalist lines create a wonderfully simple work. By the way, what exactly was I breathing?

Chun-Li: The back gallery offered full immersion. I stood under one of the triangles of light and asked Scotty to “beam me up.”

It’s interesting that Klar pays tribute to Lygia Clark, but not to McCall. I wonder if he is aware of the McCall work? I wasn’t, prior to your mention. A lot of earlier installation and digital art has only begun to be re-examined.

Ryu: The question is, are the interactive elements in Klar’s work sufficiently unique to make it significantly different from McCall’s installation?

Chun-Li: I think context is significant. McCall would have probably incorporated interactivity in his earlier work had there been the technology to do so, but there wasn’t. When we see a photo of the McCall and the Klar they seem almost indistinguishable, and this is when experiential aspects really come into “play” (pardon the pun).

Ryu: Of course, McCall’s work was also interactive, that is, people interrupted the light and changed the installation through physical interaction. With digitally mediated light, there are more possibilities or variations but the question of whether it significantly changes the concept remains.

Chun-Li: I don’t see a problem in an artist expanding upon the ideas of earlier artists. Honestly how can it be avoided at this point in history? A more interesting aspect of the installation, in the context of the Postmasters show, is its inclusion of Luzes Relacionais as a game. Organic lines of light, both independently expressive and responsive to our gestures, and sound as an amalgam of integrated algorithmic and biological participation– these aren’t elements we commonly find integrated into game engines. The curators’ extension of interpretation excites me.

To that point I did feel a dichotomy in my own reactions to the broad spectrum of gaming that the works represented. Mary Flanagan’s [domestic] for example I watched, interpreted, and even while “playing” I absorbed meaning. On the other hand in Joe McKay’s Swatter (2011), an insect killing game, I figured out the mechanics and played for the high score. The physical interface was certainly novel; the player directs his aim with a wooden knob and smacks a fly swatter on a DIY table to shoot projected insects crawling down the gallery wall. A blue emergency button sometimes worked to save you from the onslaught of bugs.

Ryu: I find Flanagan’s [domestic] to be a very different experience from the other pieces. The work is a large video projection of a “house” on fire with a video game controller hanging from the ceiling of the gallery. As the game controller slipped into my hands I automatically began moving quickly through the space as though something were chasing me. It was a very visceral response that works against the contemplative content of the work. As I explored the game controller, I discovered I could shoot a green glob at most any surface that would turn into a romance novel. While the piece was rendered in a video game engine and controlled with a game controller, the work is actually an interactive exploration of Flanagan’s memories of a house fire. In order to really see the work, I needed to slow down and read.

Chun-Li: Yes, it took a while to slow down my reaction time to all of the works. What I appreciated was that there was no “false advertising” in the show description. Flanagan’s [pileOfSecrets]: Jump + Ascend (2011) was the only spectator piece, where a viewer couldn’t also be a player or user.  Quite a counterpoint to the Social Media show a few months ago — a rather static show about online social engagement. There was very little representation of “real” virtual engagement within the exhibition.

Ryu: Mauro Ceolin’s RGB webdroids 2, an Astroids style shooter game is a good example of this kind of engagement. With the Happy Mac startup icon replacing the spaceship blasting the logos of E-bay, Skype, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube and my personal favorite, Wikipedia. I think Ceolin was smart to leverage iconic game play that we all know to comment on the relentless data noise of the Internet. Of course, along with the game trope comes the concept that you can never win.

Chun-Li: I’m very competitive as you might have noticed when we competed against each other in Finger Battle, Street Fighter II and Shudder Shutter, but I take perverse pleasure in interactions that are recursive and inconclusive, like RGB… or Jason Rohrer’s Inside a Star-filled Sky (2011). Oddly or not Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of 10 came to mind with Rohrer’s piece. The work “Playing a painting”, a fully functional Atari 2600 painting, Mike Beradino’s Electric Paint 2.0 (2011) had its conceptual and perceptual charms.

Ryu: You are competitive! Four Finger Battle defeats and you kept coming back for more. After your run in with shooting Sanner’s pylon, I was almost afraid to win… almost.

Chun-Li: Despite my losses to you, my right hand did beat my left hand in Finger Battle. There were two Zork-like games. One, Jeremiah Johnson’s Void Gaze (2011) I found engaging and an evolution of the original platform. Through the right keywords you could unlock images that expanded the narrative and aesthetic experience. Travis Hallenbeck’s RPG (Random Party Game) (2011) I found somewhat frusterating. The set up—“Dec 20th, 2012 at 11:30pm”– conjured up all sorts of narrative potential that felt thwarted once I began to interact with the AI.

Ryu: As I mentioned before I found it interesting that each game had its own pacing. The older the game was, the slower the tempo seemed to be. I couldn’t focus at all on RPG or Void Gaze at the opening. The next day, in the serenity of the quiet gallery, I felt transported back to the 80s and actually slowed down enough to explore the work.

Chun-Li: Indeed the opening night was frenetic. I’m looking at a photo of you from the evening leaning over a keyboard, shoulders hunched, mouth agape, glazed over eyes and your fingers are a blur. Let’s not talk about the photo of me trying to obtain the true secret to happiness by jumping towards the Google+ block in CJ Yeh’s Happiness X 100 (2011).

No digital conversation is complete without keywords. Here’s one that I know will put you on the defensive. Nonlinear.

Ryu: n.o.n…um…linear?

Chun-Li: Yes! N.O.N. L.I.N.E.A.R. as in nonlinear narrative.

Ryu: O.K. Chun-Li, I accept your challenge.

Chun-Li: Nonlinear narrative — “disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, hypertext websites and other narratives, wherein events are portrayed out of chronological order. It is often used to mimic the structure and recall of human memory but has been applied for other reasons as well.”

That’s what Wikipedia says.

Ryu: Wikipedia!? Where’s the RGB webdroids 2 Asteroids blaster when you need it?

Each action, idea or thought comes in a linear progression. An ever-new idea is understood only by comparing it to previous experience. While we may take different paths or revisit an earlier stage in a work or game, we can’t un-know what we have already experienced. This is as true in Jeremiah Johnson’s text-based Void Gaze as it is in Jason Rohrer’s Inside a Star-filled Sky. Iterative, recursive, multi-pathed, yes, but nonlinearity doesn’t exist for humans. Take that! Right(2) Forward Back Square! (Not Forward Right(2) Square Back).

Chun-Li: It exists for humans with short-term memory disorders. (I’m cheating).

Ryu: No fair! We call that insanity.

Chun-Li:  I think it’s an issue of semantics. I think linearity connotes a direction that doesn’t diverge from one path. I think of nonlinearity as multi-pathed, as a branching form. I suggest the inherent nature of the Internet is nonlinear, where one always has multiple options (trajectories) instead of a single one. Flanagan’s [domestic] provides a nonlinear narrative. The user is provided the agency to experience the work out of sequence.

Ryu: Tomato – Tomato eh? O.K. I block your semantic punch and answer with a ludology/narratology combo!

Chun-LI: Ah game theory! Ludology as I understand it focuses on the rules of play as the central aspect to gaming. Narratology posits games within a tradition of other narrative and expressive forms. Finger Battle could be favored by a Ludologist for example. Eddo Stern’s Earthling (2011), with its suggestive keywords: road work, survival of the fittest, progress to the right, perhaps would appeal more to the Narratologist.

Ryu: Why are these mutually exclusive? Shouldn’t the gameplay be informed by the narrative? It seems to me that context is key in understanding any narrative and gameplay is certainly context. This also seems like a very one-sided debate. as I doubt that the Ludologists named themselves this.

Chun-Li: “Ludologistlovestoriestoo: notesfromadebatethatnevertookplace”

Ryu: Nice kick Chun-Li, I stand corrected.

Chun-Li: I got a few good kicks in by the way, “for a girl.” Which does bring me to the point that out of all the artists in the Play Station show and the BYOB, there was only one woman. Is there an elephant in the room anyone? (Of course one in full-on matrix kick suspension)

Ryu: I noticed that too. Gaming seems to be one area in which women haven’t gained much ground. I think the numbers of women in interactive art programs are on par with men. Maybe the disparity is just on the game side and not art/tech in general?

Chun-Li: On par if not surpassing in school enrollment numbers. But certainly within the commercial game industry there is a dearth of women.

Ryu: There are some pretty significant female role models in tech– like Rear-Admiral GraceHopper, co-inventor of COBOL – that are getting more attention now. In gaming do you think that has to do with opportunity or the relative maturity of young men versus young women?

Chun-Li: I think the game industry can be comprised of more than men in extended states of adolescence. Brenda Laurel, Theresa Duncan, and Flanagan come to mind as women who have made or are making inroads into games for girls and getting women involved in gaming as “players” (in both senses of the word). I’m optimistic about women being involved in innovative forms of gaming, and as one potential, the extension of passive narrative forms into participatory experiences.

Ryu: Interesting, I think the extension of classical narrative forms and not just gameplay is a key feature in a game as art. Of the works in the Playstation show, I think the more successful artworks transcended time. Mary Flanagan’s Pile of Secrets for example used clips that ranged from Mario Brothers (1983) to Oblivion (2007).  These edited clips of Flanagan playing 1st person shooter games follow characters across multiple games performing the same actions and reinforcing the same limited patterns no matter which game it is.

Jump. Shoot. Punch. Kick. Run. Kind of a sad list in regards to human potential.

Chun-Li: Yes, but her other piece Ascending is more aspirational. [Insert smile emoticon].

Ryu: I think it will get better soon in the arts. The technology is making its way into the hands of artists who are interested in more than just the technology. The question is, when will the collectors of interactive arts become sophisticated enough to see past the eye candy to the content (or lack thereof)?

Chun-Li: What’s exciting about the Postmasters show, particularly following the Miami fairs, is that you and I are compelled by the work to ask so many questions, and that there are so many tangents to them. There are not a lot of other art experiences that excite me, rile me, or force me to ask questions about my own preoccupations with art and technology.

The post “That Big Red Button Was Irresistible”: Play Station at Postmasters appeared first on artcritical.

November 4, 2011–January 22, 2012
1071 Fifth Avenue, at 88th Street
New York City, 212 423 3500

This Roundtable of artcritical regulars and guests took place via email over the weekend of November 19/20, 2011. David Cohen moderated.

DAVID COHEN Maurizio Cattelan announced ahead of his Guggenheim retrospective that after it he intends to retire. Do we believe him? And if so, are we heartbroken or relieved?

CARLA GANNIS I’m neither heartbroken nor relieved, because I know we haven’t heard the last from him. In interview he claims his retirement is another stage in his development, and that basically he doesn’t want to follow the widespread practices of “art stars” (40+ assistants, etc.) Maybe he’ll pull a David Lynch move and start making art on the web, i.e. web”site” specific.

Visual art culture today feels very akin to the pop/rock music scene. Staying young and pithy — and edgy and countercultural — is hard to maintain post 40 when you’re bankrolled by every major art institution and your works sell for $2 million+.

Bruce Nauman moved to New Mexico and “retired” in a sense. Cattelan’s retreat (especially when he supports it with his not wanting to play the “art star” game) gives him more cred with younger artists.

DAVID CARRIER The pop music comparison is interesting. I don’t think that any of the classic groups (The Who, The Rolling Stones) were interesting beyond a certain point because that’s basically young boy music – my baby’s left me and I’m sad – and it’s hard for millionaire grandfathers to do. One might think, visual art’s different, but maybe today it isn’t.

Pop music involves selling lots of tickets or lots of music to individuals, visual art’s still tied to objects, even if here the museum plays into the game. My view: pop music is truly accessible, there are no experts; while visual art’s inherently different, there one has critics. That’s a very basic difference that hasn’t done away.

DAVID COHEN Hmm, lots to ponder here David. (Everyone else, we’re gonna have to put friendliness aside and call David and me Carrier and Cohen henceforth). Years ago I interviewed David Bowie and his agent sent me a heap of reading materials so I could do my homework. Boy is there pop music criticism! The book deconstructing Bowie made Artforum seem like Hello Magazine by way of intellectual comparison.

DAVID CARRIER Ok, there is pop music criticism, but “Let’s spend the night together” doesn’t really demand commentary, whereas much here does: it’s this difference in attitude that interests me. It would be interesting to have figures- how many visit this show? I bet, any even C+ rock star would find the numbers pathetic. Artforum vs. Rolling Stone, very different.

ROBIN SIEGEL Funny that Cohen should mention Bowie. I could not help but think of him as I think of Cattelan re-inventing himself in the near to distant future, much as Bowie did, way before there was a Madonna or Gaga.

DAVID COHEN I suggest that formally Cattelan might be the equivalent of “lets spend the night” because there is not much aesthetic life independent of the message they are fabricated to convey, whereas, say, a sculpture by Medardo Rosso, or Brancusi, or Henry Moore is almost entirely such independence.

CARLA GANNIS “aesthetic life independent of the message they are fabricated to convey?” I’m sorry what does that mean? You seem to be implying that a Cattelan is a one-liner. A lot of more “formal” art (serious and earnest art) feels like one-liners to me. Elevated by our “faith” in it, more than what the object really gives to us. I’m sure to get hell for this response but really, Giacometti at times has felt like a one-liner to me (in form) and remove the “sublime” and “existential” from certain AbEx works, put a “layman” in front of them and there is very little but the surface!

DAVID CARRIER Everyone repeats, but Giacometti did not in 1939 envisage a large museum show, whereas Cattelan plays to this situation. A large difference.

ROBIN SIEGEL By comparing Brancusi to Cattelan we invoke the proverbial apples to oranges.

DAVID CARRIER The Guggenheim has an impossible space, by the way. I can think of only two artists who have used it (as opposed to using it as a place to awkwardly show): Daniel Buren, who emptied it out and Maurizio Cattelan. I admire Cattelan for doing that, I admire him for reaffirming what we all sort of know: in this noisy art world you have to speak with a VERY LOUD VOICE to be heard. I always resist moralizing about art. (Not, of course about politics.) So I refuse to complain since after exiting from the elevator at the top floor, I very much enjoyed my rather brisk walk, interrupted only to purchase the app. This is a circus, it’s the anti-Buren show, the opposite of empty. But I can’t imagine going back, unless one of us tells me something I don’t expect to hear. Seeing this show is like going to a carnival, it’s a fun moment that doesn’t inspire contemplation, it makes Times Square look, by comparison, like the NY Public Library.

MADDIE PHINNEY I agree with you that he used the gallery masterfully. I too find it a totally bizarre and ineffective space in which to exhibit art and the installation was a really brilliant side-step. Back to the question about Cattelan retiring, I don’t think we have any reason not to believe that Cattelan will indeed retire, but I’ve been a bit confused by this collective sigh of relief. I feel like the reception of his work as merely a series of one-liners is a bit unfair, though I don’t quite know why I’m feeling so protective. There is of course a degree, a large degree, of intended “shock” in his work, but I find he has some interesting things to say about art as an industry. His piece “Torno Subito,” just a sign that reads “Be Right Back” which hung on the door handle of an Italian art gallery in the 80s and left the gallery closed for the duration of his “exhibition” — brilliant! It goes to show that his most resonant pieces rely on their site specificity, and it seemed a bizarre choice to see his oeuvre represented as a series of art-objects in the show — almost an attempt to undermine his contributions.

BESSIE ZHU I think that Cattelan’s impending retirement is even a talking point says much about the pop sensibilities of Cattelan as an artist. Whether or not he actually retires seems largely irrelevant – the announcement reminds me of a Rolling Stones Farewell Tour. It encourages us to stop and consider Cattelan’s oeuvre, helps with the market value of his work and is also a way for Cattelan to poke fun at the celebrity status artists like him enjoy. But it also points out the problem of being the art world’s token jokester — one never quite knows when to take him seriously. That said Cattelan’s humor comes from an informed point-of-view that’s much lacking in contemporary art. He makes work that relies on and engages in political/cultural discourse, and it remains accessible enough to stay relevant.

I totally agree with Maddie about the site-specificity of his works — can a work even be specific to a site anymore what with the internet and apps constantly displacing it? Cattelan seems to acknowledge the post-specific moment and as such his retirement seems aptly timed.

ROBIN SIEGEL It’s hard to imagine that Cattelan would retire from the art world, in the purest sense of the word. Most probably he will focus his efforts more on his curatorial and publishing interests. Given his invaluable backing from and ties to the fiscally potent collector Dakis Joannou, who is in bed with the New Museum, to just name one institution, I would not be the least bit surprised to see future Cattelan exhibitions in venues where Joannou has such connections.

Artists don’t retire. They renounce, recharge, repose, and ultimately come back with renewed vim and vigor. This is Cattelan’s life, and his art is inseparable from it and intrinsically linked to it. As Cattelan would state: Is There Life Before Death?

DAVID CARRIER Perhaps there is a relationship between his retirement and site-specificity. We might discuss Duchamp as a model and precedent, both for the suitcase containing all of his art and also, of course, for retirement.

DAVID COHEN His retirement is like so much else he does, totally Duchamp derivative.

CARLA GANNIS So he’s like Lady Gaga to Madonna? (smile)

DAVID COHEN I guess if he going gaga he has to retire.

BESSIE ZHU In response to Carrier’s query about retirement and site-specificity: There is something which certain modes of viewing preclude (such as a retrospective or an iPhone app or disambiguated images on the web) and if Cattelan’s works have to rally against that impetus towards universal viewing, what’s the point of making work if it is weakened through that decontextualization? Not to suggest that’s his thinking entirely but I think the connection exists.

MADDIE PHINNEY That’s an interesting relationship. I was only bringing up his emphasis on site to speak to the validity of his practice and political motivations. I think Bessie’s comment about the displacement of his pieces through the app is really interesting, though I don’t know that his retirement has anything to do with the obsolescence of his practice, that is to say I don’t think that technology that displaces artwork makes pieces that rely on site entirely obsolete.

Going back to the show’s installation. I was walking by a tour group when I saw the exhibition and the guide was saying something about how the installation wasn’t visually designed to be pouring downwards bit instead it was supposed to evoke an ascension up. I didn’t quite buy it.

DAVID COHEN Totally don’t buy into that either Maddie. There are so many hanging corpses: ascension and lynching don’t mix. Whether the viewer is going up or down, the spectacle has a pronounced downward gravity. What I’d say about the installation is that even when they are bending over backwards to be anti-artists, Italians can’t help being brilliant designers. It is one of several recent interventions that makes sense of an exquisite, art unfriendly exhibition space: Jenny Holzer and Tino Seghal also come to mind, and Holzer falls into a tradition of Guggenheim installation already established by Dan Flavin. But the massed mobile makes as much sense of the professed retirement as of the space: “This was it, one statement, done” it says to me. Maddie, you objected to the characterization of Cattelan pieces as one-liners, but Cattelan is surely acknowledging that about his pieces by eschewing (or pointedly limiting) the possibility of seeing each piece on its own terms again and finding something new in each. It is only by aggregation that a new statement has been possible with these ingredients. Ezra Pound’s distinction that symbols age whereas signs renew themselves comes to mind: his pieces are one dimensional and get flatter and flatter with each reviewing. Their facture is fairly irrelevant to their power of communication and therefore can’t convey possible new meanings.

CARLA GANNIS Ascending. Descending. (The ropes, instead of invisible wire, take away aspects of levitation or falling honestly). It feels more like a cacophony, and he is purposefully trying to deflate the notion of any individual work having an “aura” or autonomous significance. I think the “pouring down of his works” seems to speak of the way we access images and information today. It feels matrix-like.

BESSIE ZHU I think the installation is more “suspension” than a movement towards any direction.

MADDIE PHINNEY Oh, I like that. There was something on the wall text about how the works were deliberately “disrespected” by their mode of presentation. It’s interesting I think this sort of goes back to Carla’s comment about staying young — and maybe hip — in the art world. I never read Cattelan’s work as so “punk rock” or even subversive. I think it’s operating within a dialogue on the art industry IN the art industry, how much “cred” are we willing to offer him.

CARLA GANNIS Yes, I never really saw Cattelan as punk rock. Subversive though. He’s stirred up a bit of trouble with the crucified woman and Pope piece…

MADDIE PHINNEY I read an article a year ago — of course I can’t find the source now — and the whole thing was about art in bad taste. I don’t have any moral objections to Cattelan’s work but I’m fascinated by this question of artistic responsibility. Have we just moved past that moment when political correctness was paramount? I think this is a big part of what I appreciate about the work — yes, there’s “shock” but there’s also naughtiness and cheekiness and fun. Incidentally when I was looking up the article I found this fabulous Diana Vreeland quote, that “We all need a splash of bad taste; no taste is what I am against.

CARLA GANNIS Love that Cattelan’s work flies in the face of political correctness with its after scent of over-earnestness and didacticism.

DAVID CARRIER In a gallery, one normally sees works in sequence. So there’s some implied narrative or, at least, a sense of focus on individual pieces. Even Damien Hirst at Gagosian, which had to my mind a similar ‘circus’ effect, did involve such an order. Whereas here, one walks down the ramp, sees some familiar pieces, ok, but this isn’t a situation to inspire focus. It’s the extreme opposite of another Italian show long ago at the Guggenheim: Morandi. Imagine Morandis floating in this way!

I think that there are two audiences: those who know Cattelan’s art, and so recognize some pieces; and the larger public, I am guessing the larger group, who see the ensemble of works. It’s hard to make distinctions, and again, the app doesn’t encourage that. This is a total work of art, for better or worse.

MADDIE PHINNEY I think this is really well put. I hadn’t thought much about the general public who may be wholly unfamiliar with Cattelan’s work. I love the idea of the installation as the work in itself, with the cacophony as the intended effect — perhaps then the installation was more artful than we give him credit?

Does Cohen feel like Cattelan’s work is ineffective, or just unoriginal?

DAVID COHEN Originality is certainly not his forte. His first piece, the “back soon” placard, is lock stock and barrel within the tradition of Cage’s 4’33”. Like Cage’s gesture, Cattelan’s generates meanings and observations beyond itself that constitute its originality; in this sense, originality is gifted to the viewer to gauge through personal experience rather than a chronicler to determine in relation to precedents. I wasn’t there in Italy to experience it in person, nor have I heard a live or recorded version of 4’33” but I’m willing to court the accusation of philistinism and say that I think I “get” enough from both pieces through the reporting of it, or seeing a souvenir of it, to savor its implications in my mind. As to effective, they work very nicely as one-line jokes. Sometimes they are very clever one-line jokes that make different people laugh for different reasons and maybe on a repeat visit you can have a different kind of experience from your first visit. You might therefore be able to retool the joke. If you have an alarm clock that goes off every ten minutes the first time you walk by it you will get a jolt. The second time you will simply know that ten minutes has elapsed, so you could use the clock as a ten minute warning. That’s what I mean by retooling. But regarding Cattelan’s being original or effective, I’d say that you won’t get more from looking harder. (Though I’d love to hear experiences from you all that contradict that.) And you are unlikely to cry by the way, unless you really like squirrels.

BESSIE ZHU I don’t know that originality is necessary for a work to be effective. What’s original with Cattelan is that he is in a really privileged position as an artist–people pay attention to him, he’s widely collected, exhibited and discussed. His works are provocative because they are so audaciously derivative. I think we are taking for granted that a work like “Him” (2001) (the child-sized Hitler) is not an easy piece to persuade your museum’s board of directors/major patrons to be supportive of; it’s a subject not many institutions like to make a joke of. For us rather open-minded individuals it may be an easy target but in the history of art and in the short span of contemporary art it’s a remarkably effective, well-made one-liner. It’s difficult to make an easy idea look easy and few artists can manage irreverence and effectiveness as well as Cattelan does.

ROBIN SIEGEL How is his “one liner” work any different from any other artist who consistently researches or investigates recurrent themes such as Duchamp, Rodin, or de Kooning, for that matter?

Regarding the app, it is intended as a supplement to the show, not as a substitute. For anyone unable to attend the exhibition, or for those too lazy to attend, it’s better than nothing. Just like the news has become infotainment, this is art-o-tainment. Talking heads. John Waters as narrator? It’s a match made in heaven. Cohen, if Cattelan’s oeuvre was truly simply a series of one liners, he would have enjoyed neither the longevity nor critical attention his work has thus far received. His decision to clump all his work together and suspend it from the rotunda was brilliant and subversive, and consistent with his flipping the bird to the art establishment, as a whole. Also, I do not perceive his work as strictly comical: there is a pervasive undertone of tragedy throughout; it’s funny, but not really, alas.

DAVID COHEN His view of life is tragicomic: he has a sense of humor in his nihilism than a nihilistic sense of humor, if that distinction helps. As to the one liner/originality debate: a brilliant one liner that isn’t too original is certainly welcome to the mix that is art. You could even say that being a one liner is a philosophical service in that it makes us think about why art shouldn’t indeed be a one liner. But Rodin and de Kooning are not one-liners: their work constantly renews itself and generates multiple emotional responses. A Cattelan has a singular meaning, or sometimes a binary one where the tragicomic element sets in and we can laugh while also resigning ourselves to the meaninglessness of existence. But the meaninglessness doesn’t get deeper on repeated or extended viewings, and the laugh doesn’t get louder.

ROBIN SIEGEL Cattelan is original and unique. I did not find myself laughing at this show. Perverse, sad, subversive, tragic visually amusing, but not funny at all. His subjects all seem to lose at the game of life. Hung, trophi-fied (Stephanie Seymour as the “trophy” wife mounted on the wall), suspended in time, as well as space. Death. Not funny.

One might ask if he is embracing his European roots with this over-the-top borderline Rococo installation. He is simply using the Guggenheim’s space to show his work in a new and unexpected way, as we would expect him to do the unexpected. Is this a case of Dada meeting the Baroque?

DAVID CARRIER Robin, may I steal Dada meeting the Baroque? I love that, it’s very apt.

ROBIN SIEGEL Thanks, David. Feel free.

DAVID CARRIER I do admit, this discussion makes me want to see the show again, to my surprise. And that’s one reason I value artcritical: this is like The Review Panel.

ROBIN SIEGEL I’m intrigued by the fact that you started at the top of the installation, and viewed it with the app. I started at the “base” and initially was completely put off by the show, feeling extreme dislike and resistance, despite my appreciation for Cattelan and his work. It was such a visual mumbo jumbo and I thought to myself: How on earth will I ever be able to make sense of this tangled mess? As I advanced up the ramp it became more and more intriguing to me, and it began to feel like a Cattelan treasure hunt.

CARLA GANNIS Cattelan, playing the jester again, seems to want to de-historicize himself. Oh but not really, he knows he already got a foot in the canon.

ROBIN SIEGEL Time will tell regarding Cattelan’s place in the history of art. Certainly he has left an indelible mark thus far. Regarding the recontextualization of his work, of course ALL is not the first time his work has been installed in a different way. In 2010 there was an exhibition called Is There Life Before Death at the Menil Collection in Houston, curated by Franklin Sirmans, whereby Cattelan’s work was juxtaposed against work from wildly diverse time periods, ranging from the Oceanic to Pop art.

DAVID CARRIER With an historical show, at the Met say, one would want details of the individual paintings, what do they mean, what’s the subject. Here what we get are not just the celebrities, the dealer, the critical champions, but the conservator, the conservator’s assistant and so on. All fine, but that doesn’t take us to the art. To continue Cohen’s parallel, it would be as if we got Nirvana’s recording technician.

DAVID COHEN I think there is a basic absence of curatorial integrity in not even offering, at reasonable intervals, a schematic of the “hang” which identifies the title, year, medium etc of pieces viewable at that point in the display.

CARLA GANNIS I agree that it was frustrating, given that this was a retrospective, to not have more wall texts and descriptions of the work provided to give us context but maybe the “jangle,” the “chaos,” is really just part of Cattelan’s critique. The man is smart, and I think his one liners, like any really good comic will resonate and reverberate in the future in ways we cannot predict.

MADDIE PHINNEY I agree with Carla here. Forgive me if I’m totally off but it seems that Cattelan is uninterested in participating in a debate on his work or even adding to the dialogue. He seems happy enough that viewers take away what they will – that the one liner part, right? The immediate punch of the visual impact? I too wish there was more info on the individual works in the show, but I think that was part of the point. It almost seemed more like a gallery exhibition than a major-museum retrospective.

ROBIN SIEGEL The work should speak for itself and you should not feel the need to read a bunch of gobbledygook in order to experience art. If you want to be more informed about the art, we can read the numerous books and catalogues surrounding Cattelan’s work.

BESSIE ZHU I disagree that the “work should speak for itself” Robin. It speaks to the cultural climate we inhabit, and like much art that isn’t decorative, it is in dialogue with current social/political discourse. That said the brilliance of Cattelan is that it speaks to everyone, albeit on different levels. I think anyone can appreciate a Cattelan, it may dig up uncomfortable subject matter but it isn’t alienating as more conceptual work would be. In that way I don’t read him as sardonic as much as I read him as democratic–he recognizes the importance of entertainment value and he delivers. Why should art do more than make us chuckle, even though it has the potential to? I love that a Cattelan could never move you to tears, the work plays to your intellect (which I think sense of humor is tied to) rather than to your emotions or any grand romanticism. I love that.

DAVID COHEN Cattelan’s decision to hang in such a way that militated against individual consideration was brilliant on two counts: the works, in aggregate, took on a new meaning- possibly the last they can; they do not bear individual consideration as crafted objects, as we’d get bored by them very quickly, and there isn’t progress in any traditional sense. But I don’t buy the idea of the museum being a passive medium for the artist to do his thing. Museums have obligations to viewers and lenders. The presentation was obviously the artist’s decision, and was the best thing about the show, but the label documentation was the responsibility of the museum. What if the artist didn’t want red exit signs or lavatories for males as part of his artistic intervention?

ROBIN SIEGEL Actually, David, the idea of no exit or lavatories for males as artistic intervention is swell. Are you embracing your inner Cattelan? I would be curious, meanwhile, to learn how we compare/contrast Cattelan’s career trajectory to that of Urs Fischer, yet another European artist who crossed the Atlantic to make his name on our hallowed shores.

DAVID CARRIER Fischer is another artist who worked well in a problematic museum, an even worse one than the Guggenheim: the New Museum. But he is another artist who specializes in making a sensation effect. And that makes me think of Greenberg on Surrealism: shock value quickly wears off. Stepping back, it is super obvious that any “mere painter” doesn’t have a chance in this kind of museum environment. Merlin James, forget it!

MADDIE PHINNEY I keep going back to the installation and the way in which the works themselves seemed deliberately disrespected. I can’t imagine that they were presented merely as objects in order for the viewer to appreciate the craft — it was impossible to approach the pieces themselves. Maybe this is the punk rock self-effacing Cattelan giving the finger to the Guggenheim and the viewer once more.

CARLA GANNIS I think the two Davids are asking if, once we get the joke and any other conceptual underpinnings (ie their being Duchamp mash ups), does the object really matter? I admit my relationship with Cattelan’s work is more about the ideas and the dark humor (in his best works) than desiring (or loving) any of his objects. I have cried in front of a de Kooning. Cattelan’s work has never elicited that from me. That said, I hold within my heart and mind a place for both kinds of work.

ROBIN SIEGEL Quite frankly, I am more a fan of Cattelan’s conceptual/performance acts, or gestures, than I am of his static installations: creating The Wrong Gallery, or actually taping his Milanese gallerist to the wall, to just name a choice two, or even his Permanent Food magazines, in the print milieu. While I have felt compelled to defend Cattelan’s oeuvre from harsh and dismissive criticism in our roundtable, I must concede that many of his taxidermied creatures and embalmed bodies are downright kitsch. One my favorite work in ALL is the two pigeons waiting in front of a set of elevator doors as they open and close. This is one of the few genuinely whimsical and funny works in show where flagrant morbidity is often palpable.

DAVID COHEN is publisher and editor of artcritical; DAVID CARRIER, contributing editor, is author of numerous books on art, philosophy and museum studies; artist CARLA GANNIS, represented by Pablo’s Birthday, New York, and other galleries, is assistant chair in the department of digital arts at Pratt Institute ; MADDIE PHINNEY, Assistant Editor at artcritical, is co-founder and editor at large of Continuum Magazine and exhibition assistant at the American Institute of Architects; ROBIN SIEGEL’s photograpahy is widely published in magazines including Trace, Vogue UK.com and artcritical; she teaches at Pratt Institute as well as at NYU’s Center for Advanced Digital Applications, and she recently launched cupcakeluxe.tumblr.com ; BESSIE ZHU is an independent arts writers based in Brooklyn.

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