Comments on: Tara Donovan at Des Moines Art Center

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:38:17 +0000

Or just to live somewhere half way in between? That would be pleasant, too. Lots of minor escapist fantasies in my head these days.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:35:40 +0000

I have this fantasy of driving to Des Moines to see the Tara Donovan show, then to Chicago just to see Olafur Eliasson show, then back to Des Moines to see Tara Donovan again, then coming home. I don’t have the time or money. But doesn’t that sound like a nice vacation?

By: KATHY

KATHY — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:33:36 +0000

I just went to see her exibit today at the Des Moines Art Center.It just made me smile and want to reach out and touch all of it. It is wonderful

By: Nomi Lubin

Nomi Lubin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:01:31 +0000

Right, (Winkleman), no one mocks baseball announcers for using the same sort of nicknames for different plays, pitches, hits, etc. But it’s different. There’s much more of a one to one correlation there: An ace IS the best starter on a team. Cheese IS a fastball. Plus it’s comforting to hear the announcers use these expressions; it’s part of the game.

Not that baseball isn’t the thinking man’s game and wonderfully complex, but it has far far less of the problems of finding words to describe its visible manifestations than art does. No?

I’m not arguing against using so-called cliche phrases, just saying the comparison to baseball jargon is not so useful.

By: Sloane

Sloane — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:23:06 +0000

I read this the other day and it seems pretty relevant to the conversation here:
http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2009/07/coined-and-minted-open-thread.html

By: Steven LaRose

Steven LaRose — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:48:26 +0000

I attended my first wine tasting with a full-bodied cynical body armor. That is, I went with my own sort of reverse snobbery. I was ready to poo-poo the whole talking-about-flavors thing. And yet, by the end of the evening, I had developed a new-found appreciation for the importance of cliches. They are essential. Mostly so that we can find how the special cases deviate.

By: Sam K

Sam K — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:12:59 +0000

Once in a while, there is no escaping the cliche. It’s worth admitting it.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:31:16 +0000

I apologize if does lead to that. I think I was angling for more of an acceptance of the jargon, maybe even a feeling of ‘the guilty pleasure of using the jargon’, and not to create any guilt. The ready, jargony terms are dead, long live the ready, jargony terms.

By: carla

carla — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:57:08 +0000

I hope this doesn’t lead to an era of self-editing. It would take me forever to verbalise without using all the ready, if jargony, terms.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:33:50 +0000

I think I’ve said every one of these ‘cliches’ seriously in the last six months. Oops.

re: the recognizable objects: in the show she had at the St. Louis Art Museum, I saw a museum docent bring a group to stand about 6 feet in front of one of her plastic straw things. The docent had people try to guess what they were looking at. People guessed, glassed-in smoke, holograms, all kinds of stuff. And then one kid moved around to the side and finally said straws.