Arno Rafael Minkkinen – Laurence, ‘Ta Cenc, Gozo, Malta (2002)

Honestly, this post should be relatively uncomplicated. If I had any sense, I’d point out that Minkkinen’s strongest work seems to always be the work that is–strictly speaking–the least original.

For example: Fosters Pond (2000) is unquestionably a riff on M. C. Escher’s Drawing Hands.

I’d characterize the above as Dalí’s Persistence of Memory + Klimt’s Water Serpents I remixed by Minkkinen.

But the idea for referring to it as a remix wouldn’t be mine; in this case, I’m borrowing it whole cloth from the most recent episode of Adam Conover’s TruTV series Adam Ruins Everything in which as the title proclaims Adam Ruins Art. (<—this link hits a paywall; you can find a pirated version of the episode on YouTube with a bit of elbow grease but here’s a link to the official upload of the segment most germane to this post.)

But there’s also a way in which this relates to other things which I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. From the prosaic: I’m really into Finnish metal–especially Circle and Oranssi Pazuzu (who I saw when they played their first show stateside earlier this year and remains the most incredible live performance I’ve ever seen). Minkkinen being Finnish as well–in case that wasn’t immediately clear.

And then two days ago I watched the recent documentary Burden focused on the life of proto-performance artist Chris Burden.

I was already super familiar with Shoot, 110 or 220–and his street lamp installation at LACMA (even if I didn’t immediately know it was his).

I found myself amazed an repulsed in equal measure. His unhinged behavior when his girlfriend broke up with him and he essentially made TV commercials to narrative revenge fantasies is extremely fucked up. His TV Hijack piece is equally fucked up but definitely maintains a rigorous self-critique that points out that the problematics are part of the point.

Still I find it interesting that he viewed himself as another historically great man of art. And frankly as much as Burden impresses me (at least in theory), I am increasingly put off by this great men of history bullshit.

There’s a great deal of current events that I didn’t/couldn’t include in the post preceding this. But whether it’s the current president using taxpayer funding to stroke his ego twice a day or an engineer at Google losing his job because he circulated a sexist as fuck and egregiously erroneous (his scientific claims about why there are fewer women in tech are bullshit, but he also implicit reifies the notion that here are only two genders) screed to his co-workers against diversity.

What we’re seeing happening in every corner of society right now is that those accustomed to privilege are having their privilege questioned/challenged and to them that feels a bit like oppression. Or, to put it even more plainly, consider James Baldwin:

Which brings me–of all places–to the current trial happening where Taylor Swift is suing a DJ who apparently groped her. I am not a TaySwif fan girl but I do have to say that her commentary and the way she is handling this situation are as scathing as they are stunning and astute.