SOLO-NZ Op-Ed: Uncreative Crap

Philip Duck
November 21, 2010

'"Humans" is a resonant mobilizing of Simon Lawrence’s psychic back catalogue, its cardboard ecologies, coarse portals and PVC transfers channeling the 5th dimension Arcturian Fortress and conferencing with a ruffled, curatorial Tui whose Ja Rule baritone is both sagacious and sardonic in its videoed manifestation. Assaulting the delicacy of the air and feeding onto the space chords, Lawrence’s cellular rift sets up an intro- and outro-spective taunt: Before your planet is granted intergalactic status, you’ve got to begin to think and act in morphic, resonant coherence.’

Crap. Utter crap. Shown recently at The Physics Room gallery in Christchurch, ‘Humans’ was funded by the New Zealand taxpayer via Creative New Zealand. The gallery has a history of showing crap, as does Creative New Zealand of funding it. Here’s another blurb for another crap Physics Room installation of a few years ago:

‘Gestapo Pussy Ranch’ would position itself knowingly just over the line and deep in the trenches vs. notions of morality, propriety and the morbid leisure-driven society of the everyday. But here, fascism and pornography are more emblematic of the tyranny of influence and pressing demands for disclosure than actual sex or Nazis.’

And still more nonsensical crap from The Physics Room: 'The Currency of Leaves.’

By replicating and echoing surfaces that in this case forge an all inclusive plinth which potentially activates the possibilities of everyday happenings, here Connor utilises the pre-existing gallery space as a model for the raised floor construction she’s created, which is an elevated carbon copy of what would normally be encountered within the space.

Auckland wankers, of whom there are many, can get their fix of taxpayer-funded crap at ‘Artspace.'

'A Rock That Was Taught It Was A Bird presents four stand-alone artist’s projects that investigate the complex relationship between objects and people. Even though the 20th century was one in which language was brought under rigorous critique, a trend well represented in the popular consciousness, we still tend to position ourselves in a privileged, hierarchical relationship to objects.'

Yet, '79% of New Zealanders believe the arts should receive public funding,' says Creative New Zealand.

Well if that is so New Zealanders are getting just what they deserve—crap.

Philip Duck: thonburi-1@hotmail.com

SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivist): SOLOPassion.com