Really and truly, my appreciation of art does not begin with Rembrandt’s Night Watch and end with Monet’s Water Lilies. I actually like a lot of modern art. Really and truly.
But I guess I’m enough of an old fogey to prefer my art to be framed and hanging on a wall. If that makes me a philistine, well, so be it.
I’m also not one of those who disdains photography as a lesser, or even non-art.
Not at all.
Still, I don’t know quite what to make of the NYU photography professor who’s having a camera implanted in the back of his head as a project for a new museum in Qatar.
Wafaa Bilal:
…intends to undergo surgery in coming weeks to install the camera, according to several people familiar with the project. (Source: AP article in WSJ Online.)
Is it just me, or is this the sort of stuff that gives the arts (and, alas, funding for the arts) a bad name?
The artwork, titled "The 3rd I," is intended as "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience," according to press materials from the museum.
Huh?
The inaccessibility of time?
Okay, there’s no way-back machine (just yet), but how does having a camera in the back of your head, taking pictures every minute, and streaming them to a museum, solve the “inaccessibility of time” thang any better than taking a picture every minute. Or not. What happens if Bilal is wearing a hat, or sleeping in the dark? And who really wants to see the back of his bathroom wall when he’s on the pot taking a crap? (At least there are no sound effects.)
And what does the “inability to capture memory and experience” mean?
I’ve managed to capture memories pretty darned well over the years. And while I don’t have a memory a minute, I’ve got plenty. Plus, I may be an odd-duck outlier here, but most of the memories I’ve captured include images of what I’ve seen looking in front of me. Not what’s going on behind me.
As for capturing experience?
What’s taking pictures from the back of your head got to do with that.
NYU is, apparently, trying to sort out the privacy concerns.
"Obviously you don't want students to be under the burden of constant surveillance; it's not a good teaching environment," said Fred Ritchin, associate chairman of the department.
Yeah, but is it art?
During the course of the discussions, Mr. Bilal has informed all of his students of his plans and has agreed to cover the camera with a black lens cap while on university property, according to Mr. Ritchin.
Yeah, but is it art?
Bilal is no stranger to the non-Steiglitz, non-Ansel Adams, non-Mapplethorpe school of photographic art.
He’s inserted an avatar of himself in a video game. (He’s a suicide bomber hunting George W. Bush.) He’s tatooed his back with a map of Iraq that pinpoints casualties of war. And:
In his 2007 work, "Domestic Tension," Mr. Bilal confined himself to a gallery in Chicago for a month, inviting the public to visit a website where they could "shoot" the artist by remotely firing a paintball gun at him.
Actually, that’s something I might have enjoyed.
(But is it art?)
A curator of the exhibition that includes Mr. Bilal's work says the artist defies categorization. "He's not really a photographer, he's not really a video artist, he's not really a performance artist," curator Till Fellrath said.
"Whatever artwork he creates, he doesn't want people to just look at it, he wants them to participate in it."
As I said, I might not have minded that paintball shooting, an activity that does not defy characterization.
(But is it art?)
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