Agender: Apolitcal

I'm not one to linger on sexual politics. I have no agenda or a gender - The Artswipe is free of such constraints. Apolitical you could say. People into sexual politics need to get laid more. "Don't speak," I always say when conversation turns to third wave feminism, "Just feel." Not so long ago, the artkids used to chant, "Fuck politics, lets dance". These days, I look for a lover with a slow hand, Pointer Sisters style.

One thing I will say as a coda to Artswipe's previous post about gender in all its complex statistical banality: it remains important to this day to always know whether to leave the toilet seat up or down. And art journalists more than anyone should respect this simple etiquette by at least investigating the gender of their subjects. Sometimes you can tell because a woman artist might have two protruding mounds emanating (for want of a better term) from her chest. A male artist might have a "bulging canvas," as they say in the classics. And then there's the "third sex" - all those queers and diasporicals. That's another story for another time.

The point of this post. Unlike John McDonald, I might not be the hugest fan of the Aida Tomescu canvas. Tomescu features in McDonald's book Studio: Australian Painters on the Nature of Creativity, reviewed elsewhere at Artswipe. I suspect old McDonald owns one of her paintings and is hoping his endorsement in today's Sydney Morning Herald article might manifest their value fourfold. A case in point:

Tomescu has grown in confidence, becoming much more certain of her artistic certainty. It is the kind of self-revelation that some people seek in psychoanalysis, or a radical change of lifestyle, but for Tomescu the entire drama has enfolded within the confines of the studio. It is not a process that allows for detailed descriptions, just as paintings resists verbalisation.

OK. McDonald mentions her "studio" again. Get over it. All artists have studios - not just the artists he cites in that banal book. As for the reference to psychoanalysis and "radical change of lifestyle" - thank you for pointing out the tenets of bourgeois boredom once more. Finding psychoanalytic solace in art went out with Art & Text. As for radical change of lifestyle? See Andrew Frost's brilliant article elsewhere in the Herald called "If the artists are young the reception is cool". It is here you will find artists who have a lust for life, a zesty yet critical take on "change" and "lifestyle" without being concerned with something regarded as so "radical" as to be perceived as a bit Mick Jagger in reality.

Apart from being chuffed big time that Mr Frost cites The Artswipe as one of the blogs that tries to "pick up the slack" due to the lack of artist-driven publications produced in Australia, I'm also aware that there is a subtle jibe in placement here (being that Frost's article appears some eight pages after McDonald's). You see, Frost laments that emerging art culture in Australia is as ephemeral as the young careers that loom large but sometimes peter out, due perhaps to intensified mental strain - which is all well if you can afford psychoanalysis! But alas, on Centrelink payments, not many of us can afford the Herald, let along a Freudian couchtrip. As Frost points out referring to a hypothetical pup of the artworld, "our esteemed art critics probably wouldn't have liked their work."

So who are these "esteemed critics" Frost speaks of?

Not knowing how to answer that slippery question (ie you do the math) I think it best to turn the question back to my original concern: gender, the arts and journalism. (Can you tell from my subtle yet meandering logic that I was high school debating champion?) That aside, for all my criticism of John McDonald, bless his soul, at least he recognises Aida Tomescu is a woman. Herald journalist Tracey Clement - champion of young artists everywhere, unlike some - for some inexplicable reason, has taken Tomescu's "bulging canvas" literally. As you can see below in Clement's Metro Picks (SMH Metro 31 August 07), Tomescu has man-morphed. But that's OK. Clement was too busy checking out everything in the artworld - not just some "mini-goats-cheese-pizza-East-Sydney-art-studio-crawl" - that she assumed for a moment that whatever might be McDonald fodder could actually be anything but male.

McCritical

The Artswipe

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese,
pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, 2007
Found image collage

It was appropriate that Britain should have been represented by that undisputed queen of narcissism, Tracey Emin. She responded in typical fashion, demanding that she only be accommodated at a hotel that had a certain “thread count” in the sheets. She wanted a room for her secretary and a private boat. In return, she produced a series of small, laughably bad drawings; scrappy shapeless paintings; piles of sticks that passed for sculpture; and outline doodles in neon. The theme needless to say was Me, Me, Me.

Her fans were rapt in admiration. “Tracey”, as she is known by all the world, was on hand to do a lot of swearing. For some, this served as confirmation of her genius. If further proof of sainthood was needed, one of the catalogue essays was written by a clergyman who gave a religious spin to Tracey’s art and expletives. For those like me who were not so anxious to worship at her alter, it seemed clear that in terms of her fame and her talent, Tracey is nothing less than the Paris Hilton of contemporary art. (John McDonald, “Festival of False Gods”, Sydney Morning Herald, June 16-17, 2007).

If Tracey Emin is the Paris Hilton of contemporary art, John McDonald is the Dan Brown of the art critic world. Let me explain.

A week before old McDonald bagged Emin, that bourgeois Herald supplement Good Weekend ran a cover story profiling artists in their studios. Basically a puff-piece to promote John McDonald’s new book, Studio: Australian Painters on the Nature of Creativity, the cover featured Aida Tomescu. I could review this article here at Artswipe in case you missed it, but Good Weekend reader Melanie Flynn of Hawthorn East, Victoria, sums it up perfectly in her letter to the magazine's editor, published this weekend:

The promise of an article about Australia’s top artists (June 9) was sadly short-lived as the author bought into the career story of art critic John McDonald. Surely most people who work within the industry have heard this story time and again and, for those who haven’t,it is hardly gripping stuff. If you are going to descend into the banality of art-world politics, please don’t promise something more by placing a full-page image of a female artist on your cover, who you then hardly mention in the accompanying article. (Good Weekend, 30 June, 2007).

I agree. It’s hardly gripping and it didn't really make me want to rush out and buy the book. McDonald would tear shreds off any other critic who’d dare to produce such nebulous, glossy coffee table criticism. Granted, a book on artists in their studios is an interesting idea; it appeals to our voyeuristic tendencies to know every bit of minutia about celebrity. And indeed, there is a whiff of celebrity about this book in that it appeals to the kind of personality-driven excess that McDonald gets all huffy over - evidenced by his jibe at Tracey Emin. More info on the book is available here and you can even download a nine page PDF sample of the book here.

Studio is available now and for a mere $80 you can furnish your coffee table with a copy. “That’s too much money,” I hear you cry in dismay. Think about it this way: Big Macs cost $3.25 each. With $80 you could either buy John McDonald’s book or visit your local McDonalds and order 24 Big Macs.