Letters to the Red Crayola XIV, 1976-2012
| Letters to the Red Crayola XIV, 1976-2012 | |
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| Art & Language | |
| Project |  Letters to the Red Krayola
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| Year | 2012 |
| Dimensions | 78.4 × 64.3 cm[1] |
| Materials | Ink, acrylic, collage and mixed media on paper |
Text
Dear M, Yes, we do share your feelings about the liberal media-in-favour-of-art- and-culture-in-general. But how to characterise them succinctly: we're not sure. One of its most nausea-inducing features is, of course, knowingness. One is not entirely sure if this comes from insecurity with regard to what is 'known', as it were, or merely something endogenous to the knower. And is this insecurity not also inflected by a sense of corruption, material and intellectual? And there's something of the manipulative coward in all of this. The cultural entity 'known', that is to say featured, is frequently associated with some powerful agency. The reviewer, or 'cultural correspondent' shares a little of the power of that agency in the manner of a hard-man's weedy friend. Wouldn't it cheer us all up if one among the little professionals would give way to someone who could write interestingly about their bafflement and lack of assurance in the face of a recent artistic or cultural spectacle, career move, whatever. Indeed, to be able to write about indecision and confusion might at least introduce an element of aesthetics into a genre that is entirely dominated by a Panglossian discourse of consumption. As you rightly point out, we have nothing to say that might enjoy the sympathetic attention of the fetish advisors of the liberal media. The possibility of exemplary violence attracts. The morally difficult task is to be sure that one's violence would be exemplary and not simply a kind of revenge — a terror without a future.
Interpretations
- The background image references Shouting Men (1976)