I returned to the Corey Helford gallery in Culver City recently for a show called "Youth Parade" by Michael Mararian.
Did not care for it.
First of all, and most obviously, the images were not pleasing the look at--I picked the most harmless one for the heading of this post. This unpleasantness was clearly intentional and the art was meant to elicit a visceral response. Fair enough.
But where I suppose the art really fell short for me was that it was intentionally offensive/shocking to theoretically convey a message, but it did so in such an excessive manner that it failed to be effective.*
* One could obviously argue that this too was the point--that it has to be over-the-top to reach anybody in today's society--but (if anyone is making that claim) I would reject it and I think that the most powerful point is one that is given with subtlety and acknowledgement of all factors (like my go-to favorite example for all that is good: The Wire) rather than one that just smacks you over the head with itself.
The message, or at least the message that this art screams to the novice artgoer, is that grown-up society and all its ills and pressures, corrupt our kids before they even have a chance to succeed. To this I say, great. I can agree with that.* Where this show lost me is in two places...
* There's even a season of The Wire about that!
1.) The pieces are devoid of subtlety. They're blunt. I like when art (of any kind) makes me think. Take for example, a particular piece where a young girl (maybe about 12) wears a Yale t-shirt and a graduation cap. All up and down her arms are razor blade cuts. What's left to think about after seeing that other than, "Gee, people sure put a lot of pressure on their kids to go to good schools"? I agree with this point, but I didn't need to see a little girl who cuts herself to understand or be reminded of this.* Going so overboard to make what is perhaps a fairly innocuous point feels like cutting off someone's hand to teach them a lesson about shoplifting.
* To Mararian's credit, this is also one of the few pieces that actually has a background that contributes something to the piece, as it has an orange shadow/outline thing of a beautiful girl--who I thought was actually supposed to be Harvard grad & world class beauty Natalie Portman, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, the message of this piece was still blatant.
2.) This kind of ties into the first point, but not only is there not much to think about, there really isn't much to look at either. I can only look at two toddlers with knives covered in blood for so long. There just isn't much happening on an aesthetic level. Throw in the fact that they're disturbing to look at in the first place and, well, it's not a great combination.
All in all, I think this is art in which shocking is masquerading as good. Mararian may think he's provoking a worthwhile response in me, but I'm not being illuminated as to any issues of our culture; my response is only, to be blunt as the show itself, "No shit."*
* Or, for the kiddies that read this blog, "Thanks, Captain Obvious."
Check out images from the show here yourself, let me know if you think I missed something. This link leads to the "Current Gallery" page, so once the next show goes up, you may have to navigate around into the "Past Shows" section. I'm sure you can figure it out.
In the meantime, go see some art that actually is good.
And, here's a where the title of this post came from. Speaking of Vampire Weekend, a review of their new album will be up soon too.
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