[R. Nemo Hill]

Rick, I do take issue with the idea that "it has all been done before". There are many traditions, and the conceptual/avant-garde has its traditions as well. We so-called formalists are content to repeat-in-the-course-of-building-on our own received traditions, so why should the avant-garde not be afforded the same right? The idea that the other guy can only do it once but that we can do it and improve upon it over and over again seems silly. Really, the knee-jerk negative responses to this sort of 'art' have changed less than the 'art' itself has. Andre Breton maintained right from the start that he wanted to destroy "Literature". The point is that the tools of this dismantling change over time, even if the intended rupture remains the same. To his credit in the interview, I think KG is advancing his own tradition by his references to how technology has changed the equation. Like it or not, the seeping of that technology into daily life has made even the non-artist's life the stuff of conceptual art.

Nemo

[Rick Mullin]

I was specifically refering to John Cage's piece where he sits before the piano and doesn't play (that was Cage, right? Or was it Glass?). As far as I'm concerned, nothing's been done before.

Anyway, I don't think I said it's all been done before, did I?

RM

[R. Nemo Hill]

and Cage would say, "been there, done that."

You put it in someone else's mouth, but that seemed to be the sentiment (as echoed by numerous others).
I only cited you because I knew you wouldn't bite my head off.

Nemo

[Rick Mullin]

As far as destroying art is concerned, I am convinced that creativity is very much a matter of destruction...or, certainly, the willingness if not the inclination to destroy.

Rick

NB, I really only meant to note that John Cage had done something along the lines of what I understood (uh, not having read the whole article) Goldsmith to be describing. Others have as well, in various contexts. But more, more, more! Each is a new work. (I can see how my comment came off as dismissive to the avant-garde--not my intent. But my visit to MoMA dream stands!)

It is all akin to the idea that the most beautiful picture can never be painted, the most beautiful song never sung, the best band never signed--they will never play a show! This is our incentive and motivating force. I have recently paid homage in these very pages to the blank canvas!~,:^/

[Janice D. Soderling]

That long queue of folks in front of that bookstore over there are lined up to buy the exciting new book of old weather reports that they don't need to read.

Give me a break, Bill and Nemo. The author may have many admirable qualities as a human being, but that isn't what is at issue here. The point is that Flarf, Conceptual Art, are not by any stretch of the imagination Art. It is leg-pulling. It has been done time and time again, and there is always someone to rush forward and say, "Now, w-a-a-i-t a minute. I feel something profound moving in my innards."

I am reminded of the many rooms in museums, empty but for one deep-thinking weirdo in front of a video of fractels, or of zoom-ins of various parts of a wrecked automobile, or of a man cutting his toenails and examining each one under a microscope. What is he thinking? How is he moved? Dunno, but I can't help believing that it is the same thoughts and emotions as those that he has when he opens his refrigerator door in the morning and again contemplates a moldy cheese.

PS. Though I have passed through many dim-lit museum rooms where a video is playing to one or none, I just made up those examples above. It strikes me though, that I am talented and could probably find a market for them.

[Stephen Collington]

But Nemo, it has all been done before. Formal poetry, too, of course. Of the making of many books there is no end, and all that jazz. Vanity of vanities.

The real question is whether it's worth doing again.

[R. Nemo Hill]

"Give me a break, Bill and Nemo."

I'll give my break to the deep-thinking weirdo any day. But never to the smug status-quo. Your broadly parodic paragraph really is embarrassingly corny.

N

[Rick Mullin]

Of course it's worth doing again, Stephen, until somebody gets it right.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Yes, Stephen, of course. But every artist or thinker has to decide that for themselves, and their 'doing it again' is their own answer the question. I don't want to get embroiled in my usual debate; I only spoke up because the other side gets such scant voice here--which gives the false impression that the answer to your question is unanimous as regards the worth of such experiments. Far from it. The split has always been there and will always be there. And once again: the tyranny of technology in this day and age may have made more converts to the other side than some of us realize.

That's all.

Nemo

[Janice D. Soderling]

Now. Nemo, don't ruin your chances of writing a favorable review when I have installed my video of me clipping my toesnails. That weirdo in front of it may be me. In fact, it probably will be me. Unless an aficionado elbowed his way past me in the queue outside.