Newsflash: Removing Your Clothes, Crying, and Taking Pictures of Yourself is not Artsy

Contemporary Art Space? More like MySpace

Lately, a pesky issue of self-indulgence has agitated me to the point of no return: Girls (worse, women) photographing themselves (or being photographed) in the nude or semi-nude and brashly proclaiming it "art," when really it's nothing but a grossly narcissistic expression of their own egos, and not even worthy of MySpace let alone competitive contemporary art spaces.

My rage was first incited last weekend, when I took a trip to PS1, the extension of MoMa that used to be a really cool outlet for art in Queens.... and now is a veritable bee's nest for swarming hipsters. PS1 has its attributes and interesting exhibitions, but it's certainly not impervious to useless bullshit (like all contemporary art centers). What really set me over the edge was the work of a 30-something young artist named Laurel Nakadate, who had the better part of an entire floor dedicated to displaying dozens of immense photographs that were cheesy, Internet-esque shots of herself crying in different positions, often half (or fully) naked. This part of the exhibit is called "365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears," and some of the photographs (rather, pics) were worse than something I would have taken in 1997 with a disposable Kodak. 

I was ready to dismiss the "art" to the garbage chute of my brain when I caught Nakadate's statement, in which she explained that she traveled the country for 365 days, "deliberately taking part in sadness each day." PS1's website says: "These photographs document a year-long performance that began on January 1, 2010, in which the artist documented, and continues to document herself before, during, and after weeping each day." Constructed sadness, huh? BOO FUCKING HOO. 


Are we really at a point in self-indulgent hipster art culture that the expression of "sadness," a somber emotion with great poetic potential, is acceptably conveyed by one self-infatuated "artist's" experimentation with camera angles? PS1 clearly saw something insightful; all I see is shameless, embarrassing narcissism. 

"Do I look sad in just a bra, or should I take that off, too? "

As if Ms. Nakadate's "art" weren't enough to get my blood boiling (you don't even wanna know what else she had on exhibit), I nearly fell off the subway platform upon reading of Miru Kim, a 30-year-old "Manhattan artist" who, for 5 years, "has meticulously researched New York’s history and explored its unseen infrastructure. She disrobes and caresses the walls with her body at each location." This is like that article about idiots spelunking in NYC sewers because they're too bored with their everyday lives. Thinking she's marvelously original, Ms. Kim takes photographs of "edgy" places in New York... oh wait -- she doesn't even take the pictures! She just appears nude in them! She's just doing this because she thinks she's hot! (Seriously, when do you see an enormous artist exhibiting herself this way? It's only the attractively-figured ones. You know why? Because they just want an excuse to parade in front of the camera).

Urban Narcissa, staring into a lovely sewage reflection

NY Metro's take on Ms. Kim's impact on our art world is just too good to paraphrase indirectly, so I'll quote it here:


"[Kim] inserts her naked body into the 'organism' of the metropolis, producing ethereal landscapes that explore the interaction of classic femininity and twenty-first century urbane. Her artwork has been heralded internationally, though she has gotten into more than a few scrapes with local law enforcement, she says. She’s been chased by police officers, encountered a violent homeless man in an abandoned Hell’s Kitchen tunnel, and eluded NYPD helicopters for the sake of her art."


OMG she's so badass, getting in trouble for her art! There's nothing like a disillusioned idiot stalking abandoned tunnels and getting into altercations with violent homeless people... 

Oh, another thing: Miru Kim also poses nude with pigs in farm pens. ...And tries to make it sound deep.

"As I lay down next to a sow weighing five hundred pounds, I felt the warmth travel from the soft underbelly of the animal into my bare right thigh.  I could no longer reason whether I was feeling the pig's abdomen on my thigh, or the pig was feeling my thigh on her abdomen. The line between the subject and the object were obscured, and two souls mingled on the plane of contact." from: http://mirukim.com/statementThePigThatThereforeIAm.php