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7.03.2008

A Teeny Tiny Rant:

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Olafur Schmolafur.

7 comments:

Admin said...
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Admin said...

C'mon, tell me how you really feel.

Sweetcake Enso said...

Chris, I like the "First Mathew Barney, and now this," and "no clapping, man, he's napping." I get that! Not everyone is raving, John Lacayo withdrew any excitement, for ex.

Joanne Mattera said...

It's the All-Olafur-All-The-Time that has pushed me over the edge. I mean, I liked the moss wall well enough at SFMoMA, but now art institutions and galleries and cities are just getting on line to show anything out of the guy's sketchbook.

Chris, you nailed it early on.

S.A. said...

On one level I completely agree with Chris and Joanne -- it's a damn circus -- and a very expensive one at that. The waterfalls seem to really push it over the top (so to speak).
On the other hand, my 12 year old daughter really related on a gut level to many of the pieces. She really GOT the sort of quiet phenomenological or meditative aspect of the work, and of course wasn't rubbed by the hype or the hardware.
Maybe the simpler early work is his history, and Olafur will ultimately become a large-scale environmental designer.

Anonymous said...

The waterfalls are lame...feels like amateur night.

Joanne Mattera said...

The bridges are so much more imposing and impressive than the waterfalls they dwarf.

But I'm not picking on Olafur's waterfalls per se. I'm not even picking on him. It's the all-Olafur-all-the-time juggernaut I'm reacting to. You can't turn around without another Olafur show or project being shown, reviewed, installed, planned, conceived or considered. Yes, some of his work is appealing--I liked his moss wall at SF Moma, for instance--but the Olafur juggernaut is in overkill, er, overdrive at this point. Either the guy has a PR firm that won't quit, or curators and editors are sticking with Olafur because it's safe (I mean, who doesn't like a waterfall?), and this is the summer and it lets them coast a little while still remaining "relevant." Or both.