The Skunkeye Consumer Guide

After some procrastination, I’m debating whether to brave Artomatic tonight or muddy my weekend with the experience. I hate play Devil’s Advocate (you know I can’t help but be a putz), but I’m inclined to sympathize with Blake Gopnik on this one. Sorry!

Let me backtrack by saying several years ago I was so excited to return to the US to discover that the first Artomatic was about to open up the street from my folk’s house in the long-vacant Tenleytown Sears building! I was pleased by the notion that the DC area art community had been going through some sort of revitalization while I was gone and looked forward to being a part of it somehow. The first Artomatic, was of course, a sprawling mixed bag, but it was exciting to see that there was a collective effort to give staid DC a kick in the pants!

Ultimately, the uneven, to say the least, quality of the work – not to mention the quantity - began to grate on me. I actually started getting a little depressed by it all. Actually, it was worse, like Dario Argento’s La Sindrome di Stendhal had come to life! Not that all of the work was unappealing, but the impressive work was overwhelmed by the lightweight material, and the haphazard and jumbled installation of the entries made it really difficult to find the diamonds in the rough. This was re-confirmed and compounded by the subsequent Artomatic, mounted in the abandoned offices of what I consider of one the most single-most doomy and depressing complexes in the District, the Waterside Mall.

Housed in a venue so bleak - we're talking something along the lines of post disaster Chernobyl - how can one not come away from Artomatic and not feel icky?

Plus, in the spirit of being "provocative," I suppose, much of the artwork is purposely created to disturb the viewer. (Perhaps a fatal repercussion of the PC-button pushing nineties art scene is that somehow many aspiring artists have the notion that their work, regardless of skill or quality of execution, has to be "edgy" in order to relevant or considered legitimate "Art.") It would be one thing if this were a group show of "outsider" or "prison" art, but in the case of Artomatic; this is the collective fruit of the presumably educated folk who ride the Metro to work every day. Yikes – the lunatics ARE taking over the asylum!

Thre are aspects of Artomatic that remind me of Trading Spaces when Doug or Frank or even worse – Kia! - splatters cheap acrylic paint on fiberboard and declare it "art work," fit for a place of honor in the unwitting participants’ revamped living rooms and boudoirs. Ah, a cultural decay spreads across America… There’s not much in Artomatic that I could cohabitate comfortably with either – but that’s just me.

I know I’m being unfairly harsh on Artomatic. And I hate to dismiss v. 2004 site unseen (but I’m pretty sure I know what I’m up for). Look, its great to see so many folk getting creative. Judging from the content of a lot of the work these proactive creators could be doing worse things in society! At least they are being productive and are getting their juices out! And I admire what must be a massive effort on behalf of the organizers. The event could just use some editing is all. Or maybe an actual curator.

Also, there is always work that is impressive and by artists who I really respect. I won’t list them here – but there is a group of usual suspects who always manage to shine. An excellent resource is the awesome DC Art News site, which has been posting various Artomatic "Top Ten Lists" (which I’m inclined to more or less agree with) from a multitude of DC art world players, as well as reviews and coverage of the ongoing and very heated debate. Also, check out Missy for documentation of her recent visit.

Like it or not, Artomatic has become sort of a tradition in DC and I feel a certain obligation (though absolutely no curiosity at his point) to check it out. And I do always get something out of it! I’m going to try my best to be armed with a sense of humor and all the tolerance and open-mindedness I can muster when I go. I’ll try to forget that I’m a miserable, aging elitist for a moment.

I've been enjoying the La Mala Educatión soundtrack which I picked up earlier this week. The film hasn't opened in DC yet; suffice to say I'm absolutely looking forward to it. There's nothing like the promise of a Pedro Almodóvar film around the corner to make one realize life ain't so mala after all!

I've only got a cursory comprehension of what the film is about, but I can get a fairly good idea from longtime (well, at least since the mid-nineties' melodrama Flower of My Secret) Almadóvar collaborator/ composer Alberto Iglesias's orchestration. Echoes of the late Bernard Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Vertigo are bring heightened, soaring, and rather uneasy a film-noir feel to the score. This is definitely a darker, more baroque affair than precious efforts –those who swooned to the tropical night plaint of Caetano Veloso's "Cucurrucucu Paloma" in Talk to Her might be gasping for air a bit.

To hear the Cor Vivaldi-Ipsi-Petits Cantors de Catalunya (a boys' choir) soaringly sing Rossini's "Kyrie" is a at once portentous, stirring, and beautiful, and a haunting "Moon River," performed by what sounds like a castratti (but mostly not likely- do they still do that?), indicate audiences are apt to deal with some sober, tragic stuff with Almodóvar's latest. Then again, a camped-up "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" (best known in America interpreted by Doris Day as "Perhaps,...,…" and in the UK as the opening theme to "Coupling"), and Little Tony's "Cuore Matto" – which I sadly admit I used to listen to all the time when I was studying Italian - there's still some over-the-top fun to be had.

Also on the foreign soundtrack front, the other week I received Clara et Moi, the latest offering from young maestro Benjamin Biolay. The film hasn't been released in the US but apparently it has been hugely successful in France. Aside from several sumptuous new instrumentals from Biolay, the album is a fairly humdrum affair for me, mostly a regurgitation of (or versions of) tracks I already own - the now de riguer Keren Ann's "Coin du Monde (Streets Go Down)," Bertrand Burgalet's "Ma Recontre" performed by the film's romantic leads Julie Gayet et Julien Boisselier, and a demo version of Biolay's duet with Chiara Mastroianni, "Grand Retour de La Chance," from this year's Home. However, as a passport for the neophyte traveler, Clara et Moi is as good an introduction as any to the some of the better pop music that has been coming out of France over the last few years.