When I went to visit
"Ecstasy" in November of last year, the line to get in snaked out of the Geffen Contemporary's doors and onto the sidewalk. The smell of pot wafted through the open-air courtyard. And, of course, there was a guy handing out flyers regarding the legalization of all kinds of drug use. These seemed like features to be expected upon visiting the show since, one could say, "Ecstasy" is the institutionalized version of the counter-culture that it focuses on. Its appeal is broad-ranging enough that high falutin collectors can think of it as an academic exercise in altered perception and psychadelics can believe it is the artistic justification for their favorite activities. I'm just excited to see that a contemporary museum is luring so many visitors into its den of iniquities -- and at only $8 a pop!
But what of drugs? And what of drug use -- an illegal practice that could be seen as lauded and encouraged by a major museum exhibition? I'm about as straight-edge as they come, so the exhibit didn't really offer up an excuse for me to pop a pill before checking out some art. And though the exhibit might be interpreted as fast and loose, I don't think that it hands out licenses for its viewers to shoot up right before walking through the doors. I think it gives people a picture into abnormal visions of the world and, more politically-charged, gives artists a license and premise upon which they can use drugs in the name of their art. The caveat and the expectation, though, is that they do it in an interesting way. And because drugs are inherently a hot-button issue, it becomes harder to pull off their use as artistic rather than just-because-you'll-get-high. If one decides, say, to dissolve a tab of acid and record that experience, it should serve some informed creative goal, and it is incumbent that that goal connects/disrupts/toys with art history and culture. This person would also ideally have a working knowledge of
Thomas de Quincey and
Rodney Graham.
The question of how one incorporates contentious issues into art might best be framed by thinking about forays in the realm of conceptual art. In
Chris Burden's "Shoot", the artist had someone shoot him in the arm. The idea behind the performance was putting one's self at risk, and pushing its boundaries. The wrong way to read it would have been to think that he was purporting that everyone should go around with guns shooting people's arms. Instead, the act of having someone shoot him in the arm was a tool that was used in order to further a conceptual framework that, in turn, pushed the avenues by which one can think about art. It changed the way one could think about performance, and--as I see it--begged the question of how mortal bodies seem to be ignored by the transcendence of the performative act. In a creepier vein, once could also think about
Vito Acconci's "Seedbed," that insanely strange and seemingly lecherous work featuring him masturbating underneath gallery floorboards and projecting his moaning and groaning throughout the gallery via loudspeakers. It's one way of approaching the widespread practice of mastrubation. But it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is going to mastrubate in the name of art, and it doesn't mean that those who do will be featured in a museum show. It meant that Acconci was crazy enough to set-up a situation of complete discomfort and the strangeness of strangers, blurring drastically the lines between public and private, and pushing his own body to its limits in the name of pushing art to its limits.
The reason why I bring "Shoot" and "Seedbed" up is because they have been accepted into the canon of performance art. Canons, for better or for worse, are working boundaries for quality, as well as artistic and conceptual standards. And this brings me to the editorial way of thinking about all of this--and what helps the exhibit walk the fine line between pandering and popular: curatorial choice. Paul Schimmel, as
Michael Kimmelman puts so elegantly, is trying to make a case for art as a connective tool--one that gives people an experience that takes you outside of yourself and gently pushes you into different ways of seeing. That's the reason why "Ecstasy" works. In
this great feature by Christopher Miles for the L.A. Weekly, Miles emphasizes Schimmel's idealistic vision, one that is compelled by getting people interested in what art can do--and hopefully, win over some new eyeballs for the banner of "art-going public". The difference is that Schimmel isn't curating a show that promotes drug use as a recreational activity after an artist makes his/her paintings. Instead, it's a show that dabbles in widespread symbols of drug culture and threads them through the general theme of weird, altered states of consciousness, and artwork that changes one's perception. It's a sexy title for a rather unsexy, naive-sounding concept. What's more, it's one that holds its works to high standards. As far as meeting those goals, I can say that "Ecstasy" certainly proffers some interesting cases. Even if there is a bit of mushroom overkill, it's definitely worth checking out.
Oh, and if you go, be sure to visit Erwin Redl's green lights. They'll surely alter your perception.
