The Celebrity Artist

I can't really remember what I expected, but I was still very new to the city and eager to be involved in its art scene. 

This particular affair was a festival of some sort, celebrating digital and new media art. 

The Celebrity Artist, the one who was, of course, the main attraction that evening, as far as celebrity artists go anyway, infected to bone by cocaine, in his role as professor extraordinaire of something or other in the famous (as far as Art schools go) Royal Nazi school, would be headlining a conversation to discuss the "artistic practice", i.e. videos and short films of a marvelously unknown video artist, in an overseas Ivy League school, an unsung hero, as it were, of the medium. He is actually so obscure that his name not only now escapes me, but I suspect it never really registered on anyone who was at said "festival". He is likely not even on the internet.

The Celebrity Artist would, of course, be playing a double role that night: as an academic, and yet also, more importantly, a celebrity interviewing a critically acclaimed, albeit marvelously unknown artist. This discussion was to be held with intermittent views or glimpses of the Unknown Artist's videos in an informal conversation set up like a TV Show, which enhanced the Reality/Absurdity theme in the context of a multimedia exhibition, overall; about the Unknown Video Artist's "artistic practice", whose work, to be sure, was/is supposed to be held as groundbreaking, even though they were mainly repetitive, seemingly interminable reports of his drug use and various toilet scenes. His tenure track position at the most famous Art School in the United States, speaks for itself about the importance (read: relevance) of his videos. All this fragmentation of reality was of course, not even mentioned.

My interest in attending this fascinating "festival" hid my interest, I must confess, in meeting the Celebrity Artist. He was, in his early works, brilliant, to me anyway. It was an inspiration for my own work as an art student, trying to escape the confines of "traditional" painting, while not totally surrendering to technology-based gimmickry. I believe his early work was and still is the some of the best video art, and photography of the late 90's, challenging roles of film, appropriation, text, that played with perception as an actual material essential experience, and not just a redundant intellectual exercise. His work was material, using projectors, clunky monitors, cables and boxes as mediums. The themes were mainly binaries, but no less interesting, even if somewhat obviously platonic: virtue/goodness; evil/grace; self/other; absence/presence; object/subject. It was so slick and radically different from what I had seen before that it made me grab a super 8mm camera and shoot mediocre, yet fairly creepy, films, and then, make even more mediocre installations during my graduate studies at the same Alma Mater of The Celebrity Artist. Yes, he was that influential; at least to me, but I suspect some other dimwit doing some similar things. 

Two decades later, the Celebrity Artist became a kind of self-ingratiated person, much like any other celebrity, getting tattoos of the extremely expensive kind, and worrying more about his looks, it seems, than his pornographically expensive videos. He apparently (now) needed thick, hipster glasses, although it seemed to never before be an issue with his eyesight. His work had slumped, to my mind, but his celebrity status still rose, or leveled at least; and, even though his later works are mediocre at best, they look lavish and expensive, and he makes sure they look that way, because nothing says it's great art as much as something that costs a small fortune to produce. Superficial, redundant, expensive. That's the game. Vanity of vanities, alas. 

But that's beside the point. 

I had the distinct impression that the Celebrity Artist was directly staring at me. Perhaps I looked very eager; finally seeing/witnessing this legend of video art and moving images surely would do that to a person. The Celebrity Artist often gazed at the ceiling while the other, much less known, video artist spoke, as if meditating on the latter's words; but more than likely, he was thinking about nothing in particular, a good pose, actually, since it made the audience assume that he was absorbed in deep, metaphysical, or perhaps empirically skeptical thoughts. 

Either way, as soon as it would get too boring, even for the Celebrity Artist, he would casually let us have a look at his 15- inch Macbook Pro's mirror projection on the visual projector screen, mainly to showcase his itunes library, which held albums like "The Best of David Bowie", and also, quite predictably, The Clash, and of course, The Beatles, in order to play a scene from the Unknown, or little known, video artist. And but of course, he would also interject, or stream-of-consciously ruminate, on the total amazingness of video art. The Unknown, or very little-known, video artist always nodded as if agreeing. He seemed very polite, even for a French person. Perhaps 40 years of slamming heroin down your veins will do that to a person. 

The Celebrity Artist, for whatever reason, in one of these interjections, spoke about his personal drawing practice. According to him, he drew every day. Not literally, I think he meant. As in, not with pencil and paper, but a sort of "meta/video-Drawing", with his camcorder, or 16mm Bolex, or his iphone S6, or whatever. He went everywhere, he argued, and drew every day, much like an urban Van Gogh in France. Except of course, The Celebrity Artist did this, presumably, in modern Brooklyn or London, in the metros and crowded streets. His arms gestured in the room as to help us, the audience, visualize his video sketching, and he prophesized that in the future(?), this would be easier to make, as technology, advancing at such an unprecedented velocity, would permit simple pens, to finally let us draw/film reality. After this,the Celebrity Artist chose to let us imagine this universe, certain that drawing with video cameras, literally sketching, as one would with graphite or ink pens, was a distinct and inevitable future.

At this point the panel was over, and while no one had questions, I found it surprising that there were not. Anyway, as many more events followed this exchange between two greats of Video Art, the Celebrity Artist, in order to let us know he was not always so academic and artsy, intellectually dense, and almost always totally profound and complex, he played "Blurred Lines" by Robyn Thicke from his itunes library, and consequently danced with his colleague, the Unknown Video Artist, not in any way a homosexual or erotic gesture, but playfully, ecstatically; a lovely gesture to let us know how truly emancipated from "serious things" he really was, celebrity art status and all other things considered.


It was at this point that I decided to approach The Celebrity Artist, no doubt convinced that he was obviously such a fun loving individual that he would not mind meeting a younger, if totally unknown painter that coincidentally, also went to his Alma Mater. I introduced myself and my knowledge of his work, etc. At which point he seemed a bit troubled, perplexed, as it were, and made a point of utilizing this moment to let me know, mainly by way of shrugs, shakes of hand, and gestures that he was, indeed, incredibly busy and sort of stressed out about this whole "festival" business, and also, about his next set of interviews and panels, which would make for a rather long night, and he did not have time to, well, really do "this thing", emphasizing the "this", which implied my obsequious attempt at public fawning and trying to make friends with him. 

He knew I was not interested in just, well, perhaps saying hi, or a casual how are you, but convinced that I was there to feel his greatness and ask for an autographed photo with him. He actually grimaced, somewhat apologetically and shrugged his shoulders to indicate he knew this was indeed vexing for both of us, awkward, but unfortunately, he did have indeed have shit to do, unlike myself, who was, neither an Unknown, or Very little Known Video Artist with acclaim, or a Celebrity Artist with acclaim. Not even a photographer. He proceeded to wipe his sweaty forehead. One of his other colleagues looked at me with pity and then looked at the floor, unable to bring his gaze back to my miserable level.

Admitting this rather cruel fact made me blush, and in the eternal seconds before I could find some invisible, unnoticeable way of excusing myself, I noticed we imagine Celebrities to be taller almost always. And but what did I expect? I suppose for him to like me, or make me famous like him?  As I bizarrely turned around and shook his sweaty palm, I made my way through the staircase downstairs, in a kind of perplexed shock at the level of asshole-ness exhibited by the Celebrity Artist, and the embarrassing,feeling of public rejection. I tried not to fall into an epileptic fit with all the bloops, bleeps, and flashes multiplying themselves in the rooms, like images in a mirror, infinite, like an endless convention for Apple, Microsoft, or Oracle.

I was now outside, in the cold, and I was surrounded by dozens of medieval buildings, flashed and photographed by tourists, people with selfie-sticks, phones, fascinated, or at least intrigued, by being in the middle of such old things.