The Pretentious and the Crass

Last Saturday was a study in contrasts. During the day, I toured the SCAPE 2006 installations around Christchurch and at night I went to the stock car races at the Woodford Glen Speedway.

The highfalutin magazines I read, The New Yorker and Wallpaper, claim that the only interesting art show in New Zealand is the SCAPE biennial held in Christchurch. I was excited to see it happen while I was here. I emailed about volunteering but never passed the stage where they asked for my resume. The short of the story was that the art was terrible. For example, we have the first two photos. We see that the artist left the storage shed from his grandmother's house in the middle of downtown Christchurch. Ok. We can go inside and see what the artist has made. Instead of something interesting, like compost pasted to walls and ceiling or gaudy, neon-pink paint or a wax sculpture of Jimmy Hoffa, we get the parallel mirror effect. This was cool when I was 8 and saw it at the AB Jamboree. To generalize from this and other exhibits, 50% of modern art is crap. The artists are more involved with the lifestyle rather than honing their skills. One gets people attaching mirrors to walls when there is no skill. 25% is virtuosic but boring. I find the last 25% enthralling. The Mass MOCA in North Adams, MA always has outstanding exhibits. You never know which group most of the art in the exhibit belongs to and that 's half the fun.

A few grad students and I went to the speedway that night. The Australian grad student went to the races weekly while growing up. I once went to Thunder Road in Barre, VT while I was an undergrad. It's fun. The cars are loud and there are accidents. The street stocks are the craziest. The evening ended with a 30-car demolition derby using cars from the Undy 500. The motor sports club would install 5-way restraints into your undy car if you wanted to participate. First prize was 50 12-packs of beer. Woodford Glen has a dirt track that they watered down and made slick. The Volvo in the pack did very well. Movie crashes are more dramatic than what we witnessed. We're watching On the Beach tonight in the math department because it has an auto race, and stunningly, the Aussie grad student has never heard of it.

The low brow won on this Saturday. Let's see if the high brow can recuperate.