ARCHIVE - Creating a Conceptual Framework for Images - Week 7

ARCHIVE - Air Guitar

chijes12 — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 14:15:02 -0700

Hickey's style and outlook are quite pleasent. It is kind of comforting and easily recognizable unlike the crazy art mumbo jumbo you read about in most places. Hickeys approach to art as a critic really does set him apart from the rest. His focus as a child through his adulthood on music is what appealed to me the most. His portion of dealing with how jazz music has brought people together really hits close to home. Music for me has led me to meet some of the most truest human beings I've ever met. I guess I can relate to him as an individual because I am not trying

ARCHIVE - How 'bout... "AIR GUITAR!?!?"

hudrya12 — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:45:56 -0800

Ha ha! "...Any dealer will tell you, it is perfectly possible for any artist with decent work habits to produce more work in three or four years than there are buyers worldwide who might possible acquire them, ever." (66) Dave Hickey, you are a delight! Your pessimism makes me smile, and I think maybe I'm falling in love with you, maybe? What I love about air guitar is the fact that I feel I'm peaking into a secret world I am absolutely unqualified to behold. I should start reading "Art." Does that still exist? Hickey's mama-essay of the first half of this book, "The Birth of the Big, Beautiful Art Market," had just a whole lot of really good insight on installation.

ARCHIVE - My Weimer (Belated Version)

selcol15 — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 18:55:21 -0800

There is a level of surprise that reallocates itself again and again while reading Air Guitar, considering it is announced to be "art criticism." The stories and lessons that ride along side the theories and methodologies of Dave Hickey are so immersed in his personal life and understanding of the way art and culture work, that it almost seems non-critical, but maybe rather analytical or philosophical in a sense. Needless to say, I am surprised at how much I am enjoying reading an art criticism book (one that breaches Liberace, "good jazz," psychedelics, and the ethics of cartoon violence all within the first half of the book).

ARCHIVE - Vegas Style

smieri24 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:33:35 -0800

By Eric Smith-- On Dave Hickey—Air Guitar

While I maintain that there is a considerable amount of dialog to expound upon throughout Dave Hickey’s varying essays in Air Guitar, I couldn’t escape the fact that he talks so highly of Las Vegas as upholding the real freedom of America. It just so happens that my girlfriend and I are flying out of Seattle this coming Friday to celebrate her birthday “Vegas-Style,” which translates to an excess of hedonistic behavior that borders on self-destructive. But why? I couldn’t quite place the reasoning for such desire to travel to Las Vegas with all its illusion and filth and superficiality, and then Hickey made it clear for me in beautifully accurate prose. Hickey states:

ARCHIVE - Week 7 - Air Guitar

kagros06 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:48:36 -0800

I thoroughly enjoyed Air Guitar. It was insightful and well written without being a complete literary mess.(i.e. you could read it!) The intro definitely hooked me and I kept coming back to his thoughts on academia and art or learning saturation. He explored the fact that everyday interactions, and everyday people, the little shops, and honest intellectual discourse were what kept him going, vital and vibrant... always exploring and never complete. Whereas in the University those who owned stores, or took or gave money were the enemy academically and societally speaking without actually considering the HUMAN aspect of the PEOPLE. It seems VERY ironic. However, I am in complete agreement. So often in academic institutions reality is blurred for this strange academic world, vocabulary, and stunted truth. I appreciate studying history, and THEORY.....but when reality and experiences, and the truth are ignored in favor of theres theories and one is not allowed to apply theories to LIFE I wonder what is the point? When I am not allowed into dialogue about my life, or my reality, or my people because I lack a prerequisite or the academic mush of language I wonder who is losing more. Should I succumb and be a part of this academic aspect of things, or should academia try to live out their theories in the world. ANYWAYS this got me thinking about ART and ritual and membership in certain communities.

ARCHIVE - installation proposal- haile, lauren

hailau12 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:48:14 -0800

Installation Proposal

2/20/07

Lauren Haile

My installation will show the power of positive thinking, and at the same time the humor in negative thoughts. There will be two separate “rooms” which will be created by curtains. They will be on different sides of the room and utilize one side of the wall as part of their room. Inside each contained room (there will only be enough space for one person and a stool for them to sit on) will be a television and a pair of headphones for them to put on. There will be a room in which the narrator’s thoughts are purely negative and a room in which they are positive.

ARCHIVE - Air Guitar

gildan02 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:47:39 -0800

This book gets me excited about art. It makes me think about the place where I want to go with mine.

ARCHIVE - air guitar

shahel25 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:46:00 -0800

I found it interesting the way Dave Hickey talks about Las Vegas. It’s a place that most people conceder it to be a pit of sin, but to him, it’s a place where there are no standards. “Membership in the university club will not get you comped at Caesars, unless you play baccarat. Thus, in the absence of vertical options, one is pretty much thrown back onto ones own cultural resources, and, for me, this has not been the worst place to be thrown.”

I agree with Hickey about Las Vegas, and I agree that it is a place where people can general be them self’s with out worrying about prosecution from others. But it also seems like a place where making true human connection might be difficult. I have to wonder if it is worth it to live in a place where no one will judge you, but have no real community around you.

ARCHIVE - Hickey pgs 9-101

donand10 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:34:23 -0800

It’s incredible how Dave Hickey uses his own, very American middle class, experiences to explain and critique works of art. Sometimes when I was reading through these first 100 pages I found myself wondering if the artists of whom Hickey was critiquing would even see this; failed musician, Los Vegan, car buff of a guy as someone worthy of critiquing their art. Then I realized American art in the 20th century was being created by people just like Dave hickey. What gave me this impression was Hickey’s comparison of Norman Rockwell’s paintings to his dad’s Saturday evening jam sessions. “I have no doubt that Rockwell taught me about how to remember that jam session, because I could never polish it. I clung to the ordinary eccentricity, the clothes, the good-heartedness, the names of things, the comic incongruities, and the oddities of arrangement and light.” Hickey then goes on to talk about how that jam session was an excellent example of America; just like a Norman Rockwell painting. What made it so great, Hickey says, were the participants and their individuality, but what truly made it great was quite the opposite; everybody had the spot to solo. I think this is why American artists rarely make or respect high art, because we’re all Americans, right? Nothing more nothing less.
I was very intrigued with Hickey’s thoughts on imperfections in music. “And you can thank the wanking eighties, if you wish, and digital sequencers, too, for proving to everyone that technologically perfect rock, like free jazz, sucks rockets.” I wonder, if this is true for art as well? Would such clean perfection ruin something significant like the natural quality of human error, hence, making art work less human and less interesting? Can human error actually be a quality? -Drew

ARCHIVE - lauren haile's thoughts on air guitar...part 1

hailau12 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:24:20 -0800

First off: reading Air Guitar was a breeze and a pleasure. Hickey enthralls the reader with his heavy description and total honesty (like when he admits to doing acid many times back in the day which many might have denied). I enjoyed his humor and his fast-paced writing—he made things exciting.

I keep thinking about the Warhol film “Haircut” Hickey described during he and his friend’s Flick Night and what affect it had on him personally. I googled it to find that Warhol actually did a series of these films. It was so simple yet so brilliant at the same time.