Taking a break from the Chaos to post this...

So it’s probably no secret to any of the two of you who read this that my wife and I do the art opening circuit just about every Friday night. There are blogs around that already cover this scene (with varying degrees of thoroughness), but I’ve seriously been thinking about entering the fray. The problem is that I’m not entirely sure how to write about it.

Problem 1: My complete lack of authority about the subject. I’m not an artist nor an art historian. I’ll save you my “criticism is dead, long live criticism” spiel just at the moment, but even forgoing that I’m just not entirely sure I know enough about art to write about it in an interesting way; I just see a damned lot of it.

Problem 2: Mechanics. I lack a hook.

should i write
like e e cummings
forgoing
punctuation and grammar
for style

or perhaps entirely in Haiku (Memphis-art renga style):

“Good glass in Midtown
Material is crowded
The wife and I bailed”

and demand only two-line comments of seven syllables each from my readers on the subject of the moon or cherry blossoms?

Problem 3: Feeling the need to be honest. I don’t like the idea of only writing about what I like, because it would feel like I’m bullshitting you. There’s some really good art being shown in Memphis, but there’s also some that (in my opinion) sucks. Only writing about the good stuff (or only writing about my friends) is poison; it’s a feedback loop that would ultimately hurt my ability to look at work objectively or write about it intelligently.

The flip side of that is that it’s a small scene and my wife still has to make a living in it so I don’t want to piss anybody off. I’ve discovered recently that you don’t even have to be particularly critical to do this. Failure to be sufficiently effusive is apparently a black-listable offense in this town.

All that said, all I’ll say about last Friday night’s openings is this: We went to 1688 and I liked it. The artist was a very nice person and I’ve not seen work in that vein shown in Memphis before. Go see it if you get a chance.