In a Gallery Near You

Darby is unequivocally their favorite person in the Universe

I never used to give much thought to promotional materials. For one thing, I know I'm not getting an unbiased account of things. Take movie advertisements: short, decontextualized words of praise, set to theme music, where they play up adjectives and skip the part where the quote came from the intern at the Montana Sun-Rifle. It seems that if you look hard enough, you can find someone that likes every movie*.

Besides, a lot of the quotes don't make any sense. A personal favorite was when a movie was described as "the biggest laugh generator since There's Something About Mary."**

Movies have big budgets, and a comparatively wide audience. They hire design teams to carefully tailor and craft these promos, right down to what kind of movie they want their movie to seem like so that we, the audience, won't be confused as to why there is no wrestling in Kramer vs. Kramer. Movies are enormous financial investments, and a lot more money gets dumped into trying to get people to go, all before anyone has even seen it. Of course they're going to say it's great. They are trying to sell it to us.

Something I have become keenly aware of since starting my weekly column is the promotional material describing art exhibitions, which are produced without all the financial backing of Hollywood. Indeed, artists are not usually known for their abilities in other areas—areas such as proper grammar, or humility. I can tell you from experience that so-called artist statements are some of the worst examples of writing a person could ever hope to encounter. Many of them are like Vogon poetry. Really, the only time I read them is when:

1. I like the work and hope to learn more about the artist's thought process.

2. I am sort of offended by the work and I want to ascertain what the artist was thinking so I can hate them more completely.

Sadly, these two circumstances are few and far between. Usually the work is very bland or familiar, and there is really nothing to be gained by reading how the interplay of light and shadow gives rise to notions of the abstract, impregnating the works with the duality of the mind/body split when all I see are some stripes. By skipping the artist statement, I can qualify the artist as untalented instead of completely deluded, which is much more depressing.

Since I travel to Santa Fe only once each week, and am at the mercy of the train schedule, I have a finite amount of time to see a given show. I try to be thorough, but this isn't always possible. I am a little ashamed to admit that I base a lot of the stops in my circuit on the promotional blurbs that are published in the very paper for which I write. (It feels a bit cannibalistic).

All of a sudden, abbreviated artist statements are part of my routine. Every Friday I sit with my coffee and read through the listings to see what new shows will be opening, and to see if I have missed any that sound interesting. And herein lies the problem—most art shows do not sound interesting. They usually sound extremely boring:

"[The artist] presents egg tempera landscape painting."

(She is the lucky 1 millionth person to do so!)

Or pretentious:

"[The artist] showcases oil and watercolor paintings that bespeak the stillness of canyons, lakes, gardens, barns, and everything in between."

"A connoisseur of skies, [the artist] brings his refined perspective to New Mexico."

(Nobody who believes they're good at something refers to themselves as a connoisseur, or refined, and they don't showcase. These are words born out of insecurity.)

Or both:

"[The artist] infuses the mundane with the sacred as she paints everyday settings, including empty streets, balconies, decks, chairs, and cityscapes."

And some of the blurbs don't seem to communicate anything at all:

"[The artist] works with ink and pastels on a layered surface to achieve novelty in his abstract figurative pieces."

(So, to clarify, the artist makes things for you to look at. They are also hung vertically on walls in order to aid you in this endeavor.)

Sometimes I am surprised. Just last week I visited a show described only as "Polish Posters," as in posters designed by Poles, for Poles. It was fantastic. I try to keep an open mind and visit as many shows as possible. I guess I just never realized how atonal and off-putting a few words about one's life's work could sound.

It is always painfully obvious that these blurbs were written by the artist in the third person, as though this will lend it some credibility. Having become something of a connoisseur of these blurbs, my advice would be to just go for clarity and honesty:

"John Photos takes lots of pictures, mostly of his wife and dogs. He loves them. The best ones are on view through...

And don't try to bespeak or infuse anything. You're probably doing it wrong.

* I have been accused of this in the past. It's complicated. Suffice it to say that I like movies on a variety of levels, and so a terrible plot and laughable dialog doesn't always ruin it for me. After a while I start to imagine what it must have been like to actually work on, or be in, said movie, and what a nightmarish experience it would be, standing there across from other amateurs in a cloak, wondering if I should have finished college. I sort of start to empathize...

** That movie was Trekkies, a documentary about Star Trek Cons, possibly the only place on earth where they might plausibly have a giant laugh generator. (A google search attributes the quote to Bonnie Britton, Indianapolis Star & News).

One Year Later

Wait'll they get a load of me!

This week marked the one-year anniversary of the release of The Dark Knight. It is a minor holiday, I know, but I took the opportunity to take a much-needed break from studying to watch the film again and maybe even finish the review I started 12 months ago. So, without further ado…

The Dark Knight is very nearly a masterpiece of action movies. From the tense opening scene, the movie sustains a frantic pace that never allows you to return to a comfortable seated position. It is unequivocally the best Batman movie to date. It is also one of the cleverest and most socially relevant movies I have seen in years. It does, however, suffer from a small but undeniable flaw—namely, that the protagonist is a grown man dressed in a latex body suit and cape, a persona that ultimately comes across as puzzling and silly in contrast to the dark realism of the rest of the cast.

By now you have all heard about Heath Ledger's epic final act. I, for one, am hesitant to heap praise upon actors when I usually find the writers and directors more deserving. My skepticism was only heightened by the inevitable emotional impact of the sudden death of this young and talented actor. Indeed, it was impossible to ignore the fact that I was witnessing the last role that Ledger would ever play, one that he never got to see completed. But for once the hype machine got it right. I admit he is amazing. Some credit, of course, must go to the writers for their thorough reimagining of The Joker—he is not so much a Villain, with all the clichéd cartoonish mannerisms and awful macabre jokes, as he is a terrorist, something wicked that will gladly die for his cause, whatever it may be—but the script is only words. It is Ledger, with a fascinating mix of facial tics and a deadly reedy voice that gives the movie what it really needs—something to be afraid of. Convincing as a lunatic, his confrontations with his co-stars are truly frightening. Knives out, he stalks from victim to victim with the cool and malice of a cat playing with its food. He broke the mold with his performance. And herein lies the problem. His nemesis, some weirdo in a rubber suit, can hardly return the favor.

A lot of the blame goes to Christian Bale. Peering out at us from behind a pointy hat and copious amounts of eye shadow, he does little more than rasp and glower in a way that is neither threatening, nor in step with the tone of the movie.

But the root of the problem, if I may call it such a thing, is with the genre of superheroes movies. To say that Christopher Nolan (director of Memento, Batman Begins, and co-writer of The Dark Knight) has outdone himself doesn't quite cover it. He has outdone Batman. The script is deadlier, and the plot is darker than a superhero movie should go. There is no humor or camp or even vanity to relieve you. There is not even a real love story. The Dark Knight is, for all the world, a horror movie. To the detriment of the film, Batman the character, trapped in an older, cartoonier iteration, never made the transformation. Traipsing through the shadowy sets in a cumbersome costume, he is the last vestige, the lone anchor to the childish PG versions of superheroes, complete with all the invincibility and morality they possess, so that you never really feel that failure is a possibility, the result of which is almost disappointing in the face of The Joker’s astonishing and skillful schemes. (Not to say that I was rooting for The Joker, but one has to admire his guile.)

Alas, the filmmakers seemed to understand Batman’s limitations as well. In one of the best scenes, a brutal roughing up of The Joker by our hero in the confines of a police interrogation cell, Batman attempts to extract information regarding the whereabouts of kidnap victims. After a few failed attempts, the beatings becoming more vicious, the questions peaking at a reverberating and hoarse shout, Ledger's Joker lets out a drunken and mirthful laugh. “There is nothing that you can threaten me with!” he says, and it is as though all of Batman’s strength has been completely sucked out of the room.

As I mentioned earlier, the thing that makes The Joker so good and so scary is that he is not an ordinary bad guy, rather he resembles something closer to just ordinary. He doesn’t waste his time waging war specifically against the protagonist, a force of nature that would surely defeat him in combat. Nor does he rely on stealing state-of-the-art weaponry to execute his master plan. He doesn’t have any special powers, or skills, or even a vendetta. His plans have a thrown-together feel that are equal parts brilliant and simple. Perhaps most convincingly, he employs everyday technology—video, cell phones, broadcast television, and the viral way in which these conduits can find their audience instantly—in order to involve a terrorized public. Indeed, his plans began to resemble the deadly punch line of a reality game show gone awry, the contestants foregoing all decency and humanity in order to survive, their grinning host morbidly delightedly watching it happen.

In keeping with this, it is ultimately not Batman that gets the better of The Joker—it is us, his would-be victims and our (apparently) unshakable goodness in the face of death that deal the harshest blow. Personally, I found the eventual outcome unlikely, or at least debatable, but to end it otherwise might have been too depressing and irreconcilable. After all, it was the single moment of hope in an otherwise unrelenting tale of mayhem and misery. It was the only hint at a happy ending amidst a bounty of tragedy, both on and off the screen.

Well, Not In Television. But I Work Near Television.

How An Art Gallery Looks in the Imagination of Some TV Producer

My job for the next week is to be here at the gallery to let the television crew in and out while they film a scene that takes place in an Art Gallery. You can tell that it’s an Art Gallery because they brought in a bunch of white, ultra-modern furniture and placed it throughout the exhibition spaces in case the patrons need a short rest between paintings.

The paintings are folksy, western images on what appears to be fence boards nailed together. The artist is apparently named Rosa Garcia, a factory worker at the turn of the 19th century, making her perhaps one of the earliest female painters to be recognized in America, though I still don’t think they’re very good. Other than that, I know very little about the actual program and what will be happening once the cameras arrive.

I have heard:

A) There will be a reception scene involving 60 extras.
B) There will be a person smoking a cigarette indoors.
C) There will be a fire.

My task could not be easier—I show up to unlock and then sit at my computer and write, or listen to baseball. They are paying me two and a half times my normal wages to do this—but my contact, the location scout, has managed to make it hard anyway. As far as I can see, he is always on the phone, and in a gigantic hurry, but I don’t think he actually knows how to work his phone. This morning was the third time in which there was a “miscommunication” (his word), where I get a phone call at 6:30 a.m. wondering if I am going to arrive soon, even though I was never, technically speaking, called because he’s full of shit (my words). In his defense, he did say, “That’s my bad,” when I pulled up. Maybe I can get that on my headstone when there is a “miscommunication” about the fire.

In full disclosure, I was against the idea from the start. The location scout approached us a few weeks ago while my boss was away. He told me he worked in television in a way that suggested that he knew I had heard of the medium, and that I would be impressed. I had heard of it, but I wasn’t thrilled about closing down our current show all of a sudden to let a film crew come in and trash the place. And since I am not authorized to make such a deal I told him he would need to speak to my boss who was out of town for a week.

He persisted to call every day to discuss the progress of the deal. Since I could not offer any new information, I figured he would take the hint and wait another few days. Oh, but I have much to learn. Instead, he began calling every day for Hannah. While Hannah is as polite and capable as one could hope for over the phone, she was also a temporary intern. And so, each day I would get a new message from the location scout via Hannah, who would then relay the fact that our boss would be back in a week.

When my boss finally returned we came up with a litany of reasons to turn the show away and I left work pleased that we were not going to compromise ourselves for a little bit of money. The next morning the deal was struck for a large amount of money.

Despite some of the frustrations I have had with one individual, this operation has gone fairly smoothly. My office is at a balcony that overlooks the exhibition space, so I can peek at the goings-on throughout the day. After the crew is gone, I go to inspect their work and the way they have transformed my space.

I guess there’s no point in staying mad about things I can’t control. I admit that I am a little excited to witness the scenes as they are being acted. I even catch myself daydreaming about catching the director’s eye.

“Hey you! The one who obviously doesn’t care about petty crap like haircuts.”

“Me?”

“Yeah! You have a great look, with your dirty jeans and pitiful beard, and…are those argyle socks? Wow! You’ve got style. Have you ever acted before?”

“Yes. I was The Big Bad Wolf in an adaptation of a Grimm novella in the 2nd grade.”

“Now I remember you. Get him in make-up!”

…and so on.