I am currently having a pretty severe attack of girvanitis (I’m fairly sure it’s not the truly life-threatening DrC strain because I don’t have the label-compulsion characteristic of that variant of the bug).
The infection was, no question, brought on by the fact that I’m reading Sarah Thornton’s book, Seven Days in the Art World. Here is a brief book description from Thornton’s Wikipedia page:
… published in 2008. It consists of seven day-in-the-life case studies: an auction (Christie’s New York); an art-school seminar (California Institute of the Arts); an art fair (Basel); an art prize (the Turner); an art magazine (Artforum); a studio visit (that of Japanese art star Takashi Murakami); and the Venice Biennale.
In reading this book, from the very beginning I’ve experienced nausea, depression, and have found myself thinking and even exclaiming out loud such girvanesqueries as , “Artwank!”, and “Bilge!” Further, I notice that when I think and say these things (and worse) I do so with a British accent.
I’m only up to the Artforum chapter in the book — which chapter is the least offensive of all. It’s almost interesting. However, coming next is “a studio visit” with Murakami. Gag. Barf. I’m not sure I can stand it. (See here and here and here if you aren’t familiar with Mr. Murakami.) After that, there is the equally threatening tour of the Venice Biennale. Give me strength!
The book is very readable and I suppose I should thank Ms. Thornton for forcing me to look closely at what I try rather hard to ignore. Truly, I don’t think most of what she describes has anything to do with art. The people involved in the art market seem only different in scale from the loonies that collected Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch Dolls. And why do so many of the celebrity artists remind me of Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) and such?
I find that the surest cure for girvanitis is to read philosophy of art books and lots of solemn poetry.
-Julie
