Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Mapcidy

A new website named Mapcidy has materialized online. It bills itself as "a blog, hyperlocal guide, and social utility."

I'm honored to be included in Mapcidy's list of "Best Art Blogs in NYC," even if the editor's accurate observation that "people are more eager for news than for truth" saddens me.

I am a blogger, but the "up-to-the-minute" nature of most blogs is not a draw; in fact, it's a major reason I read so few of them. Call me a conservative dinosaur, but I continue to prefer the thoughtful, edited writing published in major periodicals. But as more readers turn to the Internet for their reading and news, more conscientious and talented writers will provide the content. The blogosphere, so easily pilloried today, will evolve into an online equivalent to the heyday of print publication. The role of future William Randolph Hearsts, however, remains in doubt.

Anyway, I'm honored that Hungry Hyaena was included on "a list [of the best art blogs] culled from some of the best art schools in NYC," and that one of those MFA candidates described my writing as "insightful." You made my day, unknown young artist. Thank you.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats, but dont see you on myartspace anymore. Brian is too busy selling the NYAX and the main site now, too bad. He is one of the few with some sense in the world of art blogs. Winkleman and AFC girl things of the past. Paddy is sweet, but strickly a party girl, those days are over, Wendy must grow up.

Winki more a soft Capt Hook, always looking for the crocodile to be in control, sterile, living in a decadent past, that he was a academicly irrelevant part of. Working on my new article I will have Dion post at artnewsblog, but taking longer than I thought, painting the house and moving the business, at least I will have a job through the year. Gonna be rough.

But artists must forget all this academic nonsense, which is about career, no one actually debates about how to make art better or more relevant anymore, beause it isnt, and needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

Get to the basics, what IS Art? There are many forms, but what is supposedly talked about on sites, of the Museums and such, is Creative art, that which is basic and essential to man, and lives beyond its creators time. This anything is art garbage has been horribly self serving to the Academies, so they can sell degrees proclaiming anyone to be an artist. But few have ever wondered what that meant. What is the common thread since time immemorial, from the caves of Lascaux, to the present. What moves man, what imsipire him, what works hit us hard, and leave a lasting passionate impression.

It is truly simple, but extraordinarily hard, taking a live time of self criticism learning, and passion. It is and always has been about defining a people, since Modernism, all of Humanity. It is about Exploring Nature, all we know of life on this planet and beyond, our chemical makeup, our natural selection cycle, everything.

It is about Searching for God. Whatever this means to you, religion, spiritualtiy, but MUST be about what is more than just Man, but at heart IS us, what do we live for? What do we die for? What makes us progress, sacrifice, love, lose our selves in?

There are no final answers, but the reflection of where these three meet, where they join and overlap and intermingle, IS Art. Each must find his own voice, develop his own language, for it ties directly to the mind, body and soul. Langauge is but manmade symbols, easily distorted, artifical, and devious, no true writer ever trust words completely, but uses them as delicate yet destructive things. Beautiful when used well, but terrible in how they can bring man to evil, and filled with lies.

Our visual history predates it, goes straight to the heart, the brain, and is its own system of communication. Raw, powerful, mythologies of human desire, and imperfections. Mingled with Nature and God, mankind becomes more, beyond our tiny individual selves, which come, and go. We must be about Man, not ourselves, and love, which is sacrifice, responsiblity and passion. We do not matter, Mankind does. This is The Truth, one forgotten, in our Age of Excess. We can only find meaning in how we progess as a species, in our world, with god.

We are One, Or we are nothing.
All Art has been built on this, forgotten, ignored in our arrogance of self absorbed pride, thinking we are the above all, I, Me, at this time in hisotry beyond our past, above god, controlling nature, We thought we were God, the Meism of the last decades brought us to where we now stand, at the beginning of a disaster of our own making.

Where do we go from here? Responsiblity, art is about US, the hgihest common denominator of Humanity, what binds, striving for more, for god, living in our world, of our world, being Nature ourselves, and not separate.

Each must look within, study without, and lose ones individual desires, to create, for All. Or perish, in chaos, all we have achieved for naught. We are no more of less than those who lived a hundred thousand years ago. Will we throw away all the accumulated lives and works of our ancestors? Or continue their work, add a link to the chain, one that must not end, for when we think we have reached it, we prove our own worst enemy.

The decadence is over, let us begin to build once more, in harmony. Ballance, but with great energy, for that is Life itself.

art collegia delenda est

Josh Dooley said...

Congrats on the recognition, oh Hungriest of Hyaenidae Hyaena Hyanea. You've certainly done interesting and insightful work over your years of blogging.
To Donald's point: I think that you do an excellent job of exploring the motivations behind and implications of the work that you review... AND you do a good job of picking a variety of media and subject matter to explore.
I am not the most artistically inclined of people, so you render yet another, additional, service to my ilk by provided a platform for effective and interesting discussion of artistic works.. in terms that I can understand and from an angle that I can appreciate... With a flexibility of understanding and interest in detail that compels you to respond to most of the fan-mail and comments you receive... So, kudos to you, Sir. KUDOS.

Hungry Hyaena said...

Donald:

Thank you.

With regard to your criticism of Edward's and Paddy's efforts, I respectfully disagree.

I will have more write-ups appearing on MyArtSpace>Blog in the future. The writing I've been doing recently has been only tangentially art-related.

Speaking of, my next post (it should appear this weekend) will address some of what you discuss in your comment. We are generally in agreement (concerning the human station).

Josh:

Thanks for the kind words, playa.

Paddy Johnson said...

OMG. Donald you're hilarious!

Anonymous said...

Yes, darlin, I am known for my strange sense of humor, you ladies do seem to appreciate it. Glad you are having a good time, hopefully productive too, I dont see alot of that around anymore. Comedy Central has the best creative writing, by far, except a few cable shows like TrueBlood and Weeds, can verify the veracity of Weeds being from the LBC, right next to the evil empire of the OC. But it would be nice to see something approaching, you know, ART, on your site. Would be a refreshing change. All the gossip and toys and playtime gets a little wearing on us adults after awhile. Someone has to be responsible for putting the kids to bed.
Have a lovely day! And someday, a useful life.

art collegia delenda est!

And check out JJ at the Gaurdian sometime, I seem to have finally broken down their wall of absurdity. And, just maybe, at the 2011 Venice Biennale, Cardinal ravasi seems to like my work, now if that bloke in charge of it puts aside his academic brainwashings...

And my boy Dion at ArtNewsBlog.com too, Brian at myartspace says he gets bigtime ratings, and publishes ALL my stuff, silly girl. Will put up Art and Purpose if I cant sell it, as some showed interest but not bucks for Imperial Clothing. Read it baby, its all about you!

Anonymous said...

I think it is probably about right to say that people want news over truth, but only if you take the widest possible view.

However, people who are interested in the arts or sciences include a large group who really do not care too much / at all about the news of the day.

Where art differs from science is that it does intersect with fashion and design, and is generally more socially oriented. Knowing what is going on (fact or gossip), and the whole opinion-forming aspect is therefore important to a reasonable sub-section of those participating in an 'art scene'.

So that would be my take on what people want. (And I suppose I take the view that for people to start taking an interest in art by reading lighter, news-type stories is better than them showing no interest at all i.e. make art more accessible, and a percentage will get out there and view exhibitions, and become more involved.)


The question that interested me a while back was 'what information is produced in art blogs'. I was interested to see how many art blogs were being produced, what they covered, and so on.

Having looked at over 1,100 art blogs, and having now compiled a list of about 400 of those that are regularly updated, I have been amazed at how much good content is available.

As could be expected, there is not an absolute correlation between the popularity and quality of art blogs, but some interesting (if, again, to be expected) keys to success - being the best in a niche, extrovert personality, writing well, easy to navigate site, and so on.

Anyhow, we will get the full list up on the loveart website in the next few weeks, and it may help people find the content they are interested in.

Hungry Hyaena said...

Peter:

Thank you very much for the thoughtful comment. I look forward to seeing the list; it will be a very helpful resource.