Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Sand Art? You’re Damned Right.

In this year’s Ukraine’s Got Talent reality TV competition, a young woman by the name of Kseniya Simonova killed the competition. Her act brought wonder and awe through a hybrid of performance art and an unconventional visual arts technique using her hands, a light box, and sand.

The Guardian, a UK news source, did a write-up about it. But that write-up used a reporting method which is becoming more the norm, but which really gets my goat. Now, how do you know that news sources are relying too heavily on the so-called ‘new social media’ for their content and less on respectable and proven journalistic techniques? When one of them puts out a piece about an artist and her work, and along with a barely passable regular review publishes comments saying that “sand is her bitch” from noted authority Jgoo24, and “I just jizzed in my pants” from art-world luminary deaddevil6. Nice.

But, before we criticize both the sources and content of these critiques, let's at least determine what the subject was of the art they were commenting on (maybe it was Warhol-esque, pop art styling, music and movie diva lips – which might make the comments more appropriate and acceptable). Here’s an excerpt from that Guardian piece:
”Here, she recounts Germany conquering Ukraine in the Second World War … a weeping widow …an obelisk for an unknown soldier ... with deft strokes … she moves the judges to tears as she subtitles the final scene ‘you are always near.’”
 

Oh, ok, there you go. Well done, The Guardian.

Here’s the full write-up.

And in case their embedded video didn’t load up (which happened with me the first time I went to that page), its right here:





As you can see, that Kseniya Simonova lady really does got talent. I wonder, could something so artsy get so far in the American version of that show? Or do we just appreciate dirty joke telling grandmothers a little but more?

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