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it's funny how problematic it can be to do a conceptual action.
andy kaufman was able to do such actions--more retrospectively than in real time, if you remember (the wrestling thing was not seen at the time as "o look at the interesting conceptual action being undertaken" but rather as "i think andy kaufman has gone nuts and turned into an asshole")---because he was constructed as a comedian who would do conceptual actions. the various songs and films about his life that "let you in on the joke" had no small role in setting this up...which of course has the effect of rendering the actions toothless because people know up front what to expect. so now, were andy kaufman still alive (say) the space for doing the kind of work that he was doing would be erased. it's lilke gertrude stein says: new stuff--particularly politically charged new work--is rejected, rejected--then accepted as "beautiful"--and once accepted as "beautiful" it loooses any meningful power to provoke, to challenge.
so andy kaufman's work is now "beautiful"....
in america in particular, all art is entertainment.
this categorization functions to enable audiences to be as lazy and smug as they like.
the "right" to be "entertained" is absolute.
people want everything handed to them.
if they encounter an art object of any kind---a performance piece, a cube---they dont want to work, they dont want to think--they want everything clearly labelled---"THIS IS A PIECE OF CONCEPTUAL ART SO THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY" or "THIS IS A PIECE OF REPRESENTATIONAL ART SO DONT WORRY ABOUT METAGAMES"
i like the effect michael richard's action has had.
i do not know what that action was.
but it is pretty obvious that its ability to provoke and disturb is a function of this not knowing.
the responses in this thread are neatly divided along lines determined by intepretations of genre.
i think this conflict over genre is good, and i would hope that the status of the action remains ambiguous for as long as possible--and i would hope that people are fed ex-post facto lies about intent. irritation provoked by the inability to classify is exemplary. all explanations of this action should be shallow, obviously false. they should function to irritate. maybe that way, eventually, the problem of classification will come up. maybe that way, a potentially interesting conversation about contemporary forms of racism could spin out. actions geared around american racism loose any possible interest once they are presented as resolved. american racism is not a spectator sport. it makes no sense to be able to watch actions involving it unfold in an unproblematic manner for you on a screen or on a stage as if you the spectator are positioned outside it, thinking de facto "phew, glad that shit is over with..."
it isn't over with.
what i expect, however, is that there will be some "resolution" handed you at some point that will enable this to be fit into one place or another, and with that the action will loose its ability to provoke or even interest, and it will begin its tumble into the massive debris field of the past.
the only sure thing in this is that gloria allred loves seeing gloria allred on camera.
the lawsuit is about getting gloria allred on camera.
her action speaks to the desire for one-dimensional "entertainment"
the suit is about the fact that it is michael richards who performed the action, whether intended as such or not.
if an unknown had done exactly the same thing, gloria allred would nto be able to squeeze cameratime out of it, so there would be no lawsuit.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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