Artomatic

Artomatic is a subject of some contention in DC. The premise: take a big hokin’ old building and fill it with a shit-ton of art by local artists. Any art goes, from traditional paintings and sketches to installations and new media. I went last year for a musical event, not so much for the art. Ditto this year.

Actually, I went this year to meet a girl. A young lady showed up to last Sunday’s Electric Possible and danced her way through Craig hip-hop/jungle mashup set. Charmed as always by any girl who gets down to jungle, I struck up a conversation and later departed with the suggestion that I’d run into her at a performance taking place last night, the opening night of Artomatic. She never showed. C’est la vie (and, well, art girls).

I saw but a fraction of what was on display last night, but it seemed pretty much like last year: mostly amateur bullshit. Some DC bloggers have been in a bunch over Post art critic Blake Gopnick’s diss on the event, but for all the strained dentist metaphors, homeboy’s dead right. Gopnick comes off like an asshole and a snob for saying it, but he’s right: the historical means by which great art has been selected, financed, and presented to the public has worked; community showcases and “experimental spaces” only endorse an echo chamber in which mediocre artists are supported by their peers and not challenged by higher cultural standards and market realities.

Or, put another way: you end up with a honkin’ big building filled with a shit-ton of crappy art. And blah blah blah paid for with public funds blah blah whinge.

On the other hand, if you expect the absolute worst – nothing but torturously conceptual/confrontational installations, let’s say – you’ll be pleasantly surprised, as my friends were last night. The pieces on display at Artomatic may make you wince, roll your eyes, and drop a pithy comment or sixty, but it’s all pretty harmless and people are mostly pleasant and it’s not a bad way to kill a couple hours for free. So drop by, I say, ’cause what the hell else is your bored ass gonna do?

And if you see a girl dancing to jungle there, tell her that the al3x ship has sailed, babycakes, and her no-showin’ ass is forever stranded on the Island of Lonely Spinsters. Straight up.