What with the New Museum (NuMu) being the art-world equivalent of a state where amazing mediocrity mixes with stunning amounts of institutional corruption and nepotism, and, to make matters worse, quite the attitude (I can think of some US states that meet that criterion easily, I’m sure you can, too) it was probably only a question of time before one of the NuMu people would get caught opening the mouth to channel her (or in this case his inner) Sarah Palin. Enters Richard Flood. You’ve probably heard about it. He admitted he had discovered art blogs about three months ago and that art bloggers were just like prairie dogs anyway (see Ed’s take on this).
I want to admit this: I like this picture. I like prairie dogs. And I find the picture of bloggers reacting like prairie dogs amusing because, after all, that’s what they (well, we) do. That’s, in part, why art blogging is fun - and let’s admit it, that’s more fun than you’ll ever get reading the art-speak drivel people like Flood produce, eh?
Of course, there are prairie dogs and there are prairie dogs (boy, this is getting positively Animal Farm here). And to pretend, like Flood does, that all those prairie dogs are just basically irrelevant is a big mistake. This is 2010, baby. There’s a new sheriff in town.
Oh, and the mainstream media react like prairie dogs, too (even though they’re way less adorable than us bloggers), except that they’re prairie dogs that work in very slow motion. Think of a watch-dog system run by sloths. OK, maybe “operated” would be a better term, given that sloths hardy ever “run”. So the only thing blogs have added is to have moved to cuter, faster-moving animals.
But the main problem Flood never got and probably never will is that while the mainstream art media sloths would let him get away with all the nonsense - the truly bad shows, the various ethical problems - the prairie dogs wouldn’t. How unfortunate - and embarrassing: To be called out by cuddly cute creatures! Oh, and even some of the sloths finally caught on.
So here’s a suggestion for the NuMu curator Richard Flood: Why don’t you stop making half-assed comments about blogs and instead spend your time fixing all the problems at the NuMu? Just an idea. And in your spare time, put Art in America aside and start reading some blogs.
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