it's ok to be obsessive
susan sontag said so
A couple months ago I went to an exhibition of this guy who founded a fintech company that's worth like a zillion dollars and in his spare time he makes paintings under a bunch of different pseudonyms and then rents a large space and puts on a show as if he's curated works of a bunch of different artists. It's not advertised this way, I only know because I went with someone who knows the guy and he told us all about it. Unsuspecting visitors would presumably believe it’s a group show.
Next to all the paintings (there were probably 50 works displayed (I can’t remember what they looked like (they felt kind of besides the point but maybe just because I was in on the joke (I don’t know)))) were object labels on A4 printer paper with the usual name of piece, artist name, year, and medium. Then underneath that were short blurbs written in a kind of meandering, non-sensical prose that might have been translated back and forth a few times between Russian and English. First I thought they were computer generated but I think he must have actually written them because I feel like misspelling "compensated" as "compepensared" is a uniquely human error.
Underneath the blurbs were inspirational quotes labeled “#artistquotes” from people like The Beatles and Basquiat and Elbert Hubbard and that guy with the pointy moustache who did those paintings of elephants with long skinny legs. What was his name? A print of one of his paintings hung in my eye doctor’s waiting room growing up. I can't remember names lately. I also can't remember faces sort of. I've been seeing this guy recently who's really sweet and nice and smart and hot but every time after I see him I can't think of what he looks like or how his voice sounds. I'm not generally prone to hypochondria but I kind of have this feeling that I have a deteriorative neurological disorder that’s slowly (but actually quickly) shutting down my cognitive abilities. The name I was looking for is Salvador Dali.
ANYWAY, one of the #artistquotes was from Susan Sontag and it said, "Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art," which was reassuring because I was definitely worrying in that moment about being obsessive. Lately I’ve been thinking about shame and how I feel like I don’t really experience it but that’s not true because I guess I am ashamed of some of my obsessions, especially when they're people. Now when I'm obsessed with someone or something I try to just be like, that obsession is my muse and I'm going to do something with it.
Underneath the #artistquotes were QR codes that linked to a bidding page hosted by the artist's zillion-dollar fintech startup where people could purchase the works. But then halfway through the exhibition the guy realized that he hadn't included any method for collecting contact details so he wouldn't be able to arrange the handover of the paintings and decided just to not process any of the bids.
It was one of those shows where it's like, this is an interesting concept and good for you for actually doing it but like...what is your obsession? Cocaine? But actually I guess good for him, it obviously left an impression on me. Anyway, I was happy to find that Sontag quote.