The Rise of the "Crypto-Relic"

New Hoover Convertible (Jeff Koons, l980)

In a piece entitled “Traces of the Holy: The contemporary art work as ‘crypto-relic’” (TLS, 4/10/15), Matthew Bown makes the following comment, “The art market today is a market in crypto-relics, no more, no less. The dithyrambs of the experts—as when the director of the Tate art museums, Sir Nicholas Serota describes art objects as ‘symbols of optimism and renewal,’ as ‘objects of beauty and contemplation,’ or as ‘transgressive,’ 'raw and tender, brazen and subtle’—recreate the alluring discourse, the promise of miraculous potential, that sustained the original Christian relics in the public imagination.” How better to describe Damien Hirst’s “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,” the famed shark immersed in formaldehyde or Jeff Koons’ “New Hoover Convertibles” which might be subtitled “what you see is what you get.” Duchamp’s “Fountain,” with its R. Mutt signature, might as well have been a Kohler or Toto as it canonized the found object. But artists like Hirst and Koons have actually gone much further, in that the high demand almost requires an  iconography. Religiosity always had something in common with romanticism to the extent it was predicated on a belief in the unseen. What would the Shroud of Turin be without a higher love? The absence of value and/or meaning acts like a vacuum that creates the significance of Brown’s "crypto-relics." Everyone reads meaning into Chance, the main character of Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There. But Chance is just an idiot savant, a tabula rasa on which others paint their wishes for transcendence. And “so it goes” as Vonnegut famously says in Slaughterhouse-Five. Those who don’t keep the faith will say that the public is being Tartuffed.

Being Where?

Times writer Ben Ratliff quotes the subject of a recent obit he wrote (“Kim Fowley, Rock Producer and Svengali, Dies at 75,” NYT, 1/19/15) thusly, “I’m so empty that I don’t have distractions. If somebody has substance or has developed something, I have the time for them.” It’s rare that human beings develop this level of perspicacity about themselves, particularly when the insight they are making refers to the absence rather than a presence of characterological attributes. Fowley was involved with legends like John Lennon and Alan Freed and such groups as The Runaways, the Byrds and the Mothers of Invention. Of course, his self appraisal, which would also have made a wonderful epitaph for a tombstone were it put in the third person, could be taken simply as a description of being “cool.” “Cool" was an affect so ubiquitous in the music business, particularly in 60’s and 70’s, it could almost be the subject of parody. But Fowley’s Zen like description of himself also resembles the main character of Jerzy Kosinksi’s Being There, played by Peter Sellers in the Hal Ashby adaptation of the book. Chance was a tabula rasa on which others painted their wishes and desires. When you think about it such selflessness whether intentional or inadvertent is a marvelously unexpected persona for a promoter—no matter how laid back or cool the come on. The music world has produced many unique personalities and the songs they created are often descriptions of a philosophy or world view. Fowley who had both song writing and production credentials apparently stood out even amongst this colorful and eccentric crew. It probably didn’t hurt either that according to the obit, “He was 6-foot-5, narrow-hipped, square jawed with a dead-eyed stare, perverse and well-spoken, often in makeup or face-paint." In the piece Ratliff also quotes Fowley as saying, “I became an actor in life. I used theatrical illusion to reinvent myself for whoever I was trying to get something from, whether it be an audience, a band or a song.”

Kumare

                                                                                Kino Lorber

Belief is a commodity and a sometimes coveted one at that. Certain parts of India manufacture gurus the way Manhattan produces real estate tycoons and it wouldn’t be surprising to find that some eventually invested in Manhattan real estate. Vikram Gandhi’s Kumare: The True Story of a False Prophet, a documentary about a mock guru, is Moliere’s Tartuffe with a little bit of Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There thrown in. Gandhi put one over in Arizona, a part of the country that attracts spiritual seekers, some of whom have come to tragic ends--like those who died in a sweat lodge--under the influence of a zealot named James Arthur Ray who eventually was jailed for his crimes. Nothing this invidious happens in Kumare to the extent that is it is a send up with a spiritual message itself. The fact that people saw things in Gandhi’s created character, just the way they projected themselves on to Chance or Chauncey Gardener (played by Peter Sellers in the movie of the Kosinski novel) is precisely the director’s spiritual and philosophical intention. Gandhi wanted “his followers" to find the guru in themselves. Happiness and even feelings of divinity are two by-products of belief and Gandhi’s unwitting subjects, who include a lawyer who deals with death penalty cases, a troubled woman leaving her marriage, a recovering addict, an acoustic theologist and the members of a sect who chant “kabam” and use vision boards, refuse to relinquish their belief even as Gandhi aka Kumare tells them “I am not who you think I am.” The film could easily have been a skit on Saturday Night Live, but the director gets his cake and eats it too. Satire can be revealing, but it is rarely edifying and instructive in a positive way. The idea an illusion can function as a mirror that is also empowering is almost visionary!