Why The Philadelphia Art Scene Sucks: A Short Essay

I've been saying it for years, and frankly, I never really had an answer to why. "The Philadelphia Art Scene Sucks!" I've said it to friends, co-workers, class mates, teachers... frankly, anyone who had 5 minutes to kill heard this from me. But I never had a reason.

Until now.

Why does the Philadelphia Art Scene suck? Easy: Because we celebrate mediocrity.

For years, I've harped on style and subject matter. Yes, these are subjective things, and modern art is subjective in and of itself. When Duchamp came to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and brought in a urinal and called it "art", art became nothing more than a subjective term, a seemingly meaningless phrase used not to describe what you saw but, rather, describe what you couldn't explain.

In contemporary art, namely in Philadelphia, you see a trend where only mediocrity reigns supreme while actual talent and vision is crushed. Yet, oddly enough, talent and vision actually sells while mediocrity does not.

In a world of supply and demand, especially in such an economic climate, one would wonder why gallery owners in Philadelphia, as well as certain blogs catering to a "young and hip" audience would, in tern, steer their crowds and patrons away from what they actually do want and, instead, simply spoon feed them contrived works of art that is, in essence, pseudo-intellectual.

There we go. The art scene in Philadelphia is, in essence, nothing more than pseudo-intellectual.

What do I mean? The caliber for "Fine art" is this: If you paint something on canvas, it's "Fine art". If it makes sense and looks like it was done by something who knows what they're doing, it's not.

I am an illustrator, both by nature and by training. I am not a realist by any means, nor do I mean to push my perception of the 120+ year old question of "What is art?" onto anyone else. But, at the very least, I would wish the decorum of those in Philadelphia would at least hail the work of contemporary art to higher degrees than the same form of modern-abstraction it seems has dominated the world of art for the last 100 years and more towards different style and takes, even from more "urban artists" or "Stuckists" or those in the Pop-Art movement!

To an even further extent, in terms of graphic design we celebrate it to extremes! Local designers who are celebrated and given work tend to work in a style more reminiscent of what you may see in a high school art class than on a professional level! I've seen t-shirt designers praised who make little, if any sense while talented people are forced to toil in obscurity. I've seen designers work for companies using no design skill at all work for companies while those with degrees who know what they're doing are forced to fend for food, rejected by those same companies.

To a larger extent, I've seen blogs praise designers who did nothing more than steal an image by somebody else, not even modify it more than a hair, and praise it for being great by virtual of being "a clever take"!

Philadelphia celebrates mediocrity. It hails it on high as being "Brilliant" while the concept is weak! That is why this art scene is failing, why so many talented people here either leave or give up, and why Philadelphia is scene as a cultural wasteland.

The Tea Bag Protest: What Went Good, What Went Wrong

Today is Tax Day.

To some people, it is a day of dread and fear, one when American's are afraid of making sure they file their taxes on time. For others, it's just another day since they already filed them, or they are so poor they don't have to.

But this year, a portion of our American public has decided that enough is enough. Are we Taxed Enough Already? Apparently so. Today the TEA Parties were held at cities around the country.

Now, the best thing I can do is explain what this protest was originally about and go form there.

ORIGINS:

The idea for the protest, depending on who you ask, basically boils down to opposition to the Federal Reserve. At it's core, people are sick and tired of paying a yearly income tax. The solution to this varies, but plans have gone to taking more from your pay check to creating a national sales tax. I'm not in favor of either move, but another reason for the protest was anger over the stimulus bill and passing, and that is something I agree with to some degree.

So, let's get this straight: The protests were meant to go against the Federal Reserve.

Now, who organized this movement? Again, it differs on who you ask, but it was largely Libertarians. The Libertarian party is a mixture of conservatives and liberals, a group of people who strictly believe in the US Constitution. Ron Paul, who ran as a Republican for President last year, was a member of the party not too long ago.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MOVEMENT:

What happened is that, over a period of time, the protests were hijacked... sort of.

Around the end of March, more and more members of the Republican Party started to latch on and use the protests as a sort of "rallying point", a way to restore the Republican Party brand. Conservatives began to latch onto it as well, and soon, Fox News began to muscle itself in as a sort of "sponsor". In response, liberal media reporters such as Keith Olbermann and the Huffington Post began to label the event as nothing more than an "anti-Obama event", "A conservative rallying point", among other things.

Other media outlets began to take some sides, namely showing the event as a group of fringe extremists on the Right taking their anger and frustrations out on the Obama Administration.

In return, the movement was virtually eaten away from the inside out. What could, and to a degree, should have been an event to simply protest the federal reserve became a rallying point for conservatives, basically aimless, and muddled with things that it did not need.

But did it entirely fail?

THE RESULT:

While it is frustrating and angry as a supporter of this to see it corrupted, it didn't fail. It made national headlines without the derogatory "tea bagging" jokes, and President Obama himself stated that, starting now, that there would be changes to the US Tax Code to make the tax system more fair. In my opinion, the protests helped to push that along a littler faster and made it more of an issue, which means that, to some degree, it did succeed.

MY 2 CENTS:

It's a shame that the protests were so heavily marginalized. A movement that started organically, a movement to protests what citizens thought was wrong with the US Banking and Federal Reserve was , instead, turned into a rallying point for a political party that did not represent their ideals, or, at the very least, may have begun to re-embrace those ideals. I was going to one here in Philadelphia at Love Park at noon, but found out that the organizers pushed it, foolishly enough, to Saturday at noon instead.

People still attended. And Philberity decided to play a dirty, dirty angel:

1) It’s on, with a cast of perhaps 200-all-whites.
2) Not a lot of anti-Obama setiment on the signage, but man oh man, what did European Socialists do to these people?
3) Biggest applause for…the mention of Glen Beck

Nuff said.

To their credit, they are quoting a reader, but still, a dirty thing to print. I would have attended but, like I said, I thought it was postponed.

A little more on my robot

So it made the Philadelphia City Paper! Cool! It was published and blogged about on The Clog! SWEET!

I just want to address something, though, about the robot and it's about the robot itself.

I've had friends and people online send me a slew of suggestions about what to do with him and other concepts for him. It's quite amazing, really, and it makes me feel good!

This is the first time in my life that I created a piece of art, not just to make myself happy, but to make others happy around the world. Normally I just draw something to make myself happy and piss people off... not entirely not the case here, but hey, I've gotta be me, right? I wanted people to look at this robot and smile and think. I wanted them to smile because he is a cute little robot and because I wanted people to think because of the little sign he's holding.

And, of course, I still haven't said "why" I've done all this, have I?

Like I keep saying, the answer is really obvious and right in front of you.

But back to people's ideas and suggestions: Thanks, but no thanks. If your inspired by what I did, if you liked the cute little guy and thought of something awesome you would like him to do yourself, please... do it yourself. Spread the joy. :)

Blogs and Life: The Week in Review

So my good friend/nemesis/blogger-in-crime Dan McQuade may have ended "Philadelphia Will Do". Well, that sucks. I was going to force my upcoming art show down his throat. I can only assume that story about me in the kilt sitting at the top of his blog for 4 days killed him. 

In terms of my life... well, it's been really odd. I won't go into any details, but it involves women. Wait, maybe I need to explain a little. I had a photo shoot this week with an incredibly awesome and talented model. No photos, not allowed to. Also, some big things happened to me as a person that I can't really discuss just yet. Sorry.

The Reaction and Outcry to "Why Philly Blogs Tend to Suck"

I couldn't resist.

In response to what I wrote yesterday, I saw this:

JOE: I’ve been saying for years that the media really needs to stop living in the past. Shit, anyone can report on things that have already happened. I want my news filled withall the possibilities of the future and wild speculation!

Because, as we all know, asking someone to report on a planned event is "wild speculation!"

But, thankfully, someone saw the point:

RYAN: Actually, I agree with him in spite tarnished reputation due to his mayoral race hijinks. Most Philly news/infotainment blogs are pretty bad at pumping up cool events in the city, a lot of newcomers I talk to are at a loss for what to do. It isn’t that there aren’t cool events, or that the blogs just don’t outright list them, but there isn’t as much of effort to sift through the dozens of weekly event listings and sift out the pieces of corn amidst the pile of shit.

Ryan, thanks! That's a pretty good way of putting it. I've lived here my entire life, but I won't lie... I'm a reclusive guy who spends all his time watching TV and wasting his life posting on a blog. I go to The Troc's website as much as possible since I go to shows there, and whenever I can or remember, I either pick up one of the local alt-weekly papers to check out shows or The Electric Factory's and TLA's website.

But there's always more. Take the Punk Rock Flea Market, for example. I didn't find out about it until Wednesday, and that was after all the tables were gone. It would have been nice, VERY NICE, to go and sell some of my art there. Who couldn't use a few extra bucks right now? Or how about not finding out a band you like came to town or did a show the day of or after its happened? These things are planned well in advance, at least a month or so.

It seems local blogs are to content with trying to seem "hip" that they forgot about being "Cool", "Fun", "Informative", and above all, "RELATIVE".

Eh... then again, I'm willing to admit I write all of this stuff for myself. I try to stay humble about it because, frankly, I'm just some dude who posts on a blog. If I build a following, I'll start writing for them. Soon, people will complain I became the same thing I hate... and they might be right.

For now? Courage.

Why Philly Blogs Tend to Suck; Event Notification

Well, this is going to win me friends, isn't it?

I go to 3 Philadelphia blogs on a daily basis: Philadelphia Will Do, Philebrity, and The Clog. All 3 of them had at least one story about me. All 3 of them will never talk to me again.

The main problem I have with all of them is one thing: NOT TELLING YOU ABOUT EVENTS UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE!

There's a lot of problem with all three blogs respectively, and one day soon I'll go into detail about it. For now, it's this.

When it comes to Philebrity.com, there is advertising for R5 Productions, The TLA, Johnny Brendas, and P.O.P.E., and a few other places you never heard of or could care less about. In turn, your finding out the real problem with the site in terms of informing you of events. The site says it isn't for "hipsters", but the seemingly non-stop parade of bands-you-never-heard-of-but-we-think-are-cool never ends. Need proof? Ever hear of a band called Faux Slang? Me neither., but they seem to think they're worthy of a post. Need info on some band that plays shitty Indie Rock or some funk faux-punk band? Check out their nightly wrap-up of city events! Or don't. Whatever's more ironic.

The main plus is that, yes, there is some advance warning. But if you did want The Pros From Denver play a show tonight, they'll tell you... a good 5 hours before the show.

Philadelphia Will Do? Next to non-existent. It's basically comes down to Dan, if he feels like it, coming to the blog and posting about the event, making jokes about it, and letting it go from there. Sometimes it's before the event, sometimes it's not. The last event I can think of was when he posted a flyer for an event by Philly 52 the day before the thing was supposed to happen. To make fun of it. Classy.

Then you have The Clog. They do a sort of Catch-22; they tell you about the event... when it's too late. For example, there was an awesome story about Home Movie Day... the day of the event. Oh, and the day before an event to protest Prop 8, they mentioned the protest that told people to "Call In Gay". Yep, one WHOLE day!

These blogs, all-in-all, SUCK when it comes to telling you about upcoming events in Philadelphia. These blogs are, frankly, fairly big outlets. Philadelphia Will Do is run by Philadelphia Weekly, The Clog is run by City Paper, and Philebrity has garnered a large, respectable following in it's own right. They seem less interested in informing people about events in the city they would care about than anything else. These aren't entertainment blogs, that's for certain, but they do serve a purpose of informing people since they do have a rather large audience.

Are there places dedicated to informing you about local events? Yes... but they suck. They're hard to navigate, tend to focus on more all-inclusive events, and less on anything interesting. While the local blogs have their problems, they all have their charm. They tend to be fun, not that serious when you want it to be fun, and fairly informative at times. But, really, the details are for another day.

I can't say I've been doing much better; I've ignored some really awesome metal shows coming to town myself. Then again, I'm just some punk who works a 9-5 job and can't afford to go to said shows. I'm going to TRY and change that myself. There's a new year coming, so why not?


EDIT: I want to add that this isn't a dig at any of these guys. I think The Clog has gotten better over the last year, I read Philebrity because it's entertaining to get a decent look at the city, and Dan McQuade is a good friend of mine. This really is more of a rant in frustration and a sort of "Hey, wake up!" thing for them. Thanks to whoever put this on Twitter, and R5 Productions is AWESOME.