A Crack-Up at the Race Riots (1998)
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:53 pm
I was introduced to the concept of abstract art in Judy Blume's book Superfudge. The book featured a fictional painting titled "Anita's Anger," which consisted of two black squares and a red circle on a white canvas. The painting was the result of two adults fighting; one, Anita, threw a container of red paint at her husband's canvas, which he turned into a red circle. The story's protagonist (Peter) is shocked to learn that "Anita's Anger" is for sale at a local art gallery for $2,500.
In the mid-90s, Harmony Korine made a name for himself by being quirky and weird. After writing Kids, Korine was handed enough freedom and cash to create Gummo, which is less of a film and more of a conglomeration of scenes designed to disturb, provoke, and make people squirm. The narrative is there is no traditional narrative, and it's up to the viewer to determine whether or not it's art.
Korine followed up Gummo by publishing his first book, A Crack-Up at the Race Riots. Like Gummo, ACUatRR contains no discernable narrative. Instead, the book contains a series of lists, jokes, handwritten notes, pictures, and stories... all of which are stupid. In a section called "movie ideas" he has listed "a dentist finds a hundred thousand dollars in the crevice of a cello" and "an aging actor decides to rape his teenage daughter." In a list of books he plans to write he includes "Shit for Brains" and "Help Me Rhonda Yeah Gimmie Some Head." Some of the pages are crammed with handwritten notes. Page 69 contains three words: "Robert Frost Bite."
The first time I saw one of Jackson Pollock's paintings, I thought someone was pulling my leg when they said it had sold for more than $20 million dollars. One of Pollock's paintings sold for $58 million. The painting I saw was black paint splashed onto a white canvas. That's it. It's something any of us could do. As the person explained the artistic qualities of the painting -- the contrast, the passion, the power! -- I wondered, "is this guy pulling my leg? Did somebody pull his leg?" Where is the art here? Does the art exist in the story behind the painting, or in the painting itself? If a chimp painted the same thing, would it be worth $50 million or 50 cents?
And so it is with A Crack-Up at the Race Riots, a ridiculous book full of non-sequiturs and random musings that no publishing company on earth would spend 10 seconds considering if it hadn't been submitted by a celebrity. As you flip through the hundreds of pages of nonsense, it's difficult to tell where the art is. Does Korine think this is art? Is convincing others that this is art part of the joke? Is all of it a joke? Do people publicly admit this is art because they're afraid not to be "in on it?"
Maybe it is art. But if it is, it's not good.
In the mid-90s, Harmony Korine made a name for himself by being quirky and weird. After writing Kids, Korine was handed enough freedom and cash to create Gummo, which is less of a film and more of a conglomeration of scenes designed to disturb, provoke, and make people squirm. The narrative is there is no traditional narrative, and it's up to the viewer to determine whether or not it's art.
Korine followed up Gummo by publishing his first book, A Crack-Up at the Race Riots. Like Gummo, ACUatRR contains no discernable narrative. Instead, the book contains a series of lists, jokes, handwritten notes, pictures, and stories... all of which are stupid. In a section called "movie ideas" he has listed "a dentist finds a hundred thousand dollars in the crevice of a cello" and "an aging actor decides to rape his teenage daughter." In a list of books he plans to write he includes "Shit for Brains" and "Help Me Rhonda Yeah Gimmie Some Head." Some of the pages are crammed with handwritten notes. Page 69 contains three words: "Robert Frost Bite."
The first time I saw one of Jackson Pollock's paintings, I thought someone was pulling my leg when they said it had sold for more than $20 million dollars. One of Pollock's paintings sold for $58 million. The painting I saw was black paint splashed onto a white canvas. That's it. It's something any of us could do. As the person explained the artistic qualities of the painting -- the contrast, the passion, the power! -- I wondered, "is this guy pulling my leg? Did somebody pull his leg?" Where is the art here? Does the art exist in the story behind the painting, or in the painting itself? If a chimp painted the same thing, would it be worth $50 million or 50 cents?
And so it is with A Crack-Up at the Race Riots, a ridiculous book full of non-sequiturs and random musings that no publishing company on earth would spend 10 seconds considering if it hadn't been submitted by a celebrity. As you flip through the hundreds of pages of nonsense, it's difficult to tell where the art is. Does Korine think this is art? Is convincing others that this is art part of the joke? Is all of it a joke? Do people publicly admit this is art because they're afraid not to be "in on it?"
Maybe it is art. But if it is, it's not good.