DON’T WORRY Being Alex Diamond ’BOUT A THING! tease
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GUDBERG
DON’T WORRY Being Alex Diamond ’BOUT A THING!
GUDBERG
TABLE OFAlex Diamond CONTENT DISCLOSURE AND DENIAL BY RIK REINKING
p.6
BEING ALEX DIAMOND
p.8 - 63
ABOUT THE MASK
p.51
THE ART OF ALEX DIAMOND
p.64 - 131
DON’T WORRY ABOUT A THING ...
p.66 - 71
THE MYTH OF THE WHITE BUFFALO
p.72 - 81
YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS
p.82 - 93
THE HERO OF TOMORROW RISES IN THE GOLDEN CHILD AND CRIES: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
p.94 - 97
MY GOD STEALS FROM YOUR GARDEN
p.98 - 99
ABOUT TENTACLES
p.100 - 109
DISCLOSURE by Rik Reinking AND DENIAL GOETHE :“BILDE KÜNSTLER! - REDE NICHT!“ Without a doubt the cultivation of an “image” is more important than ever before. From a young age, children learn the importance of presentation; at work social status is to a great extent defined by the image you create. The image plays an increasingly important communicative role in social systems - politics, finance, arts, entertainment, celebrity culture. Today the image is essential, a ubiquitous presence that forms an individual’s answer to the question “What do you believe people think about you?” To decline, to refute, and at the same time use the above question, that is the art of Alex Diamond. For a long time the art world has produced romantic, stylized images that extol the genius of the artist. It was this common belief in the artist’s prodigious creative talent that rendered their selfimage gratuitous. With the advent of modernism the art world experienced emancipation. Many artists withdrew from academic conventions, which seemed archaic in comparison to the technological achievements taking place around them. They created new techniques and styles, and as a consequence became increasingly autonomous, shifting the image of artist from genius to producer. Characters like Dalí and Kippenberger emerged, and with them brought questions: How does an artist present himself to the public? Is he playing 6
or is he authentic? What kind of image of himself does he create? Does he fulfil expectations – whose expectations? The “Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit” – the economics of entertainment, affects our thoughts and actions more than ever. New strategies for attention are sought, especially in today’s art world. Alex Diamond withdraws from any notions the viewer may have of the artists’ persona; hiding behind his work, he uses it as a shield against definitions and references to his personality. The artist’s identity is, in the end, nothing but a mask. So it becomes impossible to categorize Alex Diamond, and it is this resistance to succumb to a persona that draws the viewer in all the more. The artist’s identity emerges from speculation, bolstered by fact and fantasy. Alex diamond celebrates self-image by refuting it. He refers constantly to the human body – his own body, implicitly addressing issues like gender, body modification and body culture. Martin Kippenberger stated that he couldn’t cut off an ear every day, but he could create figures and characters that enabled him to provoke time and time again. To conclude, Alex Diamond’s work cannot stand for itself, it must be understood as a reference. The artist refuses to engage with an artificial image created by a theatrical art scene or play the role of the “enfant terrible” because he has chosen to emancipate himself from restrictive role models.
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ABOUT THE by Maike Moncayo MASK Alex Diamond is both fiction and fact. His biography has been hidden from the beginning of the project. Yet, the compelling imagery, the recurrent symbolic references and themes in his work such as the bizarre hairy mask, reveal a strong authorial imprint. This feature allows genuine criticality and reveals multiple possibilities for the viewer. There is no obvious biographical inscription in the body of work per se; there is no vita; and there are no anecdotes around the figure of the author that would impose a specific, subject-based reading of the work. Alex Diamond hasn’t really given up on Alex Diamond as a generator of visual and creative exploration just yet. What he has given up on conceiving the project itself is the tendency to succumb to the co-optation of the artist as an entertainment puppet, the viewers’ and the lifestyle media’s interest in and their celebration of the artist’s persona, his eccentricities, his supposed authenticity and outsider position; the desperate need to dissect the artist’s fashions, likes and dislikes. Artists today cast themselves into a living brand. And it seems as though the artwork has been reduced to legitimizing the media frenzy around the artist’s persona, revealing the artist’s brand to be supported by
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the artist as a personality and his notoriety, rather than by the artwork itself. (I’m having a bit of trouble with the meaning of that last sentence) The mask belongs to the recurrent symbolic imagery in Alex Diamond’s work and has become the signifier for the artist’s persona and the protagonist in his last work series “Being Alex Diamond”. A bizarre hybrid of gasmask and animal, you start to wonder what this mask with its blonde curls and tentacles is alluding to. Alex Diamond undermines the need to seek the artist behind the artwork, since the mask is both signifier and void. As much as it works as a strong and recognizable visual reference to the artists’ brand, and therefore, to the artist himself, the connection is corrupted and ridiculed by the fact that the bearer of the mask is always changing throughout this series of photographs. The artist reflects upon such a need but not without making an ironic statement about it: everyone can be Alex Diamond, or more accurately, Alex Diamond can be everyone. And as much as he seems to promote the idea of a democratization of art, meaning that everyone can be an artist, he stresses the fact that the artist figure has become but a mere hologram, whose life and personality have become the value object and the centre of attention, rather than the artwork itself. The exhaustive repetition of the same motif – the mask - reminds us of the mass production and ubiquity of cultural images, such as the images of pop culture icons produced by the media in the manner of Warhol. Only this time, it is the caricature of the artist, the masked freak, who is exposed to the public.
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THE Monopoly Remix: MYTH OF THE WHITE BUFFALO The White Buffalo is based upon one of the most important legends of the Sioux. The medicine man Crow Dog explains, „This holy woman brought the sacred buffalo calf pipe to the Sioux. There could be no Indians without it. Before she came, people didn’t know how to live. They knew nothing. The Buffalo Woman put her sacred mind into their theirs.” Albino buffalo were sacred to all Plains tribes; a white buffalo hide was a sacred talisman, a possession beyond price. A white buffalo is the most sacred living thing you could ever encounter. In short: The White Buffalo Woman appeared to the tribes when food was scarce. Two young tribesmen went out to hunt for game, but instead found a beautiful woman wandering in the plains. While one of them couldn’t resist the temptation to touch her and was immediately killed by lightning, the other was respectful and took the news about the
coming of a holy woman back to the tribes. Later, the woman arrived at the big gathering of the tribes and in a long ceremony introduced the sacred pipe to the chief of the Indians. After the ceremony the woman left and, walking towards the horizon, she transformed into a white buffalo calf. After she was gone, herds of buffalo arrived on the plains, allowing the Sioux to kill them for their meat, hides and bones. Since then, the holy pipe stands for fertility, future, survival. It binds men and women together in a circle of love and also stands for the equality of the genders. In the painting, the White Buffalo’s hide is created from art magazine pages featuring numerous artist portraits. The pages are whitened and then drawn over with many characters (or souls), fighting today’s battle with an art world that is trying to create icons and pop stars as saviours for an unpredictable future. Would you be immediately tempted by beauty (remember, lightning may strike you), or could you wait until it really is time to feast?
Artwork info: 180 x 190 cm, acrylic, ink, magazine pages/collage on 16 wood panels; Installation: bark mulch, wall paint (2008).
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November 2007: first instalment of the installation for the exhibition “Love Me With A Gun 2 My Head” (heliumcowboy artspace, Hamburg). The work was part of the overall show set-up, which covered half of the gallery and was made from wood. The entrance was not easy to access when the gallery was crowded, but once inside you were in the coziest place in the gallery: the bar. Above the opening it said “Tan Cierto Como Has Dios” and inside a corresponding “So Sicher Wie Das Amen In Der Kirche”.
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Hard to meet in person; slips out before you get in. Hides behind masks and 500 different personalities. Some people claim they know him; or they think they have met him. Good one - reconsider, and start reading this book. In the end, you may find yourself being Alex Diamond. „Where I come from, there is just dust, sand and sun, nothingness really; no past, just a present and a future, that‘s why I was never born and will never die.“ (Alex Diamond)