I don't pretend to know much about art, but occasionally my ignorance of it frustrates me so much that I seek guidance — namely that of my friend Angela, a professional fashion designer with a defined, original visual aesthetic. "What's good in the art world?" I asked her recently, and she e-mailed me a list of seven foreign names. Not living in New York City, such as she, with all of the cultural access that city entails, I naturally turned to the Internet to act as my docent. And Google turns out to be a damn good tour guide. Matthew Barney popped up right away with a detailed bio ( http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_11A.html) on the site of the Guggenheim Museum, where he's exhibiting his Cremaster cycle of videos and installations — a conceptual marvel that explores everything from polymorphous sexuality to auto response to biology and the creation of form. An arresting three-part photo essay for Time Europe (www.time.com/time/europe/photoessays/neshat) was the first thing to come up for Shirin Neshat, accompanied by a thumbnail on the 43-year-old Iranian-American artist. Pipilotti Rist is represented on the site Swiss Himalaya (www.pipilottirist.net/begin/ open.html), which offers a dance music soundtrack, biography, bibliography of her work and slide show of funky installations. Photographer Uta Barth captures deceptively simple images by focusing her camera on unoccupied foregrounds — very fun stuff (www.henryart.org/exhibits/past/past_uta%20barth.htm). Combining elements of architecture, photography and theater, Alfredo Jaar creates installations that overtly probe the politics between developed and undeveloped nations (voice.aiga.org/speak ers/jaar_alfredo.html); sadly, no examples found. Alex Bag, according to her biography at www.eai.org, "adopts a series of personae to create droll conceptual parodies," such as her video Untitled Fall '95, in which she gives a deadpan performance about herself addressing her experiences at art school — definitely worth further inquiry. And German pop artist Gerhard Richter brings me full circle back to the Guggenheim to see his abstract, subjective oil paintings — abstract, subjective images that began as sketches, were then photographed and translated into large-scale works (www.guggen heimcollec tion.org/site/artist_works_136_0.html). It takes me about an hour to surf, read and see my fill of these artists online. Suddenly I don't feel so art-dumb anymore. Thanks, Angela.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2003.