Word: 80s
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Ambivalence is never a completely favorable trait in the musical world, especially for an inherently questionable soundtrack, but it somehow keeps Bean from the movie music graveyard. The surf-rock doo-wop of the Beach Boys' "I Get Around" and the 80s staple "Walking on Sunshine" from Katrina and the Waves lend a familiar sound to a bunch of otherwide deservedly unknown songs. Don't think that unpopularity leaves other tracks necessarily disappointing. "I Love L.A." by the revivors of this past summer's Latin element, O.M.C., has a catchy groove, Boyzone's "Picture of You" frolicks in generic...
This video, like so many of the pieces in their retrospective, proves that Fischli and Weiss are serious artists who don't take themselves too seriously--a refreshing attitude for anyone familiar with the 80s art scene. Organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, this immensely entertaining exhibition includes video, sculpture, and photography, beginning with the Swiss artists' earliest collaborative photographs, the 1979 "Sausage Series...
Fischli and Weiss also employ this unassuming and ambiguous approach when questioning the status of the art object, another favorite line of inquiry for '80s artists. Here, they follow in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp, and ally themselves with contemporaries, including Sherrie Levine and Alan McCollum, who address problems of mechanical reproduction and authorship. The ICA show includes several black, rubber and Beracryl castings of mundane objects like a candle or a doggy dish. Although these hand-made "readymades" may be overly indebted to Jasper John's light bulb or flashlight castings of the early 1960s, other pieces...
...that the scattered objects are all carefully-crafted replicas of tools and trash. Any other artists couldn't get away with such preciousness, but we can't help but admire and buy into Fischli and Weiss' jokey yet obsessive conviction. Their installation of a museum installation turns a common '80s critique of display mechanics into a charming and irresistible...
...awareness: Harvard students need to be made aware that their grapes will most likely be from California, from the farms of those who refuse to listen to the call for humane treatment of their workers. The bad publicity and public-health risks that surrounded Chilean grapes in the late 80s nearly guarantees that Harvard will procure their grapes the quick and easy way, from the large and boycotted California grape producers...