<nettime> museum hack

[t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

http://www.amspec.org:80/archives/99-01_lastcall.html

January 1999
Last Call
by Joe Queenan

Pollock Jokes

THREE WEEKS AGO, GAVIN STEINMENTZ, A CURATOR AT A
PRESTIGIOUS New York art museum, noticed a middle-aged
woman giggling uncontrollably as she gazed at a
painting by the revered Abstract Expressionist Jackson
Pollock. The tremors of amusement had obviously been
triggered by whatever the woman was listening to on the
hand-held "art phone" serving as her guide through the
museum. The curator could recall nothing especially
funny about Pollock's work, so he initially dismissed
the woman's laughter as the nervous giggling of a
gawking rube.

BUT LATER IN THE DAY, STEINMENTZ NOTICED SEVERAL OTHER
PEOPLE chuckling away merrily as they studied the same
painting, and they too were listening to art phones.
His curiosity piqued, the curator borrowed one of the
devices from the rental booth and decided to find out
what was generating this anomalous outburst of mirth.
To his amazement and chagrin, the tour guide speaking
on the phone was making the following comments: "The
painting you are now looking at is Indian Red Ground
No. 567. It is a typically cunning mixture of oil paint
and human blood. One night in 1948, Pollock got into a
fist fight with fellow Abstract Expressionist Mark
Rothko over a bar bill at New York's famous Cedar
Tavern. An adroit pugilist, Pollock took out the
diminutive Rothko with just one punch; then, while his
colleague lay unconscious on the floor, Pollock grabbed
him by the scruff of the neck and dragged his bleeding
carcass across the canvas, deftly interspersing the
evocative strands of red and black oil paint with
Rothko's blood. The painting was so well received that
Pollock subsequently devised several other canvases
using blood from the nose of Barnett Newman, the
eyebrows of Ad Reinhart, and a gash he opened on the
side of Willem de Kooning's forehead when he
cold-cocked him at a Sunday brunch."

STEINMENTZ WAS ASTONISHED BY WHAT HE HEARD. THOUGH IT
WAS TRUE that Pollock was a rough-and-tumble individual
given to the occasional late-night punch-up, the
running commentary contained in the art phone
presentation was complete nonsense. Suspecting a hoax,
Steinmentz reviewed all of the other art phones being
rented at the museum, but found no similar material. He
decided that the tape contained in the phone had
surreptitiously been altered by some misguided
prankster, and sent it back to the shop for repairs.
But several weeks later, while chatting with a fellow
curator from Boston, he learned that a similar incident
had happened at his colleague's institution. Seemingly,
several patrons had complained that the art phones
describing one of Winslow Homer's late paintings also
contained dubious material. When patrons of the museum
planted themselves in front of a painting depicting two
men seated in a wind-swept dinghy out on the high seas,
they were informed that in nineteenth century
Massachusetts homosexuality was so frowned upon that
gay men frequently arranged nautical trysts in small
fishing boats off the coast of Nantucket. Again, this
was arrant nonsense.

CONCERNED THAT A SERIAL PRANKSTER MIGHT BE AT WORK, THE
TWO curators began approaching their peers around the
world to see if they too had experienced tampering with
their in-house audiotaped equipment. The responses
confirmed their worst fears. In Brussels several art
phones had erroneously reported that the man in
Jacques-Louis David's famous portrait of Marat
assassinated in his bathtub was not the lightning rod
of the French Revolution, but David's brother-in-law
Marcel, who absolutely refused to bathe. In Rome two
art phones had reported that the incongruous jockey
shorts worn by Saint Sebastian in Antonello da
Messina's portrait of the Christian martyr were painted
onto his otherwise nude body by the Inquisition 250
years after the artist died, because of complaints from
demure Cistercian nuns. And in Paris art phone users
were being fed a monstrous canard that the
bare-breasted woman leading the rebels in Delacroix's
Liberty on the Barricades was Miss Teen Toulouse of
1829, later known to the world as Marie Antoinette. In
fact, Marie Antoinette was guillotined in 1793.

FACED WITH WHAT SEEMED LIKE AN EPIDEMIC OF CULTURAL
JOY-RIDING, the curators have now decided to go public
with their discoveries. Although they maintain that
most art phones in use throughout the Western world
provide accurate, reliable material, there have been
enough cases of tampering that the time has come for
the man in the street to be warned about the hoax.
"Right now, we have no idea who is behind this prank or
what their motivation is," says Steinmentz. "Snobs and
elitists trying to heap contumely on the hoi polloi are
the obvious suspects, but then again it could be the
work of puckish teenagers. Nor have we entirely ruled
out garden variety philistines as the culprits. And
yes, we also have our suspicions about a couple of
unsuccessful young painters who might be doing this out
of spite." For the time being, museums the world over
are conti-nuing to rent art phones, but making regular
checks to ensure that the devices have not been
tampered with. They have also posted warnings asking
patrons to report any suspicious commentary, especially
if it involves fisticuffs.
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