crits

A girl in my installation class had a crit today, and her piece included a lot of things I'm interested in. It was this simulated spooky scene she had built in a closet space, with lights, sound, props etc. But as I walked through it and took it in it dawned on me that i really hated it. I was confused for a minute because it incorporated a lot of dark elements i really love, yet i just hated it so much. It occurred to me that what was wrong with her installation was that there was no purpose. It was a spook factor. She had set up suspense and left me hanging with no real reason. And all the construction was exposed, behind the silhouette of her mirror frame and dingy closet lay a subwoofer and a light-bulb and wires. I felt so disappoint, and tricked. She said it was an unmasking, but really it wasn't. She was not unmasking anything other than the obvious, the complete fucking given.
I love the dingy, dirty, menacing, dark, and melancholy, but i hate static gestures. I like to use these things and make things which are real and meaningful to me, not props and dumb symbolism. For me her work was the equivalent of a costume; fake, it pertained to nothing.
It wish people would stop being too cool to make meaning full art. I don't want to look a vacant decor. It just seems insane to me; all these things she was using seem so inherently encoded with meaning, but she fucked it up and made a dumb flower bouquet.