It's not your fault.

I am Shawn Liu. I weigh about 145 pounds.
I co-founded Harvest. I update this blog sometimes.
@mrshawnliu

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  I just finished reading Calvin Tomkins’ article on Elizabeth Peyton in the New Yorker.  I have just one thing to say: what’s with art critics and Proust?  It’s almost as if the paintings or photographs themselves aren’t good enough (or maybe the critics don’t have enough to say about them) and you need to reference some Great books to back up the work.  I’d like to see some statistics of artists and art critics favorite references - my bets are on Proust, Flaubert, Kierkegaard, and Sartre.  Why must we intellecturalize art?

  See the picture above?  It’s a picture, taken by a digital camera.  “Photograph” is too big and dirty if a word, and “Art” is too vague and philosophical.  Yes, I read the first volume of In Search of Lost Time (Swann’s Way), but I sure wasn’t thinking of Combray when I was walking around in Columbus Park this morning.  Sure, everything I read influence me, so do the food I had last night - salad with shrimp, some chicken, some bread, and water.  None of that should influence how you look at my 500 pixels wide of a picture on your screen.  And if my pictures are hung on a wall in some snobby gallery - well, shit, you shouldn’t feel obligated to look at my picture any differently.

  9 Oct 2008