Jaime and Pete, video still
This work was generated for a show called “Cronyism”. It’s a gentle indictment of the necessary perils of cronyism: that in order to function as a community (for better or worse), one constantly engages in practices that are sycophantic, creepy, and awkward but also tender, affectionate and genuinely intimate. We’re all complicit, much as we rail against its evils.
Around the same time, I was thinking about a recent trip to L.A.: having seen a lot of profoundly mediocre art in galleries there, I found myself wondering about the seemingly arbitrary assignation of value, and the idea of “gloss”: who gets picked out for that extra coat of gloss, and who doesn’t.
In this spirit, I made a video and drawings of friends in the Bay Area art community touching each other “inappropriately”. I chose people who I genuinely liked and/or admired, as the function of this was not pass judgment on or exploit anyone.