Diving Bell, Butterfly, Mastercard
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The New Yorker came on Tuesday, and the first thing I opened to was this elaborate Mastercard ad, which I have since taken the time to remove, scan and post here. The first page reads “ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR THE PRICELESS THINGS IN LIFE?” and something to effect of “maybe it’s on the next page.” It then opens to a spread of this Julian Schnabel painting (self portrait?). The back of that has an envelope pasted to it, which is a chance to win a commissioned Schnabel painting of youself, which opens to reveal that, alas, you did not win but should check out the Mastercard website.
Schabel, I think, is the kind of postmodern painter who started painting in order to make millions of dollars anyway, so why the fuck this ridiculous credit card ad and promotion? Good for him. I can’t imagine how many other magazines they could possibly run this thing in that would reach people that would actually give a shit about it though. Artforum aaand that’s pretty much it.
Also, when I first wrote this post before the whole thing got lost when my browser crashed, I said some kind of insightful stuff about the art market, but now I’m just going to say that that it’s a good thing Schnabel’s tightened up his game since ‘96 when he made Basquiat because that movie totally fucking sucked.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I’m so glad someone else finally admits Basquiat was terrible. Yes, Jeffrey Wright is an acting god but the movie itself? No, thank you.
Before Night Falls was good but the editing was just weird.
Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the first genuinely good movie Julian Schnabel made; in that the aesthetics match the directing, editing, and acting choices.
But this Mastercard ad just seems tasteless somehow. Not that I expected anything more from him. I saw that ad in GQ or something. It just cheapens art and makes it seem like art is about fucking around and shmoozing.
And maybe that’s what art is to a lot of people but it isn’t to me and a lot of people I know. Stuff like this makes it hard to be taken seriously, but whatever. I’m still going to do my thing and say no to all this BS going on right now. Because it goes further than Julian Schnabel.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Oh, it was in Time this month too.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:59 am
i haven’t won this contest three different times.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
http://c-monster.net/blog1/2008/04/26/julian-schnabel-and-mastercard-priceless/