ART THOUGHTZ with Hennessy Youngman: Damien Hirst

2012, 3:37 min, color, sound, HD video

Art Thoughtz with Hennessy Youngman is an episodic, Internet-based talk show in which Musson performs in the guise of hip-hop "art critic" Hennessy Youngman. In a series of short, talking-head monologues, Youngman offers aspiring artists his irreverent views on the contemporary art world, from relational aesthetics and performance art to how to be a successful black artist. Musson uses hip-hop vernacular to critique the exclusionary language of art discourse, hilariously pitting hip-hop and art world idioms against each other in a dual parody of cultural clichés. (Hennessy Youngman's name references both the comedian Henny Youngman, who was famous for his one-liners, and Hennessy cognac, a status liquor in the hip-hop world.) With the Art Thoughtz series, Musson uses YouTube as a platform to expand his audience beyond art institutions and the art world; the series has become a viral video phenomenon.

States Musson, "Hennessy was created to explore the dissonance between speaker and speech. I thought it would be interesting to see how Artspeak would sound coming out of the mouth of someone without the seeming cultural authority to discuss what he was discussing."

 
 

This work is HD video and must be shown with a 16:9, HD display.
High-Definition Video Guide

 

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