reviews, features & interviews
Letter to a sunken ship
By guest writer
October 31, 2010 · 15 Comments
Please let us get on with our lives.
Love,
The rest of us
Recently there has been a lot of hate being dished around our little art world of Philadelphia via several contentious blogs. Most thought it to be over months ago. Suffering the fate of most Internet trends, it went away as interest waned and attention spans dissipated. We all moved on with our lives and put the issue at our backs. Unfortunately it seems that this sunken ship refuses to stay sunk.
All metaphors aside- I am speaking of artblahg, a site that has been spewing out slander and lies about artists, writers, and bloggers in Philadelphia for almost a year now. It came about claiming to be a satire or parody of the site you are reading this post on right now, but soon showed its true colors as an ill tempered soap box for a disgruntled author. I am writing this partly to clear my name and that of my friends, who have been wrongly “outed” to be the authors of the blog, and partly to voice my own opinions on the situation. So I will get the first part over with here: I, Dustin Metz, along with Shaun Baer, and Jong Kyu Kim are not, nor have we ever been, a part of artblahg or theartblahg (or any other spin-off blogs for that matter).
The three of us, along with a few others, were the primary authors of Funnel Pages.com. Shaun created the site because he saw a hole in the Philadelphia art scene, the lack of a well-designed weekly listings site, and thought he would do his best to fill it. The site slowly grew until its final incarnation: what we hoped to be some sort of internet art magazine for Philadelphia, with studio interviews, curated web shows, reviews, and the occasional podcast. The way in which we could do all of this was through effort and love. I would venture to say that these two elements are what hold the art in Philadelphia together. Since there are little to no monetary rewards in the “DIY” or “independent” venues, which make up around 80% of the scene, the only reason to go forth is love. Love for art- whether it be making it, showing it, or seeing it. This structure has made it so ANYONE who puts the time, effort, and love into a public project will eventually get noticed. This isn’t to say these artistic ventures are frivolous, unintelligent, and free from criticism. I simply wanted to state the obvious- if you want to be involved in the art scene of Philadelphia, you don’t need a fancy education or gallery representation or even money, all you must do is make it happen yourself with whatever you have.
While Funnel Pages was a site that gave a light-hearted edge to its listings, it was never meant to be malicious. It was an attempt to make the arduous task of reading through dry press releases a little more entertaining. It saddens me deeply that someone would put so much effort into destroying a humble operation rather than attempting to produce something of basic value. We have since let the site rest since we have all been working on new jobs, in new cities, on new projects.
While talking with Jong about the recent snafu, he said- “You know what? The people who know me, know that it isn’t me behind either of the ‘blahgs’, so I am just going to keep ignoring it”. Unfortunately while I was taking his advice I have received emails and questions still. So hopefully this will help clear up any misconceptions of the matter, and we can all move on to that which is most important to us: art– making, showing, or seeing it– not destroying it.
Missing you all dearly,
Dustin Metz
Tags: dustin metz, jong kyu kim, letter to a sunken ship, shaun baer
Glad you wrote this Dustin! . . .and just for the record because I don’t think I should have to say this; I have nothing to do with the various blaghs either.
Just for the record, neither do I.
Also, if you want to see Annette’s terrific blog, she has a new post up. http://onereviewamonth.com/
Well, I guess I better get on the record do, lest anyone think I had anything to do with these websites. I did not.
Thanks for the letter, Dustin. I agree with you wholeheartedly. My only reservation is that the unfamiliar will now log on to artblagh to see what all the fuss is about, and push up the hits yet again. Message to those contemplating it: unlike real-life shit, internet shit goes away if it’s ignored. If you never click on it, it eventually dies.
FunnelPages was great, and I for one miss it.
Going to leave that other stuff alone – cause I’m with Tim on that – but basically Dustin’s on point about the energy of Philly arts owing much to labors of love and the people who invest in moving the scene forward.
I was just wondering how people feel about theartblahg? Is contributing to the problem? or is it just humorous response to the real problem? I
mean, its funny, but…
The Art Blahg is just whining vitriol for the sake of whining vitriol.
Don’t waste your time.
For the record, I am not the author of either blahgs. Everyone artblahg said in the post naming people as the authors is just a way to skate off accountability. If you click the link of my name you will find the “HATE BLOG” that was created by artblahg for me, who stole content directly from my website. Coincidently, artblahg’s IP address was captured by my google analytics, so I know who’s the author.
There should be a place for a different more let loose critique on the art scene, funnelpages used to be a place for that with potential to get even better. My problem with artblahg is that it’s a hate blog. Continuously hateful, racist, sexist content. It’s also a lot like watching a train wreck, which I think is the only reason some people still read it.
More people actually read THEartblahg than artblahg. Some people do not even know the difference. If you search for artblahg, you’ll land on THEartblahg. I’ve talked to people about artblahg realizing a minute into our conversation that they were actually reading THEartblahg. For this reason THEartblahg is one of the best internet rebuttals, ever! Not only that, but the authors do posts not even related to artblahg, but funny references to artists and the Philadelphia art scene, recently The Philadelphia Pen Show. The comment section is full of anons with continuous entertaining characters like I AM ANON.
Foremost, artblahg feeds off of theartblog.org, but I do think artblahg feeds off THEartblahg too. Their ego is so large, they cannot handle THEartblahg stealing their readers, plus the onslaught of anonymous comments like this, “hah haha hah hah ha! (artblahg’s name here), you suck!”. artblahg also has no idea who writes THEartblahg, which is why they have attacked the same people over and over trying to stop THEartblahg from posting.
THEartblahg is ruining artblahg’s plan to defame the Philadelphia art scene and theartblog.org through trolling on the internet, they’ll do whatever it takes to have it come down. Because of this I think THEartblahg should keep going, beating to it’s own drum. Everyone has a right to voice their opinion and I hate to think of it ending because of cyberbullying.
What should happen is that all who have been targeted and falsely accused on artblahg should call the PVLA:
http://www.artsandbusinessphila.org/pvla/services.asp
They will have to stop and THEartblahg can keep going to help bury the remains. I doubt there is another way, ignoring won’t work, we’re talking about a delusional person.
Well said.
And I should note here that in my last Comment, I typed THE Artblahg when I was referring to just plain old Artblahg.
I also tried to post on here the author’s name of Artblahg, but my post was not cleared by the moderators of this site.
Damn shame. This man should be taken down.
He’s a bitter nothing offering the same to the local art scene.
Hi Fawn, putting the specific name in is adding fuel to the fire. What I want most is to put the fire out. If you add up all the time spent over the last year by all the people who went to these sites, talked about the sites, worried about this and/or tried to do something about it–it’s a ton of time and energy–way too much. Life is short, everyone should just get on with their (more important) projects.
A conversation on the art scene is a conversation on the art scene and not a waste of time in my opinion, BUT it is true that artblahg is a waste of time due to the one sided, insane, unhelpful conspiracy theory, hateful spew and etc.
I AM ANON, commenter from THEartblahg just made a blog, that’s right ANOTHER blog:
http://travestyofepicproportions.blogspot.com/
I recommend reading.
We are in an exciting time in Philadelphia’s art world, it’s getting bigger, more spaces are being developed! and with the internet and venues like here we can discern what exactly is going on, whether it be from an entertaining, funny standpoint, art reviews, maps, essays or banter. READ
I think this is the best way to explain what’s happened here.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
[...] assholes. Libelous ones at [...]
[...] is, in part, reported here on City Paper. Another chapter in the sad timeline of this is reported here on theartblog.org. I won’t be linking directly to artblahg’s blog; google can help [...]