Art Does Not Exist

by Rosalyn Drexler

Art Does (Not!) Exist is lively, inventive, and artfully wicked. In the world according to video artist Julia Maraini, life is in need of tracking control. Personas warp and twist in a perverse parody of modern life that is, nonetheless, exactly the thing itself. As the protagonist prepares a video for an important grant application, she discovers that the video has been tampered with, and a snuff film of her controversial star (a wealthy Brazilian) added. Does she turn it in? Does she receive an NEA grant? How much hipper can hip be than Art Does (Not!) Exist? . Art Does (Not!) exist is about Julia Maraini, an artist in her early twenties involved in video and other new genres, who is down on her luck: her mad scientist husband is gone but threatens to return; and her apartment on the lower east side close to Soho, burns down under suspicious circumstances. Through it all she works at completing her art projects hoping to receive an NEA grant for one of them, or at least an invitation