oh, the agony...

A lot of these issues have been reoccurring since Roberta Smith's talk at the Des Moines Art Center. Other issues have come up in correlation to a book by Dylan Trigg titled The Thing.  Both are interrelated, but it might take a bit more than a single post to connect.

Two comments of Smith's are what is lingering to me; one was the "real artists suffer" comment, the other was an answer to my question in the audience.  I asked Smith if she thought whether artists should be able to talk about their work.  Her response was that it wasn't our purpose to talk about the work, our job is to make it.  She also commented on it being a product of graduate school.  She isn't upset, per se, when artists talk, but she'd much rather look and see and she feels most often that artists hinder seeing with talking (I'm paraphrasing, of course). I get this sentiment; I understand it from both sides--how great it would be to not have to think about my work and just make it (which is idealistic and false; it's a misnomer made by non-artists) and how great it would be to not have to speak publicly about my work; I also can see where experienced art patron/critic/supporter would rather look on their own and not be influenced by what the artist has to say.

It is hard, though, as an artist, not to see this as a position of power held over artists: either keeping artists docile, keeping them producing for the market, or exerting some other kind of control.

I'm starting to look into this as a point of research; figuring out historical models (albeit likely on a larger scale affecting more detrimental forms of power) but hope to think about these things in perspective, particularly in late capitalism.

Trigg's book, too, has impacted my thinking about artists in the history of art and, perhaps, something that has either been overlooked or not discussed in art, particularly the artist's position in movements classified as Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and others.  Trigg is making a case for a new type of phenomenology that acknowledges a complexity in the concept of a body, which has always been the assumption of phenomenology--the study/thinking about what a body can sense.  Trigg, and others, acknowledge that this is a mistake--even Merleau-Ponty can be interpreted as to realizing the complexity of "a body" as a singular concept.

Likewise, whenever we think of art making (or the artist, for that matter), particularly when we assume "art as expression", we are talking about individual expression.  Even so-called contemporary political art and social practice art still assumes individual expression of political statements and "making something better".

Not only is this incredibly problematic to assume such individualism is the single source of expression (albeit the American way), but I absolutely believe/confirm that this is the wrong conception of expression, and that an individual/body is much more complex.  It is incorrect to assume that Monet was, theoretically, a single individual for the duration of his life as a painter and it is incorrect to define his "expression" in a singular way.  Certainly criticism and history allows for multiple interpretations, but these interpretations, though differing slightly on his aesthetics, view, outlook, influence, etc.  all assume his body of work coming from a fixed individual, which is false.

More on all of this soon.



 

suffering (or, rather, not having enough of something)

Another assessment of artists from non-artists:  the suffering.  

I listened to Roberta Smith last Thursday evening at the Des Moines Art Center, and there were a number of interesting stories about the world of New York, the myths of artists, and lingering ideals of Modernism.  It coincided with my reading Robert Storr's somewhat honest (but perhaps more attention grabbing) interview on WYBCX about the state of art criticism, too, and a reminder that there are surprising parallels (though of course on a much smaller level) with the "real art world" and the micro-art world of small town Des Moines.  

This is interesting for a number of reasons, but one that is very apparent is the perspective that there does exist a "real art world" in New York, LA, London, etc and that nothing happens in smaller cities.  A New York times critic talking in Des Moines is only ever going to be a visiting lecture, it is never going to be a look, from that critic, at the art environment (can't use community here because it is loaded) of the town that she/he is visiting.  

The parallel between Storr's "calling out" of critics like Smith, Saltz, Hickey, etc in Des Moines is the chatter about Bad Art Reviews in Des Moines.  While its not the same thing, it is parallel in the sense that a town with very little art criticism, there are still threats, disagreements, and preoccupations with the trivial.  Dissent is not appreciated, nor seen for its discursive power, in almost every environment of art.  

While I was certainly taken with many of Smith's stories, I find myself days later focusing on one part of her talk--telling BFA students in the audience that they are not going to be artists, that if they have something else other than art that they are pursuing, they should do that.  Artists, she said, suffer, and are artists because of their suffering. 

Now this seems easy to dispute as the scrapings on the bottom of the pan of Modernist thought, but I think it is incredibly problematic in a broader sense.  

One aspect of this suffering is the myth of New York, which should have been eradicated with the rise of the West Coast art scene, but apparently is not dead yet.  Myopic vision of New York as the one and only art world, determining what is good and bad in art, and determining what sells is a problem for all of us outside of New York, but particularly for those of us that see New York as a giant machine that is the spearhead of the unregulated art market that drives up prices under the auspice of "cultural value" and remains both untouchable and esoteric to the general public.  These same ideas are related to the notion that any artist worth their salt lives and works in New York, so why would one of the very few staff art critics write about someone outside of New York?  It is easy (cheap) to live in Des Moines, therefore artists living here do not suffer enough to be "real" artists.  

Suffering, too, is a bit of a complex thing; Chris Burden suffered very differently than J.W. Turner.  Its a smokescreen statement to say that artists must suffer to be what they are; suffering in Late Capitalism is largely deficiency (not having what one thinks they deserve), and I guarantee that all artists think they deserve more than what they have (should have gotten in to an exhibition, should have sold that artwork, etc).  Suffering is an internal emotion, and not something that can be judged by anyone.  Roberta Smith will never know whether or not I have suffered, and I'm still an artist.  

Were I a BFA student in the exhibition, I might have wondered about safer career paths.  As an artist in a ill covered region of the United States, I'm pissed, because this is another version of elitism: I interpret the notion that artists must suffer to mean that people living in Iowa can't possibly suffer enough to be artists, so go do something else.  I had a painter in New York talk to me about teaching, and she said that I should teach students to be collectors and patrons as opposed to artists.  While this might not have been directed to me coming from the Midwest, it is still part of this detrimental rhetoric against artists geographically outside of the "art centers".  

As a professor, I don't see myself as educating artists, though.  While I'm frustrated at the elitism, I don't see that as my mission, and encourage students to pursue whatever they wish to.  I teach art as a means to teaching non-conformity, original thinking, and perhaps most importantly to teach students to think critically about the single-serve, instantly fulfilling, and vapid culture and society that we live in.  While I've thought that critics were cultural mavens and guideposts in the past, I now wonder how much a part of this structure they are; perhaps they do not question culture and society in the same ways that I do--that, perhaps, my problem with most art critics is that they are looking at art as a cog of the vapid culture and society as opposed to something working against it.  

I will gladly work, think critically, and not suffer; always reflecting on my place in society.  

  

 

arguments of the bourgeoisie, on behalf of artists, for their own justification of consuming (part 1)

I read a recent article by William Deresiewicz called "The Death of the Artist--and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur" and was floored.  It seems like a simple statement: the myth of the artist as genius is dead, and "real" artists are creating their own businesses (adjusting to the market).  This, though, might be the article that lights a thousand fires; I think that there are undeniable problems with the thinking in this article which makes it all the more dangerous, particularly to those of us who are artists.

I won't be able to address everything at once, but I hope to develop this into further writing about this and send it further than the readership of this blog.

Very simply put:  the myth of "artist as genius" is one placed on artists by non-artists, and has never had anything to do with the market.  An artist that claimed genius themselves would undoubtedly be scoffed at and ridiculed.  Its death then, is merely a fiction created by non-artists to eradicate a class and type of people.  Though this may seem extreme, the purpose of getting rid of this class of people will become clear shortly.

There are a number of other problems with the myth of "artist as genius" including the patriarchy within the tradition of art (still prevalent), the predominance of Westernized art traditions (and the Orientalization of other geographic locations by the Western traditions).  Assessment of one's ability in art is problematic and is not easily supported by numbers or testing (in which the typical genius assessment is based), and as someone confident in their place in the world of contemporary art, I have no need or want to be labeled as a genius, it serves no purpose.

What I believe is happening here--purposely and rhetorically--forms a smokescreen to keep people from acknowledging what artists most often are: defenders of counterculture.  Artists--and yes, I'm going to start making dogmatic statements and issue membership cards--think and live outside of mainstream culture.  This includes elements of rebellion, disobedience, and other forms of thinking outside of the normative structures that any place and group of people hold dear.

Not all of what we call artists do this; some are so far within the normative structures as to be ironically conformative, others exploit the system for monetary gain.

This concept of the death of genius--as tired as death of anything is to anyone who has read about painting in the last 20 years--is thusly a way to prevent creative thinking outside the system.  This is a way to commodify creativity and silence the non-conformists.  This article proposes that if artists are not geniuses, then they should be (or are) entrepreneurs.  

Deresiewicz's article could hide behind the guise of observation, and as the author he could claim to only be observing culture.  Even if this is the case, he has oversimplified hundreds of years of culture and is not thinking critically about culture to boot.  To write this article acknowledges a number of difficult assumptions that I will continue to discuss in conjunction with some other writings.  

input systems

I'm going to write a bit today about a concept that has to do with larger cultural concerns but plays into the art world, particularly with art fairs, commodification, and other issues that many people are discussing within and outside of the art world.

I honestly don't know if I can justify this beyond being a hunch, but I feel strongly that individuals in many historical and current cultures have relied on other individuals to form their identity and morals.  Different cultures have different levels of individuality--some have had a much higher need for communal function than others; the United States seems to be one that is frequently pegged as an individualistic society that favors the individual over any community.  I don't know if this is exactly true, but I do feel that this is the case, and I often think about self-sufficiency as "good", though self-sufficiency does not preclude community-based thinking.  Regardless, an individual gets input somehow--older cultures, I believe, received input from story telling, advice, conversation, discussion, with other individuals to form a network of thinking that, in part, creates the individual's identity (and helps them tend towards certain decisions, encourages individuals to pass along information for others' input, etc).  If I had a bad experience planting a certain vegetable or learned of a new pest, I could pass it along to a neighbor or friend who was trying to grow the same crop.  If I knew that there was a predator near a fishing spot, I could pass that information along so that others didn't run the risk of being pursued by a predator.  If I ate at a restaurant and got food poisoning, I would tell others (and probably alert the Health Department) that I was sick so they would not have the same experience.  All of these inputs have a tremendous affect on others.

One important note today, particularly in the United States but in other cultures as well, is the overwhelming influence of media and the vastness of its affect on us.  It takes up such a large portion of our input that it is, in my thinking, forming the majority of our identity.  There are so many facets of media that it is hard to address them all here, but living in a smaller Midwestern city, many of our friends have smart phones that profoundly influence people's identity.  Where I grew up there are far fewer smart phones, but many of those people are influenced by television or newspapers.  I might even go so far as to speculate that input of a sensory nature (that is non-media based) makes up less of our input than media-based input, that is to say that the looking that I do with my eyes to determine my path of travel, to avoid obstacles, to learn something new is less than the input that I get from media.  One example of this is, of course, from food--I had never cooked rabbit before, and have tried to expand the types of meat that we eat, particularly for more sustainable animals, and when it came time to butcher the rabbit I watched a video on butchering instead of trusting instincts (gained from butchering other animals) and looking at the animal for obvious butchering points.  I will not say that I should have just looked--I appreciate the resources available to me--but it is interesting to think about other options.  If I had not watched the video, what is worst case scenario?

That is a relatively inconsequential example, but I use it to illustrate my ideas to think about the broader implications in this.  What is determined to be valuable in our culture is undeniable influenced (and I might even argue totally and solely influenced) by media because we are using the media as our input in a manner that prevents us from relying on our own, non-media input.

There has been a tremendous amount written about art fairs--I feel like it bubbles up every December during Basel and during other art fairs around the U.S.  Many of these articles are against art fairs and some are supportive of them, but I think it is good to think about your own input systems while reading these articles and honestly contemplate what the fair means to you as an artist and as an artist connected to the art community of the United States or the greater art world.  Will you refuse to participate in an art fair?  If so, why?  How are you being influenced in this?  Who are fairs for, and what purpose do they serve?  I don't think there are easy answers to this question--but I can say, for sure, that if I lived near Basel I would attend to see things.  I've attended Expo Chicago (or whatever it has been called over the years) multiple times, and have never purchased a thing nor gone with the intention of participating in the money side of these fairs.  I honestly find it an amazing place to see what a large number of galleries are presenting--even if its shit--and love to attend them.  Without fairs, the art market doesn't magically become un-commodified, so I don't know if my time is best spent trying to eradicate art fairs or criticize the attendees or artists that participate.

I do know for sure that art is, even if it is influenced by the media, a pristine input that offers solace from the overwhelming amount of media that we encounter.  This is probably one reason that I think of, over and over again, for me being invested in painting and abstract painting: media has very little influence on the images that I create, or, probably the more truthful statement would be that my images would still exist even if media did not.

What remains after media might be the kernel of this that I am thinking about in a broader sense.   After the end of media, what survives, and how do we go on?  I doubt it will ever end in my lifetime, but I'd much rather continue to seek out non-media inputs and experiences because I feel that they contribute to my life in a richer way than media inputs.

the end, the shortest day, and midwinter

I won't apologize for the long delay, but know that I have intended to write many times before today.
This will be more of an update than anything of substance, but I'm hoping to start writing regularly again.

I haven't finished it yet, but Martha Rosler's book Culture Class is my favorite read of the year.  I think its an important book for artists to read to be able to communicate about where artists belong in society.  One aspect of Rosler's writing is to criticize Richard Florida's concept of the creative class, which is sorely needed as I see artists posting articles and interviews by Florida as evidence that artists belong in the social structure of a community because they make a community more prosperous and economically successful.  This type of argument is problematic on a number of levels in which I'll address in future posts, but I highly recommend reading the book when you can.  

I plan to address the ideas of zombie formalism and other recent critiques of contemporary abstract painting.  I think it is valid to be critical of this type of painting, but often feel like the critiques are incredibly limited to painting within a six block radius in Chelsea, avoiding a number of great abstract painters outside of that area.  It won't be surprising to anyone, even artists who live across the river in New Jersey, that New York can tend towards narrow parameters of art, but I think this is worth flushing out soon.

I hope you all enjoy the end of the year and the start of the new!  I'll leave you with a studio view:

artist and consumer

I've been working on new theories of the relationship between the artist and the consumer.  These will only be working ideas--probably impossible ideas--that may never get resolved; but that, to me, is a sign of a productive line of thinking in something that is organic and will change over time.  

Simply, historical models of artist/consumer or artist/benefactor or patron relationship are: 

1) artist working for and/or selling to a larger organization (government, museum, church, etc)

2) artist selling to individual/group consumers, with "collecting" consumers

3) artist selling to individual/group consumers, non-"collecting"

4) artist producing work for ritual, religion*, socio-culture practice** where the consumer's role is perhaps not qualified by exchange of money.  

What we commonly call a "commission" could fall under any of these, though I feel that commission is often a relationship that has a high probability of exploiting the artist.  This is not to say a commission is good or bad, but practically is up to each individual artist to determine and agree to the arrangement of a commission and often ends with an artist sacrificing many aspects of her or his work to make the commission.  

Not included, because it is a different list/relationship: 

artist producing work without selling (no consumer)

Consumer purchasing a mass produced piece without an artist (no artist***)

Organization purchasing from a corporation****

  

More on this soon.

*I intend religion here to have more social implications as opposed to "church", in 1), which implies a governing body that commissions a work.  Religion, here, is meant to stand for relics, paintings, statues, etc made for religious purposes but are not paid for by the church to further the church's or patron's agenda.  The most obvious example of this would be patronage in Italian Renaissance painting.  

**I do not mean social practice as a buzzword as it is used too often in contemporary art, but rather attempting to define producing work that has a broader purpose (from the artist's perspective) within society and culture.  

***Contrary to any political statements or any other theories, corporations are not artists.  Some artists should be considered corporations as they employ many workers and function, organizationally, very much like a corporation in terms of production and their relationship to the consumer (Koons), and I am against this form of artistic production

****These theories are not based on Sotheby's selling to the Met, for example, as both the artists--who will only receive negligible profits from a sale like this in the best case--and consumer are confused, complicated, and frankly have little influence on individual artists.  

entrepreneurship (and a suitable replacement)

In the last few weeks I've had a much needed vacation and participated in a panel discussion (which was more of a panel of individual opinions expressed by each member) on art collecting.  The panel and their ideas brought up some points that have stuck with me, and this is an appropriate venue for flushing them out a bit further in the next few posts.    

1. Entrepreneurship

The idea of entrepreneurship needs to be reevaluated as it is used in the art world.  It is often used as a state of artists working independently.  I am putting forth that it should be referred to as self-reliance or subsistence.  Entrepreneurial is so far rooted in capitalism that it sullies the idea of artists working productively for themselves, and oversimplifies what artists might do to make a living.  When I’ve heard people use this as a way to justify not working with galleries, starting projects, or crowdsourcing funds it almost always reduces the artists’ work to an economic strategy (with only one end goal--the acquisition of capital).  I know subsistence—doing what is needed to maintain at the minimum level—is problematic in some ways, but it is closer to what I see and feel in the art world than entrepreneurship (unless we are talking about an artist who makes work and sells it only on Etsy, which one could argue that those artists are making conscious choices to be outside of the art world or sell their work in an entrepreneurial way in addition to being a part of the art world).

Though one can argue that the art world is intertwined (or even dependent on) the art market (or the capitalist economic system), I think it can be problematic and dangerous to use capitalism's rhetoric.  The system should not define modes of making within the art world, even if it lasts forever and the art world's relationship to it does not change.  

One must also admit that making money as an artist is a necessity but should not ever determine the entirety or reason of one's production.  As a function of capitalism and a part of the small business economy, entrepreneurship has the end goal of gaining capital.  The two are opposed to one another.   

I, of course, am open to suggestions on possible replacement words.  My suggestions come from a life spent working to avoid the system as much as possible, so in some ways the vocabulary is against it but also acknowledge its prevalence.  Perhaps there is some better substitute.