Here are the readings for Week 3. A few reminders: Roberta and Libby from the Artblog will be meeting with us on 9/20 to discuss our First Friday review writing project. The week after that, 9/27, we will be "curating" a buffet of snacks to share during class. Anything goes - from bacon doughnuts to Pixie Stix! Please bring a recipe card if the dish is home made, we may want a copy for our recipe files! The recipe is also important for those with dietary restrictions so they know if they can eat it. The dish needs to be service ready, already plated and at service temp...so unless you can heat it in the dorms, etc. It will likely be a room temp snack! I will supply utensils, sm plates and napkins. BYO beverages! My hope is we will dine on the buffet instead of a dinner break and work through until all students have presented. (We will have just a 10 min break instead at 5pm) Students will write a short review of their favorite dish in a timed writing exercise. Click the comments link below to publish your response to the Week 3 readings.
Responses are Due by Wed., 9/18 at midnight.
Warm regards,
Terri
Week 3 - Art and Extravaganza ::
1. Ray Johnson: ACollage in Which Life=Death=Art, Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 2002.
1a. Collector John Held Jr. Sponsors "Mail Art Project"
Untitled (Please Send to May), May 14, 1975 on card, May 13, 1972 collage on thin cardboard panel, 20 by 20 inches
Be sure to read the reviews of the exhibition on the right side bar by The New York Times, Title Magazine & The Philadelphia Inquirer. What did you think of the writing style in each article?
2. Richard Serra: Rigging, (1980), Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art (T.D.C.), Ed., Stiles & Selz, 1996.
2a. THe UBUWEB :: Anthology of Conceptual Writing, Richard Serra's Verb List
3. Kiki Smith, Queen of Arts, Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 2006
4. Jannis Kounellis: Structure and Sensibility, Interview with Willoughby Sharp (1972), Ed., Stiles & Selz, T.D.C., 1996.
5. Theory Talk with Aaron Levy, Slought Boss, Fallon & Rosof, theartblog, 2010
This article generated an interesting discussion amongst recent MCAD grads and friends.
The thread can be found HERE.
Additional readings / video on the topic ::
Ed Plunkett and Judith Malina discuss Ray Johnson's ideas about "Moticos"
Ron Nagle: http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=24284
Deceptive Cadence from NPR Classical
Silence and Sound :: Five Ways of Understanding John Cage
Merce Cunningham: http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=4655
Eva Hesse, review, Mark Stevens , New York magazine, 2006.
Buona Serra, Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine, 2007.
The Outsider :: The Story of Harry Partch, BBC, 2002
"FRESH"
Books
(Based on our discussion of your works so far, here are some suggested texts to examine.)
(Based on our discussion of your works so far, here are some suggested texts to examine.)
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Yvonne Clark
ReplyDeleteRay Johnson
I'm feelings are split with this artist. I can't really make a decide if I like him or his art. To me honest I typically don't like artwork or artist that I feel are too conceptual. But I have to be honest for some reason I kind of like the idea of living all the way in an art form. The other part of me feels like sometimes art should just be in the traditional sense art. Instead of people trying to work out in their mind what they feel about something and saying that it's art. Maybe it's just that I'm tired of the age old art school question "what really is art? Is art the idea or is it the process, or finished piece?" For me sometimes "it is what it is" is good enough for me.
John Held Jr.
I really think the idea of mailing around art is cute. I like when people think outside the box (no pun intended). I feel as though the idea it's self has a deeper thought process behind it. And it goes back to institutions having art work that is made for the public but the public can't get into it unless the public has money. It's like a never-ending circle. That's another story for another day. I also like the idea that any artist can join in on the mailing of art. It's almost like it's a secret society of artist. I also like that mystery behind not knowing, or possibly never meeting the person who has your artwork.
Writing styles
Richard Serra
It is very refreshing to feel as though you're having a one-on-one conversation with the writer. I think this writing style is very personable and lecture style-ish. For me, it resonates because I can fully comprehend what he is saying in his article and is it's as if I'm hearing a story and I'm actually interested. I always say anything that can text you my attention and hold it for the first paragraph is a great writing style. From the beginning it starts off with "this is what I do." I think this may be my favorite writing style.
Queen of arts
Right from the beginning this writing style's reads very professional and journalistic. The first paragraph is structured to let you know this will be a biography. This is obviously a very strong writing style. It uses a lot of quotations handbook references. One thing that I am always drawn to our bed descriptive words that the type of writings use for example, the description of the artist's style "a neo-hippie queen of bohemia." I think it helps to paint a picture of what the artist style may be or the type of style there into. It's engaging to a certain degree but more so educational and informative. This article in particular to me, reads as a description of a book on sleeve for a cover of a book.
Structure & sensibility
This type of writing to be very long yet it's a very quick read. It's easy to get lost in it and to enjoy it quickly because it gets to the meat of everything. I like how the questions are precise and the answers are short and sweet. It's interview style obviously so we get the raw answer of what the of the artist was thinking in their own words. This I feel is the type of style that I can resonate with because I'm so used to reading seventeen magazine and Cosmo girl growing up where they would interview your favorite singer or actress.
Leah Koontz
ReplyDeleteLife=Death=Art
I am fascinated and disturbed at the same time learning about Ray Johnson. Kimmelman talks about Johnson as if he is an unknown pathetic artist. Although I am sure there is some truth to this, Johnson is well known enough to have a movie made about him, to be friends with Andy Warhol, and to have general interest and articles surrounding his existence, this is more than I can say for most artists. I think this is important because this type of art would not be possible without the interest and attention of the audience, so in order to make work which comes close to this you must have privilege and be known. Perhaps Johnson did not know if he would gain attention for his “stunt” or not, or maybe he did not care. I think he was probably just fully invested in his practice which evidently ends up being a bit delusional (or maybe its genius). I appreciate what his poor friend/lover says “who was this man, he kept so much of himself to himself”.
John Held Jr.
I love the idea of alternative practices like this. I too love mail and refuse to accept it as an obsolete form of communication... even with those who I can quickly reach in other ways. The way he talks about art is amazing. “Marginalized art forms, like book art, etc” “We do not want to be validated by the galley system… but it is another thing to be validated by the postal system” This makes me think about art practice and art in a whole new way. Of course their are privileged art genre’s but what about art movements which no one know’s about. Its almost a tree falling in the woods with no one around type of thing… if you are not aware of an underground art movement, and they do not make themselves known.. then what does that mean. The most important thing this group of artists seem to be pushing is the question of art and value. They do not think art should be so precious and elitist, yet they are still trying to validate themselves by making this video and sending work to one another. It is also still precious because they are archiving it.. and they are not sharing it with those who are outside of their field. This becomes increasingly ironic when the collection is donated to MOMA and other large institutes. These facilities are not the same as gallery’s since they function as educational non-profits not commercial galleries but in some ways they are more corporate than gallery’s are.. depending on how they are funded and what their mission is. Either way some of these mail art pieces are incredible.
Leah Koontz CONT
ReplyDeleteLevy:
I understand why some artist’s feel frustrated by the notion that all art must be “important”… this is an intense responsibility for the artist to carry, However throughout art history we have evolved and arrived where we are today. We all understand why artists are important even if we do not like them.. those names we have beaten into our heads over and over again.. Picasso, Van Gough, Warhol.. DUCHAMP. In art classes today we talk about Duchamp and his important contribution to art… R Mutt’s urinal. Now we are seeing new forms of art like social practice which set the new trends in art. I do not think all art needs to have heavy conceptual meaning but I do recognize that things are moving in that direction, to ignore that would be silly and put me at an unnecessary disadvantage. As artists debate what art is, and how this has been redefined the non art community begins to cope with Picasso’s non representational idea’s and Warhol’s Pop Iconic Imagery. This can sometimes be a conflicting frustration between general society and the art community. The non art community takes some time to catch up with the current musings of the contemporary art scene. The problem in my opinion is miscommunication. All people are capable of critical art appreciation even though they may feel alienated from it before they learn about it… it is not apart of their everyday life, so they think.. but when they realize that all of these ideas are based in Theory, Politics, Linguistics, ETC. They may have a new opinion. We can all learn from each other. I do think it is important for us to recognize that most artist are privileged enough to have a job where they do not have to spend the majority of their lives trying to sustain life ( we have food a bed, we are probably not LITERALLY starving, but choosing to be somewhat broke) I think It is responsible for a community member to understand this privilege and use it for the greater good.. in some way or another. That is what I thought about after reading this quote:
“ because to survive and get attention today art needs to be easy to take in quickly; and it needs to have spectacle — which is inappropriate next door to such poverty.”
I don't like art speak. i've never liked art speak. maybe its because I am not a very good writer, or because when you jam two big words together that are ambiguous and it makes me feel that artist's aren't taking a stance on their art. it feels like they [artists] are teetering the fence on what they explaining to their audience. They never really take a stance on anything and it's all just very…….ambiguous. Sometimes ambiguous art is great, but most of the time i just find myself puzzled and looking up SAT words on my iPhone, realizing they do not make sense with the work…..and forgetting about the work totally.
ReplyDelete(funny article on 'art speak' here: http://hyperallergic.com/60675/how-not-to-write-like-an-art-critic/ and as Philip A Hartigan said in his article 'avoid academic word salad, and keep it simple.')
OK, SORRY I JUST HAD TO GET THAT OFF MY CHEST.
as for the readings, i really enjoyed the reading, 'A Collage in Which Life = Death = Art' By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN.
I think it's maybe because I have seen the documentary HOW TO DRAW A BUNNY, and it's an eye opener. Ray Johnson had a knack for creating his own art movement (in my opinion), and also for being enigmatic and brilliant. i really enjoy the writing style of Kimmelman, it's beautiful, descriptive and describes Johnson to a T. As enigmatic as Johnson was, Kimmelman doesn't throw us into a space where we have to fight tooth and nail to understand this man, his life, works and death.
Additionally, the writing on Aaron Levy, was also very well written. They (Libby and Roberta) aren't afraid to ask what something means (i.e. Hysterical Questioning), where usually in a few of the art literature magazines i read, they just use theories without really ever explaining them or where they come from or why the artist/curator is using it. The article goes on to discuss the role of the public in public art and (in my favorite line of the article, something i have been thinking about for a while, but have been too afraid to ask) Levy talks about humility. "Humility may be what we need today more than hubris.”
I am in love with this line, and thus in love with Aaron Levy. Humility is something that is not found in the art world today. it's all about me, me, me, me. I've always wondered about this. Artist have this amazing talent to created these thought-provoking, beautiful works and yet they are so self-centered that it takes away from their works and makes it really hard to like them/get to know them. I know i have been in discussions with artists before and found myself between a rock and a narcissist. I'm getting a bit off track here, but I wish I could articulate the feeling better……maybe class discussion??
this brings me to the Kiki Smith article (which I also enjoyed). The writing style in here was the same as the Johnson, with a lot more parentheses (of which I enjoy, for some reason). The piece, written by Peter Schjeldahl, was a bit more romantical (not really a word, but it works) and more descriptive of Smith's work. It can also be said that writer and artist have to be on the same level for the writing style to match the artist's work. Again, articulation is the key, and I don't have it to unlock what I'd like to say on the subject…..but something along the lines of writer and artist either working closely together or having the same philosophical theories that can help the writer eloquently write what the artist is working on/thinking about.
Finally, the other articles I didn't care for. Except for the Jannis Kounellis one. I was a fan of the style of writing (interview) because it let's the artist speak for themselves. I found myself quite bored with Kounellis's work and interview, until I Googled his name. I am still digesting this article and his work, so hopefully i will have more for you later....before the midnight deadline.
Response #3
ReplyDeleteIs it a cop-out to use an email conversation as my response to this weeks readings? I think Art as Social Practice could validate this.
The following is my correspondence with Darren O'Donnell, the Artistic and Research Director for Mammalian Diving Reflex. Also the director of the Fringe performance All The Sex I've Ever Had.
We are discussing Sharing and Intellectual Property in regard to Social Media and Social Practice.
Clearly, his response email proves my ineptness on the topic. I am in over my head.
---
On Sep 18, 2013, at 12:58 AM, "Darren O'Donnell" wrote:
in the days before instagram I had a facebook album that I would post directly to from my phone that was called Whatever and my aesthetic resembled your aesthetic. Lots of acutely observed banality, which is my personal favourite. Though you're much better at stylish selfies. That was never a speciality of mine. However, dead animals were. And dried street vomit.
These days I'm conflicted about sharing, feeling that my photos/ideas/observations are my intellectual property and I want to monetize them, as much as that might make the world a worse place.
I like this quote, which is from a great essay by Matteo Pasquinelli who is referencing Enzo Rullani in this section:
There are three ways that a producer of knowledge can distribute its uses, still keeping a part of the advantage under the form of: 1) a speed differential in the production of new knowledge or in the exploitation of its uses; 2) a control of the context stronger than others; 3) a network of alliances and cooperation capable of contracting and controlling modalities of usage of knowledge within the whole circuit of sharing.
You can find the full thing here: http://eipcp.net/policies/cci/pasquinelli/en
I think I agree with Pasquinelli, but rather than using his insights to tone down competition within the creative/cultural economy, I want to use it to get the edge. Thus, I'm not big on sharing. The conflict comes when I wonder if by not sharing I'm excluding myself from the current economy of sharing that attracts people to ones work via facebook, twitter etc. My strategy is to not share my sources or ideas that I'm developing but, instead, isolated insights that people will hopefully think are interesting, worth retweeting or whatever, but not the sorts of things that can be taken up and utilized. Much.
Who knows.
_______________
Darren O'Donnell
Artistic and Research Director
Mammalian Diving Reflex
Company in Residence, Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West, 204
Toronto M6J 1J6 Canada
www.mammalian.ca
twitter/skype: darrenodonnell
ideal entertainment for the end of the world
Response #3 cont.
ReplyDelete---
I love your thoughts. Thank you.
I should say before I begin: I do use my Instagram much like you use Twitter: "isolated insights". I wouldn't call it "work" per say...
And so regarding Sharing:
I used to think sharing was a release of ownership. However now, more often than not, I think that sharing (via instamyface, etc.) is so massively popular and vast that anything I even think about posting has already been pre-co-opted. So, actually it is not the moment of sharing that is problem, it is that actually My Eye has already been co-opted. We can be romantic about the idea of the New, but I've found certain freedom in the conscious re-post and appropriation: an altogether new form of public.
There are no more artists, just curators and activists. (?)
I am certainly not an activist.
Perhaps I am slightly sociopathic to continue to make things knowing I have no intellectual property. I can't help that I am an object oriented person.
Ownership is really an archaic concept. ...Perhaps I am being dramatic. Perhaps I am being turgid. But in some way you must agree.
And by the way, banality is so hot right now.
This is why work like yours, and Nato Thompson's at Creative Time, is so interesting. It is the last frontier. It is work that is "temporary and ephemeral in nature and has less of an obligation to please and more latitude to raise questions". Your email signature even ends with "ideal entertainment for the end of the world", certainly assuming a lot no? Rightfully, I would say, and so would Aaron Levy (I have attached a link).
I remember when I asked you about some of the aesthetic choices made for All The Sex I've Ever Had, you said that you would have easily done it under fluorescent lights and in a cafeteria-- that theatrical elements where actually unnecessary. Your goal, as I read it, was to focus on the social elements implied in the script and the script-making process.
I liked this. There was something very pure about this idea. I think its something that social practice art tries to achieve: no objects, just genuine activating moments.
Can you say there is true ownership in social practice work? Where is the intellectual property?
This is the Aaron Levy article from The ArtBlog:
http://www.mjfdesign.net/terri/artblogslought.rtfd.pdf
(The interview is a few years old but it has greatly influenced my note to you.)
...I find it interesting-- the diametrically opposed meanings of "share" when we discuss Social Media verses Social Practice.
The Matteo Pasquinelli quote you've sent me (given I have little context), is referring to the importance of a creative community, particularly: "a network of alliances and cooperation". ...This is why you and I are corresponding, no?
Your thoughts?
Stephanie M. Potter
www.stephaniempotter.net
---
Yes, ownership is archaic but exerting control over ideas, sharing some, hoarding others, making sure that some are attributed to you, disassociating yourself from others etc... all of that factors into who generates value from them. So ownership may be archaic but control is an important reality.
I think you also have to make a distinction between the social goals of social practice and the career necessity of exerting control. I've been asked by small community groups if they can do Haircuts by Children without my company. I say no, even if they want to pay a fee, because I need to have control over the conditions under which it's produced so that the kids get treated well and other principles are nailed accurately. I realize that they can say "fuck you, you can't own that idea" and there would be nothing we would/could do to stop them from doing it. But I'm not going to give it my blessing, unless I can make sure it happens in the right way (my right way).
Response #3 cont.
ReplyDeletethe Levy article makes me think about what I hate about being an artist, which is that my gig is essentially to be a professional impresser. Sometimes, I'd just like to be a dentist and give someone a boring old filling.
The other thing about Levy is that his reading of art as oppositional doesn't feel right to me. Shannon Jackson would call that infrastructure disavowal, of critiquing the infrastructure, which she contrast with infrastructure avowal, which is rolling up your sleeps and not critiquing but making better (http://www.uninomade.org/performing-art-supporting-publics/)
Another way to think about it is paranoid vs. reparative knowing, which is something that Sedgwich writes about. This is a great section from somethign that Grant Kester wrote in an exchange with Claire Bishop, that cites Sedgwich :
from: http://onedaysculpture.org.nz/assets/images/reading/Bishop%20_%20Kester.pdf
In Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy and Performativity (Duke Univeristy Press, 2003), Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick offers a useful interpretation of the rhetoric of exposure in her analysis of the "paranoid consensus" that has come to dominate contemporary critical theory informed by structuralism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. Based in part on the historical identification of critical theory with the act of revealing the (structural) determinants that pattern our perception of reality, the paranoid approach obsessively repeats the gesture of "unveiling hidden violence" to a benumbed or disbelieving world. As enabling and necessary as it is to probe beneath the surface of appearance and to identify unacknowledged forms of power, the paranoid approach, in Sedgwick's view, attributes an almost mystical agency to the act of revelation in and of itself. As she writes:
The paranoid trust in exposure seemingly depends ... on an infinite reservoir of naivete in those who make up the audience for these unveilings. What is the basis for assuming that it will surprise or disturb, never mind motivate, anyone to learn that a given social manifestation is artificial, self-contradictory, imitative, phantasmatic or even violent?
As Sedgwick notes, the normalization of paranoid knowing as a model for creative and intellectual practice has entailed "a certain disarticulation, disavowal, and misrecognition of other ways of knowing, ways less oriented around suspicion." Sedgwick juxtaposes paranoid knowing (in which "exposure in and of itself is assigned a crucial operative power") with reparative knowing, which is driven by the desire to ameliorate or give pleasure. As she argues, this reparative attitude is intolerable to the paranoid, who views any attempt to work productively within a given system of meaning as unforgivably naive and complicit; a belief authorized by the paranoid's "contemptuous assumption that the one thing lacking for global revolution, explosion of gender roles, or whatever, is people's (that is, other people's) having the painful effects of their oppression, poverty, or deludedness, sufficiently exacerbated to make the pain conscious (as if otherwise it wouldn't have been) and intolerable."
it's bedtime in germany. night.
_______________
Darren O'Donnell
Artistic and Research Director
Mammalian Diving Reflex
Company in Residence, Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West, 204
Toronto M6J 1J6 Canada
www.mammalian.ca
twitter/skype: darrenodonnell
+ 1 416 531 4635 x 7204
ideal entertainment for the end of the world
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAaron Levy
ReplyDeleteI am somewhat less than fond of the idea of the artist as social critic. Although artists can be great social critics and are in an excellent position to do so if they want I don’t think that it is a necessity that the artist address social issues. I think that there can be value in work that is not trying to subvert everything all of the time, your work can address formal issues like color, form, or texture; and it doesn’t mean that it’s bad or unimportant.
The line Aaron Levy says “I believe art has a responsibility” (italics mine) really rubs me the wrong way. It pisses me off when people try to say what you should be doing. Just because someone decides to do art doesn’t make the responsible for jack shit. I am not responsible just by having a particular skill set. I don’t owe anyone anything. Stop telling me that I have some sort of moral obligation to do work the way your think is important.
Alex Kanzer
ReplyDeleteI am small and shiny, what I do is small and shiny. Small and shiny is an insult made in jest by metalworkers to jewelers. I don't think of it as much of an insult, as it's what I do. I've chosen to make small and shiny work because it is small and because it is shiny and I don't think of myself any lesser for it. I say this because, as the small and shiny metalsmith what is my role here, right now. As a craft artist what responsibility do I have to the art world? I know how craft right now bridges into fine art and because I know this I also know that I don't know anything. Thoreau said that machines killed the spirit of craft in 1854. Craft historian, Glenn Adamson said in 2007 that this is not true, and that rather craft has become muddled in a traumatic history of being kicked down by jerks like Thoreau, but the reason why craft is interesting is because of this trauma. Craft has PTSD, Art thinks it constantly has to prove it's worth to the world and has to prove itself to art and then onto the world Oh woe it is to be a craft artist?
I write all this to tie it into Aaron Levy's interview. In that I first find it interesting thought that DIY is mentioned, because that's where craft lives today, but it's mentioned in passing. That craft culture is why I stayed here for college. I wonder what he thinks about that culture, as all I can get from the article is that he believes it is stronger in Philadelphia than elsewhere. How does the DIY movement relate to this humility, this anti-spectacle he wants to see? Does it relate? Craft can respond to social inequalities without being oppositional. Craft exists In a marginalized space, a space where the art of other cultures is also stored. Yes today museums finally stopped calling Native American art, Native American crafts, but the history, the trauma is there I think craft plays a bigger role in Philadelphia and can play a bigger part in Fine Art snobby land. We could be at the point of another Bauhaus, a better Bauhaus, a less German Bauhaus. Philadelphia Bauhaus; I want it bad. I used to think that I didn't care how small and shiny was or wasn't art and now I think I realize why I've used it as a vessel for my thoughts. Craft is hurt, craft is sad, but Craft is proud. Levy mentions the unemployment rate, but Levy does not mention the closed factory. The closed factory must be mentioned.
.
One of Adamson's better lectures: http://www.rca.ac.uk/Docs/Dormer%20lecture_02.pdf
This is such a great question. How does the DIY movement relate to this humility, this anti-spectacle he wants to see?
DeleteQUEEN OF ARTS
ReplyDeleteA retrospective of Kiki Smith at the Whitney.
by Peter Schjeldahl
Schjeldahl's article on Kiki Smith emulates her and her work. In this I mean, his abundance in adjectives and his lack of time, but not lack of effort spent on each point reminds me of how I feel looking at her work. I want to believe that this article truthfully outlines her life as an artist and celebrity, but there are some moments I can't help but disagree with. It's like her work, I want to be part of the dark and flirty prints and sculptures and I want to value them, but they are lacking honesty. Schjeldahl had just about turned me into a fan until he began discussing her craft. It is undeniable that there is an incredible level of craft in her work but I do not believe she has any involvement in that, nor do I believe she values it. I believe it was an Art 21 I watched a couple of years ago, where Kiki talks about her studio practice and gives a tour of her grand studio space. It was obvious in that interview that she was really only interested in herself and keeping up this aloof fairy image everyone knows so well. She was completely passive about her work and it was evident that she had no part in the work that happens in her studio. The credit of craft should go to her employees and interns. Perhaps, earlier in her career, her hands were in her work and she was a skilled crafts woman but that is not the case anymore.
I do agree that Kiki Smith does have taste, I can not deny that. As this article outlines, she grew up in the high profile art world with money and creative and powerful people all around her. I think it would be impossible not to develope taste growing up like that.
I am completely enamored with Richard Serra. He seems like he would be the type of artist to use a lot of trendy bullshit to describe himself, but he isn’t. His essay was clear and honest. I especially loved the quote, “I think that if a work is substantial, in terms of context, then it does not embellish, decorate, or point to specific buildings, nor does it add on to a syntax that already exists. I think that sculpture, if it has any potential at all, has the potential to create its own place and space, and to work in contradiction to the spaces and places where it is created in this sense.” Over the summer I was able to see his piece “Band,” which was the first Serra I’d ever seen in person. It was one of the most disorienting and powerful experiences I’ve ever had, and Serra describes his work perfectly in this essay. I was transported when I saw that piece; I was no longer in that room or that museum, I was simply there, interacting with this thing, this curved sheet of steel that suddenly had all the meaning and importance in the world, and that is what art is about. At least I try to remind myself of that as often as I can.
ReplyDeleteThe article on Aaron Levy was a little frustrating for me. I don’t agree that art has a social responsibility. For a guy who believes so much in humility, he holds art to a bit of a ridiculous standard. Personally, I don’t believe that my work will ever be seen in the public arena. This is the case for a lot of artists. I’m never going to be represented by Gagosian or be shown in major museums. Therefore, I don’t believe in making socially responsible statements with my work because they’re not going to be heard on the scale that would be required to create change. I don’t feel qualified to comment on poverty levels in Philadelphia simply because soon I’ll have a piece of paper that says I earned a degree in fine arts. And honestly, I don’t think most artists have the power that curators and those involved in the art world seem to think they do. I used to believe that they did, but then I spent three years in art school. I think if people with actual influence over what happens in the world started asking the questions that Levy believes artists are somehow responsible for, then we would probably see more social change.
"I don’t think most artists have the power that curators and those involved in the art world seem to think they do. I used to believe that they did, but then I spent three years in art school." Right on.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot in the article about Ray Johnson that reminds me of myself in a way I don't care to confront or acknowledge. Maybe when I'm 67 I can understand why anyone cares that a 67 year old man decided to jump into a river. Does it matter what his secret codes meant? I assume someone hiding secrets in plain sight want their secrets to be discovered. Or something. Or nothing. I'm thinking about Jeff Buckley walking into a river in a Blue Oyster Cult T-Shirt and not coming back, either. We're all obsessed with ourselves and I appreciate modesty, introspection, and slowness (re. Aaron Levy).
DeleteI hate a lot of the Creative Time type of social practice work because it seems self promotional, for the both creators and the viewers. All participants are often equally inactive, because knowing doesn't mean anything when you won't or can't act. While I often find myself content in research, accepting meaning and conclusions to imagined/internal questions, perhaps we need to do more than inform ourselves. We perhaps need to do more than pose red-tent events outside of the Vox building. The art community is already susceptible to acknowledging the need for social responsibility and change... we are already skeptical answer seekers. But do we (the artists standing around Vox, drinking beer in a can) all have secret $400,000 family inheritances we don't acknowledge or use, instead opting for "intentional poverty" and obsession with personal philosophical questions that won't do anything for anyone? What's the fucking point? "... it wasn't clear to Ms. Beatty whether he meant that he would do a nothing or would do a show that had nothing in it."
I love Ray Johnson and I hate art. Thank God Stephanie Potter is showing us her email correspondence with a dude in Germany. It's 12:37, but my favorite number is 8.
"Thank God Stephanie Potter is showing us her email correspondence with a dude in Germany"
DeleteI love claire and Ray Johnson.
While I was reading I was stuck on the thought of calling his suicide an art piece. To be honest I do not know how to digest the thought. It is insane to me to think of calling it art. Its a permanent act. I mean there is no going back. I find the 13 conspiracy interesting. 67, 6+7=13. His hotel room that day was 247 2+4+7=13, The date was January 13. To be honest I don't know if I believe it. I think it is just a coincidence. Yes he wrote an essay and it seemed the people he talked about had 13 letters in their first and last name. What did 13 have to do with anything? I can connect 13 into my life as well. I played t-ball and my number was 13 and my oldest brother was 13 that year. And once, as a kid I was 13 too.