Make no mistake...I heart Jed Perl!!!
Class 8 - Made and Manufactured:
1. Readymade Resistance, Josiah McElheny,ARTFORUM, 2007.
2. The Artisanal Urge, Jed Perl, The New Republic, 2008
3. Golden Bull, Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic, 2008.
4. Why Craft Never Was a Four-Letter Word, Smith, 2009
5. Murakami, Review by Gerard Brown, 2007.
6. Link to Murakami Show @ LAMoCa
7. Hirst Globally Dotting His "I", Roberta Smith, 2012.
8. Art as Commodity or Art as Experience?, Donna Dodson, 2012.
Optional additional readings / video on the topic:
1. Postcards From Nowhere, Jed Perl, The New Republic, 2008
This video showcases 3 artists who make "by hand."
2. http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/episode.jsp?epid=113410
3. Takashi Murakami @ Gagosian Gallery London, June 27 - August 5, 2011
4. Review of Murakami/Gagosian, LA Weekly Blog
5. Peter Plagens critiques Jed Perl's book New Art City, 2006
REMINDER: Please be sure to post your Artist Statements and Bios in the appropriate section below this post. Due to my absence last week, presentations are as follows:
1. Diandra Oliva
2. Claire Malecot
3. Lucy Heurich
4. Melissa Robbins
5. Nora Spillane
">Allan McCollum
Something to ponder...
When does the artist stop being an artist during a project?
WHO or WHAT manipulates the final product?
What is the purpose of a final product if the idea is already set in stone?
Is process important for you or for the person helping you?
Murakami, Los Angeles show 2007
ReplyDeleteFun fact, I was actually at this show. It opened when I was living in West LA and was a show that I made a trip into downtown to see the show. I actually kinda snuck into this show because I was 15 when the show opened and you were supposed to be 16 (or maybe 18 and over or in the company of an adult, I forget) and over.
Anyway, as I recall I loved the show when I went to see it. It reminded me of cyberpunk novels I’d read and of all the anime I was watching at the time. So I can tell you that I enthusiastically liked the show at the time. It was on my list of favorite museum shows.
One thing I feel like you really don’t get from the photos of this show is the scale of it, almost all of the work towers over you in a way that is very unsettling. The anime girl and guy sculptures are over life size and are really freaky to see in three dimensions.
I felt like I kind of had to write about this one seeing as it’s the only thing so far that I’ve actually seen in person.
This is the only art exhibit you've seen in person?
DeleteI have been pondering the subject of craft vs. art (if they are even separate) since I realized I wanted to be a successful artist. I had to care about these sort of definitions and categorizations to vilitalize my self and my work. I always knew there was something I disagreed with in Damien Hirst's' work. Honestly, it took my reading of Leon Wieseltier article for the New Republic to understand that I was not only on the other side of the Damien Hirst process but angry that worship of the mass produced object if apparently where art is headed. I think that every artist is partial to what they are capable of. Therefore when I try and defend the value of the hand in art I only sound like I am defending myself. I enjoy building and fabricating. I find creating from a material like metal, clay, or oil paint to be truly rewarding because those are materials that are available to anyone and I am able to make something meaningful, something emotional (atleast for me) from those things. But then I contradict my own arguments when I fall into a work by an artist who clearly does not make there own pieces. But they had the idea, and they had the direction. I am lost in this. I don't know where to find credibility for my own work when I am basing its value on the execution of the skill in making, in building...
ReplyDeleteDamien Hirst is a disgrace. But then again, I don't really mind Jeff Koons, so maybe I'm not clear on my feelings about mass-produced object artists. I've never really thought too much about the spot paintings before, but while reading the New York TImes article about them, I realized how completely ridiculous the idea is. Hirst has barely any influence over the final product at all, and doesn't give any instruction on color, which is the driving force behind the work.I guess I understand Jeff Koons because I feel like he has an investment in the design and execution of his ideas, but Damien Hirst just strikes me as a clown who came up with a plan to exploit the art world. He is the artist who calls himself an artist because just being himself wasn't enough to make him a celebrity, and I find it slightly horrifying that a vapid, self-righteous douche like Hirst is considered to be so important that he deserves to have his paintings in every Gagosian gallery in the world at once. It troubles me that the New Republic article suggested that work like this is the future of the art world. It might be too romantic of a notion, but I've always felt that art is the most honest gesture of human beings, and that must be why Damien Hirst offends me so deeply.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the article about SOFA infuriated me, mostly because Roberta Smith was unnecessarily dismissive towards most of the work there, suggesting that if you don't hate most of what you see there, you should probably have your eyes examined. I'm tired of hearing the fine art and craft debate since it only remains an issue thanks to people like Smith, who somehow found themselves in a position where they could decide what is right and wrong in art and then continue to write the same article about whether or not craft is relevant yet. It becomes relevant when people give it the time of day, and until art world assholes decide to stop crying about the hippies trying to move in on their white cube, we are doomed to continue wondering if "craft" has a place.
It becomes relevant when people give it the time of day, and until art world assholes decide to stop crying about the hippies trying to move in on their white cube, we are doomed to continue wondering if "craft" has a place.'
DeleteYEZ. i'm laughing so hard at this line.
Readymade and Art as Commodity
ReplyDeleteI would say this is no longer up for legitimate discussion. Art is Commodity.
I like it. We all got a price--stop being romantic.
Art just falls among all the other signs we consume. Art is condiment, an additive. I am not being tragic, I’ve become liberated. Art isn’t pure, it is an institution. Think of all the material waste in the name of art. (The meaningless emotional suffering?) Weather the “art” is object or not. We live in a world where the “artist-self” (or the celebrity) is constantly being advertised and bought and bought again. I am going to perhaps make a turgid overstatement and call the Artist Herself the commodity.
However to continue to make work in spite of this complete apathy is in its own way a small protest. To fight futilely against the mass of images and the plane of constancy. …Perhaps I am still being romantic, still searching for my own uncanny.
Is apathy and romance dialectical?
Am I completely off topic? Probably. The mass of images really hasn’t allowed me to focus as of late. My Gibsonian trend-honing needs repair. …Maybe some TLC, maybe some romance.
don't go chasing waterfalls.
Deleteimages, money, commodity, art, fine art, craft.
ReplyDeletethese are the slew of words that fell into my lap today.
i think that the 'painter of light' Thomas Kinkade had it right, he did it his way as a FINE artist (yea i said fine artist) and made millions upon millions of dollars. we say we hate kincade, but then people like hirst and koons are fine artist and kinkade is just a commodified artist. what i am getting at is that all three of these guys are the same. they are making art to make money. they are all commodified.
they are all making work because of one reason, money. isn;t that why people do what they do??? they need to live so they make money. who really cares why people make work about their feelings, or whatever the hell they make work about. its all about money. wanna become a famous artist??
go to art school, get a BFA, graduate school, MFA. BOOM fine artist. umm, no. true artist make work because they love the way it feels, they love the way they can create a new thing/image/object. i mean, that's why i love producing art (too romantic, Stephanie, lol?)
i still have that feeling of 'i'm making my own images'.
you don't like it, don't look at it. craft not done well? well then maybe you should look deeper into the piece to see something instead of focusing on nail holes in the wall by my piece, or wondering how long it took me to do a piece. every artist, and i use the term artist to cover all bases in the separated fine art/craft world argument, has their own way of working, style and influences in which they draw from and place in their works. for me, it all falls under the canopy of fine arts.
i am becoming more and more disillusioned with the 'art world' and agree with Stephanie. the mass of images are overtaking me, they are suffocation me into a corner where i can barely see what i am going to make next. but, like stephanie, i think we are all trying to make our own images we can see and understand. for us, not for anyone else.
that's why the art world is such a confusing place. nobody can make up your mind on what things should look like, that's up to you.
this is the most confusing piece i have written.
I'm not sure if I've talked about this writer before, probably considering I just finished reading one of his books. Craft Historian Glenn Adamson talks about the relation of craft to art as a traumatic one. Not even (A)rt versus (a)rt, it is beyond that discussion. According to him, craft has a severe case of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, not craft artists, not craft history, the discipline itself is a symptom of mental illness. To simply his discussion by a lot, craft has been the way in which society has dealt with trauma, trauma being times of change and shifting in a society's means of production. Industrialization -> Globalization -> to today, with Post-Industrial thoughts (are we post-industrial? I'm not about to answer that yet.) Change is scary, people lose jobs, people suffer, craftspeople are put out of jobs and this all is traumatic. Craft repeats and recalls what society feels it has lost in these times of stress. The fight for craft to defend it's art status isn't really that, but it is a way craft has tried to deal with the loss of importance and function within society. He goes on to compare this all to the AIDS quilt project, and that quilting was perfect to be a memorial because craft is a memorial within itself.
ReplyDeleteI'm not completely sold, but the PTSD framework is an interesting idea to keep in mind while viewing work.
Dude. PTSD for art. !!
DeleteYou know what, when I was reading the Kinkade article all I kept thinking about was my grandma. My grandma has several of Kinkade's paintings in ornate golden frames and she loves them. They make her happy and that's all that matters. I'm going to agree with Veronica and call him a fine artist. His paintings have a niche of being the perfect home and landscape. Mothers and Grandmothers love the shit out of that! He was able to do what we wish we could do and that was make millions off of work we don't even touch! What is wrong with being successful? Kinkade found a way to market the idea of a perfect home. Im just going to go ahead and end on this note. Thomas Kinkade's paintings are visually pleasing.
ReplyDeleteBee queen's lips and background music. WTF, Terri? <3
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced Jeff Koons, Damien Hurst, and Murakami are the best comparisons to prove the necessity and importance of handmade craft. These extreme examples belittle everything in between, including Sheila Hicks in MoMa, and I'm frustrated that intellectual sarcasm (Duchamp's fountain, or Janine Antoni pissing off the Chryster building) could be lumped into some capitalist debate about the negative effects of commodity. We makers, with hands and without, are part of the global market, which has changed through the centuries from commodified handmade goods, to a new artisan craft of systematic economic and industrial design for profit. The need to make and sell more has changed the way we live. Mass production + high return, what does it matter? Every liberal arts class at Moore spends an enormous chunk of time teaching the industrial revolution. Through this model, there is no economic value for the artisan fabric dyer, wood worker, potter, specialty cupcake shop. Why is anyone surprised?
Of course I'm being just as ridiculous with my blanket statements.
I could give a shit about Damien Hurst's dot paintings or the Gagosian gallery, because I'm not an art buyer, I'm not a follower of the celebrity artist, and at this point, I don't know if I like art at all. I don't fit into the category of "studio impulse, must create or die" and I don't believe in pumping out shit for profit.
I'm alive to ask questions that won't every be answered. That's why artists are hustlers with day jobs.
Leah Koontz
ReplyDeleteDuchamps readymade is an interesting thing. I have always considered its obvious effect on the direction of contemporary art. However, I haven't thought about the seemingly opposite influences its had on the artist as cooperation (Damien Hirst etc) and also on avant garde artists and art movements. I suppose this is just an unfortunate but natural byproduct of progress. I am definitely coping with my feelings about contemporary art everyday as I suspect most artists really are. Sometimes things upset me greatly but I am not sure why. I think a lot of it has to do with jealousy and frustration, but when I really ask myself why does this really upset me? I usually find that I have no reason to be upset and in fact my anger with various works of art is very hypocritical. Learning to accept things that we are not used to seeing is a very important lesson which comes with the territory of contemporary art. Often I do not like something purely because I haven't seen anything like it before. Being that I am an artist these things are most likely very far out and strange never the less this is the same attitude that deeply upsets me when it comes to the public dealing with my work. As artists we are definitely a few steps ahead of the public in terms of what we accept and support as art, but we still judge. I try to acknowledging that disliking something purely because it is different is not a great thing to do and ask myself when am I partaking in this. Its more often then I would hope.
Speaking of being hypocritical Jeff Koon’s is a great example of someone who sometimes makes frustratingly beautiful objects but I fundamentally can not support him or publicly like his art. I think at the end of the day if the artist is authentic and has good intentions it will show through in the work. Usually this is how/why I am attracted to the art that I like. This is also why I would not necessarily put Gober and Koons in the same category.
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