Tao Te Akbar #1 – Freedom of Speech
20 March 2009
65 CommentsFor artistic people it is tempting, as one ages, to surrender to a preference for the polite. But those artists who sustain their rebellious natures, who decide upon difficulty and create creative confrontation, those artists will not lose the feeling of vitality as they get older, in fact they will discover greater depths of youthful vigor.
I think the issue is that to be artistically free, it sometimes tends to lose you your friends, especially in the art world.
There is way too much politics in the “art world”. Even in small cities. It’s as if some of us are jockeying for elected positions. Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever lose my creative energy, but I question how many friends from the “art world” I’ll be surrounded by on my death bed. On the positive side though, at least I know the ones left standing are legitimate and true.
But who wants to be surrounded by a bunch of polite people who don’t speak their mind or stick to their guns anyway? I don’t.
I agree with this Akbar, but I would say that it is important to let the work do this. I think this is what you mean correct? That the work makes the provocation and challenges, not necessarily the attitude of the artist or how the artist interacts with others.
That’s what I was reading from it Mark too. It seems to be the repercussions of making such work is that you tend to easily lose friends or at least learn who your friends are. Especially in the “Art World”.
There are politics in sticking to your guns. Many artists I’m sure would rather be making different work, but realize it will ostracize them from their friends and family or not make them any money. Most likely the latter. Thirty years later they are stuck with a body of work they wished they hadn’t have made. They realize they have cornered themselves in order to make compromises but it’s too late to change direction.
And to go further, I believe it’s all art. Every reaction we have with each other is symbolic of who we are as artists as humans. An email, a comment on a blog, painting, video, lack of correspondence, correspondence. Rants or praises. Everything. It’s all connected and related and IS art. Have we not learned anything since the days of Duchamp and the ready-made. 2009 and we’re still tip toeing around each other it seems.
It reminds me of how abortion rights and evolution are still huge topics that split party lines down the center in a world that should be intellectually past those issues, especially when it comes to concerns of government and politics.
So most of us decide to tread lightly and bite our tongues. Especially when it comes to art and art making.
actually, it’s the opposite Mark. I think it could be either way for the artwork, as I tend to work with a universal viewer in mind, a viewer I don’t necessarily want to provoke, but I think it is an unimportant issue.
however, it is the artist, in his/her speech and social relations where I think such freedom is necessary, if only to remain alive and young and idealistic. such romantic notions require recommittment as we age. especially, the artist needs to develop a new antagonisms toward institutions, so many of which have been corrupted by corporate consciousness. artists have been alienated from one another, and are victims of a curatorial class, and it has stripped many artists of their usual propensity toward healthy freedom of thought.
there was a time when artists felt dialogue and ideas were a necessary part of revealing new breakthroughs in their process, when they met together and argued about truth. now, you are more likely to find artists discussing the organizations or shows, or careers, or money. the idea of truth has become passe, and everyone takes it for granted that they are artistically viable, because they need to remain confident.
i was once very idealistic as a young man, and as I get older i can see diplomacy and compromise becomes a very seductive daily choice. byron remains for me a great example of someone who would rather be true than successful, just like socrates, and i have joined him in this 100%. the current global crisis will make all of us choose as the days go on. and in the light of trouble, i have discovered that I am one who chooses ideals.
as far as art goes, i try to make some kick-ass shit that expresses a love of humanity, of the human form, of how that relates to the great tradition of knowledge and humanism, and also a desire to recombine the fractured elements of 20th century painting. but most importantly, i want regular people to feel welcome in my world, i want them to have things that make them feel catered to, because I love them, and i think service is an aspect of art making that we are now free to investigate but we have become habitual assholes, taking pleasure in making simple people feel simpler than they are. i think the real measure of art is not how it confuses people, but how it lifts them up.
i have always felt that the greatest leaders are those that sought change within the world they inhabited.
akbar
I think sometimes these changes in how we view our own art and how we choose to express it sometimes has a natural development with age and with age generally comes more wisdom.
I’m sure some artists conform for the pursuit of success, but we need to define our own success to actually know whether we succeeded.
To some, success is measured in money, fame, or glory and to others success can be determined in how many people we can bless by our very own existence. Obviously all the money, fame & glory in the world doesn’t lead to happiness, otherwise the tabloids would get boring only reading about happy famous people who never overdose, have affairs, or end up in jail. And at the same time, not having money, fame, and glory can limit how many people you plan to reach…
Maybe success to an artist is having a decent day job that pays the bills and allows time to be creative.
To another, success could mean never compromising your artistic right to express yourself, never conforming, never settling for a day job that gets in the way of your art, possibly going down the road of becoming a starving artist and living off the charity of others to pursue your art.
And yet to another artist, success could be money, fame and glory. To reach that success you may have to allow some compromise and conformation in your art, become a good business man, and learn to be disciplined, so when you reach that status you can invest in the arts or future artists ie. become a collector or patron of the arts, open your own gallery or art center, donate to art programs/schools or community outreach…
To me neither of these are wrong, each one has their place. the “rebellious”, slightly reckless, young at heart artist keeps things fresh, new, edgy, controversial ect…but in the same token this type of artist could turn off the random unart educated person who doesn’t get it, but in turn you know they’re inspiring someone, somewhere…
while the more “polite” artist may be more likely to reach the random unart educated person who may not know what to make of the “rebellious” work but in turn be opening the door for a path of development and growth for that person to one day see a revelation in art that is outside of the box.
The ripple affect our art, reaches farther than we may realize, but so does our everyday human interaction, the difference though is that after we’re gone, it’s our art work that will hopefully still be around… maybe that’s what makes us so different from many other professions, that when we’re gone we actually leave a piece of ourselves that we created with our own hands, that technically can’t be changed by anyone else otherwise it won’t be our own creation anymore. it’s not a subjective interpretation of what our art looks like, it just is what it is: our art.
-y
that’s very polite yvonne.
Akbar, thanks for clarifying and I do agree with you but I don’t think it comes down to being polite or not as much as speaking one’s mind and standing by it.
For example, if you state something have the backbone to stand by it and state it as your opinion (not fact). One opinion in many valid ones. But I understand and see that as we get older artists especially tend to try and not hurt anyone’s “feelings” by having an opinion.
It’s like see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. One can’t climb the invisible ladder we think we are climbing if we are involved in opinions.
I see no growth in that. Only stagnation.
Thanks for your support Akbar. You have been a real inspiration to me throughout the years too and I’m sure you will continue to be so. Really wish we lived closer.
Yvonne may be polite in her statement but she is also looking at the issue from different perspectives and using a broad frame to form her opinion. I think that is a good example of stating something with confidence as opposed to arrogance.
As we age we hopefully do become more confident in ourselves and our opinions. But that confidence comes from exploration, listening, and trying things out rather than learning memes that try to smash other ideas out of existence so that ours remain victorious.
Politeness certainly has practical purposes in terms of social relationships. And there are times when it is necessary to be disingenuous in our politeness when tension or alienation is not desired. And as we get older, we become savvier to these things and to other peoples’ sensitivities. But part of this is also using politeness as a constructive tool because it does not necessarily mean holding things back, it could also be part of a way to get your point across (or achieving a goal) without pissing people off to the point that it destroys your point or goal. Its a subtle skill that really successful people have mastered.
The issue of what artists discuss is interesting and I think it has more to do with either (or both) a lack in confidence in one’s own art practice and a lack of knowledge about other artists practices and approaches. For example, I am very interested in hearing about and discussing Akbar’s interest in the human form- how it incorporates different artistic, scientific and philosophical ideas, how he wants is art “to lift people up”. Fascinating. Now, if I was not confident in what I do (which overlaps with some of these ideas but diverges in many others) or have an interest in learning about and some knowledge about other approaches, I probably would not be able to go there with an open and honest discussion about his work. (I am not saying I am a paragon of self-confidence, just that I am more so than I was 10 years ago.)
But I am also interested in this constant meme I keep hearing about “confusing” the viewer as opposed to “lifting them up”. I would like to discuss this a bit more, because I find a little ambiguity and oddness (for lack of a better word) is quite uplifting. Its a gift to experience something that gets me thinking, wondering, even confusedly. I do not feel like I am being talked down to, or madeto feel stupid, only I can do that. How could I let anything make me feel stupid? I may not be knowledgeable about a certain aspect of something but I have a brain that can research. Now that being said, I share a desire to have something almost anyone can relate to in my work. This informs the types of materials I choose. But it’s not in an effort to be accessible as much as a belief that to go to another, unfamiliar place one usually has to begin in a recognizable place. This is the process of defamiliarization.
to what end mark? why take people to other places? what places are you trying to take them?
if it is simply to take them somewhere new, i say again why? you have these opinions, but what are their end points, what morality drives them?
i may be wrong about the set of artistic ethics that drive my work, but i have them nonetheless, and i can tell people appreciate that.
the greeks thought the human form was divine, and i agree, i think recommitting to the human form in today’s world is philosophically interesting for a variety of reasons, but mostly, to be inspired to love one’s own species is a genuinely good intention, it is a simple moral notion that drives what i make.
if you use confusion in your work, that’s cool, but if you have nothing to offer as an antidote, i find it questionable. confusion can be creative if used to take someone to a higher clarity, but confusion for its own sake is a principle used by terrorists.
in response to the beginning of your comment. too broad a frame dilutes an opinion down into nothing but a picture of the world as it is, that’s not really an opinion.
yes, you are right that a person with a health self esteem, one who is confident in an artistic environment might not be alienated by art that is confusing, but what about all those people who are not familiar with art, why defamiliarize them more without a specific moral purpose? why alienate those people who might otherwise find the excitement of a truly artistic experience revelatory, by using techniques of bewilderment without a specific purpose in mind. there is something destructive in that.
for instance, i use byron’s trophy soldier’s once again. the work is confusing, somewhat unsettling, but that works to take a person, any person, and gets them to focus on an idea that is powerful and important.
i don’t think the answer is stylistic, but i think there is a set of intentions that have value, and a set that is less valuable. because art is a non-essential aspect of survival, i think it best that artists find ways to discuss in a sophisticated way its purpose and value.
akbar
I had no idea when i decided to become an artist I had to lead a flock, take an oath of chasity, thump a bible on the corner of a planned parenthood facility. Thank you Akbar for enlightening me on my sinnin’ways, now I can go forth into artistic righteouness, halleluja! Yessss Brother Akbar! You have excorsized the demons in me, the dada devils, the fluxus fornicators, the po-mo poltergeists! Praise the LAWD!!!Get behind me Duchamp! I reeepeeeennnnt!!!
Akbar and Mark, the past few comments between you both seem to be a left over discussion from many other posts talking about having some sort of defined belief system to have when making art. It does seem you both will never agree on that so maybe we should agree to disagree if that’s possible. A truce maybe.
I didn’t feel this post had anything to do with that specifically.
And isn’t it all about perspective? We’ve spoke of relativism earlier, but isn’t one’s perspective a starting point for these discussions?
Mark, I don’t think Akbar is saying that anyone is right or wrong to believe one way or another. But to have a belief in anything seems to be the concept that is continually brought back to the table.
And to me it seems you are defending your lack of belief, that lack of belief in itself is a belief system or you wouldn’t defend it so strongly. I’m reading more about atheism these days and I find it very interesting. It’s been amazingly unjustly portrayed by the media. Demonized even.
I can see why someone who doesn’t have a defined belief system (not pointing fingers cause it’s all good) would get upset when hearing others saying that they must have one and that it must be portrayed in their artwork too. The reason being is that I personally believe that most of the evils of the world are put upon us by dogma and religion. That we too often times make choices based on religion that can easily demonize the nonbeliever or another religion.
I don’t think Akbar or myself have ever preached any specific belief system when going through this discussion. The very lack of a belief system is something to believe in, and I believe that does indeed back one’s artwork if they believe that or not.
Akbar, don’t you feel it’s possible for someone to not specifically have a moral code that they use in their artwork and in doing so are actually doing nearly the same thing as someone who specifically does?
Is it not possible to believe in nothing? Especially since it all comes from nothing. One singularity made everything. So from nothing came everything. To find freedom and truth through that? And through that find love and acceptance of others? And not have to define any of it? I believe trying to define any of it is a personal journey. If one decides not to attempt to define it are they not still on the same journey? After all, it seems the more scientists know about our universe the more questions arise.
There is no dogma on globatron.
Now, can we get back to the original post or is it impossible to discuss it without having this discussion?
often, when i ask specific questions of mark about very specific claims he has made, he gets defensive. i answered his questions.
i just think that art is a sacred act, that to create something and call it art, is to ascribe a certain value to it. to not consider that value, to not answer to that value, when it is then placed out there for the world to digest, is evasive.
i do actually think that post-modernism and modernism were wonderful investigations, but we have gotten ourselves to a place where the artistic community is completely immune from the need for any ethical or moral accountability. i actually like a lot of so called ‘immoral’ artists, it’s not an old timey morality i am talking about, but a type of consciousness. there is a place for mysticism in the arts, a deep ambiguity that is tied to a certain conscious relationship with the universe, but i would not give that over easily to art where there is no indication of it. that would be like ascribing a personality to a gathering of trees.
i actually think making work that is accessible is a lot less ‘preachy’ than being obscure, and ‘defamiliarizing’ people. i actually think working at developing a language that transcends the strictly personal is an act of humility.
i think mark was trying to defend yvonne a bit, when i said ‘that’s very polite’, it was a little bit of a joke, but also, this idea that there is no right or wrong, it’s a polite idea in itself, and it exactly what this whole post is about. maybe there is no universal truth, but you know what, maybe there is a ‘right’ direction for our time, our generation, maybe there is something out there that would connect us. but it would require dialogue, and of a certain kind. there are two types of talk going on here:
1. people looking to get down into the essence of art and what it’s for.
2. and those who want to be left alone, insisting that it is anything and everything they want it to be.
there is a deep tension between these two positions. i am fine with that tension, but i cannot allow the number 2′s to swallow up the number ones in their relativism. they have a kind of power that comes from the very politeness i am calling attention to, it ostracizes the one who tries to speak up.
again, that’s kind of the point of this post.
akbar
Saucy!
I do not know much about much, but I can say this:
Byron, my apologies if some of what I say aligns with the catfight you are endeavoring to quell — I will endeavor to get past it fast.
There seems to be some confusion here between ‘agenda’ and ‘belief’
If I am reading correctly (and, as an idiota, I can only hope I am) Akbar is saying his artwork is driven by some ethical/moral code, one which he feels helps drive its impact and meaning, one which viewers appreciate as helpful in decoding the artwork and hopeful in its intent. That’s cool.
Mark, on the other hand, is suggesting an approach that begins not with a specific position it seeks to defend or support, but rather with some question or open-ended play. This, he might argue, can lead to compelling forms that might engender certain associations in the viewer’s mind which, while more open-ended perhaps, still are based upon meanings the materials of the work (and their use/transformation) might suggest. Also cool.
In both cases, what is described is more about agenda than belief.
I do not read ‘nonbeliever’ into either of those modes of practice, and am positive we could find examples of Atheists and Christians and etc practicing art in both of these and myriad other ways.
That said:
Akbar, you said “a picture of the world as it is, that’s not really an opinion.”
Do you believe that? On one hand, there is no such thing as a picture of the world as it is, only ‘as one (the artist?) sees it.’ Therefore, any reflective utterance must be rooted in a subjective view, and carry with it the perspective of its maker.
On the other hand, if we allow that this myth of an objective ‘picture of the world as it is’ be entertained for a minute, we still must contend with the fact that a picture of the world as it is, is the promise of a mirror, whose job it is to reflect; and it is reflection (upon problems, issues, etc) that leads to solutions and the possibility of a better world.
Mark, while I agree that politeness in social settings is a necessary and valuable skill, and while I further agree that it is in the work that we must put the weight of our grit, I think Akbar has a point in terms of how we interact with the world around us and how that can inform our practices as artists. Softening is a real threat, one that claims untold creative minds. I am not speaking to Yvonne’s arguments here, as they are self-evident; she is right, there is room for everyone in the pool, and everyone has a turd in their swimsuit. (Yvonne, i know i have corrupted you thoughts a bit here with my own turd twist, and i hope i am forgiven this transgression). If we do not do something to maintain some sense of resistance to the myriad ways conformity reaches out to us, if we do not take a personal stand against it, we risk becoming people who ‘remember when they used to’ rather than ‘remember to make time for’ … so while I do not advocate being a belligerent asshole under the auspices of one’s artistic temperament, I certainly do encourage equal doses of admiration for and antagonism toward the society, the life, the self, all of it. We should always try to be nice, but sometimes being nice can be trying.
Hmmmmm.
To play up one’s social resistance ‘because I am an artist and artists are supposed to do that’ seems disingenuous. Rather, be yourself, and recognize that whoever that is, it is coming out in the things you produce, be they cutting edge or derivative, gentle or brutal; you can take your hand out of it, but not your head.
Finally, someone who agrees with me that Duchamp was the devil indeed!
Mark’s work may be confusing to many, but if I walked into a gallery of 100 works by 100 Jax artists, I bet I could pick his out. There is a pattern to the work, and a pattern indicates an approach, and that is evidence of a system of belief/thought.
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It’s not religion or belief itself that brought those evils, but people’s NEED to enforce their ideas on another. Those ideas have been religious, but they have also been political (how many Russians died under Stalin’s watch) or racial (too many to list). You could dwindle that evil down a kind of perverse pride.
It kind a funny to sit here and belittle politeness, all the while depending on some level of politeness to keep this conversation from becoming a string of fruitless tirades. The best definition I come up for politeness would be the ability to tell someone something they don’t want to hear in a way that sneaks past gut reactions/snap judgments and into the rational part of people’s noggins. Otherwise, it all about who yells the loudest ….
In that light, Yvonne’s post was very polite. It reads as written by someone doesn’t live entirely for herself. Mature and patient. Has she not ‘spoken her mind’ and stood by it?
———-
Past that, there is a big difference between asking searching questions about another’s point of view and asking questions that are really thinly disguised attempts to preach. I guess preaching is just dandy as long as the right thing is being preached….
Frank, I definitely agree. Mark’s work does seem to have a system of belief or thought behind it because as you stated he’s one of the most unique artists in this town.
It just seems he’d rather have the viewer decide what the concept is versus dictating it in a project statement. But the last “Two Birds” installation had a project statement. I’m not sure what this argument is all about now personally.
As to politeness. Yes, I think we are all tip toeing around each other way too much. That we don’t say what we mean. For instance Frank, you read the “Homage to Frank” post I did the wrong way. I explained that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone by it, and listed several reasons why I did it, and it was indeed done as an invitation to come back to the site to comment. That was all true, but it was taken completely out of context. I didn’t feel the need to apologize for it as I had no intention of hurting anyone with it.
So take that for example. A post that was supposed to be a work of art was taken out of context even with a developing project statement through the thread. With that said glad you are back to commenting.
I hope it continues.
I did see Yvonne’s point how everyone has a turd in the pond as Nestor so colorfully illustrated. Nice visuals. How any artwork can be a window for someone to get interested in other forms of work. I think that’s very true. I mean we were all blank slates at one point. We gradually learn more, create more, and become more involved in this creative madness.
The reason I was speaking of religion so much is to me a belief system is what this continual debate is about and that parallels religion in so many ways. And if someone is fighting having their work specifically BE about anything then maybe that has deeper reasons.
Akbar mentioned in an earlier post questions of religion and there were maybe four responses. Yvonne included. To me personally, this post comes down to the fact that artists are more inclined to talk about the weather than religion, belief, or politics these days.
I believe that is the politeness Akbar speaks of. In a time when our creative energy could be used in so many meaningful thought provoking ways it seems artists would rather not do so because it might hurt their chances of getting in a show, making friends with the powers that be, or climbing the invisible ladder in academia.
Thanks again Frank for commenting again. I did miss your input.
Akbar, Mark, Frank, Byron, and the rest of the regulars,is there a way that we can see examples of these belief systems in some of your work? Can you put them all in one post.
nestor nailed it.
to be fully engaged in our world is not demanded of us because we are artists but because we are human. it is a calling that comes from being social creatures.
to evade that because we are artists is the lie i am seeking to expose.
the preacher thing has come up so many times i’m willing to cop to it, so there, i concede, i’m preachin, if you hate it then don’t comment. it is done in a way i think involves philosophy, that is provoking a line of questioning, that yes, has an end in mind. what you call preaching, i call socratic.
one more time, yes, we all have an opinion, but expressing that ‘as your opinion’ is like pretending to eat a sandwich.
‘my opinion is that everybody’s got an opinion!’
ok, great, that’s a real buzz kill, do you have any real opinion, or do you want to just say that my opinion, by being subjective is an affront to the rights of others to have the opinion that everybody has an opinion.
truth is, not many people have opinions, they have not done the work to have real beliefs about the world. and that is when politeness becomes a mask. i think nestor described a lot of this wonderfully. and yet, they want to engage in dialogue, they want the gold star of intellectual debate without any bruises. debate does not have to be combative, it is best when people come to it willing to defend their opinions, but also willing to yeild them when they fall due to their falsity. it’s science baby, comes from the latin word for knowledge. a lost art among us artists.
akbar
Socratic method indeed. It’s like one big merry go round. I love it though. Missed it for years. All dialogue is good but I’d like to get back to the nature of politeness. We should feel empowered to speak our minds, if it is indeed not trying to personally hurt anyone, on these subjects matters. We should not hold back. The very balance of man’s existence deserves passionate defense, not polite behavior. That should be reserved for tea parties where political contribution are being schemed up.
Also, good point Akbar how everyone doesn’t have an opinion. I think a lot of us have been zapped like zombies with the media and technology overload to a point of apathetic contentment.
I have an opinion. I believe all artwork should have a project statement. That the work should be supported by personal, social, and conscious research, etc.. That it’s fine for the viewer to come to a project and get something else out of it, but it’s great to have that project statement staring them in the eyes, sayin, but really this is what I’m trying to say to you. Listen. I enjoy that in the work I respect.
And yeah, maybe it’s a little bit preachy too. But my dad was a Reverend so I guess it’s in my blood. I don’ think it necessarily has to be preachy to have a project statement that’s backed by your belief system but I can see how it could come off that way. I’m fine with that. It makes me feel like the artist is sticking to their guns, and really sharing.
I mean art has so much power to do good for the world, but if we don’t take advantage of that power then we are just spectators, not creators.
bravo brother king!
Tying this post with all the previous discussions on “truth”, “morality”, etc, I understand and agree with you Akbar in your desire for sincerity in expressing your opinion and close parallel between your art and your morals. Thing is, openness and tolerance IS a huge part of my moral sense. Nestor correctly spelled out our different approaches, but here is another difference in how we regard each other’s approach: I respect and value your approach as being a valid creative agenda and a genuine reflection of your values (my last snarky facetious comment notwithstanding) .
For two artists to have an open and honest exchange, the bare minimum requirement is a mutual respect and understanding and making effort to find some connections. I may not incorporate the human form directly in my work as you do, but the human element exists in discarded objects like watercolor sets once used by children.
The questions you ask of me are quite valid ones. Things like” to what end?” or from what personal ethical base?” are excellent probing inquiries one would find in any excellent MFA critique seminar. But you ask these of me accusingly, like you are calling me out on some moral defect I have. You ask me not only to defend my art’s quality but its very existence. I may be overly defensive and admit there may be personal insecurities that contribute to that, but sometimes I feel like you are on a crusade against (not me personally) but the type of practice mine exemplifies. This may be a misreading, but I think it is a reasonable one given the language and tone you use (terrorist?) And if this is not an incorrect assessment then I must ask you from where does this insecurity come that causes this seek and destroy mission?
And by the way , I have absolute confidence that most members of my (our) generation (my primary intended audience) would have no problem relating to or gathering meaning from work that involves improvisation, juxtaposition, and an overall and pervasive mashing together different cultural material and references. And given the excellent complex hodge-podge of forms and imagery in your paintings, you can see that also.
yo mark, i hear you brother, i do, but you must admit that your engagement in the discussion, one i started with an obviously provocative philosophical opinion, does call your own involvement into question. you made a very short response to my post, and within that was an argument.
that’s all.
to be really frank here, and by that i don’t mean, the mysterious virtual frank, ha ha, no to be frank, i do think that you engage in these discussions, and you do so from a position, and I am absolutely consciously trying to pin you. no withholding on that. and your refusal to answer to the end expression of your work is a position, that’s all.
my opinion, and i mean this not philosophically, but i am veering into the personal, and i hope you will see this as vulnerability rather than judgment, my opinion is that this type of relationship with art has an emotional aspect to you, that perhaps has not been completely investigated. if you don’t want to go in that direction, i withdraw, but i have withheld from discussing this in order to be ‘polite’, truly.
you have mentioned in the past some bad experiences with dogma, and i think often people who have had bad experiences with dogma often confuse it with belief. i was lucky to be rather protected from dogma, in its stead i was exposed to chaos, and so belief is rather beautiful to me, and i see that all my heroes were those who acted from an explicit belief system.
anyways, i might be going off here, but i am following my intuition.
i am attracted to your art and to your thought process, but i do find it off-putting that you have no romantic notions about your art, nothing definitive that you can stand by. that would lead me away from your work, even though the experience of your work is a good one. when i like an artist it is because i can sense his/her passion and i see their works as an expression, a refined expression of a noble or high ideal, something that takes me into it, something that gives me a more sophisticated understanding of it, and thus makes me a better human being. what else am i here to consume?
akbar
i love these dialogues, it really does feed the mind and artistic process and makes an artist question and come to terms with why they make art the way they do. Nestor, no worries, I love how you express things, it’s done in a refreshing yet direct way and dare i say “polite”.
now, let me clarify a little:
i have a high tolerance for art, reasons why people do it, the way they do it, the way they don’t do it… i find myself learning something from everyone. art would be boring if we were all one type of artist/mindset. there are some people that are visionaries and some who aren’t, there are leaders and followers.. and every role has it’s importance in society.
it’s true, it’s important to believe in what you’re doing and do it to the best of your ability, otherwise, you are just taking up space. truth can be relative. the truths in my life have continued to change and evolve with every day i see, right when i think i have it figured out, God opens a whole other chapter i never saw coming. it’s a beautiful thing.
my belief system defines what i do on a daily basis, not just in my art. i stated in another post, that i believe my artistic tendencies are a gift from God and it’s my job to develop and perfect this gift and use it in a way that can bless others. if you would of asked me 20 years ago why i do art, i would of told you it’s because i like it, another 10 years later it became therapeutic for me and a release, now i’m creating because i still like to, because it’s still therapeutic, and now as an added bonus, i found a way for my work to benefit those around me. my work isn’t controversial, it’s not really tackling any major political issues, it gets well received sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t… it’s “polite” and simple.
i love the subject matter b/c it’s about my childhood and remembering the simplicity of it. all the media, commercials, tabloids, internet, over abundance of stimulus of our current time has made me withdraw some and remember when entertainment was digging a whole in the ground and discovering stuff. i’m guilty of this, but sometime we’re so engrossed by our iPhones, blackberries, or laptops that we sometimes forget to see the life that’s happening right in front of us.
i don’t believed i’ve compromised anything in my current body of work as far as subject matter, because of my lack of time, my compromises have been size, quantity, and experimenting in other media. right now, i don’t mind compromising those things, delayed gratification is how i see it. currently i’m doing a lot of the dreaded business and political side of the art world trying to get The Art Center to continue it’s forward momentum and not get off course, so it can be a benefit to our city through community outreach, education, exposure and to help in the process of getting a much needed deep root system in our city so all the efforts of all our artists will one day be fruitful.
I like Kurt’s idea of posting work that is a reflection of our beliefs.
-y
yo yvonne,
you mentioned that we are somewhat overexposed to media, an opinion, but one i nevertheless agree with. but then you talked about increasing your local community to art and outreach, which in some way increases community stimulus.
that implies that you think the arts have some innate value, which i also agree with, but have you considered how ‘the arts’ differentiates itself from media and why? how have you reconciled this tension?
in other words, it seems there is some moral value ascribed to having a healthy, thriving artistic community. i would agree with that, but i am just curious if you have a theory about that.
the idea i suppose i am getting to (full disclosure), if artists are essential to a thriving community, we also have responsibilities therefore that derive from the nature of our purpose. and i am always looking to deepen our awareness of how we, as artists, are responsible to those we serve.
akbar
Well yes there is an emotional component to my skepticism about the romanticism of art, but its also, and mainly, an intellectual reflexive one. I would be happy to explain any aspects of the end expression of my work. Question is, which one? The solutions I find surprise me in ways I could not achieve if I had a pre-formed agenda. One could say there are unifying qualities to the overall work, but that happens organically.
But all this is just part of a very common contemporary practice that is informed by the developments in art over the last 15 years or so. I guess that I have been taking it for granted that would be recognized on a blog about “contempoorary art”.
There is a lot of positive value to the language you use that would be attractive to many, especially in the critical time we find ourselves in. It sort of reminds me of the mantra right after 9-11:”Irony is dead!”, as if irony has no enlightening qualities and is completely the product of self-absorption. Thank god the comedy writers didn’t get that memo.
Here is the thing. If you want to deride my practice because it does not aspire to solve the ills of the world, fine. But answer me (queue from Kurt) on how it is your work does perform in that way? How does painting a figure on canvas.. scratch that.. how does a male artist painting female human/cyborg hybrid pictures intended to be shown in an art gallery and sold to collectors… how does this solve humanity’s ills? This has nothing to do with the quality of the work, which I respect, i think the complex design is interesting as a work in itself, but reflecting on your stated goals: objectively, how doesn’t this work fall short? Why is it that when I read some of your stated goals the picture in my head isn’t your art, but rather art made by Fritz Lang, or Harrell Fletcher, or even Barbara Kruger? Interestingly, the first two barely even consider themselves artists.
I would just like to reiterate that the rejection of a unitary utopian scheme is not cynical; it is in fact a humanitarian response to previous oppressive histories of enforced utopian agendas of one culture onto another weaker culture. The responsibility of artists is to be aware of these histories and try to not repeat.
Now, if it would satisfy you, I could pretentiously declare the moral and ethical value of my art practice in that it re-uses discarded material (green art!) and does not add more objects to our crowded world, but rather reorganizes existing materials , blah blah blah. I reject the need to make these claims not because I do not think these are worthy goals, but because I have already reflected on the hypocrisy of making a statement when I live such a waste producing life. But I ain’t patting myself on the back for being “True’ either.
oh and also, if one of the responsibilites of an artist is to speak to his or her generation (which i think it is) how does your agenda meet that responsibility?
Amen!!
Well, I guess we have pulled the polite gloves off. Now to talk art.
I was wondering when it would happen.
Ding…Ding…
The thing is, I don’t think neither Akbar or I were ever “preaching” about a specific way of making art, but rather to have something behind one’s work, as I spoke of earlier I believe in project statements, of which Mark you had one in your last show.
On a lighter note, I start chemo tonight folks. Wish me luck. I might not be in the loop for the next week as I’m supposedly going to be weak as a dog. So please keep the fire going for me.
Viva la Globatron. Now to H&R Block to do my taxes. Wonderfully fun times of a modern life. I’d love to add more but my chariot awaits.
the renaissance was not society returning all the way back to a previous time, but rather a re-gathering of some lost ideas and open-minded incorporation of them into the evolution of culture which led to some of the world’s greatest art, and the beginning of the enlightenment. although, there have been many tragedies, there have been many elements of culture i would hate to discard because of shame about humanity’s faults, that you seem to be reacting to in your resistance to think in idealistic ways.
i have never said that i think art ought to solve humanity’s ills, can someone back me up on that. rather i have been arguing that artists have become somewhat unconscious of those things that their works say. and i do think this is kind of unfortunate. in other words, the unconsidered art is not worth making.
‘taking things for granted’ is not in my opinion something that allows for a lot of conscious discovery. i would think on a site about contemporary art that one would expect an even higher level of critical analysis.
i will talk about 2 paintings that i am proud of, that represent to me the theory i am discussing. one Pangea Ultima was a work i began as a response to the scientific words that describe the eventual coming together of the continents, millions of years from now. i thought that was a beautiful metaphor for the ideal of a harmonious world. can we all still agree that harmony and peaceful human relations is a good thing? so i took images of that and because my wife was pregnant i thought that was also a great symbol for the beginning of a new world. there is a great deal of discovery in my work, for instance, i never realized that when you take the letters for the West, and East on a compass, a dichotomy that has had tension for all of human history, it makes the word WE, never thought about that. i thought that was cool. so the whole painting uses images and symbols that most people can engage with and expresses something about the world that is idealized, that asked them to hope. i think it’s inviting and uplifting. that’s all.
Post-Mondrianism is a bit more obscure in that it deals within the art world, by its play on words, i have taken a 20th century utopian painter and by painting on top of it, engaged in post-modernism. it is both a critique and celebration. it can be enjoyed by a layman, but also addresses issues within the world of art.
irony, like the comedies you talk about, is a tool, used to an end. with no end, there is no irony.
although you argue passionately, it seems you want to be free to say nothing with your work. i have never addressed any of your work specifically, i have only addressed how you speak about your work. you mention that you use discarded materials and then you undermine the value of that. it is confusing, and personally, i don’t see anything wrong with admiring artists who have a clear vision, who have ideas that they can talk about and that are open for discussion.
and why do i think this is important for our generation?
because artists, like everybody nowadays, should think a bit about the people they serve, they should think about being more open, more inviting, telling regular people why they do what they do. there is an element of arrogance, it seems to me, in saying ‘i don’t have to explain myself.’ well, then why do the politicians, the bankers, the cops, why are they all asked to be accountable to making the world better, and artists can be free from any of it. i think it makes us better artists when we are charged with the hearts and souls of our fellows.
i have answered your question, and i still do not know why it is valuable for you to ‘defamiliarize’ someone, why do you do that? what purpose does that serve? what do you find upsetting about the familiar?
akbar
Okay, I have a moment before I take my seizure medication and my first dose of CHEMO tonight. I’m excited. I couldn’t stay away long.
Here goes,
I think by chance that some have confused what Akbar has been attempting to do through these exercises in Socratic method and some of my earlier ramblings on the site way before he was even involved.
I mean we are friends, good friends, but we are not the same person. Although that would be interesting.
I voiced many times in the past that the work I really appreciated was work that was trying to say something and say it in a BIG way. That addressed BIG issues, such as war, famine, poverty, education, the environment, etc. And you all know my work tends to address such issues so that makes good sense that I would support work that is socially aware and conscious. One of my favorite classes in college was Social Problems, so I suppose that makes sense my work would go that direction.
Now since then Akbar has gotten engaged with the site and he has tried to engage dialogue. The dialogue has been about personal belief systems, ideals, and above all truth. And I don’t think that was ever to force a personal view of the type of art he or any of us should appreciate, but more so a working method as artists we should appreciate by being aware of those ideals in our artwork. Defining those ideals are a personal journey we all have to come to terms with in our lifetime one way or another. This does parallel my thoughts on art also and I’ve supported his questioning and efforts at this engagement 100 percent. So maybe in my supporting these exercises has come the confusion that this was about supporting a specific type of work. To me it has never been about that.
Never through any of this did anyone state that artwork MUST be political, or pushing an agenda that is out to save the world. I believe we’ve all had moments where we’ve reflected on how dire the times are and how art could easily and possibly reflect those times, not that it should. But that it could. And what would that do? Mean?
What I’ve gotten through all of this is that artists should have an awareness in their work. They should be conscious of what they are doing. That alone is what I’ve pulled from all of this and I agree completely with that. Now there are different levels of consciousness. A jazz saxophonist might be in a mist of awareness. Floating and swimming in his/her head as they collaborate with the drummer and guitar player. Or they might be directly improvising off notes that they’ve heard years ago when that same lick was played.
Nevertheless there is an unmistakable level of awareness in the music or the “Sound & Vibe” to the ear would be offensive to most. A note misplayed is a note misplayed. It lacks a certain awareness and it is unmistakable and can not be faked. Now I’m not a musician but I tried to make an analogy that would help parallel this ongoing discussion that I’ve been having with you all and myself about awareness in one’s work.
And to bring it back to the situation we are currently living in, is it too much to ask artists to be aware of what they are doing? That seems like an easy enough request to ask. I hope that clarifies this a bit.
Wish me luck.
Defamiliarization is a term that refers to the artistic tactic of taking something familiar, something that can be immediately perceived and comprehended, and putting that into a context that is unfamiliar. The goal of this is to prolong the experience of the perception and/or to create a new/interesting/poignant reading of that familiar thing.
Its one of them artsy fartsy words that has nothing to do with tricking people or being an artist that just wants to confuse for the sake of confusing. Its based on the idea that new experiences invigorate the mind and invite the viewer to think anew about something and perhaps take that experience into their perception of other familiar objects/ideas/etc. Probably as much bogus crap as being “charged with the hearts and souls of our fellows”. When is your evangelical church opening?
Obviously, I am a skeptic about the Art “program”. What i mean is, I lost the faith a long time ago of art as a foundational, intrinsic, noble human activity, and using that rationale as my beacon thru this “life of Art.” Now, I do feel that human “creativity” is a foundational, intrinsic, noble human activity . And before you ask “what is the diff?, please allow me:
Art is to creativity as Thai food is to eating, where “Art” is always supplanted by a specific form that would be considered ideal for the task (i.e. medium specificity, i.e. primacy of painting, etc.) . Another analogy would be a priest who studied all the religions of the world and could no longer believe in God because of the absurdity of singular truth, but still remains in the priesthood because he does see the value of his daily activities and recognizes the repetition of these activities across all of these various religions.
Really, I have just described the attitude of much of the artists practicing within the last thirty years or so. Even if they would not describe it that way, it is the pervasive paradigm since autonomous, medium-specific, and formal/reductivist theory of artmaking went by the wayside once a whole confluence of intellectual and historical shit happened that led to the realization of the context- dependent contingency of the art-making process and the fugitive nature of meaning. I know that sounds like a lot of bullshit mumbo-jumbo intended to pretentiously keep the masses continually confused and folks like me feeling superior. Sometimes people do use this language for that purpose and they are assholes. But one can settle and relax in those time-honored, understandable armchair ideas of the Renaissance, wrap themselves in the Snuggie of the divinity of human form, but that is not going to result in anything relevant to today, here, now, aqui.
And there is why I will always lose this argument. Because Akbar gets to use all those understandable art-historical referents and good-feelin’ words like “hearts” and “fellows” and “inviting” and “idealistic”. What do I get left with? Frakking “defamiliarization” and “contingency”! Jeez, you’d think I was the Unabomber or something.
So I concede and salute you Akbar and your beautiful metaphors of the ideal of a harmonious world. I am going to go back into my clueless, dark, murky world where you’ll find me blindly flailing around cuz I obviously do not know what the hell I am doing. lets see..where did i put those gumballs?
But before I do that I will take the time to wish Byron a very, very easy and comfortable treatment and those chemicals swift, definite precision!!
In an earlier post, Mark commented:
“I believe there is wisdom in uncertainty. I believe great insight can come from serendipity and reflection upon that serendipity. I believe that my sensibilities do express themselves in judgments, but since my sensibilities are open, inclusive, accepting of chance, cognizant of context, and hyper-aware (on good days), my discriminatory judgments are utilized within a broad, seemingly ambiguous field rather than a narrowly defined set of parameters.”
In an earlier post, Akbat commented:
“It seems i am eliminating a lot, and that is true. i find the world to be a fascinating, wonderful, interesting place, but i choose very few things to call art, i save that word, for the most special things i see. they are neither activism, or aestheticism or play, they are a little bit of all and something even more, they represent the depth and wonder of the universe itself, a true reflection.”
The chasm between the two seems to be the need for Mark to escape “narrow parameters” and Akbar to create a “true reflection.” As a result, I think Mark’s approach requires a very fluid artist statement so the work can take advantage of serendipity and Akbar’s approach demands a more rigid technique so the work can mirror an idea beyond the physical boundaries of the work. With that in mind, I can see what can be seen negatively as “haphazard” in Mark’s explanation and what can be seen as “fanatical” in Akbar’s. It’s an interesting comparison when noted that both people take what they do seriously. I have some attraction to both ideas. I’d go so far to say this difference in idea can be seen comparing Eastern painting with European, Impressionist with Academy, and so on… May this is an older argument that Contemporary Art. Perhaps it has more to do with bents of personality than art history.
Akbar, I may be off base here, but the ‘Art Laws’ posts seemed to be all about defamiliarization. – taking ideas that have become route and re-evaluating thing under the microscope of each others opinion. In other words, I see defamiliarization as an attempt to take nothing for granted.
Byron, thinking about the Homage, the rearranging of comments I’ve made in that post, and the fact that someone was posting as ‘Frank” that was obviously not me, strikes me a unnecessarily antagonistic or at least weird. I would not say my feelings about these things are hard, but they are suspicious, regardless of stated intentions. There is a lot to say about intentions, like “the road to hell are paved with the best of….”
yo Mark,
nobody forced you to engage in this dialogue. this method for evaluating an idea has a history that stretches from socrates, through thoreau. your insistence that i am somehow a religious weirdo reflects badly upon you. it is an unsophisticated response to an attempt to discuss openly and rationally the nature of art in the 21sts century. the world of belief is vast and includes everything from someone believing sports is good for children to believing discoveries in physics reveal a deep consciousness in the universe. it is a small minority of belief that can be seen as fanatical, and your implication that I fall into that is an emotional response, that oddly enough is kind of fanatical.
you engaged early on and I argued a slightly different point of view. and in your last comment you express some of your own beliefs, then you dismiss them, your own beliefs as ‘bogus crap’ and as a matter of consistency you go on to include mine as ‘bogus crap.’
i am not the one fixated on stylistic concerns in this debate. i like artwork that looks a lot of different ways, however, i do believe artists ought to have a set of beliefs, that change, but nevertheless drive their expressions.
you are the one insisting that my particular artistic choices are ‘not going to result in anything relevant to today’ and yet in the same comment, you say you’ve lost faith in the art ‘program.’ i am sorry to hear that you ‘lost the faith a long time ago of art as a foundational, intrinsic, noble human activity’ but as socrates would say to the sophists, you are the one getting paid as an art professor. how do you reconcile that contradiction?
do you see yourself as a subversive force within that institution? that is something that demands a heck of a lot of consciousness.
in your comment you once again argue both for the value of causing a frustration of people’s artistic expectations, and you simultaneously argue against doing that for its own sake. at some point you must decide which one you believe, they are absolutely opposing beliefs. for somebody who is skeptical about the art ‘program’ you have a list of gallery shows, you are an art professor, your artwork includes items from traditional artistic endeavors. i have no problems with your stylistic choices, i just think your arguments are a bit contradictory and emotional. how can that serve you?
if you believed that ‘defamiliarizing’ had innate value, that would allow you to make a consistent argument, i could make it for you. but, to try and hold onto both sides of the argument is a linguistic impossibility.
as frank said in his last comment, i do use defamiliarization, the difference is that i have a specific purpose behind it. i do not believe my beliefs are supreme, but they are my beliefs and until i am convinced otherwise i will argue for them, that is the only way debate works.
to respond to frank, it sounds, as of yet, that you have yet to take a position in this argument, although you have described both sides well. i take this to mean we are neck and neck. i would like to point out that bringing up an old argument between you and byron is also antagonistic.
akbar
Frank, I missed your analysis. Great side by side.
I have welcomed you back to the site, but I can’t control your perceptions of me or my creative work, and will not be held hostage to them. My intentions were plainly spelled out for that post, and if you can’t accept that then so be it. I don’t think bringing up your perceptions from a post from several weeks ago has anything to do with this post unless you want to tie it together.
For instance, I do believe I did speak my mind with that post. I wasn’t intentionally impolite, but I wasn’t worrying about what others were going to think before doing it also. I needed the creative freedom to do that, and that’s how I work with my artwork. Otherwise I wouldn’t be free to create as I do. Which is as you stated seems “weird”, and I’m fine with that. Weird is something I take as a compliment now. I’ve worked very hard and been through a lot to be authentically weird and I wear weird as a badge of honor now. Thank you.
As far as the other Frank, he had some great input and I enjoyed his thoughts on truth also. And I agree with Akbar, bringing that post up again seems antagonistic, especially after my welcoming you back.
well this a book now put it out on lulu sell to somebody neeeds nude pictures everyone on the toilet taking a shit…
i could read that a few different ways morrison, but it made me laugh!
Akbar, I don’t see this as an issue of ‘truth’ that warrants taking a side, as if it is a debate to be won or lost. It may be an argument, but it is one without end. There are many things in life I see as black and white, right or wrong. Personal approaches to art is not one of them. Quite frankly, I see Mark’s ideas as being entirely true to who he is and yours the same. Furthermore, both views play off well together, emphasising each other’s strenghts in the big scheme of things.
The vaulted Socratic method here seems to be used to find out which PERSON is ‘right’ versus finding the ultimate truth behind the points of views. The more this goes on, the more it reads like Mark’s statements are being analyzed by you not to find the underlining truth, but to prove yourself more righteous. That is how is strikes me, if I’m miss reading your motivations, I apologize, but since we are no longing tiptoeing ‘round, I must say it.
Byron, I was responding to your comment on this post that brought up your intentions. Again, since we were not tiptoeing around AND this post is/was about politeness as weakness, I wanted to respond. Simply that. I wonder if the other Frank ‘intended’ to post using my name… If you want, we can take that part of the conversation to e-mail. That would be cool.
hey frank,
i merely asked you to veer away from description to share what opinion makes the most rational sense to you. which has become a taboo, a defended taboo in this ongoing debate. your insistence on describing both sides of the debate is itself a kind of relativity defense, and that’s cool but it is not a conscious defense, it is the kind of political correctness I am attempting to deconstruct.
your reading of righteousness again, that is a religious reference. i am guessing that has more to do with your experience than mine. i have merely pointed out what i see as contradictions in an argument.
as i have sought to put forth a philosophy on this site, Mark has made an effort to resist it, and i think that’s great, he has a position, and i am merely doing my best to defend my feeling that artists ought to be consciously engaged with meaning as an element. he has made comments consistently in some corrective measure on my philosophical posts, so we are engaged in a debate. I am comfortable with debate, and i don’t see why that makes me seem righteous. let’s not be naive, i want to win him over, i want to convince him that his art would be augmented by a conscious engagement with the meaning he is expressing. that does not mean i don’t respect him or his decision to do otherwise. i like Mark, when i went to art school, we argued passionately about art, and we put our art up on the wall and allowed it to be fought over, and that was really helpful for me.
as far as what i said regarding your antagonism frank, i have no problem with it, but it seems you and byron are having a debate of sorts too, and i see your engagement as much as i see his. i think this comes down to, for all 4 of us, a feeling about whether art ought to be a matter of debate, or if we ought to be free to share our thoughts without crossing over. that is a valid discussion, if it is fact an item of interest, but it seems a part of the underlying discussion.
akbar
i feel weird jumping in now since there’s been a few tangents, but i wanted to respond to akbar’s questions:
“…that implies that you think the arts have some innate value, which i also agree with, but have you considered how ‘the arts’ differentiates itself from media and why? how have you reconciled this tension?”
this was a harder question to answer than i thought. i practically wrote a book initially and deleted the whole thing b/c i realized i was going in circles, so i decided to take a break and really think about the response. there are artists working for the media so there is a definite artistic element to a lot of media/commercial outlets ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWJ7iVbKRj8 ) and in the same token, many artists are using their work to sell themselves, by having a website, showing in a gallery, selling t-shirts etc. i think there’s a definite crossover, the difference being that the media has lots of money and lots of access to regurgitating their product while most artists are struggling & the exposure is minimal in comparison. That is of course, until you become a Thomas Kincaid, then most artists roll their eyes at his success, possibly because he’s reached media status(?) i think the basic fact that most artists do what they do despite not being lucrative, working primarily on passion and drive and a thirst for creating is what differentiates us from the media. in addition, the media is simply an outlet for someone else’s belief or product or story. someone else is hired to create imagery to convince others. it’s a third party creating the image, generally not first party. while an artist generally believes in what their creating, therefore making it a first party creation, directly from the believer to the canvas (or paper, stone, whatever).
i believe an artist is born to be an artist, it’s innate. we know when we’re full of it, when we’re selling out, when we’re settling, and when we are being true to what we’re doing. For myself, i look at what i’ve determined is the reason i create my art, besides being born with the desire; i get much fulfillment from the process; i enjoy my subject matter and creation of it; i’m able to give back to my community and be a benefit to others. i believe only the artist truly knows the reason and value of their work and when others like it or respond, that’s the icing on the cake.
“.. if artists are essential to a thriving community, we also have responsibilities therefore that derive from the nature of our purpose. and i am always looking to deepen our awareness of how we, as artists, are responsible to those we serve.”
i think one of the great things we have going for us as artists is that we create something visual, it appeals to the senses (this goes for music, dance, poetry, etc. also) but unlike some of the arts, visual art can be anywhere, to me, it seems more accessible than most other arts and the interpretations are endless.
i think most all of us can agree that anyone can learn to draw, paint, sculpt, etc, some better than others, but in general it can be taught, but being good at the craft isn’t what necessarily makes us artists, it’s only a part of it. teaching those who don’t have that natural desire, will in turn give them a taste and a better appreciation of what it means to be an artist and in the process help with cognitive & motor skills and it’s a safe and fun way for people to express themselves. sorry, i know that part just sounded like an infomercial but it’s true.
even in a basic decorative sense the amount of benefit a beautiful work brings to a place can make a huge difference to an environment, art can be extremely uplifting, thought provoking, inspirational… who wouldn’t want that in their lives? everything in our lives seems to have an artistic element from mother nature all the way to the skyline of a city… to be a part of that creation is an amazing feeling. my older sister recently started taking a mosaic class, she’s using one of my paintings as a template and it’s funny to hear her describe the struggle of picking the right tiles, colors, placement… but every step she reaches is expressed as a major accomplishment on her part. there’s a sense of pride that comes with it. her day job is hectic and she’s found a way to quietly get away, just her and her mosaic.
i’ve done a few murals around jax, both indoor & outdoor, and the response to the murals are amazing. art really does lift people’s spirits. to go from walking by a blank wall everyday on your way to your office to smiling every time a work catches your eye… how many kids get in trouble b/c they’re board and can’t think of anything to do? to me it’s a bonus all around.
now, as far as what you guys have been spatting about: i think it’s important live your life with purpose. not that it has to be a divine purpose or world changing purpose, but just a purpose. otherwise, you’re just taking up space. the same goes for art. even if your purpose is to bible thump or to go green, regardless of what the purpose is, as long as it has a purpose that you believe in is what’s important.
-y
Akbar, I can’t answer that question with the parameters set with respect of who is more rational.
They both make equal sense to me, when each of you explain your ‘whys.’ I do not believe anyone starts out sitting in a room, plotting out their life’s philosophy and then takes strict action in accordance to those ideas forever. I think people live their life, based on how they were raised and their individual experiences. After a while, that person begins to search out the hows and whys, and THEN creates a concrete statement of how life ought to be or decides on a belief system. I would hold anyone under age 65 who said “this is how it is” with suspicion, as life’s experiences have yet to put a person’s ideas to the long term test. On a lesser scale, the same applies to art.
With that said, I think the differences between you two is a continuation of the Apollo/Dionysus contrast. Your ideas being the former, Mark for the latter. It’s a long standing contrast and will likely never be completely reconciled regardless of eloquent debate because it has so much to do with personality.
There is a fluidness to Mark’s view that is a direct result of his experiences I do respect. I may not share much with his views, but I can’t fault him either.
If you were to ask me which idea do I feel closer to, I would say you and I have more points of contact with our ideas overall, although where we diverge, we diverge greatly.
again, frank, it’s a bit polite, and i respect that, but at least you showed your cards a little. it’s so refreshing to see a real live opinion out there, bravo.
i think the great thing about diversity is the ability to really express our opinions, and to argue about them, to refine them. i agree there is a mystical apollo/dionysus division within humanity, but there are so many traditions that seek a unity, and i believe that harmony between these two drives is what makes us whole.
i agree with Yvonne, she seems also to be saying that having some purpose in your actions is a categorically ‘good’ thing. i think i’m reading that right.
i think the world will be asking more and more for people to account for themselves, for values. in times of crisis the conflict over values becomes acute. if Mark believes artists ought to have creative freedom, that they ought to be immune from explaining themselves, that is a valid argument, but i have not exactly heard him argue for that, even though I think in some way it is implied in his mode of engagement.
i know it seems like a spat to others, to me this is just an intellectual discussion about art. i have had so many of these, it is weird to me that it gets emotional for others. akbar is an avatar i created. i am not seeking to prove Mark wrong in any way, i am simply confused about his motivations.
akbar loves mark forever
hey back at ya Akie…
I have had a cold the past few days and it must’ve kezoinked my brain er something cuz just re-reading some of my comments i realize I have been all over the place. Like I said I respected your methods as valid in one comment and dis them in another. I am really sorry and ashamed! Note to self: snot and blogging, not a good mix. Also, my internet feed has been spotty resulting in some quick less considered responses.
But, I think some of my emotion came from a point in the conversation where you asked of my process, “to what end?” and suggested i need a “morality” to drive the work. You have to admit this is a bit more accusatory than Byron’s understandable request that artists have a conscious understanding of their process (something I feel I have demonstrated time and again). So can you not see where I would infer that you were trying to quell some deeper front-end meaning to my overall work? And how I could misconstrue this to mean there should be some engagement with uplifting and moral issues? What i am suggesting here is that your line of questions (while interesting and valid) added up to more than just a request that I have some self-awareness of what it all represents. And if I reflect on your “Art Laws” posts, I infer that not only should my motivations be apparent they should also be derived from consensus (of which I have been trying to say is a killer of artistic creativity). Just because I question the need for artists to declare shared values (only in terms of making art) does not mean I am some nihilist.
Anyway, what I really took offense to was this insinuation that I am clueless and my work is bereft of any worthwhile core meaning. Listen, I know that you know how an artist’s engagement with and understanding of the work develops and evolves over time and happens on many different levels. I think the misunderstanding stems from the fact that over time (a long time) I have developed a process of art making that involves dealing with material, context, form and content, the later usually making its entrance at the back-end. And there is this conflation of my disparate forms and intuitive, improvisational style that may seem simply like “free expression”. Fact is, although I rely on aspects of improvisation to get at a “surprise”, its deployment has more to do with the fact that my work is always questioning the particular status of art and things like “free expression” that permeate the mythic regard for art process. My art is always about itself, the danger being (which I am well aware of) is overly navel-gazing. This is where a more considered approach comes into play with material choices and contextual responses- the intention that it may be about more than itself as well.
The other confusion has to do with my particular regard for and understanding of the viewer’s involvement. I am firmly wed to the idea of the “emancipated spectator” and I am always suspicious of any role on my part of a unitary author able to deliver a clear, unmediated message. The viewer plays an active, vital role that I cannot deny and should respect in that I am not enforcing a type of response, a smile, a frown, or a long, detailed conversation or action.
So, my work has taken this course that I well aware of but not forcefully trying to fit it into a program other than a continuation of its own evolutionary trajectory.
But I have really enjoyed this back-n-forth, despite my snot filled head getting in the way.
oh, i forgot i also wanted to respond this question:
i am sorry to hear that you ‘lost the faith a long time ago of art as a foundational, intrinsic, noble human activity’ but as socrates would say to the sophists, you are the one getting paid as an art professor. how do you reconcile that contradiction?
I reconcile that by saying that attitude would certainly be problematitc if this were 1959. But, it is now a standard part of questioning art’s role and efficacy, an often unstated but widely understood part of my job description.
By the way, great insight Yvonne and Frank! Not too shabby there either, Byron!
yo mark, your description of your process was beautiful, and i work in a very similar way, gathering materials, overlaying symbolisms and hoping for surprising new levels of readings. but i do pick those materials for reasons that reflect certain ideals that I am working to not only understand, but express my longing for.
in your last 2 comments you are clearer than ever (and i’m sorry you were sick, those comments were a bit confusing, but that’s the past already, we’re moving on), anyways, you were very clear that your conscious purpose in your work has to do with questioning art itself, that’s awesome, that’s kind of what i was looking to confirm. i know that you hope that the meanings will logarithmically accumulate, and I think they do, becoming metaphorically of all kinds of stuff, but the specificity of your interest in critiquing aspects of art and its place in society is something I am totally with, you get me. and in the narrow confines of an art contemporary site, i invite you to discuss your own narrow experience of the meaning of your work without the danger of polluting the pure viewer.
you know, in some weird way, we are both considering the viewer. i was listening to a psychology podcast last night, and i think a few of you know it is an interest of mine. anyways, there are two kind of directions a psychologist can go in therapy, the leading kind and the directed kind. i was listening to a podcast about Lacan. I did not know a lot about him until last night, and his method was very directive, utilizing the authority of the therapist to move the patients creatively and quickly into a place of creative consciousness about their issues. his work is criticized as overpowering, dominating, but many find it efficient and ultimately good for the patient. and in some way, as you can guess i sympathize with this Lacanian perspective, i think we are seeing the viewer in these opposing ways. does that make sense?
my point in bringing up these tensions is not to prove mine right and yours wrong, but to come to a greater middle ground, and thus create unity. that’s what i’m about, seriously. is there a middle ground between respecting the universality of the viewer and exercising the kinds of artistic authority that many viewers appreciate and find comforting? i don’t know.
but that is a bit of a digression. i am interested also in your critique of art and its ‘mythic’ place in society. what are some of your opinions about that? have you come to any conclusions in your query. maybe you could turn them into provocative posts for further dialogue. that is what i read when i look at your work, i see it, and i guess my provoking you has to do with wanting to take that into language, what it is you are saying to me in your work, about childhood materials, play and the artworld. a lot of tension there.
do you resist talking about it because you feel it could disrupt your artistic process? like talking dirty in the bedroom…bad analogy, but i think you get it, if that’s true, that’s cool. just because i find discussing art philosophically good for my process, does not mean i think that it is the way it should be.
i really hope the others on this site will allow me to argue passionately without seeing me as a zealot, because if you continue to do so God will punish you in the form of lightning, he he.
akbar has spoken, mark is healthy again, praise Allah!
Hmm, in terms of talking about the work, what tripped me up (other than snotness and my snottiness) was a struggle between competitive languages where an unequal distribution of value was assigned to certain words and phrases. Conveying my thoughts was like giving a recipe for roasted duck but it sounding like a helping of toasted muck.
So this issue of to lead or to direct. I think there is something convenient in my supposition that, as an artist, I am not burdened by a univocal responsibility. But, then again, this dynamic where the artist creates unexpected ways for the viewer to engage becomes a responsibility in itself.
So the middle ground I propose is that the option to lead or direct the viewer is a large open spectrum within which an artist can work. I don’t think that part matters as long as there is a space open for reconsideration and critique. That is the basis for why I try to create “something new” for the viewer to experience. It comes from an understanding that with traditional forms comes apriori associations that can be exploited/subverted or taken for granted. I try my best to do the former because by doing that there is at least an interpretive space where I have no control because the viewer has to diverge from expected modes of reception. So that process is both leading and directing.
yo mark, with you 100 percent.
here are a few stretching questions.
1. the apriori associations is assumed, therefore ascribed to the viewer a bit more than i see as feasable, and i know you are trying not to do that. i am not questioning you, but rather the theoretical dynamic of how an artist considers the audience, since we are both talking about that explicitly now.
2. and what would the grounds of ‘consideration or critique’ be? obviously, i have the comfort of my ethical system. so i am asking, not attacking, with your more open relationship with art’s end goals, is there room for shared consideration or critique, and what are they grounded in?
what i read from your comments is a value placed on ‘newness’ or something that surprises one’s expectations.
either way, when discussing the theoretical ‘viewer’, we are both framing that viewer in a power relationship. and i don’t mean exploitive, but this theoretical dynamic between creation/expression and the sharing, the experiencing other. that is problematic for me, and i don’t mean problematic on your end, but problematic in the sense of the discussion.
thank you for respecting me and sharing your perspectives with me. i guess this is the artistic version of intimacy.
one more thing, could you please tell us about one of your pieces that represent an artistic success in your mind, and how you have evaluated it, and why it is successful in your thinking?
akbar
I think I can try to answer everything by saying that this open space the artist leaves for the viewer isn’t a formless one, there still must be some place a viewer can hang her hat. An artist can create a certain space for a certain type of viewer by making visible (or sensed) the knowable or perceivable conditions of the making and reading of an object. Traditional art is better equipped to provide these formed, knowable spaces but not as good at creating open ones. But, really that is relative and not necessarily undesirable.
That open space is the point of engagement after confusion sets in. So confusion should never stay that way IF an engagement happens. An invitation is made, and if the confusion leads to dismissal- no go. This is why artists are crazy, by subjecting ourselves to this constant vulnerable situation (this is why I laugh when I hear contemporary art is made to make viewers feel dumb when it usually makes the artist feel rejected). But here’s the thing: the artist must share in the confusion for it to be authentically confusing. So the dynamic between the creation, sharing and experiencing is equally distributed. The artist has as much option to dismiss the confusion as the viewer, and the viewer has as much option to explore the unknown as the artist.
The reason why it is important for artists to be aware of the conditions and development of their practices isn’t so those conditions can be competently repeated ad infinitum. It’s so that the artist can redraw the boundaries and open up spaces of confusion for oneself.
My most successful work is whatever achieves the above most effectively, I am not sure if I can discern that, but let me think on it.
Related question for you tho: what was a recent breakthrough moment?
I really like reading this discussion. I would like to see
specific visual examples of the various points that are made on all
sides. Isn’t that why we are all here?
yo mark,
i am interested in the primacy (to use one of your words), i’m not being sarcastic, the value you place on confusion. if i am reading it right, it sounds like the idea is about stretching boundaries, and so there is a calling upon the artist to stretch his/her own, in this way it reminds me of intimacy. like when a musician is really lost in the music, surrenders to it, the audience feels it. is that a good reading?
just to remain critical. the stretching of boundaries requires some set of expectations. your work therefore, when engaged in this specifically, has a certain relationship with knowledge of art. but that is an aside, and not exactly accurate if you engage in the same exact exercise taking this into account. kind of like when scientists accommodate for the placebo affect in their research.
to dig deeper, the idea of confusion does operate as a means in your description. i am either wanting you to defend the value of confusion, or take me to the ends of that tool. this is an invitation, not an attack.
all of this would be helped by you pointing out this process in one of your pieces.
to answer your question about breakthroughs. i can tell you what i struggle with constantly. in 20th century painting there was a focus on the surface of the canvas, a kind of existential acceptance of it. that was good, and it was America’s contribution to conceptualism in painting. and because i am an American I really inherit that very naturally. so, it is quite difficult for me to create images where the action does not take place very close to the picture plane. and so, as I struggle to resurrect classical ideas (as a post-modern practice, not as a craftsperson), as i struggle to build robots out of memes, if you catch my drift, i find myself dealing with the 20th century ‘in your face’ relationship with the surface. and so the struggle for depth could be interpreted in many ways, get me. anyways, i have yet to fully satisfy my desire for penetration, if you don’t mind me talking a bit dirty. at heart i am a mystic, and i see painting as exciting exactly because it has been done for so long, because it feels impossible. and so, that is a breakthrough I am searching for. i feel that Pangea Ultima was a breakthrough simply because it represented the most completely unified philosophy in one painting that i have yet to achieve.
anyways, there is some of my process.
btw, it is great to hear raw opinions from you. loving it.
akbar
That’s a good point Jim. I don’t think visuals are the main reason we are discussing this but it does help. I have a web site that has all my visual examples neatly categorized with project statements for nearly all of them.
So when I speak of my work I generally feel someone would reference my web site for examples. The two projects I have shown recently, both have web sites too that have project statements that go with them.
http://www.trophysoldiers.com has an about page.
http://www.byronking.com/polarbrokers has a statement on the third page.
Thos are my examples.
As most of you know currently I’m developing the alter-ego Globatron. I feel completely liberated by video/performance art. That project is here.
http://byronking.com/portfolio/portfolio/globatron
Now in all three projects, I am very aware of what I’m doing. With globatron it might be more open to interpret, but there’s a general theme running throughout. I enjoy that in work. Coming to it knowing the artist is conscious of what they are doing. I enjoy it when artists have the gumption of laying it down and saying, this is what it’s about. Be free to read it how you want, but this is what I was attempting to accomplish.
Like that NPR series, This I Believe. There is real power in that series, and I think there is real power in standing behind something and saying, right here, right now, this is what I believe.
And for a current belief of mine:
I’ve struggled with the value of art as a commodity for some time. I believe there is a lot of ego in pricing artwork to sell. Placing a price tag on an object. Standing around during an opening and waiting for someone to buy it. I believe money has diluted the whole process, like it does most processes. I wish we could make art without thinking if someone would buy it or not. If we all did that I can’t imagine what type of art we’d all make. So here goes…. This I believe, if artists could distance themselves from money we could truly change the world.
A Review of Pangea Ultima by Ken Vallario
by Nestor Armando Gil
The references of style and palette to surrealism in Pangea Ultima by Ken Vallario will be set aside for a moment and we will begin with a reading of the picture itself. Centered on a canvas of well controlled blues is the form of a human woman, idealized here as life-giver, mother figure, which must be viewed with an eye toward the long history of gaya-image that has accompanied image making since its earliest days. This reference is further supported by the background of the painting, a triptych of sorts made of Earth maps, again alluding to gigantic histories, to geologic time, to the once and future mega-continent. The work enters metaphor, as the additional images on the picture plane gain relevance, of an ultimate coming together, not only of the continents, but of the people, of the cultures, of humanity. Here the details and the connection to surrealism come into play. An angel heralding a new day on a trumpet, the direction markers W and E, the flowers rising on the right side of the canvas, almost as though given life by the godhand of the central figure, the pregnant mother, poised to give birth to this future, to this unity.
Images that reference the dominance of reason, of science, its potential to assist in moving us toward this utopian Someday, are represented through the cyber-aesthetic, as well as the geometric forms that float (surrealistically) in the background. One assumes the V is a reference to the artist’s surname, and possibly to the continuing of that name through his offspring. The palette, the treatment of colors with and against one another, again reference surrealism, as opposed to other ‘superflat’ movements in 20th century painting. The broken stool, a clever choice, suggests some tension, perhaps a breaking away from the present to rise to the utopian future.
The metaphor of the work is romantic in the human sense, but might be read as problematic if viewed through the lens of contemporary theories that would address the position given to Whiteness, to Western cultural icons, to Judeo-Christian religious symbologies, as the image of the utopian unified future. Will that human that is a blending of all humans have such fair skin? Will the text in which it communicates be English? Be Christian? To simply say, “It’s not about that,” cannot suffice, since a reading of the work in this way is in fact defensible.
All of this shows that while there may be some profound ideologies at work in this painting, they actually revolve around a personal experience of the world; and the work’s references might be more (even better) connected to the phenomenon of fatherhood as experienced quite personally than to any larger social discourse. In fact, as a painting that exhibits the tumult and pride, the wonder and hope, of a new father as he faces the raising of his child in the world as-it-is and dreams of a world as-it-could-be, Pangea Ultima works beautifully. It is when viewed as a comment in social terms, on the possibilities for our whole humanity, that its exclusions ring out and cause question as to just what this utopian future would look like, and what strategies it would be necessary on the part of those historically in power to propagate that future, to continue that hegemony that would render such a homogenous tomorrow.
Mr. Vallario handles his medium with remarkable skill, as told by the digital images available to this reviewer. The control of light, of color, and the overall style render a delicious surface, one that is seductive and engaging in its own right. His painting is a pleasure to look at. One would look forward to a series of journalistic paintings on the mysteries of parenting or other personalized life wonders.
yo nestor, that was beautiful, a wonderful gift to an artist to have a thoughtful person read it so completely. i thank you.
to honor your thoughts i would simply like to respond to your valid criticisms that come from late 20th century cultural relativism, a very valid repositioning of our consciousness in how we think about race, ethnicity and culture. i do think that the future is for white people, he he, just kidding.
no, seriously, when looking at the race question, as an artist, one must accept that a figurative painter is forced to make these decisions, but what decision am i to make as a white guy? nobody has really addressed this question adequately, and I certainly have not in my work. so i am open for suggestions. in my work More Than I Could Have Imagined the two female figures have very chocolaty skin, and I enjoyed doing that. but we are living in a time where the racial question is changing, globalism is demanding us to expand our thinking about it. and white people, in this new world will become a minority, i have no problems with that, it will simply change the conversation a bit. frankly, having grown up spending more of my youth with non-white people, i feel a deep inner conflict about race. for instance, having so much connection with black people in my youth, i feel rather disconnected from that part of myself that identifies with black culture. i am really rambling now, way off topic, but in some way i think this is my opportunity to talk about these issues.
point being, i chose a white chick in honor of my wife, not her color. i am not being defensive, rather i think it is an important conversation to have, but I rather suspect that in the end i no longer have the same historical power, as a white male that I once had, certainly not over my wife, ha ha.
thank you nestor, it really was a wonderful reading,
akbar
Great point Jim, examples are very helpful. I think I want to offer the example of the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres:
here
Many of his works exemplify this ideal of combining simple, definite gestures with openness to viewer interaction. His stacks or fields of candies for example were “portraits” of friends using the mass of candy to mimic the weight of the person. The viewer is invited to take a peice of candy and do with it whatever they want. And it is by their choices that determines the message, if the viewer keeps it it signifies perhaps a memorial, if she eats it it signifies a sacrifice. Even the choice to take a piece determines the resulting meaning since it is by taking them that the metaphor of death (esp as it relates to AIDS)is conveyed.
And again we see a wonderful example of the familiar (candy, the convention of a “portrait”, the idea of a series, etc.) used in a defamiliarized why to bring poignancy. There is ambiguity that is lessened only by the actions of the expereiencer. Harold Bloom said poetry does not ease anxiety, it is the anxiety.
The idea of someone really putting a lot of thought into an image and writing a “Review” on this here blog brings tears to my eyes. Thank you Nestor.
I’ve seen this painting in person and I, myself am not as eloquent a writer as Nestor, kudos Nestor, but I believe I did see much if not all of what Nestor verbalized. The white chick question I didn’t ask because I felt deeply it was an homage to their new child coming, and to motherhood in general. I love the V’s that creep up in your work Akbar. They do make me think of the movie V is for Vendetta, which was outstanding to say the least.
I must say Akbar, I do miss some of your older bodies of work. The assemblage work was really interesting, and having seen your artistic growth over the past fifteen or so years, I would love to see a marriage of the current style and some of the older styles that were more, assemblage, splattered paint (robert rauschenberg , Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiatesque) thing you were doing here:
http://www.kenvallario.com/Site/Archive/Pages/College_Work.html
also, this body of work is fascinating to me as I have always found it extremely unique.
http://www.kenvallario.com/Site/Archive/Pages/Early_Work.html
But don’t listen to me. Really. Don’t.
mark, i think i am speaking for more than myself when i say we want to hear about one of your works in the context of this conversation, perhaps not everyone, but i’m sure a few of us are awaiting for your philosophy to be expressed in terms of what you have made. no pressure.
what Harold Bloom says is kind of truthiness to me. of course there is stress involved in digging deep for the creative act, but to equate the artistic enterprise as the anxiety itself does not make sense to me. it does not explain the thousands of years of human beings celebrating art, whether in ritual or in intellectually inspired revelry.
speaking to nestor’s comments, and how he brought up socio-political issues, i think that the western fixation on equating intellectual life with existential suffering is overly romantic, perhaps i am overly romantic to think that art can ease the anxiety of existence by integrating concepts in way that helps us see order in our universe, in our psyches and souls. in other words, the artist faces the anxiety and finds insights that help him/her grow stronger emotionally, and thus expresses that journey through his/her work. that seems like there is more of an arc there.
i guess this begs the question of do you think existence is ultimately anxious or do you feel that it is ultimately divine and perfect? philosophy has been divided on this.
akbar
Well again I don’t think it has to be a negative interaction, or that “anxiety”, “ambiguity”, or “confusion” or whatever word you use is necessarily about suffering or antithetical to a celebration. I think I was referring specifically to the potential anxiety involved in deciding whether to passively interact or actively, and that then is extended in deciding how. And this is enacted well in experiencing a work by FGT. Again, I think it has to do with engagement, if a tension is explored then some insight can be gained, and I think art is specifically well equipped to do this. Some would say it is the defining factor that would separate art from popular culture, but I think these lines have been blurred.
Let me think about what work to talk about and I will get back. Also I think I want to bring some of these topics into a new thread.
yeah i love those birthday parties where we sing the anxiety song! just kidding.
“Again, I think it has to do with engagement, if a tension is explored then some insight can be gained, and I think art is specifically well equipped to do this.”
now look at that, i could have written that myself. i really believe on some base level, some foundational level, all we artists believe this. it is this shared commonality that i am looking for. it’s kind of like how there is hardware and there is software. philosophy is the hardware of art, and software is the style and form.
anywhoo, eventually we should be able to form some sentence that reflects a consensus, even if that consensus is localized, and we can therefor reach out to others for refinement.
looking forward to your coming exploration of your own work.
akbar
I do want to point out that my commentary on the racial issues are more illustrations of the fact that this painting seems a beautiful personal homage (to wife, to child, to parenthood and its possibilities) than a broader, social commentary about far reaching philosophies. As the former, it is deeply personal/universal. As the latter, it is problematic and suspect.
I think this painting works most and best as a personal statement rather than a socio-political one.
A Review of A Quarrel With the Multiverse by Mark Creegan
by Nestor Armando Gil
On the walls of the gallery are mounted countless watercolor trays, each stained with the remnance of paintmixes made by children in an elementary school art class. The work stretches out onto the floor, and everywhere it is clear that a reasonable hand has made decisions about how and where and to what extent the elements are placed. Central to the overall piece is a wild, drippy rainbow with a birdlike form arranged beneath it, recalling prehistoric images with ties to ritual. It is a messy array of forms and colors, all tied together in a manner that challenges and flirts with the architecture it occupies.
In A Quarrel With the Multiverse, Mark Creegan brings the materials of much of his recent work into a highly designed yet chaotic arrangement made directly on the gallery walls.
It is important when looking at Creegan’s work to be thoughtful of the materials at work, and how they do their jobs. The history of the materials, and how they are redirected/transformed in Creegan’s work (rather than simply ‘arranged as themselves’) into new expressions, all play crucial roles. That this work is developed through moments of play and curious experimentation, without a specific end-meaning in mind, is essential to the viewer’s understanding of what is going on here.
If we are to accept the history of the paint-pots, the watercolor trays, etc, as elements of youthful artmaking, and if we are to recognize that youthful artmaking is shameless and unambiguous (that line IS a dinosaur, period) and full of confidence; that it is playful and experimental; that kids KNOW what they are doing when they paint; and if we further consider how adult artmaking is riddled with the opposite emotional/rational experience, one of question and lack; of un-surety about processes and practices, and even about the validity of artmaking at all; then Creegan’s process, and the fact that he does not set out with an agenda, in the spirit of youthful energy and wonder, become vital, and this notion of no end-meaning becomes ridiculous.
If the work speaks to nostalgia, it is through a cracked lens. If memory can be explored, and even the open-eyed memory of childhood, without syrup and without sap, this piece does just that.
The challenge in looking at A Quarrel With the Multiverse is one that Creegan almost overcomes with this piece. Often, and a review of other Creegan work as viewed on his website supports this, Creegan’s treatment of the materials, his gifted eye for formal beauty, are allowed to run roughshod (perhaps that is a bit overstated) over the play and energy of his work. The cleanliness that can be seductive in one piece might render another too clinical (This may be truest in the forms Creegan has made out of the clear plastic packaging in which so many of our consumer goods are sold to us, where the junkness of the material might have been allowed to speak a bit more loudly. Other work, such as the rainbow work and other soap bubble efforts, are more successful to this eye). In AQWtM, Creegan does indeed let things go a bit, he loosens up, but manages to maintain that control that gives his work its critical edge – here, more than ever before, Creegan lets artmaking creep into his artmaking, and pushes closer to that adult expression of youthful clarity, what precedes our cynical grown-up minds, his work is capable of achieving.
The elements of Creegan’s work that support readings involving green-living, reuse, thrift, are excellent initial considerations, and deserve to be discussed at least in passing; however, more interesting to this reviewer is the way the reuse of these materials speaks metaphorically to the reuse (rediscovery?) of childhood, of its brain and hand, that is actually at work.
To cast this work into the realm of confusion and nostalgia, each an extreme, would be a mistake. Instead, this work ought to be discussed in terms of metaphor and memory.
Nestor, this is truly a beautiful review. I hope you continue to do these.
One question though, how would the viewer know any of what you stated when coming to the work?
Mark said he’s fine with the viewer having their own mysterious interpretation of the work yet you state:
Now we all know this on this here bloggy but how would the average viewer coming to the work with nothing but a tittle get that? Also, since Mark is fine with them not getting that it seems why would you say that knowing this is essential to the viewers understanding? I think it is essential to the viewers understanding who is in the “know” but the off the street viewer who would have no idea of this and I think that without this knowledge might not appreciate the work as much.
So a follow up question is, how do we as artists, allow the viewer to interpret the work the way they want to, but still have our own personal agendas for the work which can guide the viewer in that interpretation without it being too forceful? I mean I don’t want to cram any ideology down anyone’s throat, but I’d still like them to know what the work is about. I personally do this by having a project statement. Very few people read them anyway, but it’s there if they need it.
But Nestor, I think I’d pay you to write reviews. Very beautiful job indeed. One day I hope to meet you in person.
yo, i agree with byron, nestor’s ‘readings’ are a great addition to our dialogues, beautiful, thoughtful, and thorough.
on another topic, looking at Mark’s work after this long discussion is a whole new experience, which further validates my belief that an artist has a role to play as an element of his/her own work.
when I look at Quarrel with the Multiverse, I see that, for me, paradox is the primary element at work in Mark and his world. i really like video games, and i can see his installations as alternate realities, and this Quarrel for me is an altar in the coming video game called Creegan Wars, where Mark preaches against the twin universes of the Christian church and the art world. But his preaching is of the tragic kind utilizing the nostalgia of childhood, all the drips to me represent the tears of dashed hopes and the broken hearts we all have when confronted with the truth, that art is not a panacea. how many of us cannot relate to that? that is the universal message i see here, the rainbow is the ugliest rainbow i’ve ever seen and that adds to the horror of it, and yet, like all greek tragedies, the character here remains stoic, heroic, and preaches on. just a quick stylistic aside, there is a play with perspective in this work that I think deserves acclaim. when i look at the primary picture, it took me a while to realize that it was not on a flat wall. i’m not sure if he meant for this illusion but it is one of the strong points for me, as it takes this whole thematic element and ties it to some of the formal tensions that has reflected, in art history, changes in social changes.
as playful and provocative as Mark is in our discussions, I see a very strong message in his work, supported by the title of this work. and i think he fulfills his desire to create a great amount of uncertainty there too, that people can mentally contemplate.
it is difficult to admit, but i must, that when i left behind my own more formal investigations, and I think byron posted some of my more experimental work, i changed. kind of like how when someone works in a prison, they become more racist, when i decided to make artwork that spoke to a wider audience, I did over time develop a certain mistrust of conceptual art. as I am at the center of my own little multiverse, i cannot quite be sure that I am wrong to do so, that is part of what drives my insistence on artistic dialogue.
the more i learn about the brain, the more i see that one’s activities drive their perception of reality. it is a tough thing to accept for someone interested in universals, but as someone sympathetic to buddhism, i do believe in a middle way.
thank you Mark, even though you have not given explicit permission, thank you for your work. and thank you for pushing me to think more deeply about my work. i feel a little less sure of what i am doing, and that is a good thing.
big ups to the globatron crew, we should all be proud of ourselves!
akbar
Well,I can certainly say that same that this conversation has been very helpful to me Akbar.
When I was near the end of my graduate studies, one of my professors tried to convince me not to move back to Jacksonville, or at least, not to stay too long. The reasons he gave included the idea that a more competitive and stimulating environment like NY is a great catalyst, i understood this idea. But he also said something that I didnt quite get at the time, something to the effect of an artist’s work needing the “tending of others”.
I think that the last few comments, as well as the entire post, has been the most “tending by others” my work has had in a long time. The issue here is as artists make work and evolve they leave behind all this stuff that they sort of discard to some degree. The simple reason for this is that artists are interested in the ideas they are currently working on, ideas that may have been informed and derived from previous ones, but this constant refocusing results in a kind of detachment from previous work.
So, I think my professor was getting at the need for other people to help tend to the body of work to basically keep it from “dying”, and his concern was that a community like Jacksonville would not provide this well enough, at least, for the type of work i was making. I want to say tho that this isnt an ego thing, and that engagement by others does not have to be on some large, glamorous scale to get the job done, I think this simple exhange of ideas between artists here is a good example. SO maybe that is just what the doctor ordered, and i think that I want to make a more concerted effort to return this service, be engaged with others’ work, not for the purpose of mutual boosterism, just to keep each other’s shit alive!
byron,
thanks man.
i thought it might help this whole dialogue a bit, limited as my personal views may be… and by all means, if this summer finds mein jax, i would love to say hello –
now,
in regard to this:
“That this work is developed through moments of play and curious experimentation, without a specific end-meaning in mind, is essential to the viewer’s understanding of what is going on here.”
While I have no feeling against artist/project statements, and use them myself sometimes, I think one is not necessarily required to gather this sense of play and experimentation from looking at the piece itself. While it may not be spelled out plainly, the work’s stylistic choices, its arrangement of order and chaos, speak to this.
Perhaps this is what I am getting at when I say that sometimes the clean, minimal aesthetic works, but others not… the energy exemplified by the more raw actions taken in constructing this work say ‘play’ and ‘abandon’ without the artist (necessarily) needing to say it in words.
Anyway, enjoying this from afar!
Byron, several comments up you mentioned problems with art as commodity. Check this fellow out: http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/graffiti/adam_neate.htm
I like the photos of the painting taken around London. Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.
What do you think about digital web projects Frank? They can’t be bought and have a much larger audience than any gallery.
I believe if one wants to get a “message” out there web projects might be the most ego-less way to do so. I have issue with art objects too. These are new issues obviously as I’ve been a painter most of my artistic evolution.
Art objects take up physical space, and are there to be judged. To me it’s a bit much. I only feel this way after making a ton of paintings and trying to find homes for them, pricing them, and showing them. The whole process of having an “art show” to me is just plain yucky.
I’ve gotten much more from simple dialogues through this blog than I’ve ever gotten from an art opening. And then there’s the whole game attached to art openings. Hoping that one opening will lead to a bigger and better venue that will eventually make you a “made man”. Or maybe that was just my problem. But there does seem to be a tricky political game to play, in showing work, pricing it, selling it, and then trying to make a living off it.
With that game there can only be compromises in one’s creativity. What say you?
yo b-money,
on some level, i tend to agree with where you are going with this, internet art as a rejection of the object-driven world. i think maybe we should move this discussion from laws as discussion, to more declaritive things. like maybe you could post something like Art ought to be digital, something like that and we could go deep into that, there’s a lot of meat on that bone, virtuality, materialism, objectivism, etc.
that would allow me to think about it in a social way. i have a feeling there is something important in what you are starting.
akbar
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Globatron is a work of art.
Globatron is not a blog. The structure of the blog is utilized in order to surrender to this new form of social connectivity.
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