A good bowl of chili

Cooking and drawing involve the same creative juices, for sure.

A chef friend was telling me about a new approach he has adopted, in which he is less concerned with subtleties that aren’t really apparent. Adding a pinch of dill seeds to chili, for example, really served no other purpose than to make him feel sophisticated. Now he prefers to bring out the more prominent flavors in a tasty, surprising balance that’s just as subtle – and less sneaky. Playing more daringly with the cinnamon in the chili, for example.

In drawing too, it is a sign of true sophistication to be able to pare down on hidden techniques, dabbing and other unnecessary mark-making and go boldly into essential line work or swaths of color instead. My opinion of course.

This is true for other media as well: in video, hiding fecklessness behind transitions and effects; in sculpture or installation, incorporating objects or materials that require explanation or historical knowledge.

This is not to say that art must not be complex or have layers – or that art doesn’t have meaning that the artist does not intend. Of course not. It’s more about being aware of these layers and choosing to have them.

De-fense, De-fense

Defensive writing. Donkey Trail.

The art poliice, part II, and the police in politics

This would be self-censorship, self-sabotage, stemming from a strong, mostly unconscious notion of what’s allowable and not in art. Yes, this too is a form of political correctness. There are artists who make the breaking of rules the subject of their art, but in my mind, that tends to come off as a bit false or flat.

The only antidote I can think of is being true to what you’re doing, despite the voices. Of course a purely individual approach is impossible; we’re always choosing some role, staking some position, we’re always under the sway of influence. But I do think there is a sense of self – shifting, yes – that one can try to respect.

In practice, this usually means striking a balance between choice and spontaneity. Let’s say you feel like making a chrome rabbit. You know about Jeff Koons, but you want to do it anyway because you like bunnies and because you think it’s meaningful to bring another one into being. I’d say do it then (despite me).

I think I’m starting to repeat myself on the blog. So…

Feeling crushed about the election. One of the most frustrating aspects is the appropriation of language by the right – this whole “people’s seat” business. How have “the people” been convinced that “those people” represent their interests?

That said, I’ve learned a lot this year. The whole Mr. Nice, let’s all get along, is mythic. Everything in politics is a fight, a push for what you want to get through. That’s it. Period. There's no choice but to get tough.

The art poliice, part I

Many people – most people, really - stand in front of art and just don’t know what they’re looking at. And they feel stupid or scared to ask. I can relate: I feel dumb (especially) about music, and am shy to ask questions about music listening. It’s not a good feeling. And, although I’ve got a good handle on visual art, I often find myself under pressure to instantly know what I’m seeing, what stance I take, what I think, what I feel.

The phenomenon is really the effect of art political correctness, a form of policing that goes like this: don’t ever say the wrong thing or ask the wrong question, for you might offend, or worse, make a fool of yourself. The safest thing to do is just pull out the generic, approved comment.

There are two immediate antidotes: One, ask clumsy questions. Do it. Two, if you’re a person in the know – and we’ll talk about people who think they’re in the know but aren’t another time- share the love. If someone goes blank, tell them what you like about the goddamn thing. Sure, there’s great artwork that just instantly communicates with no need for further explanation. But most of the time, a bit of an in goes a long, long way. So give it (and yes, they’ll probably remain blank after).

That said, I’m anti-audioguide. That’s just too much of an in. Shut up already and let me look.

Artist Portraits

I find photographs of artists among many examples of their work - especially when it's outside, and especially when they look almost puny in comparison - to be really thrilling. Send any others along. Please.

Of course these are all men, proving that I'm a sucker for machismo.

(Kenneth Noland)

(Chris Martin and friends)

(Mark Rothko)

(Ellsworth Kelly)

(David Hockney)

Donkey Trail

How important is an exhibition title?

How diverse do you really want it?

In a portrait of the pretty gross Whole Foods founder, John Mackey, in last week’s New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten made this side-comment:

[His ideological stance] derives in large part from a tendency, common among smart people, to presume that everyone in the world either does or should think as he does – to take for granted that people can (or want to) strike his patented balance of enlightenment and self-interest. […] In other words, because he runs a business a certain way, others will, can and should […]

Now, I’m no idealogue, and it’s easy to distinguish my views from Makey's: he’s anti-union, anti-health care, and clearly cocky. But, couldn’t the statement above apply to you? It does to me. I do tend to think I’m right and as I develop myself, I do tend to want people to change in the way I’m changing, to grow in the way that I’m growing. If I really think about it, my conception of diversity is really not all that diverse.

Prey tell, how are you supposed to allow – with equanimity - other people's views just to exist? I’m talking about obviously stupid ways of looking things – say, Republican. And I’m also talking about minor differences - say, an artist’s sensibility.

In a recent Art:21 episode, Jeff Koons, in a string of packaged comments had this to say:

Objects are metaphors for people. It always turns out to be about others. It’s not about accepting that object, high-low culture, it’s about the acceptance of others.

Well, quite frankly, I have a hard time doing that.
OK, let me try.

Puppy topiary is a person. I accept that person.

Tea, anyone?

Noise

(Still from Unknown Pleasures)

One thing hanging out with an eleven year old for too long will make you aware of is just how much noise there is around us. Aside from the digital boom boom of the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the Nintendo DS, of YouTube, there’s the aggressive car alarm, the inane conversation of the public caller, and the screech of metal on metal as the one rounds the bend into 42nd Street. Yes, I know, this is what the old people always say. But the question here is, can it be turned into art?

I’m no fan of noise installations, and sound was one of the main things that turned me away from video art. In film, however – not movies, fellow snobs, film – I tend to appreciate exaggerated sound depictions.

Homage must be paid to Robert Bresson, who stripped his scenes of almost all natural sound, the more to isolate and purify the action. And Godard used sound to interrupt the movie-daze of filmgoers, cutting songs mid-lyric, for example.

In a more realistic vein, I particularly admire the invasive, dominating sound of televisions, public announcements, chatter and pop music in the Jia Zhangke’s 2002 film Unknown Pleasures about a group of sapped, unemotional youth in developing China (you can watch it instantly through Netflix).

Donkey Trail

Ten years I learned this year about exhibition organizing.

An art year in review

(Ellsworth Kelly, White Bands on Yellow, 1950)

I am thankful for a year of many changes art-wise (politically, I had hoped for more. I’m ready to face it).

In terms of my own work, it began with a lecture on text-based art and ended with drawings of Mantegna-like mountains. In between came video interruptions, drawings of trees in the wind, paintings of finger-shoot-dicks, and the important revelation that doing fish pose before you start working releases creativity (It does! Try it!).

In terms of galleries and museums, off the top of my head, I was most impressed with the Kippenberger retrospective at MoMa and with Ellsworth Kelly, both his drawings from the 50s and 60s at Matthew Marks, and his paintings in Cézanne and Beyond in Philly. Neither artist really represents change (really who cares), but my attraction to them does.

I also am grateful to Roberta Smith, who makes me feel that what I’m doing is ok, and especially, especially, especially to a few new artist-friends, who embody the word ComRade (in arms, sure!).

And I am grateful to this annoying blog, which almost no one reads, but which somehow organizes my thoughts. And when you do read or comment, I love you for it, I really do.

That said, the path is still bumpy to say the least. So tune in next year.

Love, Molly

PS: My vote on what to call this past decade, which I can’t say I’m sorry to see end, is “the 9/11 years.”

I have absolutely nothing to say

Kill Baby, Kill

I am thankful to Dana, of Art on My Mind past, for introducing me to new artspeak: the term in question is “killing the baby.”

Basically, it's that moment when you've been working really hard on something and you realize it's just not going to pan out, so even though everything in you says to just keep it, you've got to just get rid of it, i.e., kill your baby. I just found comfort in the idea that there was something universal trying to hang on to something that needed to be let go of.

[There is] a process to learning when to kill the baby. For [X], I think his writers' group and [Y] in particular helped him learn this by telling him when something really wasn't working and pressing him to cut it out, and eventually he got better at realizing when he was trying to hold onto a baby he needed to kill. For me, I think I learned it through being edited and then self-editing -- there'll be a concept or an argument or a phrase that I think is brilliant, but it just doesn't fit in with the whole, or it just doesn't get me where I need to go. So, I'm getting more efficient at identifying when that's happening. But, it's hard. Especially when it's something I've invested a lot of time or energy in. It's definitely a process.

Below, please view a drawing on a sheet of $48 paper that just could not be saved. RIP, little one.

What's up in tween culture

Here’s what to mention if you need to impress that eleven year-old in your life this Christmas:

Lady Gaga, and the song Bad Romance. And, gross, what’s with the spine and bulging eyes on YouTube?

Justin Bieber, the fourteen year-old suburban rapper. So hot. That said, MJ is so last summer.

Robert Pattinson from the Twilight movies. Adonis.

And finally, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Squeakquel. And have you seen them singing All the Single Ladies?

Critical Statements

Peter Schjeldahl has made it easier for me to go with my core feeling that the Urs Fischer show at the New Museum is way disappointing and shallow. In particular in his review last week, he mocks the museum behind the show:

It’s all nicely diverting – but from what? If you spend more than twenty minutes with the three-floor extravaganza, you’re loitering. The New Museum could just as well not have done the show while saying it did. The effect would be roughly the same: expressing a practically reptilian institutional craving for a new art star.

Holland Cotter makes MoMa look just as silly. It made Gabriel Orozco’s work look concrete, planned and loud (when it just ain’t). And Cotter's depicts the deference paid to art-starness as frankly smarmy:

During the installation of his exhibition in the kind of white-walled MoMA gallery that that he once spurned, Mr. Orozco, tousle haired and rumpled, received a visit from the museum’s immaculately groomed director, Glenn D. Lowry, whose red silk tie matched his pocket square. “Hola!” Mr. Lowry said, sweeping into the nearly empty gallery, where just a few pieces had been uncrated. “Exciting, exciting.”

The irreverence is refreshing. It is. Would I reject any approach by either of museum? Of course not.

This is how Schjeldahl ends his review this week of the Orozco show, which he views as art historically sensitive:

Pleasure is the only trusty teacher and guarantor of seriousness in art. Why is that so easy to forget?

If by pleasure, he means interest, passion, curiosity, I’d have to agree – even in light of Monday’s post.