Reputations

Artist stereotypes have been circulating through my head. They all hold a grain of truth of course:

The Diva: The artist who feels special, who feels that installing her work deserves a fleet of personnel, gallery assistants, celebratory dinners and also some pity for how hard it is to be an artist.

The Intense Weirdo: The artist who can’t seem to have a conversation about anything except death, philosophy and life’s deeper layers.

The Anti-Social Snob: The artist who never wants to be with anyone, who hates parties, who never does anything to “join in.”

Of late, I can most relate to the anti-social snob. Can someone explain why chit-chat is in fact necessary?

two better than one

As a gesture of compassion for Lars van Trier’s depression, I watched The Five Obstructions last night, in which he challenges his mentor, Jorgen Leth, to make shorts, based on Leth’s own film, under extremely strict conditions. Trier’s aim seems to be to chisel through the perfection and gimmicks of Leth’s tactics to reach something flawed but human. At times the relationship is sadistic, but mostly it is portrayed as intensely passionate, intellectually rigorous and bluntly honest. I want it.

I’m a sucker for true artistic collaboration. There’s nothing more romantic in my head than two artists developing work together with equal concentration and with likeminded, preferably trascendental, goals. I think of Abramovic and Ulay, Gilbert and George, Guston’s correspondence with Ross Feld, Godard and the New Wave. But this kind of collaboration mostly seems to be a male game, for some reason. I’d gladly play. The thing is, I’m mostly in my studio alone, and the thought of working with anyone basically makes me want to weep.

All this is rooted of course in the conviction that art and artists do actually have profound possibilities. I don't mind thinking this, but I tend to keep it hush. I think it's not fashionable. Too modernist. Or perhaps it comes off as arrogant, as self-important, (European) intellectual. But, what else are you supposed to do with the bulk of your time?

We, the elite

I’ve been trying to hide it for years. But now that I’m in the art world (or trying to be), and I’m talking about the Chelsea one, it makes no sense to pretend any longer. I am a member of the elite. And so are all the other artists, gallerists and curators I know (or hope to).

The question is not so much how can we become more like “the people,” but how can we meet our potential as a self-conscious elite, aware of our education and skills (however slim they may be).

This is what comes to mind:
1. While we can refer to and be influenced by pop culture, we can (and I believe must) go beyond it, in terms of content and form.
2. While we can aspire to equality, we must accept our privilege, shed light on its workings and contradictions, and use its power.
3. While we can hone our individuality, and assert our right to be artists, we have to admit that a lonely life in the studio is in fact a political position and should be claimed as such.

These are just three possibilities, a fist attempt to counteract what I read on blogs about artists not wanting to burden themselves, and what I see in galleries, basically un-provocative dribbles.

Raising the Bar

This appeared in the “Arts Briefly” notes in Monday’s New York Times:

Lars von Trier, the Danish director whose credits include “Breaking the Waves,” “Dancer in the Dark” and “Dogville,” has cast doubt on his future as a filmmaker after a bout of severe depression, The Associated Press reported. In an interview with the Danish newspaper Politiken, he said the aftermath of his ailment had left him “like a blank sheet of paper.” Mr. von Trier, a founder of the Dogma school of filmmaking, which seeks to purify the art by using hand-held cameras and spurning special effects and other gimmicks, was admitted to a Danish hospital for treatment around the start of the year. Since then, he said, he has lost focus and takes no pleasure in his work. “You can’t make a film and be depressed at the same time,” he said. “They say that it can take a couple of years to recover after a depression. But let us see.”

I really found this sad: because of Trier’s honesty, for one, because of the ax of depression, two, and also because of how fragile an artist can be.

Although I cringe at the cult around Trier – basically the hipoisie – I admire him for bringing stark and shocking (but not trying to be) drama into film. Plus, he really pushes form, but not as gimmick. As explained above, the no gimmick lies at the heart of the Dogma movement he helped found.

With the YouTube-ization of video, I think it is upon video artists to distinguish, even purify, the possibilities of the medium, to bring the art back into video. In honor of Trier, I propose these beginnings of a Video Art Manifesto, a set of rules for video artists in 2007:

1. Video will reduce narrative, so that upon entering the video space, a viewer can almost immediately grasp the extent of what happens in the work.
2. No filters from Final Cut Pro will be used except to perfect image quality (contrast, brightness, color balance, etc.)
3. Only music or sound that does not have a clear looping point will be incorporated
4. No transitions except for the cut are allowed.
5. Video will be projected or shown on un-branded monitors, but not with other “installation” objects like stuffed animals and tables full of food.

Finger painting, anyone?

On Wednesday, I visited a friend of mine’s studio. She’s involved in a large sculptural project (with a narrative base) and what’s amazing is, she’s having fun. Who would have thunk? An artist enjoying herself with her hands, playing with glazes, laughing, experimenting, taking her time.

I come from the school that art is above all serious, a key to our times, a vision about being, a responsibility. But, do these aims – which I believe to be all-important – mean that the artist can’t play? (I’ve always thought so).

Sol Le Witt once wrote a letter to Eva Hesse while she was living in Germany and at a point when her work was at an impasse. “Stop it and just DO,” he advised her. “Try and tickle something inside you, your ‘weird humor.’ You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool.” He added: “You are not responsible for the world — you are only responsible for your work, so do it. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be.

Easy to say. Are drugs and alcohol the only way to get there?

All or Nothing

A few months ago, I actually got a very nice gallery to look at some of my work. The visit went well, there was good conversation and obvious like-mindedness. Follow up followed. The gallerist asked that I give him some more time to consider me, and to give him a call in May. I carefully calculated the date and time I would do so. May 8, 2pm. He had mentioned that Tuesdays were quiet for him, and I figured mid-afternoon was a good time.

Then he said: “I really like your work, but I can’t take on any more video at this point. If sales were better at the Chicago Art Fair with video…” So, that was it. Done. So close but no cigar. I did ask if he knew of anyone else I should contact (politely). He said he would keep it in mind.

Now what do you do? Back to square one. No leads, no gallery.

I’ve heard that some artists are curated into the Whitney Biennial, only to be taken off the list a few days before installation. I’ve heard of major commissions being canceled. It’s like almost getting an apartment. Almost doesn’t exist. You either have one or don’t.

So, are you just supposed to go back into the studio and continue?

The Man

The first thirty pages of ArtForum this month wages a war between the art superpowers. A handful of names vie for the kingdom. PaceWildenstein has taken over no less than three full-page and consecutive ads to display their trophies, a conquest rivaled onlt by David Zwirner, Zwirner and Wirth, and Hauswer and Wirth. What's more, the same artists are in all the big camps. This month's heros: Gursky, Clemente and Tim Hawkinson. They're everywhere. It's hard to distinguish venues at this point.

This of course is not a new picture. The globalization of the art market has been a subject for quite some time now. But being part of it now makes the reality of it all the more disappointing. This was actually a visceral experience of the corporate level of the art world. I felt directly competitive nd defeated before these allmighties.

What's a small time artist with big ideas to do. There's no movement to join, no major arguments to defend. We just have to try to stay afloat, and to what end, I'm still uncertain.

There's Always the Queen

In the realm of privilege, emotions are impossible. They’re in fact menacing to status and power since they imply change. And change is the demise of the status quo.

An ironically moving portrait of this stagnancy is painted in Stephen Frear’s The Queen, moving because of the isolation, disconnect, and loneliness that maintaining this coldness entails.

There is a part of me that admires the queen’s discretion, not her stubbornness, but her restraint. It is dignified. I cannot help but feel myself that emotions are indeed humiliating. But in order to avoid that humiliation, you have to build a fortress around yourself. The queen has that possibility, and actually has no other choice, because somehow there needs to be a public figure who is a pillar. It soothes the pangs of change her subjects undergo. They just want their queen to be there as she always is.

And she is. Look at her garb!

Practicing

One thing is for certain. If you can just get into a kind of hypnotic state in the studio, in which you do without thinking, it’s best. I would say this happens about 3% of my time there.

The practice of making seems most fruitful when the voices clear out, and identity falls. This doesn’t mean the struggle falls, just that it’s given room. Just for a second.

I’d like to get my 3% rate up to about 25%. Any more would be unwanted, I think. As if the hypnotic state had become the way. Definition is narrowing, although intention is necessary.

If I could only get at what is not neatly bundled.

Thanks, Roberta

I've always liked Roberta Smith. She’s clear and insightful.

In a review today she says:

Most contemporary art comes partly from other art. One way to assess the health of something new is to subtract all the visible influences, precedents and received ideas and see if there is any pulse left.

She concludes the review with:

The main problem is that it is unclear what is accomplished by the workmanlike, uninflected translations…

I’m not really interested in this critique with regard to the show at hand, but as a general comment about a goal of art. That is: art can borrow, but it can’t just borrow. Art needs to take its references somewhere else.

Also in the NYT today, Bridget Goodbody (who is Bridget Goodbody?) writes:

The biggest problem that derails this exhibition, however, is one that the artists probably should have foreseen: the power of Brancusi’s forms to remain his, despite manipulation. As the poet Audre Lorde wrote, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

But, the jury is still out on where Michael St. John’s work weighs in on this balance.

Video Forms

I’ve been thinking about video forms for galleries. It’s really a choice.

There’s the narrative, beginning-middle-end, form, which usually entails a recreation of a theater space, with seating, a dark room and large projection. I personally feel uncomfortable walking into a narrative form in the middle, but, I seem to be in the minority about this.

Then there’s the video loop, which at best, is a moving still. That is, there’s a graspable image that changes but not so much to imply sequence. I tend to think of this form as an extension of art-on-walls.

Then there’s video in space. This is when video comes off of the wall, and exists sculpturally in the gallery, on scrims and monitors. The Douglas Gordon video with an elephant (Play Dead) at MoMa last year was a beautiful example of this.

Recently, I’ve been feeling most attracted to video loops, because they’re fast to get. And I fear viewers won’t have patience to spend more time in front of a piece. But, video is a time-based form, so I better get over that insecurity I think.

What I want to know is does video art have to be an “experience.” My initial reaction is vomit. Experiences happen at amusements parks or tourist safaris. By extension, the idea of people walking in to a darkened room to enter an atmosphere and undergoing something is a major turn off to me. But, I love going to the movies. And art is, to a certain extent, about altering perception.

It’s a funny love-hate relationship with being part of our times (video) and stepping away from it (video).

When Night Falls

The movie When Night Falls is about Reinaldo Arenas’s lifelong struggles with the Cuban revolution, which he initially supports. He suffers imprisonment, persecution, exile (which he to a certain extent chooses) and censorship, both because he wrote, and because he was gay. The movie is directed by Julian Schnabel, the painter, which immediately annoyed me, mostly because of Schnabel’s hip, overly self-aware aura, which can be felt in the way the film is shot and edited, the music, the décor, even the titles. What’s doubly annoying is that many of Schnabel’s choices are pleasing. So it’s a love-hate relationship, with the love side somewhat representing self-hatred.

At one point, a character asks Arenas, “Why you write?” (The movie is in English, but performed by Latin Americans). He answers, “Revenge.”

I love that.

That’s it. That’s the freedom of art, to say what you can’t elsewhere, to represent yourself when you’ve been misunderstood. Herein lies its power, and also its threat to the power of others.

As for me, and I would imagine most artists, there are also psychological obstacles to standing by one’s self. I personally was never much of a rebel - although that is indeed a romantic role in my mind - mostly because of what going against the grain implies: being an outcast, being in the minority, being judged. And yet, the lives I admire most are all “against the grain.” But doing so of course can’t be a choice, really. That’s affect. It’s about a will to be free.

I never thought I would use such a big word.

The Balancing Act

Most artists need to have an alternative source of income, literally a second job. Mine is translation.

When I’m buried in a book project, I find it difficult to get into the studio. It’s a combination of anxiety about having bread and butter work to do, and feeling art and translation are two different parts of the brain.

The right way to balance activities isn’t clear to me yet. All I know is the guilt is high when I don’t go into the studio.

I’m a firm believer in routine, and think the creative act is in fact a muscle to be built. Art takes time to gestate. But, you have to give it that time in the right space. And sitting in front of a computer translating coffee table books about luxury hotels, or poker, or interior design, is not the kind of time or space I'm talking about. I’ve always thought it’s better for art work to sit in the studio doing nothing, than to be “productive” with something else.

But, as a friend reminded me. Everyone has their own way. Jack Kerouac would sniff entire bottles of nasal decongestant.

Pantheon of Tortured-ness

You can’t manufacture meaning. But you can’t pretend to be solely motored by some sincere impulse to express either.

Is it preposterous to take oneself seriously?
Is it preposterous not to?

Are artists only people who think they’re special? Or is it actually their job to distinguish?

How are you supposed to make anything without the prospect of it being seen? But are you really an artist if you don’t just make for makings-sake?

Are artists dilettantes? Is a video artist just someone who’s not as knowledgeable as a professional editor or a filmmaker? Or is it the role of an artist to take skills somewhere else?