All Hail Matta-Clark

What follows is unadulterated praise, no critique, no analysis:

The current Gordon Matta-Clark retrospective at the Whitney is entirely mind blowing. His architectural manipulations – in public space and in the studio - is socially poignant, poetic, spiritual and funny. And the show installation is fresh, not stodgy. There are free-floating monitors on tables with little stools scattered throughout, there are 16 mm projections, there are sculptures, performance detritus, documents, photographs, and even a blow-up of some writing by the artist with its editing marks.

One of the most moving documents, is a film from Paris, circa 1970. He had received permission to do a cut in a condemned building adjacent to the construction site of what was to become the Centre Georges Pompidou. The film shows the birth of the cone-cut (pieces of wall fall), views from the street, and views from the inside the cone. And all this in Paris thirty years ago! The piece is all the more powerful that it is ephemeral.

What I am inspired by the most, is Matta-Clark’s independence. He really did his own thing. Where did he find that confidence? And what fed his ego to keep going?

Is there any work with this kind of courage being made now?

The Returns

Living Arts is an unusual cultural center. There are hardly no other spaces devoted to contemporary art in the “mid” states, except for - this is what I hear - Bimis, in Omaha. The center functions because of the vision and conviction of its director Steve Liggett, and because of a tightly-knit board, which does not entirely consist of art enthusiasts and aficionados, but which is devoted to providing warm hospitality.

The Andy Warhol Foundation approached Living Arts, wondering why it hadn’t applied for a grant (the foundation actually sought out organizations in states that were not receiving support from their grant programs). Consequently, Living Arts can now exhibit artists from out of town (like me), and organize a yearly two-week long New Genre Festival. This year’s festival will include Marina Abramovic’s Balkan Erotic Epic, a multi-channel video installation that presents folk traditions that explicitly incorporates sexual performances (ie: groups of men hump the land in what seems to be a fertility ritual). The piece was shown last year in New York at the Sean Kelly Gallery.

This is an impressive but isolated art center, and I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to show so much work there. It’s invaluable to be able to see what you make in action, to see it have space, to combine it with other projects, to watch new viewers interact with it. I will go back into the studio with a wider vision for new projects.

My artist’s talk was well received, especially because it gave an in to viewers unfamiliar with video art in general. After, I was approached by folks who wanted to tell me about racism they have seen or experienced. Others asked questions, sometimes uncomfortable ones (do you think Amos n’ Andy would be poorly received today?). Others still were revelatory (a woman told me about how being a maid meant getting into character).

What I would like to consider in these upcoming days, weeks, and longer is: Which pieces worked and which didn’t and why? What do I think about sound in general (I found it mostly annoying)? Should audience be considered when selecting to exhibit works at a specific venue (yes), but can an artist predict and tailor reactions (no).

So, thank you Tulsa. Next stop, Paris, France.

God Bless Tulsa!

Here I am, folks. Living Arts is a fantastic, large space. My two-person show has officially become a solo show. Consequently, we've got three projectors, and four monitors churning. What a scene! Tomorrow is the opening and artist talk, and I can't wait. Photos to come.

Right now I'm sitting in the apartment of the space's director, Steve Liggett, who is a force. We are currently contemplating with other Tulsa residents here for dinner whether Tulsa should have an ArtCar parade. We are watching footage from Houston's ArtCar parade. So far, my favorite is the Yarn Car, carefully decorated with tight knit yarn. Then there's the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir car. Very good. Oh, and the motorized couch.

Never in New York.

We're having fun with art.

Never in New York.

I did ask what it was like living in a red state. Folks here seemed un-swayed in their own position, and frankly freerer in their difference.

On Cotter on Johns

Holland Cotter description of Jasper John’s work in today’s New York Times includes the following:

“Like Donne’s poetry, Mr. John’s art is equally about body and mind, sensuality and reflection. It is unmystical, unromantic, unnostalgic, but obsessed with transcendence and the reality of loss…Metaphor, rather than statement or confession, is their method.”

Ideal! If I attain this balance in my own work, than I feel like I will have reached one of the great possibilities of art.

In a recent portrait of John’s in The New Yorker, he is revealed to be an unhurried artist, attuned to his own development, mostly unswayed by critics and trend. Now, that implies confidence! Oh where, oh how!

Steppin' Out

I’m about to take some loaded work to the middle of the country, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Viewers will walk into an energetic video space of interacting channels. Powerful images of protest, dominance, servitude and violence will be offered simultaneously. The piece depicts the dynamics of whiteness, racism and power, using blackface and performance as strategies.

I have absolutely no idea what kind of reactions I will receive. So many stereotypes: a New York artist, radical politics, the pretension of culture on one hand; a cultural desert on the other, with a lot of food.

It all boils down to this the question: Who do I think I’m making art for? A nebulous mass to be “educated”? A small like-minded community of other artists and art enthusiasts? Whoever will look at it, draw from it what they may? Just myself?

I go with the goal of learning a little about how art functions outside the studio. I go with the goal of seeing if I can communicate with folks outside my own world.

Words as Art

My big question is can words be art? There are artists who think so: Kay Rosen, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer. When I understand their work, I'm so thrilled, I accept the possibility. At best, there is a visual image that forms from the formal arrangement and play of letters and words. In these cases, graphic design, meets writing, meets meanings of words, meets conceptual art (Kay Rosen). Sometimes, text-based work is about content and public placement (Jenny Holzer). In these cases, the thrill comes less from what I'm seeing, than from what I'm reading and thinking. It's in the head. But, most often, there is no thrill, because I don't get it.
Can words as art be moving, immediately emotionally stirring. That's my goal in the text-based videos I've been developing. The jury is still out. But, I think the best examples of moving words I've seen are in film, not only in the work of masters lke Jean-Luc Godard, but in tools like intertitles and title sequences. When they work, they can seem like poems.

Gimme Pain

I visited "The Constant Possibility of Erasure" at the Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City today. It's a show about how erasure has been used in art to represent passing time and the ephemeral. There were erased drawings, covered photographs, a video of a man painting a portrait with water on rock, and a lot of chalk.

Drawing seemed to be the most visceral means of presenting erasure, and performance seemed best suited for presenting and then disappearing. But, I felt erasure could have also been suggested more explicitly through themes of loss.

Included in this post are some of my curatorial additions.

Thinking by doing

Yesterday, I unwrapped the monitors, plugged in all the RCAs, even connected an old tv (analog) to a dvd player (digital), and thereby put a two-channel video I've been working on this week into space. It was a great lesson: you can't imagine it all in your head. You have to move it around and see what comes of moving it around.

What I had envisioned as two monitors forming a corner became a large projection, with a small monitor in front.

Seeing the installation suggested a slew of other work by other artists, including the conceptualist Daniel Buren:



Buren has used stripes to draw attention to what a particular space (usually an institution) is used for. For example, in the above photograph, he has blocked off an exhibition area to draw attention to what the museum permits and does not permit. My piece involves stripes that are reminiscent of the flag. I overlay the stripes with a psychological phrase set in motion. My current vein of thought involves seeing our relationship to our country in psychological terms: abandonment, denial, group psychology. This sounds heady, but, like Buren, when you see it, there's a formal appeal (I hope, I think).