Calgon, Take Me Away

I suppose art that makes you want to puke is better than art that stirs up no feeling at all. [Insert here your favorite truism about indifference].

That said, Alex McQuilkin’s video installation entitled “Joan of Arc” at Marvelli Gallery had me literally throwing my arms up in despair. The two-channel piece juxtaposes scenes from Carl Dreyer’s seminal 1928 film rendition of the martyr’s story with images of the artist pouting unconvincingly into the camera and shaving her blown-dry locks.

Watching a white, privileged woman – with the power of art success to bolster her – comparing herself to one of history’s most legendary persecuted figures is a reflection of American arrogance, unawareness and downright stupidity.

The press release suggests that McQuilkin (at age 27) yearns to validate adolescent angst, especially in the face of condescending adults (like myself). Her goal, it seems, is to represent her suffering – through imitation, through theater. What she achieves, however, is the opposite. She comes of as a shallow fake.

Paul Celan

I imagine that the way I am before poetry is the way many are before contemporary art. Most of the time, I just don’t get it. I want something to hold on to – a narrative, an opinion – but, usually when I think I’ve got something, I get befuddled in the next line. I have a hard time going with the flow, letting the image rise up in my head, letting go of analysis.

I’ve got a huge challenge in front of me, then, with Paul Celan, whose 1960s poems experimented with poetics (I think I know what that means). He lay his faith in the word, not the lyricism of the word, and consequently many of his words are invented. I’m fascinated when I read about his poetry, but when I have an example in front of me, I need to draw on patience and a loose mind. You can’t rush through them.

Here’s an example, from his book Breathturn, translated from the German:

NO SANDART ANYMORE, no sandbook,
no masters

Nothing in the dice. How
Many mutes?
Seventeen.

Your question – your answer.
Your chant, what does it know?

Deepinsnow,
Eepinno,
I-i-o.

The H Word

(Marcel Broodthaers, Femur d'une Femme Francaise)

One artist stereotype is that we’re moody and dark. These remarks in Roberta Smith’s recent review of two Chelsea shows focusing on death flavors the myth. She says:

“Their message is that all art, basically, is an attempt to explain, fend off or accept death; to commemorate, or communicate with, the dead or deities; or to defy death by making something that lives on. Not surprisingly, both shows are rampant with skeletons and skulls — as universally essential for physical life as they are symbolic of its inevitable end.”

And:

“Mr. Tricot’s essay in the Cheim & Read catalog provides a coda for both shows. In a startlingly Beckett-esque quotation, extracted from the work of the noted 17th-century Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo, Death admonishes a reluctant victim: ‘What you call to die is to finish dying and what you call birth is the beginning of death and what you call to live is dying as you go on living.’”

Rolling your eyes or loving it? I personally love it. Although I do wonder if talking about living and happiness could ever sound as juicy. Could the ‘h’ word ever be the stuff of art, but eschew the sentimental, the quaint and saccharine?

La Chinoise

Call me naïve, La Chinoise, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film about revolution-minded students is far from outdated, despite the reviews I’ve read.

Visually, the film feels entirely fresh, with each frame dappled deliberately with red. Text, still photographs, interviews, theater, musical interruptions all combine to form a true inquiry into change, political action, and role of art. What makes the film complex, also, is that doubt about revolution plays a role in the film as well. Violence is questioned, and also ridiculed. So, you’re not left feeling like you’ve just been told the one and only way.

All this reminded me how there’s very little room to talk about radical change without being labeled irrelevant, or worse, outmoded. While revolution may not happen over night, it’s the spirit that is so energizing; such a relief from the drone that a better world is idealism.

Image Potential

I’ve become so used to the idea that art is a luxury item, I almost forgot that in many contexts, it not only is integrated into everyday life, but has a role.

As Ken Johnson says in his review of “Bon: The Magic Word” at the Rubin Museum, on view through January:

“What is art for? What should it be for? What can it be for? Ask today’s art world these questions, and you’ll get a discordant babel of answers. So it is useful to check in on times and places that were not so conflicted. Consider, for example, the art of Bon, the centuries-old indigenous religion of Tibet, presented in a beautiful exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art. The purpose of Bon art was, unequivocally, to help achieve spiritual enlightenment.”

I think it would be arrogant for many artists to make work with the intention of it being useful to others. Meaningfulness and usefulness can only be a rare bonus in a context where images have become ordinary, replaceable, and above all, acquire-able.

Nevertheless it’s just nice to think that there continue to be practices where images help shape mental outlooks. Through visualization, there is internalization.

The painting here was made in 2000, anonymously. It's used in Hindu practice as a meditation tool. Once the image is in your mind, you can draw on it, recall it, both as symbol and image. A collection of these Lingas, as they are called, are on view at Feature through October 27.

Does the horse make the rider? Part II

There’s of course, psychological aspects to having a studio or being studio-free.

The fact of shelling out a rent has somehow been my proof that I am an artist. I studio, therefore I am. But, the space has recently represented a pressure, a place where I must produce, where I have to prove myself, through discipline and struggle.

In releasing the studio, I hope to release my art, give less room to the super ego, more for the Id; bend my rules of what I think an artist is, and in turn, become a better one.

Now, keep in mind, these were precisely the same reasons why I took a studio in the first place. I wanted to have my own space for art only. A place to let go. And for a while, it did serve as such. And it may again in the future.

Anyone looking for a room of their own, may be interested in this one. If so, contact me. I think the landlord might rent the two spaces separately. Therefore, you’d get a 200sq ft. room with 4 huge windows, for $550.

Does the horse make the rider?

I’m seriously giving thought to giving up my studio. The main impetus is money. The whole space is $950, of which I pay $550, when the small adjacent room is sublet. But, I just lost another tenant, thanks to my landlord.

Anyone living outside of New York is probably vomiting right now. Anyone living in New York, should be vomiting, but we’ve forgotten. These numbers are outrageous.

Upstate I could rent an entire warehouse and make Christopher Buchels. But, I'm no Christopher Buchel. Most of my work is made at a desk.

On a practical level, this consideration also pushes me to let it go: no video studio visit happens in a studio. If you want someone to see your work, in my experience, you have to bring the studio to them (in this case, a computer).

Major cons include:
1. Can I make video work in the same place I eat and sleep, and translate
And more urgently:
2. Can I really consider myself an artist if I don’t have a studio?

I take some comfort in David Hammons. In a 2002 New Yorker profile of the artist, he says:

"I decided a long time ago that the less I do the more of an artist I am. […] Most of the time, I hang out on the street. I walk."

Double-Header Wednesday

Double-post today.

In Hilton Als portrait of Kara Walker in The New Yorker this week, he ends with a sentimental vision of Walker celebrating her retrospective in a Paris restaurant with her gallery and others. Also, at the table is Octavia, Walker’s daughter, who sits there drawing.

Walker reminisces, “When Octavia was four, we were at an event like this […] And people were saying my name. And Octavia looked up and said, exasperated, ‘Kara Walker, Kara Walker. When is it gonna be my turn?’”

As if what the child wanted was to be an artist. Dream on folks. The child wanted her mother’s attention! And then the child turned to art hoping that if she did what her mother loved to do, she would get her attention. Maybe her mother would even be proud.

Children of artists psychology 101.

In no way do I mean to paint Walker in a bad light. What I’m trying to say is, as much as Kara Walker’s work brashly delves into social devils, we cannot forget how personal these must feel to her, not only as a black woman in the world at large, but as the child of a family that, from the sounds of it, doesn’t know how to be one. She refers to family intimacy as an “experiment.” And while art has served as a fantastic outlet to air ghosts – and have us confront them – I wonder about how she balances motherliness in there.

The ten million dollar question: can an artist also be a mother?

Questions

Can someone tell me how to make a link in a post?

Is there an advantage other than a cv notch to being in a show when the video component is a single projector showing a string of about fifty videos, each one by a different artists?

Should I lie about my age in the art world?

How does an artist let go of her super ego?

Are you supposed to just go to openings and talk to random people?

When they say, “show your best work,” doesn’t it mean show them what “they” will like?

During a studio visit, should I have a menu with all my work, but show only two or three pieces and see where it goes?

A Child's Tale

Dick, Jane and Mary are three famous people, all in the arts. They love each other.

Dick decides it’s time to publish another book. Lo and behold, Jane and Mary write the forward and introduction. Because Jane and Mary are famous, Dick gets even more attention. And Jane and Mary get even more attention in return because Dick is famous.

Friendship.

My friends are Jerry and June, but no one has ever heard of them.

Umm....

I just pumped out an application for something called Geisai Miami, a juried fair for emerging artists. It runs concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach and is hosted by PULSE.

The application calls for five jpegs of the proposed work and two installation shots. As this work would be shown for the first time, I made up my own installation views drawing on my rudimentary Photoshop skills.

I was going to ask, "What do you think? Legible or pathetic?" But, for some reason, a psychadelic effect happened on the upload. I'll try to reload later.

It's extremely frustrating to repeatedly have to represent my work in still images. It’s video folks. It moves. How can you grasp the breadth of a piece in stills? It’s like seeing a color field painting in black and white.

Believe it or not, such established programs as the Bronx Museum’s AIM don’t view DVDs until after the interview stage, and only then if the curators deem it necessary. My slides this years consisted of random words.

No wonder I've been rejected four times.

Addicted

This and last week's approach to a slew of applications is: do it fast and with less attention. My thinking is, maybe if I think less about it all, spend less time on the wording, just send out the images and DVDs, maybe it'll lead to something fresh that'll turn them on. And maybe when the rejection comes in, I won't feel as bad.

I keep saying to myself that I should stop with the applications for a bit. And just focus on new work. Just focus on de-ambition-ing. But, I can't seem to let them go. Especially when the applications are so repetitive, and therefore kind of easy.

A balance would be best of course. But, whenever I'm doing one thing, I feel guilty I'm not doing the other.

The Aluminum Fowl

I just made my first video purchase from a gallery! James Clauer's documentary "The Aluminum Fowl" is a subtle, heart-wrenching documentary about three brothers in Nashville fighting off boredom and despair. You can watch the whole piece (about 13 minutes) on youtube. Or you can view it at the Cynthia Broan Gallery through October 13.

What's exciting is the edition is 100, and each DVD is being sold for only forty buckaroos. Now that's affordable art! I'm so happy to have a short that I can watch (not on my computer). And I feel I'm (morally) supporting Mr. Clauer himself.

When I asked the gallery why they decided to have such a large and reasonably priced edition, I was told, "That's what he wanted. He wants to get it out there."

I had a "duh" moment: the goal isn't to make loads (although that's fine), it's to get the work seen. So, at the risk of damaging the "value" of my work, I may just make an edition of 100 for forty bucks each and see if I get seen more easily.

Accepting Wall Flower Status

While I wish an artist could just count on the quality of her work to open doors into the field, I’m really coming to terms with the fact that this is just naive. I know, what’s the news here?

It’s just that I don’t want to go to openings. I don’t want to schmooze. I don’t want to social climb. But, if I want to get my work into shows, then this is what needs to happen. At this very moment, I don’t know if it’s worth it.

They all did it. Everyone except for Van Gogh basically.

This is when new ideals about alternative spaces come surging into my mind. I’m not talking Artists Space, Art in General, and White Columns (although I wouldn’t kick them out of my bed). I’m talking about taking leave of the whole scene and finding/forging a separate community. Of course, as soon as you say separate, you think, “separate from what?” The answer: the scene. So it’s still plays its role. There is no escape.