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?

Bow Down to the Ones You Love

A former and favorite teacher of mine, Michael St. John, has a show at Marvelli this month called Revolution Blues. The work refers to all my favorite things: Philip Guston, revolutionary figures, loss, the Black Panthers. And formally speaking, I’m tickled pink: a 1960s graphic sensibility, text, appetizing surfaces.

What I wonder is, is it enough for work to draw on values and visuals I hold dear? If the photograph of Fassbiner in this painting were of someone I did not admire, would I be so attracted to the work? How much of the appeal is right there in front of me, and how much comes from my head, from what I come to the work with?

I’ve sometimes wondered the same about Martin Scorcese’s use of music in his film. I am always happy to hear a Stax hit or even a loud Rolling Stones tune, but does the soundtrack do more than just make me happy. Does it serve a separate work or does it make the work?

As I don’t think anyone reads this blog, this debate will remain mostly in my head. Of course, if there’s anyone out there…

Lonely Mind

In The Truman Show, the main character liberates himself from the shackles of the mundane by drawing on the power of his independent thinking. It’s such a romantic premise, who couldn’t love it!

As an artist, I wonder about how independent my thinking is all the time. I struggle with an (un-independent) need to feel unique and authentic and recognized as such on one hand; and a desire to meet the potential of art in my own terms on the other.

All the art work I love seems to share a certain will-do-it-despite-it-all spirit. I’m not saying certain risks didn’t fill the artists with ambivalence. But, the work works because it is its own.

But, what are you going to do. Go into the studio and say, “today, I will make something to the beat of my own drum?” Hogwash. It doesn’t work like that.

Update on the definition of emerging status: Now that I will be 35, I think I will simply say that I’m an artist. I’m dropping the emerging, even though my cv classifies me in that category.

Gridlock

Networking is the most uncomfortable necessary evil. You do it because you need to, and the insincerity of your moves is palpable. You end up calling people, asking them for favors, when you know they don’t have the time to help, nor the will. You come off as the typical polite and needy woman, who speaks in a head voice, but who in fact is aggressive and perhaps desperate or nuts.

Oh, if I only never had to make another follow-up call again.

People have made follow up calls to me (not for art, but for translation). On occasion I’ve felt the tickle of power, and have played up the busy, cold, or uninterested. On occasion, I’ve also offered generic advice, without offering more. I understand not wanting to be networked.

What is an artist to do.

And more importantly, how long can I claim to be emerging?

My Life and Others

In The Lives of Others, the German film about being an artist under the Stasi in East Germany circa 1984, the argument is made, loud and clear, that art is powerful. It is so powerful, in fact, that a repressive bureaucrat, moved by beauty, risks his entire life to protect the couple he is surveying. As an artist, this is my romantic ideal. Somehow, it is this dream – that art can make a difference – that keeps me going.
Towards the end of the film, there’s a scene where an ex-official teases the main character, blaming his lack of productivity on the fact that there’s no longer anything to fight against (the Wall had come down). Despite the risk of message art, art does need to fight against, it needs to challenge definitions, boundaries, and the status-quo. But, how successful is it nowadays?
I’m still not sure if art can make a difference. In the film, writing, journalism, has reverberations. This I can believe. But, how about other forms of art. Really.
Thank god for Jacques Rancière, who I am being introduced to in this month’s ArtForum. He’s just starting to convince me that there is hope.

Be Unfashionable

My preliminary skim of the March issue of ArtForum was unpleasantly interrupted by full-page fashion ads. Seventy-five percent of the magazine are ads for galleries and museums. I’m used to this. These ads are almost the point of getting ArtForum to begin with. The ads are a way to get a feel of what’s happening and to make a list of what I want to see and don’t. Why all of a sudden are there ads for Tse, Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga, and some store that claims to be run like an artwork. I want ‘em out.

I’m going to be a purist here: I don’t want fashion designers near my art. Not in ArtForum, not in The New Yorker Style Issue. I know, I know. Advertising is what’s happening in our culture. And art is all about advertising and money and selling. It’s just a sign of the times that art and advertising mix. And yes, I know, art can even take this head on. But, please. Let’s have some decency here and just draw those lines, define those boundaries. Art for galleries and public performance is different from Art on bodies sold in stores.

Back to Basics

I’m interested in the difference between wanting to be a successful artist, and grasping at that desire.

Wanting to be a successful artist implies believing that art is in fact important. It implies that I am committed to it, through thick and thin, for better or for worse. Grasping at the desire means hunting for recognition, holding on to a definition of myself as an artist for definition sake, becoming enthralled with the idea more than with the work.

I confess, it’s sometimes hard to tell where I stand, what motivates me, what inspires me. Is it great work or the thought of great work? Depending on the day, and depending on how honest I’m feeling, my answer may vary.

Here are five good reasons to be an artist that I can list today:
1. What I make might be revelatory, both for me and any viewers.
2. Art keeps my mind from falling asleep.
3. Art can go down deep, maybe deeper than other forms of communication.
4. Art looks good.
5. It can go beyond the material.

The Beat of a Different Drummer

Francis Alÿs’s Green Line performance is poetic politics and political poetry. On top of it, it’s a mesmerizing video experience. Alÿs walked through Israel with a leaking can of green paint, tracing a line across the country. Various dialogue and commentary on the historical significance and on the artistic act is heard as voice over.

The shows that have impressed me the most recently – Alÿs and Gordon Matta-Clark – are about symbolic acts in the public sphere. The emphasis is not on formal qualities – although they are there – but on large-scale undertakings that are essentially metaphorical, and perhaps socially effective. Art is taken out of the market, onto the street, into the moment. The work is unpredictable, and as a result, energetic.

The experience at both shows feels almost like study, although a visceral quality is there. But the digestion of the work is slow.

At this point, I feel like I’m too attached to my ego, to the object as proof of myself, to really pursue this direction. But, in my head, this is the direction I should go. And so should art.

Sorry State of Affairs

Alan Riding in the New York Times today echoes my own thoughts on a recent trip to Paris:

"The French art scene has lost its buzz. The culture of the past looks safe, with government-owned museums, opera houses and theaters all well attended. But today’s creators, from visual artists to writers, often seem out of touch with society. In a country gripped by uncertainty about its identity, in a campaign dominated by the word change, they have little to say.

One explanation may be that, like many people in France, artists are obsessed with protecting their privileges, which they consider a birthright. At the same time, the culture ministry, which spends a quarter of its budget on itself, guards its power, viewing greater private-sector involvement as a threat to its independence and an invitation to dumbing down.

[…]

Yet when the French lament the morose state of contemporary art here, they instinctively blame the government, as if artists and galleries share no responsibility."

And Jerry in the Village Voice reminds us:

"Despite all appearances to the contrary, only about one-percent-of-one-percent of all artists make money from or are lauded for their work—possibly much less."

Also out this week: The New Yorker's Style issue, which has several articles on the art world. When did art stop being culture?

All this on a day when I received yet another rejection, this time from Aljira, for the Emerge program. This time, I was not even asked for an interview.