The Validity of the Inner Child

Children are simply not discussed in art circles. Partners, lovers, husbands and wives, yes, but kids, no. It’s just not a hip subject.

I confess that I’ve bought into this prejudice, and tend to keep my family and my art circles separate. So, for me, I’m going out on a limb for this post (or series of posts).

I have a stepdaughter who lives with us during her vacations; in the summer, six weeks. While I find it virtually impossible to work on my own work while she’s here, she and I have undertaken (or plan to undertake) a few art activities that I’m sure some artist could capitalize on if exaggerated.

1. Drawing without looking at your paper; especially portraits.
2. Massive still lifes that combine the usual flowers and vases, but also cell phones and remote controls.
3. Putting Queen Ann’s Lace in a vase of water with food dye.
4. Making “screen prints” from layers of cardboard cut out into body parts and symbols.

I tend not to like craft-based art. But, I’ve noticed that these activities are loosening me up a bit. We’ll see about the impact when I return to the studio.

Road Rage

I have no thoughts about art for this post. Just a report on my break: I read almost an entire review today. Therefore, I have hope that the tank is slowly refueling.

I did have this unrelated thought while driving and seeing the ubiquitous “God Bless America” bumper sticker. Each word in that phrase is basically a concept, and therefore has no concrete meaning. And yet, we know exactly what is meant by it. But, can that dominant meaning be subverted?

The Career of Magical Thinking

Believe it or not, I’m actually being considered for the Whitney Biennial.

It started with a studio visit with a curator at the Whitney who I have known for a while. Although she in not involved in this year’s exhibition, I asked her how I might be considered. She told me about her experience curating it some ten years back, how her office filled with proposals overnight and how the whole exhibition is basically a political mess. Nevertheless, she gave me the name of a consulting curator based outside NY for the 2008 show. Miraculously, he picked up the phone when I found the courage – from god knows where – to call him. He accepted to receive a package.

After a month of light nagging, he wrote an email informing me that he forwarded my work to the other curators (back in NY). Then I worked my way through the labyrinth at the museum and got hold of an assistant. She told me I was on their radar and would be reviewed.

This high lasted a week.

Then I wrote the consulting curator outside of NY to thank him again, and to basically remind him that I exist.

Today, I called the assistant again and asked whether the film and media review had been completed. She just responded, clearly exhausted and overwhelmed, that the process was still in progress, and that I would be contacted if there were questions.

No high today.

Sounds like I’m one of thousands. The chances that I’m put into the film and media program are almost nil. But, I still have a grain of hope.

At this point, I truly feel there’s nothing left to do.

Unless, there is. All suggestions welcome, including mantras, candle-lighting and downright begging.

What I did over summer vacation

That’s it. I’m at the end of my rope.

I cannot absorb not one more review in ArtForum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, TimeOut, The Village Voice, Tema Celeste, Modern Painters, Flash Art, or any other publication.

I cannot prepare not one more application to an open call, to a residency, to a career-enhancement program.

I have no energy left to sit down at my computer to create not one more text-based video, to take out my camera, to pull out my notebook as my thinking pad, to simply lie on my back and let the work come.

I am officially taking a break.

The problem is, I don’t have the faith that breaks are finite. I don’t really believe that “real artists” take them. And, despite Rilke’s moving assertion that ideas must gestate, that the mind must lay fallow, if you will, I don’t trust it.

So, in this break, I’m taking a leap of faith. But, most of the time it just feels plain depressing.

I will continue with blog entries twice a week.

Updated Website

I've updated my website a bit, adding two excerpts from recent work, a new statement and a current cv.

www.MollyStevensVisualArt.com

Feedback appreciated.

Radical Stamina

I may be one of the few emerging artists who likes New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman. His apparent scathing disdain for contemporary art seems conservative to most. But, I usually think he’s accurate.

In his recent review of the Venice Biennale, he had this to say about the new work by YBA artist Tracy Emin, of soiled bed fame.

“…they left an impression that Ms. Emin has her sights on the art market while also suggesting that even the cheekiest British artists are really reactionaries at heart.”

In this same vein, Alex Ross ends his New Yorker portrait of Sibelius this week quoting composer Morton Feldman: “The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical.”

This reminded me how, often, the subversive spirit is just trend, and therefore pretty empty. Effective counter-culture is often so simple, it could go unnoticed. Flare is foregone for carefully meditated and radical pognancy. Many of Marina Abramovic’s performances are prime examples, in my mind. And this pared down pointed-ness is what I aim for in my own work.

Roberta Smith sums up the idea in her review of Rudolf Stingel at the Whitney:

“Art takes a lot of thought and deliberation, no matter how simple it may seem; and indolence has its rewards. The implication is that artists in particular should do as little as possible. The sign of a successful artwork is its ability to derive the greatest effect from the least means. Another lesson to be extracted from this elegant show is the oxymoronic nature of the notion of ‘empty beauty’ that has been bruited about extensively in the last decade. This show suggests that if art is empty, it is not beautiful and vice versa. If something is beautiful in any sustained way, it contains, at the least, an idea about beauty and usually much more. It is the result of something being worked on and worked out. Beauty is the state of operating at stunning efficiency, a triumph that can’t be empty.”

Art for Art's Sake

Anyone who is developing a form of self-expression (and anyone who reads this blog), is probably familiar with the fact that the art path is a winding one. There’s rejection, disappointment, self-doubt, but also discovery, growth and sometimes deep satisfaction.

Recently, my road has been a bit more rocky than smooth, which has prompted some of those dearest to me to encourage me to focus more on the pleasure of making than the pressure of exhibiting.

I’m not sure this is possible for me.

Because part of me is convinced that art (in any of its forms) is a public act. Art will atrophy if it is not seen, heard or read by an audience. Art is about contributing to and extracting meaning from how we live as a society and as individuals. But in order for art to do what it can do, it has to exist out there.

But maybe it is possible.

Because another part of me is suspicious that I make because I crave to be recognized, seen, heard. Perhaps I am motivated by a desire to fill a psychological deficiency. Perhaps if I just finally accept that the Mother will never say “Beautiful Job!” I’ll be set free and be a better artist.

Anyone getting the impression that I’m starting to repeat myself in these posts? Next time, I'm changing the subject.

The Sophisticated Sunday Painter

There are a few channels in the New York art world that support emerging artists, offering us group exhibitions, solo shows, career advice, residencies and sometimes moolah. Candidates are usually considered through open calls. I have been applying to these things for a few years now. I had one success, a show at Living Arts of Tulsa, which was a great experience. This is positive, I realize, but, I’m overwhelmed by the mass amount of rejections. Seems like I never get anything.

And it seems like some of my colleagues always do.

My concern today is: Am I naïve to think that an artist doesn’t necessarily have to go through these channels to become recognized? I’d like to think that cutting corners is possible. This is how I’ve mostly functioned anyway through life. (For example, I didn’t study art at all in college, but ended up getting my masters). But, is this just wishful thinking at this point?

And more importantly, when am I just a dilettante? Or worse, simply someone who hasn’t yet understood this isn’t going anywhere?

Seriously Funny

Ever notice how really good serious art has humor? Gordon Matta-Clark is a prime example. You’ll be watching a video of him cutting through the layers of a building, thinking about all the implications of doing so, admiring the formal quality of it. Then all of a sudden, you’ll find yourself laughing; not only because of the oddity, but because of the attempt (and success) of going beyond what is deemed possible; or because the act or image is so simple, it’s obvious and true.

I’m not sure if an artist can go into a piece with the intention of making it funny. I think humor might be a result, not a motive. But, I’d love examples in which it isn’t.

Now, with good comedians, it’s the opposite. They go in with the intention of humor, and what emerges, when it’s really good, is gloomy truth. Richard Pryor.

Now, of course, I'm not talking irony. Irony is anti-art, in my mind. And, while irony in general seems to be waning on the cultural level, it’s still out there, and as dangerous as ever. In this category, I lump: “boy art” (white guys who literally recreate messy rooms in galleries because they can. I ask, who’s gonna clean that shit up?); most burlesque (women acting out sexual fantasies); and political sarcasm.

But seriously, now

For reasons I do not understand, Damien Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull is getting massive amounts of attention. I don’t get the piece. There’s death, diamonds and art. Is it about the death of art? Is it a statement about how art outlives us? Is he pulling off some kind of stunt about soaring art prices (100 million dollars in this case)? I’m not really sure and I’m not interested enough to pursue it. In fact, the whole thing just disgusts me.

A friend pointed out the other day that I’m quick to pan this work, but I support David Hammon’s recent installation of painted and scorched fine fur coats, sparsely installed in an Upper East Side mansion/gallery. Although, I understand the comparison (something along the lines of luxury, ostentation, sacrilege), the Hammon’s work is poetic, dead-serious (no pun intended), and also, not-for-sale.

I keep saying this to myself: art is not a stunt, art is not entertainment. To quote Susan Sontag, “Space reserved for being serious is hard to come by in modern society, whose chief model of a public space is the mega-store (which may also be an airport or museum).” Art should aim to be this serious space.

[Note: I need a new studio mate. You’ll get a small room with a door, full walls, a large window, 29th Street, $425 (including electricity). Perfect for a writer. Available August or if better for you, September. Call me 917 940 7030.]

Foolin' em

The other night, I had a drink with another video artist. Completely un-self-consciously, she reported on her new projects, on the pitfalls of posting a recent work on YouTube, and on her successes. She took the greatest pleasure in describing the adventures of her artistic evolution, which generally springs off 80’s heavy metal cover bands.

It was fun to hear about, although I felt like a pop culture loser.

Then, she asked what I was up to, and I said, “oh, I’m doing a lot of work incorporating text.”

Well, that was a conversation stopper.
And so, we shifted to her love life.

The point is, many of us artists have a very hard time describing our work, but, we’ve got to bite the bullet. I’m starting to learn that it’s best to describe a specific project, rather than try to describe form (“incorporating text”) or overarching subject (“impermanence”).

I could have said: I’m working on a three-channel project that overlaps three subjects, artist life, family life and political life. I’m using documentary dialogue and text, no photographic images.

I probably would still have gotten the same blank reaction, but at least I would have done myself some justice. Enough fuel at least to just get myself back into the studio.

Crapdar

Is there any way to know if what you’re doing is crap? I mean, objectively, there is crap, I believe this, but how do you know if your work is? For myself, I try not to determine this on feedback, because, in my case there is so little of it. If feedback is key, I’m screwed.

Time and space usually help me see a work clearly. When I finish a piece, I usually think it’s the best thing I’ve made. I get all excited. But, then I put it away, and a few months later I watch it again and realize all sorts of problems.

One of my biggest problems is haste.

In the less than ten years that I’ve been “emerging” my career, I think I stand by only three or four pieces. That’s not much for the retrospective (or is it?). The rest, well, I might call it crap. Although, I tend to save that judgment for other people’s work.

That’s not very nice, I know.

The thing is, what we make is probably 99% junk. But, to know that while in the process only kills the fantasy. And, when there’s no feedback, you need that grain of hope.

God knows what the line is between delusion and rigor.

Tuna on White

In her scathing review of Neo Rauch at the Met, Roberta Smith states the following:

"Yet middlebrow remains a useful term, and an expanding category in today’s art world, a handy handle for art that is nonthreatening, accessible and earnest and that deals with time-honored humanistic themes.

"The phrase connotes an absence of, say, highbrow rigor and difficulty, or, equally, lowbrow flash and perversity. Jeff Koons is an example (not rare these days) of an artist who has had it both ways — he’s highbrow and lowbrow with such success that by now he probably can’t avoid being a bit middlebrow too. But there are also artists whose work is middlebrow to begin with. Bill Viola and Tim Hawkinson, for example."

I feel so insecure now.

From what I understand, middlebrow means, not very researched, but, not really irreverent either? Basically, a middlebrow person is a bit bland and aims for the "feel good." In my head, the person who calls you "arty" (or worse, "artsy fartsy") is middlebrow.

But how do you avoid middlebrow-ness? Her definition of middlebrow doesn't sound so bad. So, this is a lot of pressure.

Heart is not a bad word

In Monday’s post, I was really opening up a can of worms. The representation of suffering is no small topic. The subject collides right into the ethics of representing others, into the aestheticization of documentary photography and film, and of course, into questions about “what works” (for whom and why being another issue in itself).

As fate would have it, in the most recent issue of Book Forum, there’s a review of two books on the subject. The only thing that really caught my eye was this: In a 1981 essay Martha Rosler, accuses “concerned photography” of “embracing the weakest possible idea of social engagement, namely compassion.” I do realize that Rosler might be condemning sentimentality and passiveness, but, what a totally inhuman way to put it! It’s surely this attitude that leads to irony, my number one pet peeve in art nowadays. Nothing is more boring. It basically erases meaning. It’s a non-stance. It’s non-existence. Might as well just sit down in front of the TV and wait to die.

Beautiful examples of how aestheticizing the documentary can be powerful and compassionate (a good word, by me) are Errol Morris’s early documentaries, "Vernon, Florida" and "Gates of Heaven." Each shot is beautiful composed, yet folks have their own voice, they’re given their humanness in a non-Hallmark way. Ideology is removed in favor of a layered and complex view of pain and pleasure.