Washington, DC Art News

The digestive system turns food into eyelashes.

I am in awe of the minutiae and delicate actions that make up everyday life. The machines I build reflect this awe and wonder. My work is intimate, curious and mesmerizing in its movement and gesture. The translation of energy is both a functional and conceptual part of my work. The circular movement of a motor is translated into a gesture that turns peacock feathers into entomological organisms. With movement, I make machines that become creatures.

For the High-Gloss Lifestyle, a High-Gloss Magazine

Jason Binn publishes slick city mags that cater to glamorous people: He's behind Ocean Drive in Miami, Gotham in New York, Hamptons on Long Island, Aspen Peak and Los Angeles Confidential. Now he's wagering that his formula will work in Washington. During inauguration week, Binn, 37, came here to schmooze and talk up Capitol File, a quarterly that he says will launch in the fall.

"We're going to bring together some of the biggest boldface names in Washington as contributors," Binn tells us. "We're looking to give Washington a really luxe, full-color, glossy, comprehensive read. It'll be like a coffee-table book." The fast-talking, name-dropping Binn, a fixture on the New York party circuit, says Capitol File won't just focus on pretty faces, social climbers and fashionistas but also will cover politics, business and art. (Local angle: Binn's older brother, Jonathan P. Binstock, is curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran; he uses the family's original name.)

In competing with Washington Life and the monthly Washingtonian, Binn says his mag will be mailed free "to all the homes valued at over $1 million." He's also craving another rich market: Capitol File's promo for advertisers boasts of "a unique distribution partnership with NetJets," a private jet outfit. "With an average customer's net worth of $25 million, you will be in good company." Lofty targets indeed.

When critics, gallerists, curators or artists get their knickers in a knot over the need to promote traditional - generally figurative - art as an antidote to the rising tide of decadent, superficial, sensationalist hucksterism, they are relegating themselves to crackpot status. The issue isn't so much the viability of figurative work, as the mainstream art world easily embraces a handful of token figure painters like Elizabeth Peyton or John Curran [sic] every few years. Nor is it merely the fact that they are swimming against the tide of Modernism with its utopian sense of inevitability and its flagship aesthetic of reductive minimalism. What truly isolates them is the siege mentality with which they declare their dedication to representational craftsmanship, a passionate testifying that is out of place in the convivial social whirl of the art marketplace.

Kuspit can hardly be described as an art-world outsider, though. A contributing editor to Artforum and several other major art magazines, professor of art history and philosophy at SUNY Stony Brook, and the author of a score of books as well as the official Encyclopedia Britannica entry on art criticism, Kuspit is more of an insider than most Duchamp scholars will ever be. In Columbia University's National Arts Journalism Program's 2002 survey of visual-arts critics, he ranked as the 33rd most influential art theorist in all of history. Still, when the opportunity came for Kuspit to curate an exhibition demonstrating the kind of work he believes offers "the possibility of making a new aesthetic harmony out of the tragedy of life, without falsifying it," that opportunity was nowhere in or around Manhattan, but in the unlikely community of Hermosa Beach in a clean, well-funded space called Gallery C.

"And just at the moment painting is a highly fashionable art form. It's having a bout of serious twitches. In the past few years I can think of several major exhibitions that have identified a new spirit in painting... and there have been many other smaller ones.

Or go round the trendy commercial galleries in London. Painting is currently so fashionable, it's on the verge of being unfashionable again."

"Most of the paintings on this blog will be postcard-sized oil sketches (I call them Postcard Paintings.) I paint them on site, using a modified cigar box as an easel. Occasionally I may post a larger, more finished painting, in which case I'll include the dimensions. If you would like to purchase a Postcard Painting, they cost $100."

ART

ART ABOUT SEX, gender and feminism is everywhere today. Some younger artists even see it as old hat -- they prefer to make work that's closer to good-looking fun. On Tuesday, the Hirshhorn Museum and the art history department at George Washington University are sponsoring a talk by Carolee Schneeman, who was one of the 1960s pioneers of sex-themed art by women. It should remind us of how radically out-there such artmaking once was.

-- Blake Gopnik

At George Washington University's Dorothy Betts Marvin Theater, 800 21st St. NW. Tuesday at 7 p.m. Free. Call 202-633-4674 or visit hirshhorn.si.edu

There's been a rumor floating around the art blog circuit the past couple of weeks concerning a reported incident involving an UCLA art student who supposedly brought a gun to an art class being taught by artist/teacher Chris Burden (the dumb-ass artist who in the 70s had himself shot in the arm with a rifle) and who proceeded to scare the shit out of his classmates by threatening to commit suicide right in front of their very imaginative MFA-high-tuition-paying eyes. The rumor also suggests that this frightening suicide attempt was nothing more than a dramatic performance art piece offered up in tribute to Burden.

When I first read the breaking news reports (properly vetted, of course, through rigorous journalistic art blogging standards and practices) echoing across the Internet among certain highly credentialed art bloggers, I nearly fell out of my vintage cane back rocking chair on the veranda of my ancestral Southern Gothic mansion in Mississippi with a seizure brought on by endless waves of laughter generated by the possibility that such a poignant story could in fact be true. I actually laughed so hard over this comic what-goes-around-comes-around scenario that I probably spilled half of a bottle of my father’s finest Jim Beam bourdon through the ancient cracks of the veranda into the inspiring Mississippi soil resting silently underneath my genteel family’s Ante-Bellum Greek Revival abode – hopefully, that whiskey will inspire some truth to sprout up out of the ground about this rumored gun issue.

But the more I laughed over these gun reports, the more I realized that something really wasn’t very funny about some of what I was reading on some of these art blogs. I retired inside to the library, gathered my composure, poured another stiff drink, lighted one of my illegal Cuban cigars given to me years ago by a former County Sheriff (a righteous Southern dude who's currently serving time in a Texas federal prison because of his excessively close association with the infamous Dixie Mafia) and began to harmonize on this matter of Guns and Hypocrisy in the World of Modern Art Blogging.

And here it is...

Full Disclosure: I’m from Mississippi; I’m a hard-core anti-political Southern anarchist artist who holds most hierarchical powers that be in total contempt; and I’m also a member of the National Rifle Association, as was another radical Southern-born anarchistic artist/writer by the name Mr. William S. Burroughs (who I am honored to say I counted as a correspondent friend before his death in 1997) on all counts.

Southern liberals with guns - it's a Deep South religious thing that I will not waste valuable server space on DC Art News site explaining or justifying. Let me just simply comment that I’m indeed an extreme liberal Southern artist who knows a thing or two about how to use firearms.

GUN REPORT: I'm especially transfixed by the ease of use and accuracy of the M9 Beretta 9mm. If guns had existed in the Old West Biblical era Holy Land, our savior Jesus Christ would have carried a M9 Beretta 9mm. The M9 semi-automatic pistol weighs two pounds and has a maximum effective range of 50 meters. It has a staggered 15 round magazine with a reversible magazine release button that can be positioned for either right- or left-handed shooters. The M9 is a semiautomatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated, double action pistol, chambered for the NATO 9mm cartridge. The service pistol is a close personal defense weapon and is deadly accurate.

I take it that the dumb-ass art student at UCLA, just like his counterpart art teacher back in the day, weren't deploying real weapons. I believe Burden used a .22 caliber rifle -good for shooting squirrels and pulling off art stunts, I suppose, but not for killing people. I’m anxious to learn what weapon the dumb-ass art student was packing. No doubt whatever his combined student loan and art scholarship could afford – minus all deductions for condoms, beer, nightly internet porn hook-ups, black market electronic goods and male hair care products.

Anyway...

I also know a thing or two about speaking direct to the subject without gagging on the coughed-up phlegm of politically correct speech patterns designed to convey my false sensitivity on issues of such national importance as some dumb-ass art student walking into a classroom and trying to one-up his more famous art teacher who himself pulled a pre-MTV Jackass stunt way back in the day when smoking cheap pot with long-haired anti-Vietnam War radicals and burning American flags made in Mexico while reciting English translations printed in the Philippines of anti-capitalist poetry by Mao was considered chic (Of course, many of these committed raging sincerely angry artists remained true to their dream to change the world, grew up, got married, settled down in Northern Virginia, went to work for the defense industry mind-melding their software programs into a more efficient satellite guided missile killing system and now enjoy nothing more than having missionary position sex once a quarter so they can ease into a post-coital reading of their online 401k statements to see how the market is treating them).

A certain collection of the more dedicated art sensitive radicals, however, settled into similarly comfortable life styles of "teaching" art at the university level... as if art can be taught.

But that's a fraud subject for another day.

Chris Burden and Guns -

I don't know Chris Burden, I've never met Chris Burden and I don't give a damn about anybody named Chris Burden. I' not inspired by bullet holes in Chris Burden' body anymore than I'm inspired by the entirety of Chris Burden's body of work. I don't consider him to be a great artist. I do believe that he must be a smart and clever person to have parlayed his 70s era gun stunt into the career, success, fame and money he now enjoys - that I do find inspiring. I also recognize that he has undertaken significant efforts during recent years to divorce himself from Shoot because he wants to be perceived as an architect/artist.

Chris Burden is a married 57 year old member of the art elite who lives in the lap of luxury in California – I've actually seen his home as a friend of mine in California once lived mere blocks from Burden. In short, Burden has a lot invested in his public perception and has demonstrated in the past his fruitful ability to manipulate the press for his own gain. This rumored dumb-ass art student gun stunt will probably prove out to be yet another example.

But, for the sake of argument...

The Dumb-ass Art Student –

What can I say? If everything is true as is reported on the art blogs (and God knows that if it's reported on a left coast art blog it must be true), then he's a dumb-ass. But in my libertarian/anarchistic world even dumb-ass art students, just like dumb-ass art teachers, ought to be protected by a little thing called Freedom of Artistic Expression. This kid didn’t shoot anyone and it wasn't a Columbine situation. For Christ sakes, everybody I knew in Mississippi as a student carried a knife and/or gun to class and we never experienced a major life threatening knifing or shooting. Some serious wounds? Sure. But I don’t recall anyone ever dying.

The angry froth among certain art bloggers over what UCLA should do to this student is laughable. UCLA knew exactly what they were getting when they hired Burden. Indeed, they gleefully promote the Burden-style attitude on their web site.

The Department of Art is committed to a professional art training within the context of a liberal arts university. Visual artists are responsible for some of the most provocative and enduring expressions of culture. At UCLA, emerging artists are provided with the tools they need to express themselves in ways that are meaningful in the social context in which they live and work.

The department attracts gifted and motivated students who thrive in an environment that encourages autonomy. They are drawn not only to the outstanding creative faculty, the University's resources, and its location in one of the world's leading art centers, but also to a program that encourages them to develop as artists. The result is a distinguished list of graduates who have made significant contributions in their field.

I assume the school provided the dumb-ass art student "with the tools they need to express themselves" – a gun – "in ways that are meaningful in the social context in which they live and work."

What's curiously missing from Burden's bio (he’s a professor of "new genres") on UCLA’s web site is any reference to Shoot. One wonders why...

Supposedly, according to the rumor, Burden has quit teaching at UCLA because the university has refused to expel the offending dumb-ass art student.

Imagine UCLA hiring a paroled Charles Manson to teach a creative writing class, having a student of his class decide one day that he’s going to one-up Charley by ritually killing the Dean and his family in the hopes of being imprisoned so he can become an American Icon (serial killers in America automatically qualify for Pop Icon status), going to trial and being acquitted for lack of evidence, re-enrolling in Charley’s class, and having Manson scream, bitch and moan that UCLA has to either expel this kid or he's quitting.

Moral of the story: Be very careful about elevating Asshole Pop Icons to Sainthood and be even more careful about whom you hire to work for you.

Chris Burden and the dumb-ass art student and whether he pulled a loaded gun and fired it or didn't and whether Burden and the art students were scared or not is irrelevant to me. It's almost like worrying about some multi-millionaire asshole in California who might have had Frank O. Gehry build a titanium-sheathed house on a steep dirt mound and having it slip down the side of the mountain into the ocean after God decides to take a drunken piss on the left coast. In a world where a Tsunamis can kill hundreds of thousands of poor people, the problems of a gargantuan narcissistic ego-jackass not being able to find his precious Ferrari under 50 feet mud don't amount to jack-shit.

Or put it this way: If you're an aspiring artist who believes you've got to get an art degree to be taken seriously in the art world, don't be a sucker for an MFA at UCLA because it damn sure doesn't guarantee a Whitney Biennial invite. Find better things to do with your art time than sitting in a class being manipulated by an AARP member-eligible art dinosaur and subjecting yourself to the risk of being shot by an ADD dumb-ass art student sycophant.

Theo van Gogh and Guns – My Only Serious New Testament Concern

Here’s what happened to Theo van Gogh in the real world that I care about:

Van Gogh had received death threats after his film "Submission" was shown on Dutch TV. See the film here.

It portrayed violence against women in Islamic societies.

The film was made with liberal Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who fled an arranged marriage.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been under police protection since the film was aired. She has also received death threats and has renounced the Islamic faith.

For making this film, Theo van Gogh was rewarded by being chased down like a dog and repeatedly shot by a radical extremist Islamic right wing piece of shit that was part of an organized conspiracy. The murderer then placed a note on van Gogh’s bloodied corpse and slammed a knife into his chest.

And the reaction from the art world elite on this crime – silence.

The reaction from the art blogger community – near silence.

Theo van Gogh was slaughtered on the streets in Amsterdam by a bunch of radical conspiring religious assholes that hated him and his art and who believe they have the perfect right to kill anybody they target to advance their sick agenda.

I am deeply troubled that the art world has yet to rise up and demonstrate its collective outrage over what happened to Theo van Gogh. But the deafening sound of silence over this matter is not a mystery to me – the art world establishment has boxed itself into a corner with its politically correct doctrines and now finds it almost impossible to defend controversial artists such as Theo van Gogh and what should be his basic right under the concept of Freedom of Artistic Expression to express himself, even if some of his views were indeed intended to be insulting to certain people.

The reasoning among the politically correct art elite goes something like this: "Well, it’s a real shame about van Gogh, but he really brought it all on himself with his outrageous words and art and should have been more sensitive about offending the deeply and sincerely held religious views of some of the minority members of his community. If his art had just been more culturally sensitive, this horrible crime probably never would have taken place."

I find it appalling that so much energy has been spent writing so many words that have been posted over a host of art blogs that express such outrage over what the dumb-ass art student did or may have done concerning this still rumored event at UCLA. Where were these moral voices, or anonymous internet-handle-delivered words, when Theo van Gogh was violently killed in the real world? I have taken the time to review some of these sites and find it very interesting that there was at the time, and has been since, a dearth of expressed outrage.

I think I know why: The Fear Factor – In this country it is perfectly acceptable to the art world elite to be an artist who pisses on the Bible, smears cow shit all over a statue of the Virgin Mary or rams a photograph of the Pope up the ass as a performance piece. These people get extolled. You can even make an anti-Bush "documentary" and become a goddamn millionaire, win major international film prizes and have people back home hype you for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Sure, the usual right wing Republican assholes jump up and down and demand your grant money be rescinded, but that’s usually about as far as it goes. The talking heads get to chatter and the offending artist or filmmaker gets invited be on "Larry King."

But the cultural elite here and abroad know this fact for sure – if you dare insult Islam by pissing on the Koran or smearing cow shit over a statue of Mohammed or ramming a photograph of any radical Islamic leader up your ass as a performance art piece, you will have just guaranteed that your butt will be placed on the world-wide Jihad Art Assassination Squad fatwa hit list and that your name and address will be broadcast nightly on Al Jazeera.

Even the younger generation of art bloggers has heard of Salmon Rushdie, I hope.

I am very grateful to DC Art News for publishing my letter the day after Mr. van Gogh was brutally murdered condemning the extremist conspiracy of religious fanatics responsible for his death.

My letter can be read here.

I am also very grateful that there are other voices out there in the art world wilderness speaking with clarity on this issue.

Here is one of the very few: Peacetalk.com.

I am profoundly grateful to Mr. Pieter Dorsman for his bravery in staying on top of this story.

Artists and art bloggers need to stand up for higher principles than the false immediacy of politically correct doctrines that seem to be so highly valued in the insulated world of those who pose no risk, and dare not to pose a risk, to the established order.

And if certain parties in the art blogging community are unwilling to risk their lives standing up in defense of a consistent definition of Freedom of Artistic Expression that protects every creative person no matter how offensive their words or art, then at least do us all a favor by engaging in a modicum of basic fact checking before hyper-ventilating about meaningless art rumors involving dumb-ass art teachers and art students who like to play with toy guns out in California.

Sincerely,

James W. Bailey

FACT CHECK:

I called and/or emailed the following parties to verify if the above referenced rumored story was true. The truth of this rumored story can not be confirmed by any of the following parties that I have communicated with as of Wednesday, January 19, 2005. Chris Burden has not responded to my email.

1.) Editorial Staff of the Los Angeles Times

2.) Editorial Staff of the LA Weekly

3.) Editorial Staff of the The Daily Bruin

4.) The Office of the District Attorney of Orange County

5.) UCLA Department of Art

6.) UCLA Chancellor’s Office

7.) UCLA Department of Security

8.) Personally emailed Chris Burden

By James W. Bailey

I also loved Galo Moncayo's installation "So far, I do not know," with its garden of stereo speaker cones arranged faceup like lily pads emitting belches and pops.

This panel started off like all the other panel discussions that have ever happened before on the DC art scene: A comparison of DC to some place else. Oh the insecurity! Will it always be THE defining essence?

DC is the District of Columbia. There is no place else in the United States of America that compares.

The District of Columbia is not a state. It's not even really a city. It's located below the Mason Dixon line but refuses to be called southern. It's a town, filled with people from somewhere else. It is accustomed to a slow moving pace of the bureaucratic cogs.

There is no rotting industrial core for flies to dwell.

DCAC has always provided a stable for flies off the fetid alleyway.

There is a curatorial convenience of plunking Washington area artists into a regional box, and since this panel was being led by a Washington area curator, the discussion began inside the box.

Henry Estada was a refreshing new voice outside the box. Estada glowed with the confidence of a professional and the perspective of the outsider, the Latino "other". He repeatedly opened up doorways and attempted to lead the group outside of the box, but in the box they remained. And a group discussion never really evolved. Instead of a moderated group discussion, we had a direct question and answer panel, which is fine, but frustrating when panelists refused to answer the direct questions that they were given.

The most irritating panelist was "critic" Tyler Green. First off, one has to wonder why he is even on a panel about the DC scene when his interests seem to lie anywhere else but the District of Columbia. Andrea Pollan asked an important question that he was unable to answer: Why does he focus so much energy on criticizing the critics?

Could the answer be because it is easy? What DC artist has Tyler Green championed, that was not already championed by someone else?

Tyler Green revealed his ignorance of the DC scene by making a point that no artists in DC make political art or that there is no history of political art in DC.

Oh really? Well, what was Steven Lewis doing? Excuse me, that was political art. What was Tom Nakashima doing (the other local who happened to receive a Joan Mitchell grant?) That's political art. Kendall Buster's husband Siemon Allen makes political art. But some might argue that Siemon Allen isn't a Washington artist anymore.

What about Hemphill's exhibition of Eduardo del Valle & Mirta Gomez, Cornell Capa, Bob Adelman, Eve Arnold and others. Does it really matter if these artists live in the Washington area or not? Well, Tyler Green claimed he had to go to Marfa, Texas to see political art.

It is simply not true.

It's even easier to argue the point and bring up racial and sexual political art that is being made here.

What is Jefferson Pinder making? Political art. Nekisha Durrett is making political art. Oh, you don't think that is what Tyler Green was talking about, eh?

Well, it cannot be denied that current flashpoints of national political debates include race, homosexuality, and religion.

An audience member asked a legitimate question to the panelists, where do they (the experts) see the next trend in Washington area art? Pause. Mouths drop open and Pollan finally spews sarcastic with "what'ya think we're FORTUNE TELLERS?"

Well, that type of response is a real conversation killer. You get more flies with honey.

Is sarcasm kind or is it mean-spirited? Could that type of response be born of an insecurity? Could a kinder response, while perhaps lacking the charge of mean-spirited humor, been more productive to the arts community as a whole? More productive to outreach efforts that, in fact, could sustain the local market in the long run?

Where is Tyler Green's critical response?

Flies overhead were privy to audience members whispering about content driven craft as being the next big Washington trend. Perhaps the sarcasm from the experts rendered them reticent.

Jerry Saltz coined the term "The Super Paradigm."

The Super Paradigm has overt weaknesses, including its vastness, lack of positive charge focused around change, an inability to form coherent groups and a tendency to undervalue the local. Other art centers are scenes more than worlds; they generate artists in clumps and clusters and are enormously supportive of their own. The Super Paradigm processes everything individually. It is so large that it's hard to get a fix on what's going on in it.

The upside of the Super Paradigm is that while more bad art surfaces, everything is potentially viable within it. Artists over 35 have a chance. This is creating permutations and anomalies.

Where does Washington, DC fit into The Super Paradigm? What permutations and anomalies are arising? What (or who) is proving to be the positive charges focused around change? Obviously, Philip Barlow, Henry Estada, and Victoria Reis are some. Had there been more focus on developing a group discussion, perhaps these panelists could have shown themselves to be the real "outside the box" thinkers that they are.

Artists make the work they are compelled to make, then they usually start to bump into members of their "tribe" all over the place, becoming aware of kinships formally or conceptually with other artists (or writers, etc.). Geography really has nothing to do with it.

It is more like shared webs of sensibility/influence/intuition/concern that are much larger than the immediate physical geography. An artist may find their local "tribe" first from sheer convenience, but that doesn't mean it ends there, or that the local connections will end up necessarily being the strongest at the end of the day.

There was an audience member who made a statement that political art was possibly the only path by which DC could distinguish itself and have a recognizable "movement." BUT, more importantly - in our globalized world & (art)world, why would such a specific, place-bound reference (politics) be the "only way" DC could stand out? We need bigger webs, man, bigger webs.

MORE HONEY = MORE FLIES

We need wide angle thinking among our (self-anointed) "movers and shakers."

The first way to conquer the insecurity is to honestly admit to it.

Anon

Dear all,

I was the moderator of the panel that Faith Flanagan kindly organized for ArtTable. It was a broad mix of panelists including an artist, a collector, arts administrators, curators, an art consultant and an arts journalist. Naturally with such a broad range of interests, and so many panelists, and so little time, I could only scratch the surface of such a rich and fertile terrain.

To the Anon contributor, certainly you have a right to your perspective and opinions. My comment about whether we see new trends developing in Washington, DC was certainly not meant to be sarcastic. As I recall, I smiled and said, "You mean fortune-telling?" It was intended to be light-hearted and certainly not mean-spirited. Sorry if you felt it was a conversation killer, but I recall it raised the discussion about political art. (And that's such a rich subject-plenty of material for another panel.)

Any curator knows that one should always take cues from the artist and the artistic output and not try to impose an artificial framework upon a city. Zeitgeists come and go. I see such a huge diversity of artistic output and aesthetic strategies among this city's artists, that I cannot say that I see a stylistic trend that is unique to this city. If anything, the artists of thiscity are becoming aware of global trends and want their work to enter that important context.

The idea of DC Warming had more to do with the growing level of interest in contemporary art that seems to be emerging (there's that word) across the city. Not a "Who's Hot" panel. If it had been a "Who's Hot" panel, it would have been called that. Personally I tend not to like those kinds of panels because they tend to serve the market and media more than the artist in the long run.

ArtTable is a wonderful national organization of women arts administrators from all kinds of backgrounds, not just contemporary art. The programs are meant to edify the membership and allow us to know what directions are occuring in other museums, galleries, educational institutions, and publications. I was happy that ArtTable opened this panel up to the public.

On a personal front, I have dedicated the better part of my life to making DC an exciting art city working with over 2000 artists, 80% of whom live in this area. And I won't even mention the 24/7 I have put in trying to do outreach to develop new audiences for contemporary art. So, I hardly feel that your characterization of me as elitist is appropriate. But then again, I believe in freedom of speech. So that's why I choose to work with interesting and provocative artists.

Andrea Pollan

"The art of any society emerges from the beliefs, attitudes, organization and structure as well as the inherent creativity and energy of that society. The truths and standards generally accepted are also those which underlie all artistic expression.

We are at the dawn of a new millennium. The 21st century has come bringing with it the new age of technology, terrorism and war. Modern technology has transformed the way we communicate, conduct business and for some us, it has changed the way we do art. Terrorism and war have forced us to take a closer look at not only other cultures and religions, but to examine those things in our own religion and culture that shape us and make us what we are today.

If it is true that art is reflective of the beliefs, attitudes and structure of society, when the history books are written about the current era what will they say about the art of the new millennium?

Popular music, unlike the visual arts, has a distinctive array of current trends and movements with the sounds of hip-hop, rap, gangster rap and neo-soul. Like most arts movements of the past, these musical forms were met with hostility and apprehension. History has taught us that revolutionary change often comes with a high price tag.

In art, there are numerous examples of arts movements that were not accepted by the masses when the work was first exhibited. In his work titled, Modern Art, Trevor Copplestone points to this same lack of acceptance regarding Impressionism, Futurism and Surrealism in the 20th century.

When the Impressionist first exhibited in a group show in 1874 their work was ridiculed, compared to the scribbles of a child, called wretched and insulting.

Copplestone writes this about Futurism: 'In 1909, the Futurism manifesto was published, extolling the beauty of speed, the virility of the new machine-based society and the possibilities inherent in the nascent scientific age of a new dynamic humanism. On the whole the movement was met with ridicule that its activities deliberately invited.'

In 1924, the first surrealist manifesto was issued. Surrealism appeared in many different artistic forms, including poetry, fiction, music and films. Surrealism is often thought of as an attitude to life and society as opposed to a style in art. During the 1930s, surrealist work was put on display in most countries. Without fail, these exhibitions were met with incomprehension. Moreover, the mainstream press vilified surrealism. Copplestone notes when the 1936 International Surrealists Exhibition opened in London that the Daily Express wrote that it was 'unfit' for the public, which was probably due to the overt sexuality used extensively in the early surrealist works.

Many art historians have argued that pop art was one of the most accepted by the public from its very onset, which was due to it being the first art form in which the lifestyle of the popular culture dictated the art. In the late 1950s in London and New York, pop art took as its subject matter from the common imagery of American culture as defined by the advertising industry. Pop art addressed trendy fashionable images. The qualities desirable for pop art was popular, low-brow, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous and big business. Pop was anti-art, or at least, anti-high art.

Currently, in the visual arts, diversity seems to be the operative word. Depending on the which gallery one steps into, regardless of the city, state, country, you can readily view abstract art, impressionistic, cubism as well as a variety of other styles and mediums. No particular style, method or medium has dominated the art scene in the first few years of the new millennium nor has any group of artists developed manifestos declaring new artistic intent or motive.

Via chose or as a result of an absence of a current artistic style, fashion or 'movement' visual artists appear to be more focused on things that interest them on a more personal or individual level. They appear to be working more within themselves and producing work that is connected to their own personal experiences, interest, influences, heritage or history. A kind of 'individualism' appears to be the constant theme within the art of the new millennium.

Regardless of which direction that we decide to travel, history books will be written. It is up to you to create the text."

Malik M. Lloyd
FIND ART Information Bank

J. Morgan Puett used to have an incredible arty line of natural fiber, un-ironed clothes, baggy dresses with a baroque southern hipster flair, vaguely Amish looking too

J. Morgan Puett used to have a place in 1992 called Skep at 527 Broome St in NY. In 1992 she was 35--so she is 47 or 48 now. She was born in Hahira, GA. Suzanne Vega, the folk singer, did her opening benefit show at Skep. Syd Straw, the famous singer, used to model for her sales brochures. Michelle Shocked was also a shareholder in Skep, and Jane Pratt, the editor of Sassy magazine, was involved. I think Natalie Merchant used to wear her clothes too.

Skep is an old woven beehive and Puett comes from four generations of beekeepers. Her brother Garnett Puett is an artist who works with bees.

I went there in 1992 -- the building was an old screw factory (if she owned it and then sold it, she probably made a fortune and moved to the country in Pennsylvania).

She would recycle the coffee grounds from the coffee shop and use them upstairs to dye the clothes. Extremely cool clothes -- but EXPENSIVE!! Pirjoj used to sell them in her Georgetown store-- $800 one-of-a kind looking pants dye-stained with tea, coffee grounds or grass and beet juice with all sorts of cool buttons and flaps.

J. Morgan Puett is VERY connected

"What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips's new album is ravishing and I've listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210.

What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who's up and who's down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say.

Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes."

To suggest that painting has triumphed over other media would require a rather outdated notion of hierarchy. But it is certainly receiving a flurry of attention. The art periodicals Contemporary Art, Flash Art and Modern Painters all broke with regular practice and ran large special issues on it last year. Remarkably, it was Modern Painters' first ever issue devoted exclusively to painting.

Even painters themselves, who won't admit that painting ever went away, agree that it is back in focus. "There are always artists making interesting paintings – sometimes they attract little attention, sometimes, as now, a lot," wrote Michael Craig Martin in the New Statesman this month.

"There's certainly a lot of talk about painting being back," says Pablo Lafuente, curator of a much smaller painting show than Saatchi's now on at London's Haunch of Venison gallery. "It suffered a lot during the 1990s, but in the last few years it's been changing: there's a buzz in both the market and museum worlds. Before, painters used to explain that they also worked in other media. Now, there's an unapologetic-ness."

"One of Schjeldahl's major points on the topic he chose ('What Art Is For Now') was that the snob appeal of art is one of the 'underestimated engines of culture,' that for now he has 'no desire to swell the size of the tent' of those who love art. In his view, there is no reason to bring art to the masses. Those who want it will find it, and 'if somebody doesn't want art, bully for them.' However, as Schjeldahl also noted, the audience for art worldwide may be larger now than it ever has been, and the art market is a booming business. This may help explain the gulf that can be observed between major art critics and the art-going public, in the case of the J. Seward Johnson sculptures at the Corcoran, for example."

"Don't get me wrong. The last thing we critics should do is try to echo the taste of some hypothetical 'average moviegoer' or twist our 10-best lists to mirror the box office. What concerns me is that there's so much agreement among reviewers, whose goals ought to include challenging one another's tastes, habits, and assumptions."

"One factor in valuing a Flavin, however, dwarfs all others: the certificate that accompanied its production. To those who wonder what the difference is between a Flavin and the lights in their office, the certificate, more or less, is the answer.

Each of the more than 750 light sculptures that Flavin designed - usually in editions of three or five - were listed on index cards and filed away. When one sold, the buyer received a certificate containing a diagram of the work, its title and the artist's signature and stamp. If someone showed up with a certificate and a damaged fixture, Flavin would replace it. But without a certificate, the owner was out of luck. Today, Christie's won't even consider a Flavin sculpture unless it's accompanied by an original document."