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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Hard Questions
David Genovesi has an interesting list of 22 art questions that he hopes he is never asked in an interview:
- What is art?
- Does art have a purpose, if so, what is it?
- Who determines whether an artist is an artist?
- Why do you create?
- Does the art you create have any particular meaning?
- Does the art you create have any social implications?
- Does the art you create pay the rent?
- What effect is the digital revolution having on art?
- Who has the final authority for determining the “validity” of contemporary art?
- Would you advise a young person to become an artist?
- Must art be beautiful?
- Is there such a thing as "good art" or "bad art", if so, what's the difference?
- Is there such a thing as "a good artist" or "a bad artist", if so, what's the difference?
- Is painting still a valid art form?
- Is a print of a painting art?
- To what extent must an artist consider his audience?
- What’s the most important asset an artist needs to survive today?
- Why buy art?
- Is buying art a good investment?
- Who is the best living artist?
- Is a painting by Jackson Pollock worth 140 million dollars?
- If you’re such a good artist, why aren’t you rich and famous?
If it wasn't for the CP's visual arts coverage, all that we'd have in the nation's capital is the voice of a freelancer writing 20 odd columns a year for the WaPo's Style section and O'Sullivan's weekly column in the Weekend section.
Let's hope that the new ownership continues the CP's tradition of leading the visual arts coverage in the printed media in DC.
Using sound and large street drawings to interpret an archaic division of figure skating, this indoor and outdoor installation captures the sonic environment of practicing compulsory figures on ice, while visually striving to reproduce similar exercises on pavement. Opening : July 26, 6:30 - 8 PM.
Yes, another Annie Leibovitz exhibition at the Corcoran.
When I got the news release, I sent the Corcoran's director, Paul Greenhalgh (who by the way, has been doing a really decent job since taking over the reigns of the Corcoran) a couple of suggestions for future photography shows. One idea "augments" the Ansel Adams exhibition, which will hopefully add a new dimension to yet another Adams photo show.
To start, I will admit that "Moonrise Over Hernandez" is a great photograph and people will oooh and aaah over it, as they have done for the dozens and dozens of previous Adams' exhibitions over the years.
Here's my idea: The Library of Congress has a HUGE collection of Ansel Adams negatives that are the property of the people of the United States.
It is my impression that anyone can (for a nominal fee) get the Library of Congress to print them photos from the Adams' negatives (or any other negative in the public domain I suppose). Already the LofC has even worked out a deal with Zazzle.com to buy a lot of LofC repros/stuff online. In fact, here's an Ansel Adams photo that you can buy from them.
Here's the novel idea: Why not set up an electronic online booth(s) at the Ansel Adams Corcoran exhibition where Corcoran visitors can also preview the hundreds (if not thousands) of other negatives that the LofC owns the copyright to, and provide an easy way for visitors to the Corcoran exhibition to order Adams' photos?
Probably much rarer Adams' photos that seldom see the light of day, much less the moonriselight.
Ahead of time the Corcoran can set up a deal where a percentage of the costs of the Adams' photos would be donated to the Corcoran as a "pass-through-fee."
And then this is a win-win situation for all, as visitors come away with an Adams' photograph, the LofC gets some money out of it, and the Corcoran also gets some additional funds out of it.
The technology is the easy part; getting two separate institutions to cooperate is the hard part.
Nothing heard back from anyone yet.
Pediatric AIDS/HIV Care Fundraiser
The Pink Line Project will host a happy hour fundraiser to support Pediatric AIDS-HIV Care, an organization dedicated to children living with AIDS/HIV in the Washington metropolitan area. Their program employs creative approaches - including art and music - to help children cope with the stress and stigma associated with this disease.
Great video art from "barely emerging artist" Kathryn Cornelius, Jeff Wyckoff, Kathleen McGlaun, Koike Susumu, and Live Music by Ben Gilligan (from French Toast and Small Doses)!
Wednesday, July 25, 6 to 8 PM at 18th Street Lounge (1212 18th Street, NW in DC).
Monday, July 23, 2007
Spray Painting
Depending on many variables (most of which I think have to deal with culture, upbringing, formation, sense of inferiority, elitist aspirations, and hidden wanna-be issues), often artsy people stand on definite sides when it comes to what the art world describes as "low brow art" and "high art."
In the various earlier discussions here on what makes good art, a lot of theory and art history has been discussed and written about.
I'm of the opinion that the only proven and tested art critic of what makes good art is time.
And often what was once considered low brow art, or art that wasn't good enough, stands the test of time just as well (or even better) than what the contemporary critics or artsy folks of the time would have selected.
History is full of such examples: Ukiyo-e in Japan, Salon des Refusés in France, most 19th century steelpoints, Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Norman Rockwell in the US, most photography until Steiglitz dragged it into art galleries, Florida's Highway Men, and on and on.
But now, even though anything and everything is art, there's still a world of low brow art that makes most members of the artworld scene roll their eyes. We all do it.
On the other hand, some low brow art has managed to make the jump to the high art side.
Perhaps one of the most refreshing developments of the last few years has been the recognition of the artists sometimes described as "street artists." Many, like Banksy, and in the DC region artists like Kelly Towles and Mark Jenkins, have made the jump and show equally at ease in galleries. In Jenkins' case, he has become a worldwide fixture and now creates his street tape sculptures all over the planet.
A few weeks ago I was wandering around South Street in Philly, when I came across a group of people, including a cop, avidly observing a young man create artwork while kneeling down on the sidewalk at the entrance to the South Street Pedestrian Bridge. In front of him were displayed 20 or 30 pieces of art on cardstock... about 30 x 20 inches each.
He worked with amazing speed, to the tune of a very hip beat that played on the boom box next to him. His paper was taped to a spinning table, and he sprayed, dabbed, removed and spun to the beat of the music. We all watched hypnotized as image after image appeared.
It took him about 90 seconds to create a painting from scratch. "I may not be the best," he told me when I started talking to him during a break and while I was buying one of his pieces, "but I am the fastest spray painter around."
The subject imagery is of no consequence. It seemed to focus on otherwordly landscapes, Star-Trekkie vistas, or surrealist dreams. Mine was a mixture of some sort of a Anakin Skywalker viewpoint married to a glowing penis.
But the imagery is the least of the concerns here. What hypnotized and mesmerized the crowd was the performance of this young artist, arms flying, spray cans tumbling, music playing and the "ooohs" and "ahhhs" of the crowd as he created work after work every 90 seconds.
See for yourself in the below video (filmed in Mobile, Alabama earlier this year):
His name is Joshua Moonshine, and the streets of US cities are his galleries.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Wanna go to a Tyson's Corner, Virginia opening today?
One can always count on the Reverend to add some spice to any argument. Herewith Bailey's opinion on What Makes Good Art?
I really have to agree with Kevin Mitchell’s comments regarding art critics and their biased definitions of "great art."
A self-proclaimed art critic attempting to spin a definition of "great art" strikes me as being remarkably similar to a self-proclaimed Supreme Court Justice cop pulling a citizen over and attempting to define that citizen's Miranda Rights. This is the point I was attempting to make with this post.
Just as a rogue cop thinks he has the right to render on-site Supreme Court rulings defining the limitations of a citizen's Miranda Rights, so too do art critics think they have the right to spin a biased definition of great art. What's long been amusing to me is that art critics inevitably invoke the name of Clement Greenberg to "prove" their one-sided definitions by pulling something out of context that Greenberg once said and either agreeing or disagreeing it.
If a citizen were to question a cop about that cop's definition of the citizen's Miranda Rights, that cop (and they're trained to do this) will inevitably invoke the latest Supreme Court decision that affects the definition of Miranda Rights to either "prove" or "disprove" his definition.
The issue is one of authority, who has it, how did they get it and what are they doing with it.
One can only imagine the violent confrontation that would occur if a private citizen attempted to pull over a cop for speeding, ask for that cop's driver's license, read that cop his Miranda Rights before attempting to question that cop, and then arresting that cop when that cop attempts to resist.
That's exactly what I am encouraging artists to do to with respect to art critics who want to define the phrase "great art."
Of course, to be open and honest about my own bias with respect to the debate between Jeffry Cudlin and Mark Cameron Boyd, I have to confess that I'm sympathetic to the arguments of Mark. Not because I think Jeffry is a bad art critic, but because Mark's opinions are not published in a weekly newspaper that features art criticism. A newspaper that publishes art criticism is somewhat like the Supreme Court publishing its decisions. I question every word of every published Supreme Court decision.
The more the Supreme Court attempts to “define” our Miranda Rights, the more the more those rights evaporate. The more an art critic attempts to “define” great art, the more great art becomes an illusion.
Jackie writes: "I have smoked cigarettes for over 20 years and am a cigarette and nicotine addict. On July 9th I quit smoking for what I hope is the last time and plan to document the process, my feelings, etc., through posts to the blog and the creation of related art work over the course of thirteen months. Two paintings that I created for this project, using cigarette butts and ash entitled Destruction I and II can be seen as DCAC Wall Mountables Exhibition until Sept. 6th.
I am also asking other smokers to participate in the project by asking them to send me their Last Cigarette so that I can include it in my artwork.
Studio 4903, a working artist space focusing on contemporary art jewelry, has space available for an artist, graphic designer, or other creative type. Each person has a space, but there are no walls dividing the room. The 1500 sq ft. studio is open, filled with light, hardwood floors, and 7 windows. Rent is $420 and includes all utilities, insurance, alarm, trash, wireless internet, and 24-hour access. We are located at 4903 Wisconsin Ave., 2nd floor, between Tenley and Friendship Hts. metros.
The Studio hosts regular arts-related events to create community and gain exposure. A good candidate would be serious about his art, want to grow and expand her business, and be eager to participate in events (past ones have been: live music, poetry reading, artist slide show & lecture, dance party, art shows and sales).
If interested, please contact Gayle at gaylefriedman@aol.com.
Mitchell on What Makes Good Art?
Reader Kevin Mitchell opines on the question and debate of "What Makes Good Art?"
We're all going to be a little wrong and a little right on our definitions of art especially since we're trying to arrive at a singular definition that art should be held accountable to.
Just when I had fashioned what I regarded as a prized response to art nitwitism a newsflash saved me some time. I could literally sit here forever refuting the changing idea of art but I'd be fighting with words a visual argument. The true testament to a work's greatness is that no amount of words can assail it... unless its premise is vocabulary, such as modern art.
Both Cudlin and Boyd could be refuted in instances but in the end as this thing of exploring new frontiers goes, why? As an artist, I didn't grow up interested in Greenberg or his principles and upon being force fed them and regurgitated in every other academic argument because justification has to refute, I still don't care.
Rosenberg, I don't care and if to understand a lot of the work of this genre, I have to read Rosenberg then it seems like he was part ring master and was able to create his own niche.
Which is why I agree with Boyd's last paragraph that art criticism currently isn't doing its job, even at a personal look at me level. If everyone is and can be an artist or it's learned or a matter of ideas, how come critics aren't artists?
Greenberg couldn't paint flatness? How come he couldn't be or convey his own ideas? It's worthless this definition thing.
I understand the purist way of thinking about materials and usage but in the words of a past teacher, stop headf'ing your canvas.
I think it's such a small market here that every word and every paragraph count in each write up whereas when I'm in Chelsea, I'm confronted with everything in its hordes and it's all accounted for.
If I had to fashion an argument it would be against styles. The progressive form of art is ended as soon as a style or label is applied, thus tying it to the past, regardless as to its completion or prospects. Rothko's are Rothko's and demonstrate Rothko qualities so they are no longer exploring or pushing. Art is the unknowing.
Having said this, I want nothing to do with this definition. Nobody can afford to sit in their studio not knowing what they're doing and effectively afford their studio. Art ended and renewed with the acceptance of the urinal.
See what you’re getting into... before you go there.
- Kevin Mitchell
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wall Mountables at DCAC
Around DC, anytime that you have an open show (meaning a show without a juror or curator), the local critics tend to immediately savage it. This seems to be a predictable critical analysis somewhat unique to the capital area's visual arts and artists as viewed by most of DC area critics.
Once a year, the District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC), through a show called "Wall Mountables," allows any and all artists to hang anything they want, so long as it fits within a two square foot space. It's usually one of my favorite shows and a terrific opportunity for artists to exhibit and sell their work.
DCAC will be accepting and allowing artists to hang their work today July 19th 3-8pm, and tomorrow July 20th 3-6pm. Spaces are available on a first-come basis. Details here.
The opening reception is Friday, July 20th 7-9pm. This is a great opportunity to obtain original artwork at very affordable prices. The show runs through Friday, Sept. 7, 2007.
The Beat Goes On
This is what makes creating, editing and publishing a good art blog interesting. Intelligent voices discussing and treating a very difficult question: "What makes good art?"
1) "The growing specialization of the arts is due chiefly not to the prevalence of the division of labor, but to our increasing faith in and taste for the immediate, the concrete, the irreducible. To met this taste... the various modernist artists try to confine themselves to that which is most positive and immediate in themselves, which consists in the unique attributes of their mediums. It follows that a modernist work of art must try, in principle, to avoid communication with any order of experience not inherent in the most literally and essentially construed nature of its medium." - - Sculpture in Our Time, Clement Greenberg, from The Collected Essays and Criticism, Vol. 4: Modernism with a Vengeance.
In any event, I mentioned Greenberg because obviously nobody buys this position anymore -- at least not the way it came to be framed. There's generally a consensus that Greenberg's arguments for art boiled everything down further and further -- until you reach the Minimalist art that Greenberg couldn't bring himself to accept, despite the fact that in so many ways it seemed like a perfected expression of his operating principles.
Here's the key point: I'm NOT saying that the HOW trumps the WHAT. Does the medium help or hinder? That's exactly the question I'm driving at. Apologies if I wasn't able to make that more clear.
2) Oh, the confusion over talent and creativity. Maybe it's the word "mastery" that's sending you into a tizzy: By quoting Ruskin, I'd hoped to avoid that -- thinking specifically here of On the Nature of Gothic, from The Stones of Venice.
3) As for the relation of the work to manifestos, the necessity of the critic to intervene --- Mark, you more than anyone should know that this is up for grabs.
We can describe how the mechanisms work, how the positions within the discourse seem to relate to one another -- but it's a fluid dynamic.
There's what the artist says in the work through representation, and what s/he says in the work through execution or style -- two kinds of content, in sympathy or not. The what and the how, as you say, and both are important.
There are also statements, and essays, and installations of the work.
The critic tries to determine both the content of the work by itself, and whether or not that can be reconciled with the rest.
It's imperfect; the critic is one voice among many, and s/he attempts to nudge the discourse as best s/he can. Doesn't mean the critic is the final arbiter, just one of many gatekeepers and interpreters -- fallible, human, making arguments rooted in a particular historical moment. So it goes. Doesn't mean that the job's not worth doing, or that it can't significantly add to -- or help sort out--this business of cultural production.
By the way, as a devoted fan of the sensuality of the line, which I consider one of the most powerful assets that a good painter can use, or the key between a good drawing and a so-so drawing, I disagree with Jeffry's negative view on the line as used by Miner. It is precisely the palpable sensuality of Miner's ever changing, shifting, dancing line in his paintings and drawings that take them from flat surfaces to a mental place where sex and art live together in moist confidence.
Miner's show at H&F Fine Arts runs through August 4, 2007. Miner has been one of my "buy now" artists for a long time. I get paid to to this sort of recommendation, so take the tip and go spend some Samolians on this really talented painter.
When Robert Hughes was asked this question by Charlie Rose last year, he had a very short response: Passion and Organization.
Hopper's work fits this criteria nicely. Art stands the test of time, and Hopper is still standing despite the fact that he wasn't a very good painter.
And I always liked Tom Wolf's (the first one) "Slave to fashion, whore to time."
Susan Tolbert
Genetics
Considering that when I was a very young sailor in the Navy I almost drowned twice (ahhh... maybe alcohol had some small part in the near-drownings), I'm not the world's greatest aquatic Campello. Not by far... the genes certainly skipped me and all went to this Campello:
When the next exhibition schedule of the National Gallery of Art is announced, there will be a pleasant surprise in it.
Meanwhile, opening on September 16 at the NGA is the first comprehensive survey of Edward Hopper to be seen in the US outside of New York in more than 25 years. Currently at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the exhibition consists of about 60 oil paintings, 25 watercolors, and 14 prints.
I listened with fairly rapt attention to your WAMU radio broadcast on Kojo’s show last Thursday. As I recall, my good friend Jeffry Cudlin’s improvised “definition” for “what makes good art” was delivered astutely and with the clarity of vision that undoubtedly comes from writing and thinking about art “professionally” as an art critic.
However, his recollected print version (that you published) differs significantly from what he said “off-the-cuff” and "on air." His “recalled” version notably featured Clement Greenberg as a touchstone which would have pricked up my ears if Jeffry had actually mentioned Greenberg’s name “on air.”
Nevertheless, in the printed version Jeffry’s implication is that Greenberg’s theoretical views chiefly concerned “specialization” and I find this is a bit confusing. I respectfully remind my esteemed colleague that it was the “self-criticality” which Clem championed that fully expanded upon his idea that an artist’s medium must “refer to its own method of construction and the characteristics of its component materials.”
Granted, an artist ought to critically consider one’s “method” within a chosen medium but more importantly in the Greenbergian view one must critically assess one’s use and furtherance of a medium; what can be done with one’s method to extend the possibilities of the medium and further the discourse of art?
I also suggest that Jeffry’s framing of the medium question (“Why is this object a drawing, painting, photograph, or sculpture? Why was that choice appropriate, or not appropriate?”) is more a question of “how,” as in “how does the choice of medium help or hinder an artist’s work?”
To open the dialog: does the “how” (chosen medium and method of execution) trump the “what” (idea or concept conveyed) in contemporary art? Duchamp would say, “No,” as would most Postconceptualists toiling in Marcel’s century-long shadow (Martin Creed, Douglas Gordon, Peter Friedl, et al) and I think Jeffry was hinting at this when he writes about un-named young Turks “winnowing out their problem set to a few spare material issues.”
I would like to complicate this line of inquiry even more by mentioning that conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth countered and refuted Greenberg’s analysis by saying that the object is conceptually irrelevant to art. Kosuth also expanded Duchamp’s other idea about the definition of art, when he wrote in 1969: “Being an artist now means to question the nature of art. If one is questioning the nature of painting, one cannot be questioning the nature of art. . . Painting is a kind of art. If you make paintings you are already accepting (not questioning) the nature of art.”
Kosuth effectively shifted the focus from the specifics of a chosen medium to “question[ing] the nature of art.”
What I attempt here is to propose that we are already in a “post-medium condition” (Rosalind Krauss) and that all bets are off on medium-specificity, which would lessen the impact of “why” one made a drawing as a valuable criteria for “quality,” and that art is about the “definition of art” and the ideas that artists try to convey.
To address Jeff’s second qualification for “good art,” which concerns “material mastery,” requires an introduction of the postmodern confusion of “talent” and “creativity.” To equate one’s “mastery” of a medium as indicator of quality (“good art”) tends to misrepresent “talent” as a consecrated “academic” skill that can be “learned” and that “talent” certifies substance.
This is “old school” and currently out of fashion in our post-medium condition. I should cite Thierry de Duve’s words that, “Creativity is grounded in a utopian belief. . . that repeats itself with clockwork regularity . . . from Rimbaud to Beuys: everyone is an artist.” And “Talent. . . is inseparable from the specific terrain where it is exerted, which in the last resort is always technical. . . Creativity, by contrast, is conceived as an absolute and unformalised potential. . . one has creativity, without qualification; one is creative, period.”
Depending on your allegiances, “talent” can either be learned, taught or does not exist. Again, this is old hat, supplanted in the 1970’s when “critical theory” appeared (linguistics, semiotics, anthropology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, poststructuralism, et al) and as Duve notes, “theory entered art schools and succeeded in displacing – sometimes replacing – studio practice while renewing the critical vocabulary and intellectual tools with which to approach the making and appreciating of art.”
To be sure, Jeffry’s “definitions” are muscular, workable points for a discussion of “what makes good art.” But we are on unstable grounds if we mingle academia with Kantian judgment and mastery with metaphysics. I do agree with Jeffry’s last point concerning the artist’s “positioning” of themselves within the history of art.
However, he falls short of fully fleshing his “professional” responsibility in all this when he writes simply: “The task of the critic is to determine whether or not this positioning -- an argument made by the artist, and amplified, tweaked, or otherwise refined by the curator -- is valid.” Again, to ramp up our discussion, we might ask Jeffry to elaborate on the obvious (possibly covert?) power of art critics in “positioning” not only the individual artists but wholesale art “movements” within the grander scheme of “art history.” This obviously implicates the “written” version as more “manifesto” than improvised erudition but clarifications are needed for public consumption and understanding, in any case.
Hirshhorn After Hours is an annual series of late-night events for locals interested in contemporary art, culture and music. Programming is presented throughout the museum and outside on the plaza. Exhibitions include: Takeshi Murata's short hallucinogenic films in the Black Box space for new media in the lower level; a last chance to see the lobby exhibition "Directions—Virgil Marti and Pae White" closing on July 29, and photography by Wolfgang Tillmans on the second floor.
Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Cash bar and dancing outdoors on the Hirshhorn's plaza. Detailed ticketing information at this website.
WHAT: Hirshhorn After Hours featuring musical performance by Great Noise Ensemble in collaboration with the opening night of the Capitol Fringe Festival.
WHEN: Friday, July 20, from 8 p.m. to midnight
WHERE: Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the National Mall (Independence Avenue at Seventh Street S.W.) in DC.
