truth and change?

“When our lives and corporate profits clash, we will overturn the corporation.
When our lives and the government’s thinking clash, we will overturn the government.”

--Yasuji Hanamori

If only...

Instead, I draw and write. Maybe it changes something.

*image courtesy postsecret.

Things Learned

So, the Marking Marks opening is over, I think it went well, and people seemed pleased. That being said (and I promise this is the last I’ll post about this particular project--I am beinging to bore even myself), I learned a few things...listed in no particular order:

1. Wearing knock-off designer shoes is never a good idea, no matter how “architectural” they may or may not be. Blisters on the tops of toes is too high a price to pay.

2. Social anxiety makes it nigh impossible to put together cohesive sentences with people one has known for years and years. It does however, dictate a stint at the table inside Nola where the catering staff is happy to stop by each and every time with tasty num nums.

3. People never cease to surprise, from those who are gracious, funny and witty, to those who make an (ahem) abbreviated appearance. Good show kids.

4. Creepy sculptures add a certain je ne sais quoi to events...plus the fact that they (the sculptures) had to get they hairs did, is a subtle little detail, with plenty of ewww factor, worth pondering.

5. Curators are funny (and not just because I was headed towards the end of my second very-stiff-drink).

6. Ultimately I prefer process to finality. I will miss the rigour of thinking about art in a specific context, and I will miss seeing the show develop. I will not miss openings, or high heels.

NEXT up: we're going to take a look at the show over at Flux, and hopefully post a little 'bout the big rally.

*note: pictured shoes weren't actually worn.

ideas beget ideas, work begets work

Sometimes, when I talk to people about art, about what I like, as well as what I find valid, I bump into (and I am pretty sure every artist has run up against a version of what I am talking about) that person who can’t see past technique to understand why abstract/modern/conceptual/performance art is valid. To which I usually explain that for anyone immersed in a field, the foundations of that field, while important, often cease to be of interest after a certain amount of time; Einstein didn’t stop at the Pythagorean Theorem.

As a nascent art historian, I respect Ad Reinhardt not just for his strict adherence to a rigid set of his own rules, but for the absurdity he acknowledged (in his writings) therein.

So when this list made by Sol Lewitt in 1969 floated my way—two years after Reinhardt died--I thought it’d make a fun, (and funny) post:

Sentences on Conceptual Art

by Sol Lewitt

Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.

Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.

Irrational judgements lead to new experience.

Formal art is essentially rational.

Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.

If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results.

The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His wilfulness may only be ego.

When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.

The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept.

Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.

Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one is formed.

For each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.

A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist's mind.

The words of one artist to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same concept.

Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally.

If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics.

All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.

One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus misunderstanding the art of the past.

The conventions of art are altered by works of art.

Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.

Perception of ideas leads to new ideas.

The artist cannot imagine his art, and cannot perceive it until it is complete.

The artist may misperceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art but still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual.

Perception is subjective.

The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.

An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own.

The concept of a work of art may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which it is made.

Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist's mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly.

There are many side effects that the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.

The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.

There are many elements involved in a work of art. The most important are the most obvious.

If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the artist's concept involved the material.

Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.

It is difficult to bungle a good idea.

When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art.

These sentences comment on art, but are not art

*pictured: Reinhardt’s rules for a new academy and Lewitt’s Sploch #15, 2000

Nathanial Hörnblowér and Oscilloscope Pictures

“What I really liked about indie record labels — the indie record labels that I liked, anyway — is that things were done in-house,” said Adam Yauch. Unlike most independent film distributors, which outsource nonglamorous aspects of moviemaking like poster design, marketing and DVD production, Oscilloscope’s employees — a tour revealed 10 young guys in skate shoes and headphones bent over laptops — will handle everything themselves, including handpicking which theaters their films will end up at.

His newest movie, Flow, which examines the looming global water shortage, calls out Nestlé's commodification of water.

Flux your Muscles

Flux Gallery in 5 Points is Jacksonville's newest entree into the bumpy art scene here in town. Tim, one of the owners, said that this galley is his attempt to give something to the artists of Jacksonville. A commercial photographer by trade, Tim said that his idea is to provide art at reasonable cost to collectors.

*pictured artwork by Lauren Corben (top), Alex Blett (bottom).

+++Seven++++

image copyright Lee Harvey

In the 4/14/08 issue of the Weekly Standard, writer P.J. O'Rourke comments on seven more deadly sins as released by the Apostolic Penitentiary (the Vatican body that oversees confessions and plenary indulgences). In an article in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti detailed the seven new ways we can go to hell or, at the minimum, be sentenced to afterlife in purgatory at the Apostle Pen. The bishop's supersizing of the mortal transgression catalog is thoroughly up-to-date (as translated by the Times of London):

1. Drug abuse

2. Morally debatable experimentation

3. Environmental pollution

4. Causing poverty

5. Social inequality and injustice

6. Genetic manipulation

7. Accumulating excessive wealth

However, O'Rourke has his own take on seven contemporary sins:

1.  Celebrity. This is far and away the besetting sin of the 21st century. Note that the root of the word is "celebrate." What evil, pentagram-enclosed, goat-heinie-kissing ceremony are we celebrating with Kevin Federline?

2.  Communication. In former days just Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and only one time at that. Now everybody's a know-it-all 24/7 thanks to Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, email, cell phones, text messages, and so on. A cherubim with a flaming sword is expelling us from the office cubicle of Eden, or would be if he could tear us away from the Internet. (And you, young man in the reading audience, take those ear buds out when your elders are addressing you!)

3.  Youth. Talk about worshiping false gods; why would anyone pray--or pay!--for youthfulness? The young are spotty, sweaty, chowder-headed, and woefully lacking in wisdom, experience, or control over anything, especially themselves. Yet we bear witness to the eternally babyish baby boom. Men in their sixties are on Harleys and snowboards and basketball courts, from which they will proceed to damnation by way of the emergency room. The women go to and fro in the earth, mutton dressed as lamb, with liposuction well-applied to tummy, butt, and brain. And they all come to Mass, when at all, in shorts, T-shirts, and shower flip-flops.

4.  Authenticity. Please do your best to be someone better than who you truly are. Deep down inside we're ravening beasts. This is the meaning of original sin. Everyone's authentic self is horrid. God's message to man has always been, "You can't really be good, but you can fake it. Really."

5.  Caring. This takes so much time and effort that it necessarily results in the opposite of doing something. And notice that when someone says, "I care about the war in Iraq," he almost always means, "I want to lose it." Also there's a bullying logic among those who care. I care more about diddledydum than you do. Therefore I'm a better person than you are. Because I'm a better person than you are, I have the right to order you around. And vote for Hillary on November 4th.

6.  Opinion. It's the reverse of fact. Listen to NPR or AM Talk Radio if you don't believe me, or, better yet, read the opinion page of the New York Times. (I'm talking about you, Paul Krugman.) Some people have facts, these can be proven. Some people have theories, these can be disproven. But people with opinions are mindless and have their minds made up about it. The 11th Commandment is, "Thou shalt not blog."

7.  To Spend More Time With the Family. Alas, I couldn't get this into a single descriptive term, but it might as well be all one word. And when people say it we know that they've been doing something at least as bad as the former governor of New Jersey, his wife, their chauffeur, and Eliot Spitzer in a hot tub together. "We need to move on," is a similar phrase but with the implication of, "And I won't quit doing it until I'm actually behind bars."

Though this post isn't immediately, obviously about art, I thought (well, first I thought it was pretty funny) then I thought about how much of art has been influenced by the Church, and various bodies engaged in deity-seeking and it seemed apropos.

*click on the title link to go to the entire article.

Murmurs...

"Murmur of Wounds" is imprinted upon a banner floated just below the surface of the pond that faces UNF's library. It is not immediately visible until one is above it, looking down. Then it leaps out of the landscape like a misplaced modifier.

At first glance, it is tempting to dismiss the piece (which clearly borrows from Christo and Jean Claude) as a synthesis of that unique collegiate female who has been reborn under the rubric of Dworkin-esque feminism and Greenpeace-ish activism.

The words are so carefully chosen: "wounds," with all of its juicy, broken bird's wing yet vaguely antiseptic connotations; and "murmur" with a sort of soothing onomatopoeic structure, conjure the softest yet deepest of hurts.

Worth noting: one of the definitions in the OED defines wound as an incision, abrasion, or other injury due to external violence, in any part of a tree or plant. While one of the definitions for murmur includes: to complain against; to criticize the actions of (a person); to accuse. Accurate perhaps, on a campus that is situated at the nexus of commerce and development.

That said, it is easy to image (indulge me in a few generalizations) a group of self-righteously environmentally aware young women sitting around, fiddling with their hemp and bead necklaces, trading war stories (in whatever form, relationship or protest, they take), channeling Eva Hesse and Ana Mendieta, and finally deciding that some sort of action must be taken. A statement must be made.

The thing is, they're not wrong. The message, which is clearly a protest against the rampant development in Northeast Florida, is one that's hard to contest. The placement is clever, and the succinctness is ambiguous enough to tease the imagination. A bit melodramatic perhaps, but effective overall.

Drawing update

There are a few things happening soon that seem to be an organic outgrowth of the act of drawing; of working with limited resources to great effect.

The first, perhaps works on a metaphoric level:

“Next Things Next” the February show at OPAQ gallery. But before I speak too highly of this show, the reader should know that I am not an entirely objective source: two of my new works will be included in the show.

However, if one cares to overlook the self serving nature of the post, I was intrigued after chatting with Matt and Katie about the the works to be included in the show…Katie said that many of the works have been executed with “a delicate hand.” That phrase, somehow so old-fashioned, yet evocative piqued my interest.

Matt and I also talked about the suite of drawings he’ll be installing at the show; he said that the images he’s creating have their roots in technical drawings…but that he doesn’t really have experience in executing them.

Further in line with the drawing theme, MOCA is examining drawing as a process in a series of exhibitions which open in mid-April 2008. The featured show is works by LA artist Chris Natrop (pictured top). Also on exhibit will be drawing by John Bailly (second image), a Miami based artist who teaches at FIU.

Natrop’s work has similarities to Swoon’s installations and to Tord Boontje’s gorgeous work, especially the uber-popular lamp-shades (final image) and wall panels. The Miami-based Bailly’s work recalls Phillip Guston and, to a lesser extent, Anslem Kiefer…pieces with a “lexicon of spattered gestural marks and weblike textures.”

Also, the 3rd floor will host an exhibition entitled “Making Marks: A Survey of Jacksonville Drawings.”

Exciting no?

So Hard to Say No

Recently, controversy erupted over one of the Village Voice’s critics: Christian Viveros-Faune, who was once a gallery owner and is now an organizer of two commercial art fairs.

Conflict of interest much? Since the problem really blew up last week, Viveros-Faune has severed his ties with the Voice…or the Voice has severed their ties with him (for the whole story check out Tyler Green’s blog: Modern Art Notes). But his tackling of duel roles addresses a distinct problem in the artistic community, that is the collusion between institutions and publications.

Of course, it is unrealistic to expect that the two be entirely divorced from one another. In addition to a limited pool of resources—both museums and publications—there are the personal connections. So yes, as a critic or writer, it can be hard to remain objective. It can be even harder to say no. But there is a point where, in a position of power like that of the art critic of Village Voice, one must decide.

In a part of the interview that Green conducted with him, Viveros-Faune said, “...in the art world, because success is so based on inside information and insider relations, I find very few people tell you what they really do think.”

And to a certain extent, I must agree with him; there have been many times, when, for the sake of politeness or professionalism, I have bitten my tongue about the success of a given piece of work, and instead inquired about the technique.

However, on the other hand, one assumes that the Voice (and to a larger extent art publications and regular newspapers) operate within a framework of objectivity and honorability. Art Papers, based in Atlanta, goes so far as to say that even the reviewers whose opinions appear in the back of the magazine cannot own a piece of work, nor have connections to the gallery, or a vested interest in promoting the work of an artist that they are looking at. So to assume a leadership role in an art fair, while at the same time acting as a reviewer, it simply smacks of impropriety.

While it may too be difficult to make a living as an art critic (another point Viveros-Faune brings up to Green), especially on a freelance basis, it brings up the entire question of earning a living in this most diaphanous of fields. Really, what the now-deposed critic was hoping to do was to have his cake and eat it too. While we shouldn’t judge him too hard for trying, we should consider the implications of whom our institutions bed down with and how that shapes the scene.

Now he’s free—just like the rest of us—to start his own blog, perhaps: whatIreallythink.blogspot.com.

Consider the Source

In the current issue of ArtNews, the magazine takes a look back at their critics’ pronouncements. “Some were prescient, others were clunkers,” the magazine admits with the kind of savage gleefulness usually reserved for the perusal of personal pictures from, say, the 7th grade.

For example, Picasso’s (obvious, yes, but succinct) works were decried as figures made by children with blocks. But in 1958, Rothko’s work got different treatment: “The effect was both of a limitless splendor and of the tenderest and most realistic precision, like the one drop of blood that feel when Snow White’s mother pricked her finger.

And because I can’t resist, a 1994 review of Hirst’s work, “…Only 28, Hirst is maturing into a serious artist who understands that art is not about the show, but rather what goes on behind the stage.”

More than anything, besides a good-natured look into its archives, the ArtNews flashback poses the question of the importance of the (art) critic, and more broadly the importance of being “right.”

So, in looking at Brittni Wood’s recent work at the Jane Gray gallery, one is forced to consider her work not just under her statement that the work examines “social issues of today, with an emphasis on ideas of religion, sexuality, and gender roles,” but also to consider the possibility for evolution.

Wood’s works examine big-ticket issues notably tackled by artists like Kiki Smith, Eva Hesse, Judy Chicago, and Miriam Shapiro. And indeed there are overt references to these artists in her works from gingham-ish fabric to glossy spills, and icons that resemble vaginas.

However, at a certain point, the artist seemingly departs from her mission and begins exploring Clyfford Still-like fields of color. Juxtaposed with gingham strips of fabric glued to the canvas, they are neither a wholesale enough rejection of aesthetic values, or a carefully considered and composed composition.

On the whole, the artist’s smaller works were more successful than the larger pieces. In the petite ones, she managed to control the entire surface, while some of the larger paintings seemed to run away with her.

Right now, it seems Wood is in a transitional phase and it remains to be seen how she will choose to marshal her talent.

More of her work can be viewed at:
www.janegraygallery.com or www.brittniwood.com

8 BIT

I love documentaries. Give me a narrator with a well-modulated voice, thoughtful and nostalgic shots, and I'm in heaven. Of course, I realize that this Discovery Channel model isn't exactly revolutionary and even as I nod off midway through many of the shows I attempt to watch, that's not a ringing endorsement.

So, when I went to see "8 BIT," the movie about video game and video game art, I didn't really know what to expect. Its garnered accolades from around the world (which alone suggests it won't be constructed a la Discovery or A&E), and indeed, it is an interesting look into a subculture. But really, that's about all it amounted to.

The premise of the film is simple, it looks at old, outdated technology like 8 bit computers and the ways in which the code can be broken and forced to do new things. And its pretty interesting, as one artist in the film says, "graffiti for the computer nerd set."

Here's what Moca Jax had to say about the film: "By weaving together arcane histories of digital subterfuge, candid interviews with cutting edge artists and theorists, wild videogame concerts, and highlights from the best digital artwork being made today, 8 BIT exposes the cultural ramifications of video games and proposes that Generation X’s coming to grips with its digital heritage signals the beginning of a new social and artistic reality."

And its true, the art/music/performances being made by some of these artists is quite interesting with overtones of nostalgia and innocence. Perhaps the most compelling work being made are the chip tunes, musical compositions created using the audio signatures of early video games.

However, the discussion of chip tunes is also where the film becomes overly indulgent and tedious. Despite interesting and funny interviews, the segments where the audience is treated to selections of chip tune performances is intriguing at first, and then descends into annoyance. Not least because the music closely resembles trance and techno, and a little electronica goes a long way. That's not a wholesale dismissal of the form, just a warning. In fact, I had to leave early because the music triggered a migraine.

Overall, this film was worth the price of admission, just don't plan on watching it if you tend to headaches.