Art as a Commodity

Luis Gispert, Untitled (Chain Mouth, a.k.a. Muse Ho), 2001

Art is a fairly risky affair: you can work hard, create things that are original, beautiful, interesting, but still struggle to make a good living. What's more, you have no security - you never know when a wave of success will stop, and you have no retirement plan. Why would you want to think of a retirement plan as an artist? Well, for one, you don't still believe the artist is a machine creating work after work after work until the batteries run out, do you? Wired published an article about an original idea for giving artists more security (and making money while doing it, of course):

The idea was simple: Create a pension plan for artists by gathering a collection of their works and gradually selling them off to build a cash account.

But can art make real money? According to this study (quoted in the article), it can:

In 1998, NYU business school professors Michael Moses and Jianping Mei began an unusual experiment. They would track every transaction involving objects that had sold more than once at auction at the major New York houses since 1875. By creating a single database, they could see how art performs against traditional investment vehicles like stocks and bonds. (...) The index revealed that fine art was a far more reliable investment than is commonly thought. Moses and Mei also disproved the hoary maxim that masterpieces make the best investments. They showed that lesser-known (and thus cheaper) works appreciate at a higher rate. Finally, the index suggested that the art market floats independently from the stock market, giving it resilience against boom-and-bust cycles. (...) In theory, fine art could be used to minimize volatility in an investor's portfolio.

All this is theory, but here comes the bottom line:

Of course, the best way to manage risk is to reduce it as much as possible - even if that means tilting the market in your favor. The goal is for the trust to work as a sort of seal of approval. And so the APT will aggressively promote its collection, lending to museums and galleries to enhance the reputations - and market values - of its members. There's a name for this sort of manipulation, and it's no compliment: prospecting.

Shocking? Manipulative? Degrading for art? David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, doesn't think thinking of art as a commodity is bad, even for an artist:

"What's wrong with that?" Ross asks. "People are going to manipulate the market, for better or worse. Why shouldn't the artist, or someone representing him, be doing it?"

And if you still think this puts a dark shadow on the once-pure figure of the artist, think again. And meet Luis Gispert, a fairly renowned artist who "pulls in about $100,000 a year from the sale of photographs and sculptures" and was one of the first to join the retirement fund:

"The idea of 'artist' is less sacrosanct than it once was," he says. "I could have easily gone into commercial photography or the movie business. Why should I suffer because I make art instead?"

Louis Gispert Untitled (Car Toes), 2002

Mocean

Mocean is a musical immersive environment that invites people to touch, stir and play with water in a tank. The movement of the water is translated into movement of air in the organ pipes suspended above the water. The sound of the pipes envelops the person, its movement echoing the waves and ripples in the tank.
Artists: Maia Marinelli, Jared Lamenzo and Liubo Borissov.
(via we-make-money-not-art)

Perform

Performance art is a tricky thing: the more you talk about it, the less it seems obvious. I've already mentioned that the internet is not the place to look for resources in this domain. You can always try. Just don't do it for too long, or you will end up thinking that it's either something horribly idiotic, so abstract it's completely devoid of meaning, simply and completely mad (the latter site has some excellent cases though!), or plain dead. (I made the selection based on Google's top choices).
Fortunately, the ancient wisdom of printed paper comes to the rescue. Besides the brilliant book I've been recommending for a while called Live:Art and Performance, there is a new, exciting book out called simply Art Works Perform.
Why is it exciting? Because its aim is to show how very different things performance art can be. It is full of short... well, I would call them adventure stories (although some last a lifetime). Like the one about Andreas Slonimski and his stealing a bicycle pump in the most unusual of ways (artistic, of course), or about Olafur Eliasson's rivers of color, or about Rirkrit Tiravanija's challenge of engaging the audience in the most positive of ways.
What is also wonderful about these stories, is that they really show different people, in different worlds and working in different ways. Some dance, others take pictures, or write, or make pizzas, garage sales, lines of yellow paint or of pigeons, or make water fall. They all share one thing: an outstanding sensitivity, which makes this book a collection of powerful, inspiring moments. The book also has several "extras", works curated for the publication and interviews, but I must admit I'm much more overwhelmed by the combination of original artists (though the interviews are good, too).
There were 2 other things I really liked about the book: first, it is signed by Joan Jonas, an artist I really admire. And second, it's really cheap. (At least at Amazon it is).

Silence

"I somehow loved that silence, though; and felt it met my wishes
As no one's talk does nowadays!"
- Dionysus about the silence in Aeschylus's plays. The quote comes from "The Frogs" by Aristophanes, 405 B.C.

When business uses art

I'm not really sure what to think about the subservient chicken.
It is an ad for a junk food enterprize. It subtly makes us remember the brand, and associate it with positive, fun things.
This is classic PR work.
On the other hand, it's very funny, well-made, innovative and can certainly be considered net art.
There have been many artistic interventions related to commerce. I have myself participated in some (though I must say I was very reluctant and would only do it again if I was as financially desperate as I was at the time). Commercials won't go away. We might just as well accept this as a fact and at least see the less idiotic ones without the constant scorn we are so accustomed to. And make that chicken jump and run. And then - move on to more enriching things.
(for more discussion about viral marketing, go to Palladio)

Guerilla Projector

Presenting,

the SMS Guerilla Projector. A high-intensity light source, it's equipped with a cellphone that can receive and then project SMS messages in public spaces: theaters, walls, government buildings. By the London-based art/design collective Troika.

(via eyeteeth)

Which artist said this?

When I was still an adolescent, I went and signed my name on the other side of the sky during a fantastic ‘realistico-imaginary’ voyage.

It was pure chance that led me to judo. Judo has helped me to understand that pictorial space is above all the product of spiritual exercises. Judo is in fact the discovery by the human body of a spiritual space.

I had left the visible, physical blue at the door, outside, in the street. The real blue was inside, the blue of the profundity of space, the blue of my kingdom, of our kingdom! ... the immaterialisation of blue, the coloured space that cannot be seen but which we impregnate ourselves with ... A space of blue sensibility within the frame of the white walls of the gallery.

I remain detached and distant, but it is under my eyes and my orders that the workof art must create itself. Then, when the creation starts, I stand there, present at the ceremony, immaculate, calm, relaxed, perfectly aware of what is going on and ready to welcome the work of art that is coming into existence in the tangible world.

Hours of preparation for something that is executed, with extreme precision, in a
few minutes. Just as with a judo throw.

Today anyone who paints space must actually go into space to paint, but he must go there without any faking, and neither in an aeroplane, a parachute nor a rocket: he must go there by his own means, by an autonomous, individual force; in a word, he must be capable of levitating.

(You can search for the answer at the absolutely brilliant UBUWEB site)
(And for the answer, see the comments)

The new art of modem dance

Night stage : A big snow monkey appears in the center of the pond during a night stage produced by American modem dance artist Robert Wilson at a press preview for the 2005 World Exposition in Nagakute, Aichi prefecture.

This note was found on Yahoo news. I am usually against laughing at spelling mistakes, but this one is too much. You see, as many of you must know, Robert Wilson is not a "modern dance artist". He is a theater director and designer. From what I managed to learn, he created a choreography (or maybe rather: stage movement) for the above-mentioned Japanese event. One ignorant journalist copied this information off another, off another, until we got a modem dance artist. Which is nice, and should inspire all of us to new inter-disciplinary work.
In case you're curious about Wilson's art, here and here and here are some good starting points.
Oh, and here is an example of Robert Wilson's designing imagination (click on the image for more):
A Chair with a Shadow

Outstanding stencil art

M-city is an ongoing street art project by Polish artist Mariusz Waras. The site contains images of the work (various media: grafitti, stickers, billboards, canvas...).

M-city in a first place is a play with the form and space of the city, played on the walls, posters, billboards, stickers and in the virtual world. All of the pieces of M-city - there is about 100 of them - were made as stencils.

The inspiration to the architecture of M-city came mostly from the architecture of Threecity (Gdansk, Sopot, Gdynia, Baltic coast, north of Poland) and it's surroundings, but there's no avoiding of motifs from other regions of Poland.

The architecture of the town is in a sense a promotion of groups of people who work together for society. These include independent media, charities, non-governmental organisations, off theatres etc. Most of the project realisations are on especially chosen walls and matching the historical or architectural context of the surroundings.

You can also create your own virtual city in flash, using this on-line "constructor". I played around with it for a while (in case you haven't noticed, it spells two words):

Still-born blogs

What about all those lonely posts stuck in abandoned blogs, one-post blogs nobody remembers, silent witnesses of our ever-growing hunger
for others?

Money

I am delighted to inform you that this site has now gained over $2 from your clicks on the Google ads.
Thank you for your support!

Perverting bodies

Has it ever occurred to you the new art scene often seems like some sick playground?
If it hasn't, it might now.

Welcome to the generation of the deranged, disgusting and perverted kids. To the artists that turn people into monsters from a child's nightmare and exploit every possible aweful fantasy one could have in works which make the word "play" sound scary.
Say goodbye to the harmonious universe where goodness meets beauty meets truth. Adieu, Apollo. Hello, Dionysos. Hello, Mr. Freud.

Paul McCarthy is probably the most known of the disgracers.
Born in 1945, he has created works in many means and many styles, but remains associated to the triumphantly scatological and nauseating games he played with many of his heroes.

McCarthy admits he finds the label "shock artist" confusing. "I can't say my pieces were ever directed at trying to shock an audience. (...) At the time that I was making [those early works], I felt I was trying to deal with certain issues and that it was somehow a kind of language to discuss something. It was never a desire to shock in the sense of shock as entertainment. If anything, I was trying to make pieces that were potent rather than shocking, or trying to make pieces that would cause a reaction or do something real."

Whatever his reasons, McCarthy certainly knows he is shocking. The mockery sometimes makes me think of the medieval fabliaux, or of Gargantua and Pantagruel, in the way it explores new ways of being naughty in art.

If you thought this was extreme, try the Chapman brothers. No, not these Chapman brothers. Those:


Dinos and Jake Chapman also go beyond their "perverted series". They have, for instance, played around with pop culture


in various ways



Dinos and Jake Chapman (described better in this article and this critical comment) always underline that in their "body perversions" they were not interested as much in the perversion as such, and much more in the possible forms of a body, and what comes of it. Nonetheless, the two have clearly read the whole Freud library, since they quote him every second sentence - and the falluses and anuses abound. Is it fun? Well, I guess I'm too repressed to feel it as something truly entertaining. There is something surprizingly academic, thought-out about it. But it does show us how far we are from being truly "open-minded", and how useful our taboos can be. At least they allow the artists to brake them.
Here is an interesting (though quite fafarafa) interview with the Chapman brothers.
Some comments: They say:

The body can be jettisoned beyond identity, ostensibly because it is obsolete.

If it were really obsolete, there 1) wouldn't be a sculptor to make it; 2) wouldn't be anything for the artist to play with.

Not a provocation, but a convulsion; simply a convulsion.

I agree. And the spectators - all of us, also on the internet - are peeping Johns. Because we want it to be a provocation. We are the criminals, since we are attracted by the result of a convulsion, and we are fully aware of its obscenity.

"the offense of the demolition of man" simply details the terror of pure pleasure.

The verb "details" hides the fact that by signing the work as a work of art, you go beyond description or provocation - you actually create a (positive, not only critical) object.

Our work makes hallucination palatable for non-narcotic users. We associate psychosis, particularly Freud's melancholic clinical, pathological version, with Kant's aesthetic sublime.

As a philosophy graduate I can assure you they didn't need to add Kant here - it could have been explained in much simpler terms. This sounds fishy - and it will come to no surprize that the Chapman brothers were for some time assistants to Gilbert & George, the self-assumed con (genial) artists.
If you're still not sure what to think of it, here is an artfacts version:

The Chapmans’ sculptures of mutated children are possible by-products of gene tampering, nuclear spills, or cloning experiments gone horribly awry. Whatever the evil, it’s not the children’s’ fault: they’re placid, angelic creatures who seem to take no notice that they have 4 legs, or 12 heads, or genitals for a face. If they’re disturbing, that’s the viewer’s hang-up. The children themselves seem to relish their strange beauty, know that they’re one-of-a-kinds: each one having been made by hand in the artists’ studio.

And if you think artists can only get away with all this because they are famous, here is a recent discovery of mine: Johnny Beinart's work.


If you still think all this is sick, here is an answer, brought to you by the Chapman brothers:

While Humanists hate toilets they love to be disgusted. This elevation is flattering but dubious. The excremental cannot be re-fertilized to procure use-value. Repression is only an accessory to pleasure.

La Nona Ora

La Nona Ora, Maurizio Cattelan (2000)

Update 26 April 05: I have discovered that a great amount of visits arrive through the Google search for "La Nona Ora". I am happy about the visits, but know that the high ranking in this particular area is as yet undeserved. BUT - I am currently preparing something VERY special related to your quest - so be patient (thanks to new surprizing and fascinating sources I cannot reveal as for now), and come back soon. (You can also leave your e-mail address in the Comments if you want to be noticed when the carefuly prepared and ground-breaking material appears).

Fish performance

I promised some time ago I would write about fish and performance art. I didn't. Well, I've just discovered another case of fish-related action. It's not exactly performance art, or at least doesn't have the suave feel we're used to. Instead, it's a simple, light story about the realization of a simple idea. But it feels good. Here they are - Jake Bronstein and his temporary fish friend!

What is a work of art?

What constitutes a work of art?
I don't know. The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester England doesn't either - but they try to ask the question better, instead of simply answering it. What interests them is the question of authenticity (and originality) and its place in modern/contemporary art.

Aura and Authenticity is a collection of works that explore the concept of the originality and authorship of art.

The exhibition held at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester until February 2006, raises the issue of the legitimacy of an artwork and the very definition of the genre.

It asks whether a reproduction can maintain the aura of the originals, and whether it is that aura or the perceived value from the fame of the artist which gives the work its value.

Through print, painting, drawing and artefacts, Aura and Authenticity explores the different types of value within a gallery environment, attempting to dispel the myths about what constitutes a work of art.
...

The exhibition is based on the work of the philosopher Walter Benjamin, whose essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, questioned the value system of works of art in the light of new technology. Writing in 1936, he debated whether mechanically reproduced art can have aura even if the artist has never touched it.

(more about the exhibition : at the 24hourmuseum)

I get the impression that when art advances, some concentrate on the questions it left behind. What is the value of this? Maybe it is scarce, but then again, something quite new and surprizing could come out of analyzing Benjamin's interesting, but clearly historical and not contemporary, text and issues.

Mechanical Performance is back - with a vengeance

If the art.blogging.la writes about the Survival Research Laboratories, they are definitely in. Here is who they are:

Survival Research Laboratories was conceived of and founded by Mark Pauline in November 1978. Since its inception SRL has operated as an organization of creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare. Since 1979, SRL has staged over 45 mechanized presentations in the United States and Europe. Each performance consists of a unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and special effects devices, employed in developing themes of socio-political satire. Humans are present only as audience or operators.

Just shows you how easy it is to get people to respect you as an artist: 1. Make a lot of sparks. 2. Keep making a lot of sparks for 27 years.

More Hirst critics...

There have been more, and more aggressive, Hirst critiques recently.

Paulo Freire: Discussing Dialogue

Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was an educator. This might come as a suprize on an art blog, but Freire's theory of education saw education through culture in its most creative aspects. His most famous book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, inspired many contemporary artists to create works on the verge of art, education and social work. It is no sin for a work of art to be socially active, and although I disagree with many of Freire's more political ideas, he is a challenging intellectual sparing partner for an artist to have. Here is a fragment of an interview from the book Dialogues in Public Art (don't hesitate to support this page and go to the Amazon page with the book description and a review - and who knows, maybe even buy and get the page its first cents)

PF:I am not sure whether I was able to explain to you how to struggle against the possibility of misunderstandings that provoke bad use of your proposals. For me, there is no solution. The answer is not to be angry, but to be morally more clear. Sometimes a distortion is innocent, sometimes it is preestablished, it is programmed. In any case, we have the duty to clarify.

The sort of distortion I am talking about, for example, relates to artists who go into a neighborhood to set up a "dialogue" and report back to their peers, without ever really leaving room for the people to speak for themselves. People employ the rhetoric of dialogue, but it's a false dialogue. For example, what if I went to an African American community to create a "dialogue", but I knew beforehand what I want the results to be?

PF: Yes, it is absolutely false. But look, I don't want to say that I am prevented from knowing what I would like to say before going there. Because, as a person, I am a project. If I am a project, it means that I have objectives, because if I did not have some objectives and some ends that I am fighting for, I could not be a project. And it is part of my project to conceptualize what kind of arguments I can use in order, for example, to work against racism. For me, this is legitimate. What is not legitimate is to try to impose on them precisely the arguments I thought of beforehand. It is not legitimate, because a true conversation cannot be preestablished. I cannot throw beforehand what you will say to me in answering my question. I have to become engaged in order to follow our process of conversation. Do you see? Of course, I have to program my conversation. Nevertheless, I have to know that my conversation cannot be precisely as I planned it.

When I came here today, and I have my questions...

PF: Yes. You have your questions, and you have anticipated a way of answering your questions. But these are not necessarily my answers.

I will only allow myself to point out that, clearly, this conversation can also be the dialogue between any artist and his subject/matter/material/.

Shoot

How do you know what it is like to be shot if you have never been shot?

- Chris Burden

Identical paintings by two different painters

This is just a curiosity, but I enjoyed it.
Two painters painted the same painting.
No, not 3 centuries ago. In 2004/5.
And not just anybody - Damien Hirst is one of the two (the painter Michael Luther being the other one).
The paintings are reproductions of a news photo.
(And of course, neither artist knew of the other one's project)
Several possible interpretations:
1. Anything is possible in the connect-the-dots painting era.
2. The concept is what counts - and it is quite different in both cases.
3. Great minds think alike.
4. Lazy minds create similar copies of other people's pictures.
Any other options?

Dada News

We've been to dada-like games, we've rediscovered mail art. Do you still want more meaning? Do you think art shouldn't forget the world it lives in? Then go to Wordnews, a project by Benjamin Fischer which displays the current news in an automated form resembling a dadaist poem, but with a message. The news that appears more often are shown in larger letters. (More about the technical side of the project here).
As this short Italian review suggests (excellent site, with some articles in English), Wordnews uses and puts into focus the "news looping" phenomenon in the current media: once a news trend starts, all the media go after it, anxious to get everything in "realtime". This causes a great homogeneity of information, with the exact same words and phrases reappearing constantly.
What is good about this work, though, is that it's not what one could call a critique. Nobody is pointing the finger. Benjamin Fischer shows us an echo of what we hear - while we forget the weight of the words that keep showering us endlessly. The words, here, stand alone, sometimes connected into phrases, often not. And we have to create the stories, write them, pronounce them for ourselves. We have to make sense of the raw information, deprived of the comforting context of the articles that contain it.
It is only important to remember that this is not a reflection of the world, or even of the media world, but of the world that is most heard on our media: the English-speaking, US-centric world. It is globalization in the narrowest of senses, underlining the common denominators and excluding the unique. For the acute observer, Fischer's work is also a warning.
The work is currently presented at the Oberwelt e.V. gallery in Stuttgart. It is the artist's first solo exhibition. It's great to know that some software-based works actually leave the internet and its haunting, virtual atmosphere from time to time.
(via we-make-money-not-art)

Mail Art

A couple of days ago there was an article at Fallon and Rosof's artblog about excellent recent mail art works. I figured many people probably aren't even sure if they know what mail art is, living in the digital era and all... And now I remembered there is a great site, www.mail-art.de, where you can not only learn about mail art, but also participate in mail art initiatives around the world. If you're an "established artist", you might feel this is childish (then again, don't take yourself so seriously!), if you're a beginner, an amateur, an aspiring star or a complete outsider, this could be your chance to do something new and original in the era of virtual communication. The projects come from many places around the world. Some of the ideas go deep, some are intimate or fairly difficult to execute, others seem things off the top of the head. Here is an example of the offers you'll find on the site:

THEME:		Draw me a "Terrorist"
Comment:		www.blackspecs.de
Info:		For my publication please send me all postal objects that deal with any technique.
Deadline:		09.11.2005
Artist:		Jeroen Teunen / 6 Muschamp Road / London SE15 4EF / United Kingdom / blackspecs@gmx.de
Posted:		01.04.2005

Other, less perfect, sites about/with mail art, can be found here and at this mail art webring.
If you still think mail art is dead, check out this blog of the International Union of Mail Artists, created by artist Ruud Janssen, and containing all the links you'll need to discover this wonderful universe.

Net art with meaning

The internet often seems like an art playground. Works designed specifically for the net tend to be light, playful, entertaining... But I rarely feel that the artist thought much about the meaning of the work. Nice and fun and sometimes surprizing are the usual adjectives that come to mind. Daydreaming allowed. Thinking not always required.
Here is a work, called Fisheye TV, that, although technically and aesthetically it has its limits, is more than just an interactive toy.
Its author, Brian Kim Stefans, is better known as a poet, though he has been creating net work since 1998. His most known net art work is "The Dreamlife of Letters", a dada work gone flash. Maybe I'm not enthousiastic about it because it's been done by Dada without the need for flash? Maybe, because I have a friend, called Tadeusz Wierzbicki, a wonderful, crazy person, owner of a light and shadow laboratory, who made a light performance (yes, you understood well - light performance) about the letter "i" - more beautiful than any other Dada or Dreamlife or visual poetry art I have seen (a few pics of some of Wierzbicki's recent work can be seen on this French site).

In any case, this new work by Brian Kim Stefans is another story. Since I'm on my positive challenge, I will only say that I like the fact that I can see that there is a person, with thoughts and beliefs, behind the work. Hopefully, work like that will inspire others to go much further still, to dig, to sweat, and to enchant us all. Or at least a part of us.
(There are other works from this series by Stefans here - though I found their level quite uneven)

Store your digital art, anti-art and I-think-it's-a-nice-shot-art - for free

Ourmedia.org is an encouraging idea for promoting grassroots creativity:

Ourmedia is a global community and learning center where you can gain visibility for your works of personal media. We'll host your media forever — for free.

Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, audio interviews, digital storytelling, children's tales, Flash animations, student films, mash-ups — all kinds of digital works have begun to flourish as the Internet rises up alongside big media as a place where we’ll gather to inform, entertain and astound each other.

Ourmedia is several things in one. We are:

• An open-source project built and staffed by volunteers
• A destination Web site that freely hosts grassroots video, audio, music, photos, text and public domain works
• A community space to share and discuss personal media
• A learning toolkit to help our members create rich and compelling works
• An archive so that these works can be preserved for the ages
• A clearinghouse that allows anyone to search for licensed video, audio or music, download it and remix it, with proper attribution. Legally.

The secret of creativity

There are all of these theories about how maybe Shakespeare did not exist and these fifteen women wrote the plays...there's something doubtful about property and the invention. The essence of Romanticism and the Renaissance is that you're building a new world on the ruins of the old one, and that's creative, that's rich. All these people. Shakespeare and the Greeks, built a new world on an old one.

- Robert Lepage (1957-), Canadian (Quebecois) "experimental" theater director.

Embarrassing art that sells

"You do turn round after a few years and look at your stuff and you think it's embarrassing."

"Some of my spin paintings I think are a bit silly."

Not all his bad ideas have come to fruition. "I was toying with the idea of putting vibrators all over a pig and I was going to call it pork you pine," he said. "I didn't do it."

"People come up to me sometimes and say 'You're in a position where you could put a dog poo onto a lobster and call it art.' But why would I? Why would somebody do something stupid like that?"

The above quotes come from Damien Hirst, an immensly successful (and reasonably controversial) artist whose works have sold for up to $2 million [correct that. that's $13 million].
Though Hirst has many critics, he is generally being justified in nearly everything he does. It is nice to know the artist himself doesn't go that far (here is the original article where the quotes come from). Although he definitely defends some of his most known works (like the below work, called). As does the humble author of this blog.


PS: One more quote:

"You can buy drinks for all the collectors in the world and get your stuff in the (museums), but in 200 years' time if it's crap, it's not going to be there, is it?"

Now, I don't mean to be a bad boy again, but doesn't that put an interesting light on how Mr.Hirst got his "stuff in the museums" in the first place? (And what drinks were those, by the way?)

Sculpture according to Richard Serra

There are a lot of people around still making objects, but I'm interested in a situation where what we call the sculpture is a catalyst for walking and looking and thinking about what you're looking at. If this work can do that, if it can just inform and change how you see, even minutely, that's a reason to do it. I mean, nobody thinks sculpture's going to change the world.

- sculptor Richard Serra
(from this interview, found thanks to artsjournal)

Dream

Last night, after publishing the Rebecca Horn review, I had a dream in which someone contacted me (by e-mail? phone? directly?) and said he was from the Association for Positive Input. He then challenged me to propose and encourage, and not reject.

Rebecca Horn in Lisbon

At last! I've finally managed to see the Rebecca Horn retrospective at the Centro Cultural de Belem (Lisbon, Portugal).
The experience has been strange.
Rebecca Horn was an important figure of the so-called 60's avant-garde. She was what one could call a fashion designer gone mad. She created wardrobe that changed the way the body functioned. Her Finger Gloves (1972) are a classic, as is the Unicorn (1970). The first one is an actual pair of gloves (shown at the Lisbon exhibition) that one puts on the fingers. They extend the fingers by a meter and half or so. Thus, one can touch distant objects, though at the same time the body seems awkward, it is hard to consider it one's own body.

The exhibition contains short films from the 70's presenting Horn's various inventions - and we can see how the Finger Gloves work, and how they impose a certain way of feeling (pardon the pun) reality. If this description reminds you of Tim Burton's charming Edward Scissorhands, you're on the right track: I'm positive Burton knows Horn's work in-depth. The Unicorn is a simple, very long cone attached to the (female, of course...) head. It seems almost trivial, but you should see the short film where the Unicorn appears and disappears on a forest road full of contrasting shadows and light spots. The oniric (dream-like) images are spell-bounding.
Upon watching this first chapter of Rebecca Horn's art, you get the feeling she was on to something. It's exciting to see her experiments, which never actually reveal any outstanding discovery, but appear to be getting ever closer... And then...
And then I don't know what happened.
Then we're back in 2005. And the world has changed. As have Rebecca Horn's sculptures. They are sophisticated, cut to perfection, well-lit and designed in the cleanest of ways. The "primitive" clock-like machines point to such nothings that we can always put something into them, the mirrors reflect just the right amount of gallery space (yes, gallery space, that's what this smells of). Even the dust is where it should be, even the ashes in the 2002 work Book of Ashes (referring vaguely to September 11th and to the Holocaust) seem incredibly controled after the amateurish films from the 70's that contained all the freshness of a naive but vibrant faith in new art.
These new works are much more mature. They are certainly thought out and executed in a very professional way. The problem is - I shouldn't be noticing this. I should be admiring their strength and depth or craziness or peace.
Instead I go back to those early videos. They are far from perfect: watching those filmed performances I get a similar impression when I see good, but not absolutely mind-blowing contemporary works: somebody's having a party, and I get to peep in. Sometimes somebody else's party can be a great discovery. Then again, sometimes it's just a party, with too much weed and cheap philosophy (like in the mirror piece, a costume made of several mirrors which reflect the room).
Today, Rebecca Horn knows much better how to hide. Even her apparently spontaneous and "free" drawings tell me little of who she is. But I'm a difficult play-partner, and someone hiding is not in itself enough for me to seek.
With an exception: Der Zwilling des Raben (The Twin of the Crow), a work created in 1997, which brings Horn's old theme of feathers up-to-date, giving it - a motor.
Two wings - or two mechanical birds, two machines, are having a conversation. Two quasi-beings endlessly caress each other. They are delicate. Their black feathers fold and unfold as in a subtle dance, where resting is crucial. One of them always ends up on top. Breathing.
And only upon closer inspection does my girlfriend tell me that the feathers have been cut.
Their shape adjusted, for a more sophisticated look.

And Now On a Positive Note

Be a Movie Star - instantly!

During the Expo 2005, spectators queueing to see a movie at Toshiba’s digital cinema are submitted to a futurecast, they place their faces into a hole in the wall for a few seconds. High-resolution digital cameras perform a quick scan from several angles, and everyone takes their seats.

The animated film, Grand Odyssey, begins as normal but the entire cast is made up of walking, talking digital replicas of people in the audience.

(from Times, via we-make-money-not-art)

Art for the General Public

On art.blogging.la there is a text about how to make art more accessible to the general public. I specifically like the great discussion below the post.
One issue is being sort of left out - and it shouldn't. The psychology of the art world. I think it could go as far back as the impressionists (so, the beginning of what some call "modernism"). It goes something along these lines: the artists create works that the general public refuses to accept. Since other artists create similar works, they encourage each other. What is being created is a "Us vs. Them" situation. We know the truth, we see it, and they are too short-sighted to understand it. This attitude translates to an even stronger rejection, and then a total ignoring, on the part of the public. As for the people supposed to make the connection between the art and the public - the critics, the owners, museums, they opt for one side. They either stick with the artists and justify them (some more, some less), or they agree with the non-specialized public, and move closer to "entertainment". In the latter case, they refuse to accept the "new", radical art, and demand "accessible" art. There is only scarce dialogue between the two camps: as ever so often, the negotiators are seen as traitors. And we're left with an art world where it's extremely difficult to justify a work of art in front of both milieus. It seems as if all the "elite" are afraid to be considered as traitors, entertainers, low artists. That's why a simple gesture like Banksy's can be seen with so much sympathy - it challenges this division. It says: look, I'm also an artist. Remember the Little People. Smile. Say a joke. Play with me. Stop being so goddamn high-fetched and isolated. Or you'll bore us all to death.

PS: How to engage the general public? How about: think about them. Don't think you're oh-so-good you only need to think about your work, your art, your idea. Make at least one work your parents would like. (Or your children. Or anyone that couldn't possibly make it.)

TV art

Tired of TV? Think it's boring, and lacks imagination? Turn it into a work of art - use the Shine Box! It can display the image in a standard, or distorted mode:

(found at popgadget)

It was created by Aristarkh Chernyshev and a group of collaborators.
It reminds me of a song by the late French genius Boris Vian: "I had a TV/ but it bored me/ so I turned it around/ it's much more vibrant that way".
The song, written in hte 50's, was called "I'm a Snob".

Beyond Banksy

This is a painting by Malevich, the Russian futurist/avant-garde painter from the beginning of the 20th century (author of the famous Black Square). It represents a white cross on a white background. The graffiti on it is a graffiti (and not part of the original painting!), and was made by Alexander Brener, a highly provocative and controversial contemporary Russian artist. In 1997, Brener went into the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum and spray-painted a dollar sign on Malevitch's Suprematism 1922-1927, a white cross on white background. More on the story: here, and here is a letter of support for the artist (who ended up spending many months in prison). There is also a note about Brener and other interesting/controversial/new Russian artists on this site.

Banksy was obviously not the first rebel with a cause (though his is not too inventive: "These Galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see.") . An old article in the Guardian gives several more examples. There's even a book about purposeful destruction of art (The Destruction of Art by Dario Gamboni) - you can read this pretty crazy book's description at Amazon).

But Brener had something more: he had a conversation with art history. He dared to interpret it in a radical way. He reminded us that Malevich had ambiguous feelings towards art as a market, and towards the role of museums in the art world. Malevich was a serious rebel himself (and the cost for him was a miserable last stage of life). In his text called Suprematism, he declares

Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art which, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of "things."

It appears to me that, for the critics and the public, the painting of Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, etc., has become nothing more than a conglomeration of countless "things," which conceal its true value the feeling which gave rise to it. The virtuosity of the objective representation is the only thing admired.

Can you feel the vibration that rings in those early 20th-century words and motivates Alexander Brener (and echoes in Banksy)? Brener learned his lessons right:

1. He is quite original.
   
2. His performances were powerful.
   
3. He has guts even in the way he writes: The third world is the world of despised discourses and wasted hot flesh outbursts, spit and sperm in the poor districts of Mexico City and Brooklyn, in the Viennese Turkish ghetto and in the heart of Moscow. This excited, tongue-tied, pimple-faced third world also needs an artist. How else could it be? Then why can’t I be this artist and explain to you what kind of unpleasant art he is trying to create?

The only problem: Brener (contrary to Banksy) had already gained fame, and scandalous success. And then - nothing. He disappeared, and now I found some sadly low-quality paintings he made with his partner:

What a shame. What a shame. When the old Malevich was forced by Stalin to paint "realistic" paintings, he signed them with a little black square on white.
A little black square, about two centimeters large. That's all it takes.

Between the eye and the hand

A few nice quotes from an interview with Christopher Doyle, the cinematographer behind such films as Chunking Express and In The Mood For Love (and its sequel 2046)

(...) in Chinese, they say, "Your eye is high but your hand is low," which means you can't achieve what you want to do. You have all these fucking aspirations, you expect to do something great, and actually you complicate things. Because your hand is low.

That's the thing: the balance between being so fucking involved in something that it has energy, it has intimacy, it contacts people, and yet being removed enough to say, "Yes, no, yes, no, no." That's the job.

That's just it. I think the whole thing about filmmaking is that it has to be engaging enough that I have to believe enough of what I'm seeing that it becomes universal. It's really that simple.

I think this is what's happening, that we actually are moving into an area where the audience is more sophisticated than the critics.

How did you come up with the blurry skip-frame style that you used in films like Chungking Express and Fallen Angels?

Boredom. I think it was about boredom.

I also found another, calmer, interview with Doyle in the Guarian.

Anti-war art activism gone smart (another Banksy)

This is too gorgeous to be left out:

(the above image has been hanging at the Museum of Natural History, curtesy of Banksy, your mad rebel con-art-artist, who simply went in and glued the frame to a wall)

Is this art? It most definitely is. Is it new? Not quite - we've seen things like that for a century now. Can Banksy aspire to remain, say, at the MoMA? He certainly can. I wish they put him in there - so he suddenly becomes part of the game. (Or is he already?)

Digital Graffiti

I found this info on the Ars Electronica Futurelab project page:

In the future, cell phone users will be able to leave messages anywhere in the form of what might be termed electronic post-its. They will be able to post virtual messages referring to a specific location wherever they are needed.

What's the use? I think they're still not sure. Here's an example from the site:

Say, for example, that you’ve arranged to meet a friend for a stroll round town. While on your way you can simply leave a digital graffito, for instance at the arranged meeting point: “Just looking at a few CDs in the store opposite, come and join me.” If you wanted to send your friends the same message by SMS you would have to send every single one a separate message. This would be far more time-consuming.

Now, if it seems to you like they're hiding something, you're wrong. They're not hiding it:

Advertising messages could be placed in front of stores to draw attention to special offers. Anyone in the mood for shopping could switch on the advertising mode and wander from one offer to the next. People in a hurry simply switch this mode off.

I believe we've seen it in the Minority Report. Now it's becoming reality. What does it have to do with art? Well, do you know Banksy, The Exterior Art specialist? (we-make-money-not-art recently described Banksy's last "performance")

Imagine him, and all the other happy kids, having this new, wonderful digital toy.

(then again) go see art

Then again, what others didn't do is really their misfortune (?).
And you people don't like long posts anyway, right?
So here's one for you: a nice Polish fine arts site, Artnew.pl. (in Polish, but nice pictures!)
(The picture above: "Adam & Eve" by Viola Tycz, 70 x 100 cm, ca.250 €)

The (digitally) forgotten art form

Where is performance art on the net? There are tens of blogs about the fine arts, and not a single blog about performance art, or even performing arts (a much broader term) for that matter! Here is my hypothesis: I suppose that translates into one conclusion: nobody cares. They are quickly forgotten, rarely talked about. They aren't sure where to put themselves on the art scene, so the spectators are even less so.Performance artists and critics seem to have always thought of themselves as the true radicals, the outcasts. And they're proving their point. They will meet and "demand" to be recognized (and paid) as the great artists they are (and I believe they are indeed!), but then - nothing. Some writings, some conferences. Very little. They seem a lost tribe - and digitally, it is all too blatant. The page on performance art that has for years appeared on Google's #1 spot is this incredibly amateur and well, weak, page (in form, but above all, in content). The one "performance art blog" (A.D.2003) I found is... a curated show! It's nice to know the performance art critics know what a keyboard is, but why does it take a curated show for them to appear on the net?
The one hope is that in the last, say, 15 years, performance art has been progressively swallowed by "off" theater - and to some extent dance. Names such as the Wooster Group, Forced Entertainment, Jan Fabre or Xavier Le Roy create pieces so close to performance art, and so distant from mimetic-dramatic theater, they are the ones who today are considered the best representatives of performance (although often under other tags), much more than a Marina Abramović. It's a strange situation, but thanks to this mix-up we actually hear about performance from sources other than artists and their friends.
There are two other areas where performance keeps on: the fine arts and digital art. I personally don't believe the fine arts help it at all. It seems complicated logistically, a live artist is more of a hustle than, say, a TV set, and is much more difficult to sell. Also, the fine artists that go on that path belong to the group of the "lost sheep", in between the worlds. Of course, the argument that art goes beyond traditional forms is not only valid, but incorporated into the art world. On the other hand, the question remains: who is going to see you? Or: where will you get your audience, specifically, concretely, not just ideally. And of course: where will you get the funds? If nobody hears about you, or if you're marginalized by those that do, your work is truly "art pour l'art". Maybe that's why so many ("classical") performance artists end up creating fine art work - paintings, photos. It's a way of integrating. The theater and dance people don't need to do that.
Then there's digital art. Performance slowly moves into the digital world. Much slower, than was to be expected. Theater people are even slower here. We have Blast Theory, and some other examples - but mainly, artists coming from other areas use digital means imaginatively. Is that a way out? Frankly, I think that's a whole other story. Completely different, and leaving me much more optimistic.

Art gone curious

Another discovery brought to you by Fallon and Rosof's artblog: James Leonard and his art. At his webpage, you can discover little marvels of contemporary art: Dutch apple pies, lost phone conversations, comments on Iraq, water balloons and artificial hearts.
The works are based on "intellectual games" (Two monkeys' cudgel), well thought-out concepts (Lunar phases), and a very strong stance in regards to the world ( Scratch n sniff). Some pieces are too light for my taste, like My mother's dutch apple pie, which is basically a gastronomical piece more than anything else (something not that new if you come from the theater/performance world), and though I like the humor in it, the "buzz" created by giving out only six plates at any given time does not seem enough to make me buzz in my head. Then again, I haven't tasted the pie! Many of the works seem to have the care and touch of really great art (from what I can tell on the screen...), though some seem a little neglected in how they are shown. Also, I think Leonard explains too much about his works. He seems to be desperate to show their quality - and doesn't always let us dream by ourselves... But thanks for the good work!

Jump (possibly lighter than Rauschenberg)

Make the world a better place. Jump.
I tend to believe this is perfectly qualified to be considered a (potential) performance art piece.

Rauschenberg - too nice to be good?

By some considered an absolute genius, a "postmodern phenomenon", by others, nothing more than a skilled technician, Rauschenberg is one of the world's 10 most expensive living artists in the world. He first became famous in the 50's for his "combines", or works combining (3D) installation with (2(3?)D) painting. Then, as a good, short biography describes,

As Pop Art emerged in the '60s, Rauschenberg turned away from three-dimensional combines and began to work in two dimensions, using magazine photographs of current events to create silk-screen prints. Rauschenberg transferred prints of familiar images, such as JFK or baseball games, to canvases and overlapped them with painted brushstrokes. They looked like abstractions from a distance, but up close the images related to each other, as if in conversation. These collages were a way of bringing together the inventiveness of his combines with his love for painting.

Rauschenberg still creates "collages" today, though any art critic would probably be offended by this way of calling them. Why? Because for an artist to be considered good, he needs to be seen as evolving. And as ground-breaking:

Rauschenberg is an amazingly prolific and formally venturesome artist who, over the past 50 years, has nearly always risked aesthetic trespass, producing work deliberately just one degree or two from being merely ugly, banal, kitschy, gimmicky, showy, facile or, of course, excessive. (from this old review)

On artblog.net, a highly-specialized blog about fine arts (yes, they do forget that art exists beyond fine arts), there was an interesting discussion of art critics about Rauschenberg and modernism. (Do they really write 'modernism' with a capital letter? Heheh. Nothing like the good old idea of godliness in art. Sorry, that was meant to be 'Art'.)
Among much blabla (notice how they can't keep to the topic, and stray off into abstract talk), I found some insightful remarks about Rauschemberg and modernism:

They are cleverly and humorously organized, the color is good, and there are all sorts of visual puns and contradictions going on.

I find this quite delightful. Lightweight it may be, but in this case, so what. It is a relief from the academic tedium and horriblisme and pretentious foolishness we see every day around here. it is "fun art", if you will, with enough skill and wit to sustain it as such.

As far as i am concerned what has emerged since 1970, usually called "postmodernism", is just a degenerated stage of Modernism. Modernism itself, according to how you define it, is no more dead than good painterly painting was in 1850. it is just taking a rest.

I can see the work as pleasurable, if not outright pleasant. But the kind of work I really like is work that scares me, and Rauschenberg's does not.

Even when he uses "heavy" imagery, like JFK, it remains the work of a very talented graphic designer, with undeniable surface appeal but not that much depth or substance.

Art opinion is what it is, which is, historically, usually wrong. It is an interesting subject for a sociological study but it has little to do with art or making art, unless you let it. You seem to think in terms of "movements", and I feel that this frame of mind is a kind of blinder. And there may be an art movement right under your nose which you don't see precisely because of the myopia of that opinion. Put yourself back in Paris inb 1865, knowing nothing. Think about it.

These images are interesting. If they are large scale I am sure they could be quite fun to look at. It is his earlier work, the combines, that I think are quite wonderful. In other words, I see them as much better "Dada" and much better art, than any of Duchamps work. They seem to embody a lot of art history rolled into one,

Discarding a convention simply because it is one, or just for the sake of discarding, or to achieve some concept of "purity" or "open-mindedness" which may, in fact, be more like sterility or impoverishment or absurdity, is neither logical nor sensible--certainly no more so than hanging on to a convention because "it's always been that way" without objectively evaluating its value or utility.

As for the discussion about the difference between modernism and postmodernism, I think the question is way too young to be answered, but artblog.net helps answering it by being so bloody conservative - they seem somewhat blasé, old, afraid of anything with ambitions other than in the exact area (school) they specialize in. And, paradoxically, that old, worn-out attitude is what I would call modernism. For lack of a better word. Does this "looking back at modernism" make one postmodern? I find the idea of calling a movement modernism silly enough.
But if you need a label, you can call it Postboredism. I don't like to be bored, young and naive as I am. Thus, I ask from art to pull me in, to provoke me, and not only exist in an esoteric shell (though I admit the shell can be fascinating, too...). Fortunately, many artists today think it is not too much to ask. Are they postmodern? Or modernist? Or Great, or Small? How would I know. They make me feel richer. Is that not enough?

Art too extreme?

On the excellent, though very textful art blog by Libby Rosof, a surprizing review of the art of Hermann Nitsch (second part of the review actually, though the first one is interesting as well). The artist was the most (in)famous member of the Viennese Actionists in the 60's, with performances resembling strange, often bloody and/or cruel rituals, sometimes with animals, sometimes with sex. He is also the only member of the group to still be performing today. And he is controversial. Which becomes quite clear, once you've read the review. And the word "controversial" sounds different here- it is not just cool - it is close to aweful, evil. If you dare use the word in art. Libby Rosof does.

PS.: But the blog has many sides to it. Look closer, and you might find this review by James Thacker another step towards understanding something about contemporary art. Here's a fragment:
I found his performance work disgusting, yet intruiging, as it often took place at his Austrian castle (or so I was told)! I thought his graphic work, with as much blood-letting as his mystery plays, beautiful. He was explicit about the analogy in his work beween blood (and wine) and paint. I think I realized for the first time how the material quality of paint could have symbolic value -- a revelation for an American artist hitherto weened on iconography, text book pictures and slides. In class, Nitsch had us replicate taste or smell sensations visually by coloring in a strip of boxes on paper with a succession of colors. The emphasis on sensation and the quality of the medium as an important, if not always obvious, component of visual art impressed me.