art's failure of nerve -- pain aversion

Art can be a dangerous business, people skating on the surface eating crackers and drinking wine, unaware of the thousand foot drop below. Visual art covers the human communication words can’t deliver, and reads the same no matter in what language the viewer speaks and thinks. That turns out to be a lot of territory, room to contain all sorts of meaning.

A mirror reflects the visual world faithfully and without comment, handy for driving and combing the hair. Art is the mirror of the inner self and reflects both ways, more of a meeting place that anyone can visit. That’s the dangerous part, art can be a frank and unforgiving territory especially for the artist. Seldom will a person feel more vulnerable than when attempting to draw a horse to show to someone else. Give it a try..... Now imagine showing it to the whole world, the best horse I can make, and the raw embarrassment becomes excruciating, so most folks don’t draw.

Artists learn to deal with it, although it infamously takes a toll, and more than a few chronically medicate to blunt the uncomfortable feeling of being somehow more than naked in public, apt to become defensive and melancholy when no one seems to notice. There is another strategy employed by some modern artists and their patrons which eliminates the problem of sincerity and self-revelation for practically everybody -- just don’t say nothing. Take a monochromatic green panel attributed to Elsworth Kelly, worth millions and millions. Just one color don’t say nothing, the visual equivalent of an even monotonous tone.

All we know about Elsworth Kelly from his art is that he’s rich, fabulously rich and famous, who else gets away with such ‘purity,’ and if you own a piece you must be insanely rich yourself, the circle completed. Sadly, it’s not a deep message, almost not worth canvas and paint. Ed Hopper, on the other hand, is himself present in every work he ever produced, even though he covered a wide range of subjects in different media, and this is also true of many other artists, some in your neighborhood. The operative question becomes how many people viewing his work, in the original and not as a poster or in a book, recognize something in themselves and their own experience, and the answer must be quite a few. 

How brave are you? Would you hang a piece of art you liked, knowing the in-laws would comment, that the boss over for dinner might see you a little differently, and even your spouse expresses surprise? Maybe as brave as the artist who attempted to say something about the world beyond and besides what a cameras sees, and in the process said something about themselves, about all of us. Art is big, can be. Art is a human conversation going back centuries, at least, and just peeking in at the door can be rewarding -- joining the club is buying a piece of art. 

authenticity -- going native

Where is the seat of sincerity in the human soul? Maybe it changes from from one epic to the next, but here we are commercial beings. We make decisions based on returns, dollars in and out -- where to live, what to study, what to drive. Might as well admit it. Discretionary expenditures reveal the person and it’s actual money out of the pocket that tests those theories we sometimes claim to live by. Any old-school door-to-door salesman could tell you that. 

Art searches for ‘truth,’ that’s its job, and the question is where to look, what trail to follow. Much art is bought with other people’s money, and the paths begin to merge and cross when that happens. Many folks see their own career in art, from dealers to arts administrators, critics, academics and authorities, and that overlay of self-interest becomes a clouded lens. Art is in danger of going opaque, just an artifact connected to fame, or potential fame, or looks like fame for slightly less, and the expert’s sight is limited from the middle of the pack. 

Meager as it sounds the only real test of what people really want is what they’re willing to pay for, themselves. Big-time sports sell expensive seats all the way to the top of gigantic stadiums, or they move away for ‘lack of interest.’ Art is an expensive item in most households and buying it requires a thoughtful decision, since some more momentary benefit will have to go. It requires a chauvinism so thick it verges on burlesque to think they won’t make the right choice, for themselves. The aesthetic awareness of the community at large will never rise to the level of the jurists and curators who choose our art for us, but with ownership as the model this region will eventually express itself authentically, producing art reflecting a common experience and range of interests, and artists will make a living. 

chick little and the arts -- holding up the sky

We have an new governor, one with a tea party reputation. He did and said what was needed to get elected, and no one really has any idea what he’ll do in office. He’s expected to re-prioritize the budget, eliminate waste wherever it can be found and spend even less on state services. We all expect leaner times but one special interest group panicked, fearing annihilation it lit up social media, called for meetings to plan activism and retaliation, occupation of the rotunda, signs and shouting and stomping around. Gov said he had no idea how the rumor got started. What happened?

Methinks excessive protest reveals a special sensitivity, an uneasy conscience over privilege unearned -- how else to explain? They made it sound like the governor was about to kill art, an astounding idea. Predictions of doom which the average citizen may not have followed closely, or cared about, were dire. We should all be aroused considering what’s at stake -- what’s at stake? It probably isn’t art.

Art is old, here long before help arrived. It wasn’t contemporary art, of course, but an art admired and owned by the educated and well-traveled in many kentucky homes, and generally respected by everybody. Then the ‘state,’ federal, state, and local, got involved and suddenly there was a mission, the reeducation and cultural elevation of a heathen population. These agencies quickly became refuge to many a useless degree, to many who instead of making art decided to administer it. 

Here we have an exhibit featuring a wounded sawhorse, arrows in one flank, a hoof supported by a stack of vinyl records, in jackets, couldn’t tell what they were, not sure it’s important. A private gallery is not the place to see it. Takes tax money to sanction art of this calibre, and don’t it flow? Over on campus, check the non-profits, this is the art threatened when its state-funded budget is eliminated, along with phalanxes of copiers decommissioned and bleeping terminals gone blank. So sad.

Art would be dead, huh? With no more state money to support ‘conceptualists,' the cutting edge would round to general acceptance, and perhaps working artists could make a living on their own, directly, without dribbles of grant money and juried exhibits which alienate the public. Well, it didn’t happen. Everyone loses a nine percent slice, but the lights stay on, although I’m not sure all the commotion didn’t give the governor something to think about. 

a museum's mission -- front-loading fortifiers

The mind is pliable, and the brain will alter its function, even change its shape, trying to keep up. Images flood in through the eyes, go shifting through registers, the turnstiles of habit and security check of pet prejudices, to assemble the world we live in somewhere in back. Look it up. We all live in a virtual reality we construct, more or less, by what we choose to look at -- that is when we get to choose. 

Gone is that simple way of life in which the oak down by the creek was the same, only bigger, in a lifetime. People back then might have heard the wind, noticed the moonrise, been comfortable with their own identities, seeing much the same tableau everyday. We live in such a flood of images our attention span stands on its tip toes gasping for breath. In many ways our national consciousness is being shaped, might say manipulated, on a meta-scale -- what’s funny, what’s sexy, what’s an acceptable level of mayhem, and if you choose to stay you play.

Is it really radical to suggest that the visual aspect of an assemblage of fast food outlets, out along some belt-line somewhere, is as soulless and lacking in nutrition for the mind as their food is for the body? Now it’s possible to survive exclusively on big macs, as some seeker after world-record fame has shown, but only with heavy reliance on supplements via capsule every morning. Same goes for the rest of us, really. That action-packed orgy of demolition at the Imax goes somewhere, just like the sugar in that coke you’re drinking. 

Suppose the images and thoughts encountered in a normal day determined the limits of what a person could think about. What’s the supplemental compensation for urban traffic, the florescent-lit cubical, the rude debasing appeal for attention blasting from all directions? That big museum on donated land at the top of the hill might offer some relief, if you happen to live near a city. People visit art museums to counteract the banality of mass production, the sensationalism of mass communication, the sameness of day to day. Couple of years back the historic Grand Palais in Paris remained open twenty four hours a day for the last two weeks of an exhibit, people standing on the sidewalk under umbrellas way after midnight to see the paintings of american Ed Hopper. 

http://www.grandpalais.fr/en/event/edward-hopper

Here is not so different. So long as the routine we all face is leavened with art, living day to day isn’t so bad.