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Sunday, October 29, 2017

comes around -- art precedes

Did you hear about the liberal fond of Andy Warhol but who doesn’t like Donald Trump, so alike in so many ways I’m here to tell you. Andy was one clever marketeer but he was venal and shallow -- virtues in his world. He stole, show me an image he created that isn’t a lumpy shoe, and he cheated, no one knows what’s actually ‘authentic,’ made at his direction, and there’s no way to tell. He exploited all around, paid minimum to the production people in his ‘factory,’ and resorted to a mannered misdirection when confronted directly. It’s all there in his art.

So now time has passed, and now it seems we have come to live with those virtues, those values, in ‘real life’ -- imagine that. In this case the art preceded, revealed the mind set of the wealthy upper classes, and announced the agenda for debasing the culture and trivializing any complaint about anything. Was there a cabal of capitalist dukes and barons using Warhol as forward artillery, softening up the impact population with soup cans and brillo boxes -- doesn’t work like that. It’s somehow more mysterious, but don’t pretend the connection isn’t clear and obvious. In real life they admired each other, Warhol and Trump, recognized each other, wore the same feathers. 

Resisters look to thy walls and ask yourself, ‘do I see integrity, do I see commitment, am I invited to share a vision I find inspiring,’ or does my art reflect the current situation? Maybe you’ve been sabotaging yourself. What’s the answer, gosh, I don’t know, but will make a suggestion. Art is not mysterious. It’s the most direct, non-prejudicial, easily understood thing in life, all the rest is advertising. No one knows more about it than you, and that’s the beauty don’t you see? Experts who look sideways at each other and not straight ahead at art have lost their way, and you get to choose your own direction -- art precedes.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

true victims -- artless houses

It isn’t the artists we care about, resourceful and independent, they’ll get by. When times are tight they can fall back on one of the many occupations they’ve sampled along the way, industrial production, waiting tables, such as that. Even without material success they get to be artists, and that’s a privilege in itself, especially around here at this moment. We’ll save our sympathy for the real victims, the vast majority in this culture who never have the opportunity to see original art, and understandably never entertain the notion of owning any.

Let’s start with businesses. Original art is jarring, it demands attention, and chances are employees won’t like it at first, but art in production areas and break rooms proffers tangible results. Better than motivational posters, it’s a gesture of respect from management that builds loyalty and cohesion, as well as providing an example of creativity and commitment with a long-term positive influence on job performance. In offices original art catches the eye of vendors, competitors, and the public, alike, projecting a progressive image and producing a lasting impression. Along with those practical considerations, original art in the office makes going to work more pleasant, just does. 

Art at home, guess we never thought about it. We’ve got department store prints, maybe a reproduction poster, a ship, a meadow, can’t remember, don’t really care. This isn’t surprising. Uptown in those austere, polar-white galleries, art is unreasonably expensive and visually unintelligible, so totally not us, and museums have become more interested in ‘things,‘ the big rock in LA for example, cutting-edge silliness. Locally, subsidized art agencies present the most time-bound, self-referencing academic conceits available. This is unfair. People ought to have the opportunity to see the art being made all around them, not just third-hand derivations of what’s trendy somewhere else. Would they pay attention -- it’s much more likely. 

The deriding of local art production by an academic elite given responsibility for choosing art exhibited in non-profit galleries, how art is covered in local media, and what artists are worthy of attention and support, is simply sad. Will interest and support for local art production ignite and become self-sustaining, now that more art is being seen in public? The question becomes when, with murals on blank walls, paintings for sale in restaurants and salons, does someone, somewhere, set an example by buying and owning some, perhaps with local media coverage? Some small gesture by any of several media outlets, interviewing the businessperson ahead of the curve buying art instead of new office furniture, finding someone of modest means who lives with art instead of driving a new car, would help to crystallize a movement long overdue.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

tribal converts -- seeking identity

Group identity is reassuring, and many just want to burrow into a tribe somewhere, want to march together, ride together, tail-gate together, it’s all good, but not everyone finds comfort that way. Some get lost from the crowd, can’t cope, and check out early various ways, but others adapt and live among us thick as thieves. The handyman with his own truck, making half as much as his brother-in-law while working twice as hard, is four times as happy, and probably saw through the game early on. 

Some living their lives on the outside choose to make art, and especially in a society besotted with commercialism and multi-media infotainment, it’s  a worthy challenge indeed. One person attempting to confront the seething maw of capitalism, that lowest denominator grinder of souls, and still remain whole and independent has to be a noble aspiration. In real life the odds are extremely steep, the path obscured by myth and misdirection, bogus experts and incompetent guides abound. The state-subsidized crowd won’t accept you, while the costs of art supplies, rent, and time spent are all borrowed against a future acceptance that may not come, and truth be told, probably won’t. It’s an arid, minimal existence even when ‘successful,‘ promising endless contention with galleries, an uncertain future and not much money. 

So why, in converted storerooms and vacant lofts, are so many people trying to do it anyway? Art supplies in some form occupy a shelf in trading posts out at the edges of habitation, and drugstores in small towns all have a few colors and a brush or two. Of course, most who try to paint, it isn’t easy, accept that a career would be out-of-the-question unattainable, but in front of an easel they dream. Is it a fantasy of glamour and bright lights, celebrity notoriety and serial debauchery, all the stuff they say on television and in the magazines about the world of art, maybe not. They think, ‘what if I could pay the rent this way.

Success for the studio artist is staying in the studio, simple as that. The economy will drag you back and hand you a shovel, artists never make it very far up the ladder in a lifetime. Shovel with the left hand is the age-old advice for independent artists, but sometimes it takes both. However it’s done, the object is to keep working until the art supports itself, or decrepitude intervenes. That in itself qualifies for membership in an old, old tribe standing slightly beside the human race, wryly amused and keenly observant, paint brushes in hand they salute each other across the ages.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

folk revival -- back to basics

Yes, anyone can see the modern world has moved on, that internationally all the urbane, sophisticated and culturally aware among us have developed a taste for more progressive expressions. Uptown galleries are full bore contemporary with their exhibits reviewed in the arts section of major papers, while our threadbare little screed, advocating for flat representational art at home, seems horribly out of touch. Well, sometimes the last becomes first, particularly in such an unstable season. For years Bernie used to make the same speeches in congress and anyone attending would just look off, but what he had been saying all along finally began to resonate with the public. It’s obvious it was the world that changed, not Bernie.

Owning art proposes a new model, turns down an alternative avenue, moves the needle to a different groove. In our version the person who buys and lives with art is at the peak of the pyramid, and the marker of authenticity is simply that they use their own money, so sincere. For many, I’ve sullied the notion of art already, but I think everyday people are smart, and can make rational choices when all viewpoints are represented. The breaking news that an endlessly replicated trademark painting by some name-brand artist has sold for tens of millions seems alien and unreal to the average person, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of understanding and appreciating art, just not that art. 

So go ahead and conceptualize, assemble and cannibalize until your expos are reduced to the sludge of modernity, but don’t expect us down on the ground to be impressed by your swell cultural credentials, or to care. Owning art is not about changing art, but about connecting art to a broader audience, and additionally favors the work of artists living on the economy, in the community. Once connected, these two groups will mature together quickly, make up for lost time, and begin a viable relationship as they gain confidence in each other. If that happens, art changes quickly on its own, becoming experientially based and more celebratory of day to day living.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

contemporary art -- a thin disguise

Attended a contemporary landscape exhibit and discovered something I’ve been suspecting for a while, but there it is. There were no landscapes. The term ‘contemporary’ is one gigantic inverse modifier, but I wonder what it really means. Everybody’s just supposed to know already, and I’ll guess it means good, up to the minute, worthy of contemporary attention, such as that, but haven’t heard it said out loud. If it was explained it would probably sound pretty wiggy, full of false assumptions, leaps of faith, and a lot of hot air. Wait, just thought of a great grant proposal.

Seen it happen before, there was a nude show hereabouts that wandered away from the human form into parts and acts, disconcerting and deranged. With each new regime, year by year, the exhibit became more contemporary. So let’s define the term contemporary, not as the sanctioning label applied to art that might possibly interest a modern person, but as it functions visually, what it does. Painting a tree isn’t so difficult, saw how to do it once on tv, but painting a convincing tree is hard. Doesn’t have to be a realistic tree, but it has to say tree to the viewer, the more the better.

It would be much easier to grab some old abstract experiment from against the studio wall and give it some outdoorsy sort of title, you could just make one up, and it qualifies, it’s contemporary. What won’t qualify as contemporary are paintings of the outdoors, trees, fields, mountains, clouds -- so quaint, bless their hearts, they’re not artists, that isn’t art. Something going on around here surely won’t stand the light of day. With any depth of perception the term contemporary just looks cowardly. Maybe I could find some gentler way to say it, but visual art doesn’t have time for sly innuendos about gender and race, the peek-a-boo references to someone else’s art, the momentary hitching to what was in one gallery last week, soon to be in every gallery up and down the block. Pretentious and shallow -- could be a compliment. 

A local arts council mounting a ‘contemporary landscape’ competition, and then disallowing the participation of anyone actually painting landscapes is a brutal form of state censorship, aimed not only at painters who aspire to earn a living from their work, but also against entire communities who look to local art councils for guidance, but find a steady diet of contemporary art disappointing and demoralizing. Actually there are many painters who paint landscapes anyway, without official recognition, and a truly open competition, judged by an accomplished painter or two, would see more traffic during the week, garner real public interest, advance careers, and put more art up in houses -- all good things.

Monday, October 2, 2017

following the money -- art’s destinations

Owning art advocates for art that can be owned, not by museums, not by corporations or foundations, not by any business entity hoping to enhance a public image, but by individuals for personal use, to be hung in a house, an apartment or office, and seen everyday. For practical living-space purposes the favored form is painting, although anything original qualifies, drawings and by-hand prints. 

There are two distinct pathways to arrive at decisions about acquiring art, depending on whose pocket provides the purchase price. People who purchase art with other people’s money, on panels and committees, choose a different sort of art than they'd want to live with day to day, or pay for themselves. The Rockefellers were leading advocates for abstract art back in the day, providing foundational support and prominent display in big banks, but that wasn’t what they had over the fireplace back at the home-place, just regular folks after all. 

The decision to part with personal money points the consciousness, refines discernment, and provides the most direct avenue to visual sophistication and market savvy, lessons etched in the skin. Without buying, owning, and living with art, the most erudite expert is just a spectator, a press-box commentator who ‘never played the game.’ Owning art also favors representational art, but that’s just being practical as well, recognizable images being both more accessible to the viewer and more challenging to the artist, a gravitational realignment long overdue. Of course it’s possible to maintain a timely sensibility concerning contemporary art, but this ain’t no disco -- long term ownership has little interest in time-bound fetish art, so tired by the year after next.

Is this asking too much, this quiet corner? After all, it’s only a niche, a small slice of the big art pie, the quaint notion that the-less-than-wealthy might support working artists as community-based professionals who provide a bit of curry in bland suburbs, flavoring each house with its owner’s own personality. There’s the problem of stupidity, of course, that average citizens just will never have the background to even look at art, but we’ll just have to laugh that one off. It’s actually the people overly concerned with reputation and resumes who have trouble seeing art.

Could this potential audience be largely imaginary as some would suggest, maybe, but might just be invisible so far, nibbling at the edges, getting to know local artists by sight, counting pennies. Area art production could suddenly become a torrent if neighbors, business owners, friends and associates all bought a starter piece together, a rolling coincidence all across town. When enough art is seen in public the mystery will disappear, area painters will have fans, and businesses will want to display their work. Simply spending money out of pocket makes everybody more discerning and aware, and the artists will all get better, working everyday.