the art life: on creativity and career -- a talk

THE ART LIFE: ON CREATIVITY AND CAREER

a talk given by museum director, Stuart Horodner

An interesting talk in an interesting setting, surrounded by the most recent exhibition under soaring cubic feet of empty space, up to a thirty foot ceiling. The current three person exhibit baffled me, as usual, but the assorted groupings of raw plywood pieces on the very tall left wall was particularly challenging. Pieces stacked or pinned at different levels did have that spontaneous, casually assembled from mill leavings kind of edge about it, splintery straight edges everywhere. It was presented here as some sort of artifact of a big international career, or maybe that’s the art. In any case, turns out it well illustrated points made. 

I’ll admit to a slight unease, a non-believer visiting Mecca in disguise. It was a university crowd mostly, comfortable profs and eager students. What I heard was make friends, keep contacts, dive in and swim around, everyone’s welcome here. Just dig what’s up right now and you’ll see what we mean. The event was well attended and with acknowledgements and testimonials, a positive and pleasant church meeting of a faith not my own. Too shy to stand up and ask among those like-minded parishioners, facing all those briefly turned icy stares at once, but I really wanted to know from where comes the loot for these glamorous ‘international‘ careers? Did the artist bring his plywood to our little town for a line on a resume, does the museum pay for the privilege of showing plywood, or maybe they expect commissions to ensue, but I sat silent, considering who really pays for all of this. I don’t know all the ins and outs, who could, but I think in the end it’s us.

The source of funds for creative careerism is important, although it didn’t come up in the talk. This is because large wads of undifferentiated money are the medium the establishment exists in, the air they breath, and no one questions. I’m thinking without somebody’s subsidies I’m not sitting here looking at scrap plywood, and neither would anyone else. So I contacted the museum director who gave the talk next day alluding to my reservations, knowing he might not be as open-minded as he claimed -- it’s something art people just say. He graciously replied to me twice, I followed up, and I don’t doubt his sincerity, but we talked past each other. Thought we might. I’m trying to suggest the vast tax-supported establishment that pays his salary uses public money to move the goal posts, to repaint the lines, to fabricate a whole new arena for art, and the sensibilities of the vast majority who pay the freight are disregarded, maligned, and condescended to. Not surprisingly that’s not what he heard.

He heard me complain about importing art and artists from far away, and assured me that local artists were going to be represented in his exhibition program, too. I would say back that acknowledging only those local artists who emulate the ‘deskilled’ ‘found-object’ ‘repurposed’ aesthetic dear to the NEA, all those tax sucking foundations, and university art departments everywhere isn’t really acknowledging local art and artists or their potential patrons, but it would be rude to impose serious complaint on his polite generosity. He’s not likely to hear no matter how said. Frankly the notion that it’s only depictions of horses that can support local artists, from his lips, has a colonialist ring to it, a note of benevolent condescension, a predisposed nullification of regional art that attempts anything else.

No hard feelings. I can see when I’m outnumbered, in this audience probably seventy five to one, and I can’t argue with jet-setting international careers, waterfalls of cash, glamorous studio repartee  -- it all sounds great. Still I’d like to ask, if you wouldn’t mind, would you please take your big tax-supported foot off the garden hose of media coverage and public awareness and let local artists and their natural constituents have some water, maybe some sunlight now and then. It’s just a rhetorical question which will in time answer itself since a critical threshold has already passed, and art produced around here has started going home with people. The real engine of artistic dynamism and authentic expression comes out of studios in underdeveloped properties all over town, and goes up in houses, offices, and open-to-the-public businesses -- what’s happening now almost everywhere. Once the practice of art ownership ignites, creative careers will flourish without benefit of the government paycheck, the fat foundation grant, or the committee-chosen institutional purchase, and a more authentic and regionally grounded art will clear its throat.