money envy -- art blindness

Do You Have to Be Rich to Make It as an Artist?’ artnet news -- jan 14
 
An article surveys the background of several fully emerged artists concerning privilege and wealth, something about both opportunities and points of view I think, just scanned it, who cares? It’s the audience who are actually required to be privileged and wealthy, blue-chip art like banknotes up on their walls. What are the aesthetic parameters of well-upholstered living, what insight gained from having things taken care of, little to do in life but compete against other wealthy wankers with your stuff? I’d have no idea, but I can see the art they like. The ‘artnet news’ is devoted to it.

I wouldn’t romanticize being poor, but overly-easy has drawbacks as well, and wealth’s notorious lack of empathy, while certainly understandable, becomes a distinct liability when it comes to appreciating art. Those with everything already instinctively want to buy the thing with the biggest price tag, a tendency recognized and long cherished within the industry. People who have acquired more of life’s skills through diligence and effort have a greater inclination to admire accomplishment, and with just a bit of exposure they can learn to recognize and appreciate it in art, whatever the subject, whatever the price. A taste in art -- a favorite artist, or style, or subject is strictly individual, and we all get to like what we like, but just being super expensive is an unreliable standard for art, a joke, a perversion.

On the ‘artnet news’ it’s all they ever talk about, really. It isn’t actually news, it’s just about money, the racing form with glam gossip tossed in. There are rumored compensatory considerations for favorable reviews, like buying a big fat ad, and this implicit corruption is simply known as ‘the way we do business.’ I suppose if I wanted to be like them I’d try to like their art too, but I don’t. What I do know is that if ten painters of relative proficiency were to paint the same familiar object, the result would not be ten identical copies of something, but ten individual images, each revealing something about the artist who painted it. That’s a place to start, actually a place to start over.

not enough looking -- too much talk

What does it mean to be visual, as in ‘visual art’? Means almost anything these days, no, more than that. Visual art can be anything you want it to be, and doesn’t have to look like much. About a hundred years ago give or take, the newly defined mission of the artist became simply to shock the middle class, violate accepted norms, and ride that wave of controversy to the top. The urban chic love putting artificial distance between themselves and the workaday types who contribute to their swell lifestyles, and any affront to their sensibility makes the grade, cheap, tawdry, easy, and dumb they like special. This is said with confidence, evidence abounds.

Back in the seventies Tom Wolfe asserted that the real change in art was from a visual form to a literary one, and as a fact Clement Greenberg, titan theorist of abstract expressionism, came to art after having tried literary criticism. With bunches of words you can weave some scintillating tapestries, but they’re just going to lay there on the page in rows, sucked up in linear sequence to be reconstructed by you -- pure abstraction. Visual art isn’t like that. It’s so much more ‘real.’ Looking at a picture happens all over all at once, but it enters the brain slowly, sinking in like water in a flower pot. Verifying this assertion will require the participation of the reader willing to stand in one place in the museum long enough for a painting to have its say. Walk away with your windows defogged a little.

What we have here is a traffic jam of words about art, and the road doesn’t go through, anyway. Visual art occupies a territory past the jurisdiction of words, and it can be talked about but not captured by anything said. Using visual art to illustrate a relevant, timely, important social cause is really just another form of advertising, while the art has merit, if any, solely in visual terms. This is the gauntlet -- have something interesting to say visually, or call it something else. Conceptualists, homestead new ground, blow minds and call into question over on your own lot, and leave visual artists to paint their pictures, to sing their songs in the mind’s eye.

the invisible bridge - art and life

In an article about abstract art in salon magazine, 12-18, the author suggests -- ‘And yet the general public, at least, finds abstraction and minimalism intimidating, quick to dismiss it with “oh, I could do that” or “that’s not art.”’
This is not, in a highly technical sense, what we usually think of as ‘intimidation,’ and represents a slight misreading of public sentiment due to a seriously bent point of view, make that self-serving delusion raised to an art form. They don’t want in, the six-packs, and might actually resent you and your snooty posturings, sipping pretend tea from plastic cups while the planet smolders, adoring that abstract art.

Another article quotes Trump, from his book ‘Art of the Deal,’ how on visiting an artist friend, ‘a highly successful and very well known painter,’ the artist asks Trump -- ‘how would you like to see me make twenty five thousand dollars?’ He pours out five buckets of paint, takes maybe two minutes, and says ‘I just earned twenty five thousand, let’s go to lunch.’ Instead of gasping at what an affront such sheer larceny would be to almost everyone else on the planet, the art critics amuse themselves wondering who the artist could be, a truth squad with squirting roses in their lapels.

Shame on all the arts professionals of whatever stripe who perpetrate this mythology that abstract art represents a great deal more than elaborate trademarks, bought and sold and traded around like monopoly tokens. As a business, it's seen by many as much closer to the sham Trump said it was, and he speaks for oh so many people, you wouldn't believe. Pretending they don’t exist, these little people, or don’t count, pisses them off, and sooner or later they express themselves. The mega-irony of it all is that art matters, and shallow, stupid, mercenary art leaks out into ‘real life’ in unfortunate, unfunny ways. 

Trump was not offended by the mindlessness of the artist’s non-art, he admired it in his twisted way, the way the establishment does, all about money, fame, the secular side only. Consequences be hard, but lessons are there just waiting, laying on the ground. If the art of the eighties, celebrated for being dumb and dollar-driven, in any way contributed to the real life dilemma we’re facing these days, then let’s turn the ship around and start respecting the art in front of us. Art could turn out to be the only handle we can find on a morphing group consciousness, digital x’s and o’s sucking at our toes like sand in the tide.

the prophet -- Warhol and Trump

On 12--18 the ‘artnet news’ playfully suggests, ‘You know who could take American master Andy Warhol’s lessons and turn them into gold-plated tackiness? None other than Donald J. Trump.’ 

They actually said that, maybe thought it was funny. Chances are they don’t really see the connection, refuse to acknowledge their own collusion, in the end will attempt to deny their gut-level awareness that Trump and Warhol shared the same worldview, espoused the same values, liked each other. 

true believer -- romancing the ear

Van Gogh didn’t cut off his own ear. He had a hard drinking roommate, Gauguin, who happened to own a souvenir samurai sword, and they had an argument -- not so difficult with a drunk. If Van Gogh had implicated the roommate he would have been arrested, so Vincent said he did it himself and humbly accepted the dent in his own reputation and history’s tittering ridicule, how would I know that? Spending time with an alcoholic has to be part of it, especially the wounded ego sort Gauguin must have been, don’t they rage, but mostly it has to do with what I know about Van Gogh. Poverty is a widespread human condition, not just the trial of a visionary painter, but buying art materials before beans seems to indicate a certain fervor. Then there’s the art.

The most cogent conclusion to be drawn from his infamous lack of ‘success’ was that he wasn’t doing it for the money, yet he continued to pump it out, hundreds of canvases in a year, perhaps indicative of a certain generosity of spirit. This, in modern terms, is way crazier than self mutilation, ironically something of a fad these days. What was he after, sitting in front of an easel day after day, without much, any, validation, no openings and timely reviews, no agents and buyers sniffing around? He was convinced he could communicate mind to mind by applying color to a piece of canvas, craziest idea yet. He kept trying.

There isn’t any way to consider if he was successful or not without seeing the work directly. Coffee table books and waiting room posters won’t convey his intent, and don’t even agree with each other. It’s also necessary to dial back from social media mode, put away the device and look for the eyes that see sunsets, witness the morning light out to fetch the paper, the world of actual things -- Vincent will help you. That’s his job. It’s what he didn’t get paid for. Standing and seriously considering one of his paintings causes an almost audible shifting of gears, a reverse warping of the digitized mind. Such a relief is the typical sensation. 

He’s gone away from us now, the minstrel of common sight and true conviction, ascended into the pantheon of immortals constantly breaking the bank somewhere, armed guards at all the exits. He was very, very good, but anyone who really tries hard, especially for no money, probably has something to say. Art, in any serious sense, isn’t about money, and it’s unwholesome to talk about it only in those terms. On the other hand, buying one of Vincent’s paintings way back then, and keeping it in the family above the mantle all these generations since, would probably bring enough to fill a bunch of houses with local stuff, help to support a few living artists, and improve the general outlook, sense of presence, and immediate awareness of just about everybody.

art so hard -- need degrees

Looking at art isn’t near as easy as it used to be. Why back when art was in its so-called ‘imitative’ phase, all a person had to do was to sidle up to a painting and think this looks like a teapot I once saw, a country lane where I walked, a person I used to know, and it’s believable or it isn’t. This ‘believable’ sometimes rises to the level of ‘truth,’ technically the evoking of lived experience from a flat surface, a mental connection that transcends the image. Now a child’s picture of a horse could be something else, a giraffe or a bear, and a bit of explanation might be necessary, perhaps a paragraph or two on the wall next to it, but the able and accomplished artist should be able to engage the viewer directly, without a lot of theory or contextual explanation.

Well we don’t look at art that way anymore. The famous and influential critic and theorist, Arthur C. Danko, wrote in ‘What Is Art’, “contemporary art puts great interpretive pressures on viewers to grasp the way the spirit of the artist undertook to present the idea” -- word for word. He and his friends in the industry mandate overtime for all you would be art lovers, do that research, bone up on the latest developments, try to keep up with the beautiful people. Still, it might be only fair to observe that on occasion the line between progressive interpretive insight and rampant dumb-hick gullibility can become obscured by a whole bunch of money, but that shouldn’t be a problem around here.

Uptown glamour and hi-jinks are sometimes exported out into the hinders where a ‘cargo-cult’ imitation occurs, exhibitions of zany ‘contemporary art’ in the non-profit galleries. Could this be the reason workaday citizens fail to relate, just unwilling to do the homework, and as a result lacking the knowledge and background to ‘get it'? Give them a break. Off in the world of retail, the boiler room driver for our swell standard of living, the product receiving little response gets switched out, but when it comes to art public money is used to prop it up, keep it on the shelf.

The common folk must be lazy. They want more than vague shapes, smeared colors, and the onerous mental burden of ‘grasping the way the spirit of the artist undertook.’ They expect an artist to come down off the porch and halfway out to meet them, would like to hear howdy, want to recognize something. Actually they’re not lazy, they just need that much respect -- what it comes down to. This is not the same thing as artistic illiteracy, even though the state’s cultural bureaucracy charges itself with their elevation, bravely plodding onward through their rustic indifference, could go on for years. 

A renaissance in visual art around here would be like a dam bursting since there have been image and style restrictions upstream, more like an engineered diversion, pollution from a corrupted payola media, with local art charities and teaching institutions taking cover behind an opaque curtain of ‘secret knowledge’ -- emerald city all over again. Consider for a moment the hundreds of miles of empty sheetrock lining all those new houses, almost anywhere, the forgotten reproductions on the walls of more mature homes, and wonder what would happen if just a few average citizens became interested in art, learned to recognize the work of local artists, bought something they liked and hung it on the wall.

'demographically speaking' -- art by questionnaire

It’s time for another reincarnation of the ‘nude show,’ the annual exhibit which almost by itself gave institutional heft to what had been a sleepy clubhouse for independent painters, seldom visited. Although wildly popular, in time the exhibit itself became deranged, body parts and sex acts, a polaroid of a bruise, breasts on a spoon, finally underwent a crisis, had a breakdown, disappeared. Now it reemerges after a soul-searching rehab as ‘Demographically Speaking, a Figurative Exhibition,’ still wearing the same blindfold it had on when it went away. Frankly, this inability to deal with art directly without an overlay of identity politics, some non-visual social agenda, reveals a failure of nerve, an unwillingness to take a stand about art itself, and I’m not the first to notice.

In order to enter their competition, along with three images, a resume and bio, there’s this ‘required’ questionnaire. Starts off ok, race, gender, and age, but then it gets sorta confusing, like do I check ‘polysexual’ -- well aren’t we all? What does any of this have to do with art? Art is democratic first of all, ought to be, because honesty, talent, and character aren’t judged by skin color, orientation, such as that, not anymore, maybe they missed that part. Their call is divisive in its diversity, bigoted in its distinctions, and not really about art is it?

What’s actually important, always, is what goes up on the wall, and it will only seem typical if they produce an exhibition with a monotone sensibility from a pc checklist of sources. It hasn’t been ethnicity or gender that has denied access to an audience to many artists who have attempted to find support here, but an academic bias favoring obscurity and innuendo, the insider kabuki of the culture mob, over straight-ahead representational art -- the sort that allows the viewer to participate out of their own experience, the kind people take home.

Van Gogh’s notebook -- forensic fantasies

Potentially worth millions if authenticated, some ‘newly found’ notebook full of sketches purports to have come from the hand of Vincent himself, and experts diligently analyze the ink, carbon date the paper. A kid could probably look and tell the difference, and almost anyone else could too, drawing technique so much harder to forge than a signature. Looking, it turns out, is a big problem for the expert however -- they’ve been taught to believe a candy wrapper could be a Rembrandt with the proper lab certifications and duly registered provenance. After years in training sorting art into air tight bins, lined up on a shelf with labels and thumbnails, by now they can name what’s in all of them -- it’s their job, but they’ve paid a terrible price for their profession, no longer able to see with human eyes. Art they come across falls through slots and grates, passes over scales, and when it comes back up there’s a numeric ranking over the image and it goes into one of the bins, never to be seen at all. How else to explain not being able to recognize on sight a famous artist’s hand?

Authentication, a spin-off profession, is a highly complex intrigue involving spectrographs and test tubes, under the table negotiations and fat fees for the ‘right’ answer, you be the judge. The artist on the corner, paint brush in hand, laments, ‘nobody wants to just look anymore,’ or even can, having listened to the experts far too long. Let’s all start over. If a particular piece requires authentication it’s going to be far too expensive for you, anyway, so avoid the litigation and use your own eyes instead. This isn’t hard, more art up everyday so easier all the time, and can even turn out to be fun, entertaining, and an extremely cheap spectator sport. Look at the piece of art enough to see what’s there, and then lean forward, look at the price. Machinery in your head, there when you were born or implanted shortly thereafter, will do the rest, don’t even have to think about it.

The price is important because it’s an indication of how seriously the artist thinks you should be taking their work, but you won’t know this without looking a fair amount before hand, enough to establish a base, to keep stats. When you back up from seeing the price, look a little harder this time, and you can judge for yourself if you think the amount is justified based on what other artists are asking, and in the case you happen to agree, maybe wind up taking home a piece of art. Don’t need no expert for that. In the long run, you and all your neighbors and friends can sort it out, decide for yourselves how much art is worth to you, and together express what you like and what you feel about living around here.