owning art -- why so positive

Older artists I know are a generally pessimistic lot. After many cycles of hope and despair they’re wary of enthusiasm and don’t particularly like to see it in others. They accept with resignation that sports mania in neighborhood bars with instant replay and nostril hair closeups is just way too compelling to compete with, and that the attention of the average citizen will forevermore be devoted to less challenging pursuits.  Sometimes it might seem that way, but there are indications all around that it isn’t. 

There’s only one question that really matters concerning the future of art, and it isn’t about fund-raising, or national notoriety, or new digs for art schools. The number one national affliction is boredom, and flipping between elephants charging, family sedans sliding sideways, and more stuff, and more stuff, doesn’t seem to help. We’re noticing this together. Is there something more substantial than everything ever written illustrated with everything ever photographed in our pocket destined to be, oops, suddenly superseded by some totally new technical concept in the next hour or so? Maybe there is.

Is there an appetite for art -- this is the one wheel that turns all other wheels. Is there a reason a person might want to own something thoughtful, well-made, and totally unique, and the answer is more everyday, and that’s only a place to start. Would some essence of humanity, here and there on the wall, make the machine-made self-driving day more livable, the conditioned air more breathable, our time spent doing whatever seem more worthwhile, and the answer is yes -- that’s art’s function here in this new century. As more people are exposed to various forms of art the more they begin to appreciate some form, and nothing else really matters.

I’ve suggested in my first hundred posts, this is number 101, many of the ways visual art has been manipulated and suppressed by both private and institutional interests who found in art a vehicle for their own ambitions, and if all or any part of it is true it’s led to an interesting condition. The rubber band is drawn tight, the pendulum has been pulled back, the roller coaster tops the incline -- visual art is poised to make a comeback. The sheer capacity of this community, any similar community, to absorb new art is astonishing -- miles of sheetrock, soaring atriums, expensive furnishings with only lifeless department store art on the walls. If it was only a matter of money all that fancy landscaping stays when you move on but the art on the wall leaves with you, and we’re getting that feeling now. 

Art in your hometown is only approaching adolescence and with a little attention and support will mature into a regional identity with familiar artwork in the houses of friends and family, all around the town. It’s a comin’ whether I say anything about it or not.

subversive art -- slamming the world order

Cold hard fact is about a fifth of the US lives in the third world. What would the difference be if restaurant and service workers started out at fifteen dollars an hour? With average CEO pay hovering right around ten million dollars a year we’re really not going to consider negative effects -- three cents more for a cup of coffee, a quarter on a hamburger. We already know the economy would improve for these people and for everyone else as well, so it isn’t necessary to debate the point here. It’s a given.

What would art be like if these people had more money? It wouldn’t be all cool and with it, that’s for sure. The people lower down aren’t as interested in urban tribalism and group-think conformity, and are therefore more likely to actually look at and think about art. They tend to respect artists and art itself. They’d decide how much art was worth to them and buy some. This is because life experience has led them to an understanding of the broader human condition, effort and strain with only a slim chance of success, and they see these things expressed in art.

Sheet glass with a silver backing yields a faithful visual rendition of physical space while art reflects concerns and values in a human. Art closest to the daily experience, the strategies and execution that represents the individual’s own confrontation with the world, has a way of earning the affection of the people who live it. Right now they can only look and might not even do that. They don’t have the money to buy and the art they’re likely to see isn’t meant for them anyway. Works of art in galleries and contemporary museums seem to be only analogue artifacts of the career status of the artist and who gives a shit, really? It sure doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not they’re good.

Common people can express themselves through art by what they buy and live with, and that’s its function in a truly progressive society, wherever that might be. Now I’m going to say something interesting. We could wait for politics to evolve and there’d be the art, or we could choose self-affirming, perception-challenging art and bend society from the back side. So far it’s only a theory, but it’s at least a change we can make for ourselves and it's time to do something. An income disparity approaching that of the middle ages has collateral aspects few acknowledge, and the reduction of the aspiration and self-awareness of the majority to brand-identification is a big problem. Art is the answer. Game on.

ceo search -- defining the mission

Last night attended a meeting concerning the hiring of a new director for the central funding agency for arts in our community. They’re out to find some person with superior leadership ability who is also a strategic-planning, fund-raising guru full of passion for the arts. That’s not the hard part.

What’s the mission -- we don’t know. Do we want a teacup tipper capable of casting coils of flattery and guilt around the local business community and other well-heeled ‘givers’ thereby raking in the cash, or should it be someone who knows and cares about art and artists? Could the same person do both? Actually could they please be able to do everything because we don’t know what we want.

Here’s the bureaucratic dilemma -- do we use public money to midwife self-sustaining art commerce for the economic and spiritual benefit of the community, or do we perpetuate our charity-based institutions, most of all, us? Whining for the city, the state, the federal largesse to look our way seems insensitive, just does, what with conditions on the street. Soliciting businessmen and their accountants for a little chunk of write-off in exchange for their name on a plaque isn’t going to earn their respect. This approach will however give us the power to direct which favorites put on performances, what artists succeed -- an off-the-shelf small town byzantine court of cronyism. This really isn’t an option anymore.

The world changes and the charity model is rapidly becoming obsolete. Time to contribute to the future or grind on in futility and dwindling support -- don’t we complain? Broaden the audience or get out of the way. Actively facilitate community awareness and appreciation of art instead of engineering artistic dependency by dribbling out funds -- not enough to live on, just enough to keep hope alive. This new director should be working to make his or her job less important, the institution’s influence less, and instead improve the climate for ticket sales and direct purchases for visual artists by becoming a bridge between an increasingly interested community and its creative class. 

original art and free will -- somewhere deep inside

Heard this interesting radio program claimed wiring in the ear is receptive to the familiar but doesn’t like to process the unexpected -- they say it’s brain chemistry. They cited as an example the 1913 presentation of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ which caused a riot -- folks in black tie and tiaras went berserk and these scientists surmise the cause was a flood of rejection juice in the brain brought on by the music’s massive dissonance, which they had never experienced before. Next year it was performed again and the audience loved it. The composer was carried out into the streets.

Isn’t that the way it always is, only a little quicker?  Folks just aren’t fond of new experiences because new file folders have to be named and stored somewhere, and the familiar just saves automatic. Behind all that is this chemical reaction they’ve found takes it almost out of free-will territory. Cognition itself is biased toward prior experience, and that’s just the way the machine is set up. Too bad for original anything. It takes an act of will to consider something new and a little at a time seems advisable. Stravinsky wisely ducked out the back door when the first performance turned ugly. 

This is the reason second tier emulation can be the key to success in any field of art, and that originators are sometimes passed by -- consider music. Andy Warhol seemed to intuit this modern brain breakthrough by picking only the most familiar cultural and commercial images to call art, thereby releasing that little burst of recognition oil we all find so pleasing, don’t know why. Well wouldn’t say it’s poison but it’s definitely empty calories, just responding to stuff seen before. As harsh and alien as it seems at first, original art tends to scrape away the scales and illuminate the senses, and although lab results aren’t in yet, we believe this could be reduced to a reordering of molecules in the brain that happens when a person looks at a painting done by an artist they've never seen before.

From then on when they see the artist's work they're going to get a burst of ‘oh I recognize that’ clear and pure as county air. Sorta the man inside, drugs you can do just by looking, a habit you get fixed by thoughtfully considering works of art. In a world of moral potholes why not a good addiction, one that expands your humanity, brings continuity day by day and adds a few years -- try looking at and living with original art.  

art for common folk -- illuminati pass by

If you are a member of the art establishment, an arts administrator or private gallery director, maybe a contemporary artist/educator, there isn’t much here for you. All you’ll hear is bitching, the blubbering rant of the misinformed and I can accept that. Those who are less committed and still have open questions concerning art might see it differently. I’ll take a stand as a cultural wolf-boy wandering in all objective and direct, just another philosophy major with dirty hands. 

I do get it, the zaniness most of all, and there’s a looping dialogue at ultra high frequency in contemporary art that’s very immediate, conveyed at the very top with just eyebrows and wry glances, and destined to be very dated by the time a decade rolls around. The notion of ‘fashion’ as a conceptual context is all about exclusion, and it’s sometimes necessary to go to extremes to shake off general approval even at the cost of pain and stupidity, which interestingly enough doesn’t seem visible at the time. A pickup so low it scrapes the pavement, high heels so high the ankle turns, the extremely functional baseball hat reduced to a beanie by turning the bill backward are all attempts to leave the less cool behind by being impractical, even offensive, and it’s a never-ending race.

Personally I have no kick against common folk and even aspire to be one. I want something very different from art and I’ll assume it’s not just me. First I want to know what’s hard and what’s easy, so learning something about how art is made would be handy. Meeting an artist would help make a correlation between personality and the work produced, although they’re generally reclusive so just seeing several examples of an artist’s work over time may suffice. Finally I want involvement and most likely to be interested in artwork that references my own experience in some way. Can I learn which artist is extending themselves farther, accomplishing more, and asking a fair price just by looking and the answer is yes, simply by looking at a lot and buying something. At that point I’ll become an actual participant in art itself. 

tolerance for cretins -- room at the hotel

('no room for those who censor art' -- lex HL, 6-16)
Tolerance is funny stuff. You’d suppose tolerance was a general state of mind that should apply equally all around, but it isn’t. Sat in a coffeehouse one time with a citizen of a most tolerant society who told me the one thing they wouldn’t tolerate was intolerance, so don’t ever blow your horn in traffic there. Closer to home it’s the art people who are most strange when it comes to tolerance. Art people are against any censorship whatsoever, and sometimes what they do seems little more than a dare to anyone who might consider it.

There’s an attitude that would aggressively present graphic porn as personal expression in a public gallery, this actually happened in lex, but which won’t tolerate anyone who questions -- it’s worthiness as art, it’s appropriateness for presentation with tax dollars, the blatant absurdity of tawdry sensationalism pretending to be anything else. Open a window. In fact, let’s back off this notion that worthy art necessarily challenges and provokes altogether.

The new hotel, 21C, promises to present an array of art to the general public and not everyone has to like it. It doesn’t matter, they’re not trying to sell it. They sell hotel rooms. They’re exhibiting art as a sort of civic minded, extremely clever way to establish an unique identity in an overcrowded industry. Everyone’s invited to look. If they see something they don’t like they may begin to consider what they do like, and the principle will be served. It’s a good idea all around. Nothing will be presented as damaging to mind and soul as the four hours 7 to 11 on major TV networks, and if anyone really doesn’t like what they see they don't have to go back.

too many artists -- not enough audience

So here’s a problem called to our attention. Whereas there used to be almost no art at all, now we have too many artists for this small patch of audience. This complaint was posted yesterday by a musician in our town, same as your town -- it’s happening all over. They're thinking maybe if there was more money from the city, state, wherever, and maybe another commissioner in city government, an art czar, we could turn this thing around, set some priorities, maybe even keep a lot of musicians in marginal dependency by paying scale in empty venues.

Don’t know a thing about popular music but it’s art, right? Some artist or group of artists is attempting to create something fellow citizens will identify with enough to support them in their independent lifestyle. This alternative to hitching up to the corporation paycheck is so appealing there are too many enlistees. We have so many bands with rather small core constituencies the club owners can’t afford to pay them much, and don’t. How does this play out -- I wouldn’t know but it does sound like a healthy if harsh required step in evolution, and in the end the best musicians will wind up making their best music in a community that supports them, if they hang around. 

Should we intervene? Can we hasten evolution by nurturing progressive favorites, bands with consciousness-raising lyrics or proportionally diverse personnel, for example? Well, if your goal is dysfunctional mediocrity, if you want independence and creativity denied access, if you think a bureaucratic refuge for pointless degrees is something we should all pay for, go ahead. Visual art provides the template for what goes wrong. Public money should be moving traffic, providing services, making sure everyone eats, and investing in the future with what’s left.

Did anyone think art was easy? It’s a sad fact the soldiers who stormed Normandy were not the same smiling GI’s who kissed the girls in Paris, and being on the front lines of art can be gritty. At some point citizens in all similar places to where you live now will begin to recognize the work of area artists and soon after that to have favorites, all on their own. With an audience the shoot gets to blossom, the art gets a lot better, and an artist could live pretty well in the not too distant future. 

Can’t say what this means for musicians, but there’s the music, the collaboration, and the drive to get better. Decide what you’re worth and insist on it, play when you can. Expand your audience by demonstrating that live music is better, by speaking to the inner ear, and by being tight and responsible to the craft. Whenever it happens, it happens on its own.