Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Pimped out Mercedes rat rod low rider art car
Saturday, June 25, 2011
CONFIDENCE
Artistic confidence is a valuable asset when it is warranted, but a terrible liability when not.
Unfortunately, the nature of confidence is that it blinds us to whether it is warranted or not.
Picasso's huge ego was an asset when it gave him the courage to break with a lot of traditions. On the other hand, Julien Schnabel's ego did him no favors when it led him to claim, "I'm the closest thing to Picasso that you'll see in this fucking life." Confidence can be the Jekyll or Hyde of art.
Artist Markus Lüpertz certainly had the confidence to stand up to his critics. When he erected his latest public artwork -- a creepy, 60 foot sculpture of Hercules with one arm, a big nose, blue hair and a stunted body-- the New York Times reported:
Some of Lupertz's confidence comes from avoiding nay-sayers:
At Stone Mountain, Georgia, sculptors Augustus Lukeman and Walter Hancock defaced an entire mountain with a sculpture the size of three football fields.
The sculpture, which depicts heroes of the Confederate Army, was sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As a work of art, it exemplifies the struggle between a pathetic lack of talent and disgusting racism. Most artists might look for a more inconspicuous location for such a struggle-- perhaps hidden in the back pages of a personal sketchbook. But if you have unquestioning confidence, you try to assert your position bigger and bolder and more permanently than anyone else's.
The jackhammer and dynamite are apparently favored tools of the overly confident. Consider this awful sculpture of chief Crazy Horse, currently on its way to becoming the largest sculpture in the world:
The sponsors of this statue hired sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski in 1948 to begin reshaping a mountain into a figure larger than Mount Rushmore. The head of Crazy Horse alone is 87 feet tall. The scale model pictured here in front of the despoiled mountain is so bad, an artist with any judgment would have returned to the drawing board. But confidence never heard the Turkish proverb, "No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back."
Confidence has served many artists well, giving them the strength necessary to undertake difficult projects and make bold decisions. Illustrator and art teacher Sterling Hundley reports,
Distinguishing between helpful and unhelpful confidence is one of the greatest challenges facing any artist. When is it Jekyll and when is it Hyde? If there is a formula, I lack the confidence to articulate it here.
Unfortunately, the nature of confidence is that it blinds us to whether it is warranted or not.
Picasso's huge ego was an asset when it gave him the courage to break with a lot of traditions. On the other hand, Julien Schnabel's ego did him no favors when it led him to claim, "I'm the closest thing to Picasso that you'll see in this fucking life." Confidence can be the Jekyll or Hyde of art.
Artist Markus Lüpertz certainly had the confidence to stand up to his critics. When he erected his latest public artwork -- a creepy, 60 foot sculpture of Hercules with one arm, a big nose, blue hair and a stunted body-- the New York Times reported:
in the past his work has been, to put it kindly, misunderstood. One piece was smeared with paint and covered in feathers. Another was beaten with a hammer. Another was removed altogether after protesters demanded it be taken down. “It doesn’t matter,” said Mr. Lüpertz....“The general opinion of my art is that it is rejected. I attribute this to a lack of intelligence among the people.”
Some of Lupertz's confidence comes from avoiding nay-sayers:
I only work with students who admire me and think I am great. If I am not the one that takes their breath away, I don’t feel like working with them, because this would be a waste of time. It’s not about their individualism, it’s about my individualism. It’s not about their genius, it’s about my genius.Lupertz shows us that confidence can transform bad art into immense, unavoidable bad art.
At Stone Mountain, Georgia, sculptors Augustus Lukeman and Walter Hancock defaced an entire mountain with a sculpture the size of three football fields.
The sculpture, which depicts heroes of the Confederate Army, was sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As a work of art, it exemplifies the struggle between a pathetic lack of talent and disgusting racism. Most artists might look for a more inconspicuous location for such a struggle-- perhaps hidden in the back pages of a personal sketchbook. But if you have unquestioning confidence, you try to assert your position bigger and bolder and more permanently than anyone else's.
The jackhammer and dynamite are apparently favored tools of the overly confident. Consider this awful sculpture of chief Crazy Horse, currently on its way to becoming the largest sculpture in the world:
The sponsors of this statue hired sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski in 1948 to begin reshaping a mountain into a figure larger than Mount Rushmore. The head of Crazy Horse alone is 87 feet tall. The scale model pictured here in front of the despoiled mountain is so bad, an artist with any judgment would have returned to the drawing board. But confidence never heard the Turkish proverb, "No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back."
Confidence has served many artists well, giving them the strength necessary to undertake difficult projects and make bold decisions. Illustrator and art teacher Sterling Hundley reports,
I've had students in the past ask me the question: "Do you think that I am good enough?"This is surely true. On the other hand, when writer Flannery O'Connor was asked whether college writing programs were discouraging young writers, she responded "Not enough." This is surely true too.
My answer: "If anyone could say anything in that moment that would keep you from pursuing your dreams, then you should find something else to do with your life."
Distinguishing between helpful and unhelpful confidence is one of the greatest challenges facing any artist. When is it Jekyll and when is it Hyde? If there is a formula, I lack the confidence to articulate it here.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
How It Works
You do things.You try it, this way, that way. You stray, you flop and then you flip again, and something, some things come out of it.
You do them and please, please, you think, do not ask me what I'm doing, what my political take on this, for the moment now I just have a political in-take, the out is not political to my best knowledge. Fortunately, your knowledge is not best. You see, you do things.
And although most of them, you can honestly say, you know little about, the matter speaks for you. (Which, of course, does not mean you do not try to talk with it, for it, explain it, relate it and convey it, extrapolate it, and prove where it, the matter, stands).
Some of the works you work, frankly, are worthy of the highest criticism. They are, yes it has been said before, the flops. Or worse, they have the wrong ideas, wrong media, wrong impressions and plenty-wrong outcomes.
Yet within these plenty-wrong outcomes, things are born. And these things might just make connections, little roots holding on to little pieces of earth. Not that roots hold on to any particular piece, but this metaphor just decided to go its own way, and we at New Art listen to metaphors, so yes, there might be no palpable piece of anything that the roots hold to, yet the work (by now it is work) is starting to appear as if it were actually something, about something, into something, for something. It gains weight.
And then, at some ungiven points, not necessarily at the end or at any sort of finale, the Holy-Flip happens. It could be a form, it could be filled with air or helium, it could be pretty far away from you, but still yours, still stemming from this surprizing head. You might say "things came into place", but you have no clue what you are saying, you don't have the perspective, you just enjoy it, the fact that now it seems clear, there is a connection, things are being said which you knew you wanted to say or wanted someone to say, some other head maybe.
And you know what? When it works, it's so simple.* * *
All the works above are by Marina Decaro. The first and last image are from a work called "4 ojos" ("4 Eyes"), 2007.
Disclaimer: Marina De Caro was not consulted before writing the above text, and it is not meant to portray the development of her career. The above text is fiction and any resemblance to real art life stories, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
(via)
Friday, June 17, 2011
Tartan Mobile For Sale - What a Bargain
This Tartan art car beauty is for sale for anyone looking to make a fashion statement this summer, here are the details:
Selling my car in Texas while visiting 7-14 days from now (Austin, then Dallas). I've inherited a newer vehicle which I'll be driving back home to SF instead of the Plaid. Asking $1,000, 1986 Toyota Camry, 177K miles, two owners in 15 years. Lots of new parts, repairs, updates--extremely well-maintained. No AC. Serious inquiries only, please contact me through Facebook: Thanks a bunch!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
THE ERA OF CELEBRITY ILLUSTRATORS
Once upon a time, the world's largest media companies bragged in full page ads about their upcoming illustrations:
Magazines urged readers to spend more time studying illustrations:
This was all driven by economics, of course. The general public followed the work of top illustrators and made purchasing decisions based on their art:
Before the invention of movies and computer videos, illustrators were the George Lucas and Steven Spielberg of their day. They created magic images that captured the public imagination and shaped public taste. They invented cultural icons:
This was the great power of stationary images in an era before people learned that pictures could also be made to move and talk.
Like the Cecile B. DeMille of his day, Gustave Dore (1832-1883) shaped the world's image of epic stories such as the Bible, Paradise Lost and Dante's Divine Comedy. His books (and his visions) were everywhere.
Celebrity illustrators were were richly paid for their contribution to the mass entertainment industry. Charles Dana Gibson, who created the popular Gibson Girl, went from being a cartoonist for Life Magazine to taking over the entire magazine. His work enabled him to retire to his own private 700 acre island. Illustrator Henry Raleigh earned enough from drawing illustrations for three or four months to spend the balance of the year traveling the world lavishly with family and friends. He spent freely, giving away thousands of dollars. He maintained a yacht, owned a mansion and kept a large studio in downtown Manhattan.
Those days are gone. Like a huge peristaltic wave, the mass entertainment market has moved beyond illustration to other media.
There is nothing surprising about this. The golden age of illustration began in the 19th century by crushing the old fashioned wood engraving industry, which could no longer retain an audience when compared to color photo-engraving. Later, silent movies could not hold out for long against sound movies. Black and white movies were similarly vanquished by color movies. It remains to be seen what will happen with 3D, or 48 frame per second movies, or the next development after that.
This evolution seems to be powered primarily by the economics of mass marketing. There will always be a significant role for still pictures, but a medium that talks (and therefore doesn't require the consumer to read text), that moves (and therefore doesn't require the consumer to imagine the implications of a moment isolated by a static drawing), a medium that completely fills our sight, sound, olfactory and other senses, allowing us to passively absorb, seems to have a natural advantage over a medium that doesn't fill in all the blanks for us.
I see no prospect of this trend reversing itself, barring a global electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from thermonuclear war that renders all electronic viewing devices useless. If nuclear winter ever comes, illustrators can look forward to returning to their historic birthright as the powerful shamans who make magic images on the cave walls.
But for now, I think it is important to emphasize that, while illustration is no longer the centerpiece of the entertainment world, and the great peristaltic wave took celebrityhood and money with it, it did leave the "art" portion behind. And that, my friends, is the most important part.
 |
| From the back cover of Life Magazine. When was the last time you saw an ad like this? |
Magazines urged readers to spend more time studying illustrations:
This was all driven by economics, of course. The general public followed the work of top illustrators and made purchasing decisions based on their art:
 |
This was the great power of stationary images in an era before people learned that pictures could also be made to move and talk.
Like the Cecile B. DeMille of his day, Gustave Dore (1832-1883) shaped the world's image of epic stories such as the Bible, Paradise Lost and Dante's Divine Comedy. His books (and his visions) were everywhere.
Celebrity illustrators were were richly paid for their contribution to the mass entertainment industry. Charles Dana Gibson, who created the popular Gibson Girl, went from being a cartoonist for Life Magazine to taking over the entire magazine. His work enabled him to retire to his own private 700 acre island. Illustrator Henry Raleigh earned enough from drawing illustrations for three or four months to spend the balance of the year traveling the world lavishly with family and friends. He spent freely, giving away thousands of dollars. He maintained a yacht, owned a mansion and kept a large studio in downtown Manhattan.
Those days are gone. Like a huge peristaltic wave, the mass entertainment market has moved beyond illustration to other media.
There is nothing surprising about this. The golden age of illustration began in the 19th century by crushing the old fashioned wood engraving industry, which could no longer retain an audience when compared to color photo-engraving. Later, silent movies could not hold out for long against sound movies. Black and white movies were similarly vanquished by color movies. It remains to be seen what will happen with 3D, or 48 frame per second movies, or the next development after that.
This evolution seems to be powered primarily by the economics of mass marketing. There will always be a significant role for still pictures, but a medium that talks (and therefore doesn't require the consumer to read text), that moves (and therefore doesn't require the consumer to imagine the implications of a moment isolated by a static drawing), a medium that completely fills our sight, sound, olfactory and other senses, allowing us to passively absorb, seems to have a natural advantage over a medium that doesn't fill in all the blanks for us.
I see no prospect of this trend reversing itself, barring a global electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from thermonuclear war that renders all electronic viewing devices useless. If nuclear winter ever comes, illustrators can look forward to returning to their historic birthright as the powerful shamans who make magic images on the cave walls.
But for now, I think it is important to emphasize that, while illustration is no longer the centerpiece of the entertainment world, and the great peristaltic wave took celebrityhood and money with it, it did leave the "art" portion behind. And that, my friends, is the most important part.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Bel Red Paintings
KOMO News Article
Bellevue Reporter Article
Bellevue Patch Article
City of Bellevue Press Release
August 13 - September 23, 2011.
The Bel Red Paintings, An Expressionist's View, is an art project funded by the City of Bellevue, WA, Arts Program and 4Culture. The artwork will be exhibited by Marketplace at Factoria, Bellevue, WA. The paintings are of cityscapes and landscapes in Bel-Red which is a 900-acre area east of downtown Bellevue and characterized by low-rise retail and light industrial businesses.
Map of Bel Red 900-acre area (Right click to download PDF map)
City of Bellevue Special Projects Information
Marketplace at Factoria
More details and announcements will be forthcoming.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
VW Art Car Tent For Sale - Get your Camping on!!!
IS IT OKAY TO LIKE PULP ART?
Last week the Society of Illustrators opened a wonderful exhibition of pulp magazine covers from the 1930s and 40s. The show includes nearly 90 paintings of scantily clad damsels in distress, hooded fiends with elaborate torture devices, and futuristic space heroes. This is probably the most emotionally uncomplicated art you will ever find: big, juicy paintings with the open heart (and emotional maturity) of a 14 year old boy.
Some of the paintings, such as this gem by the great Baron Leydenfrost, are executed with astonishing skill:
But most of these pictures are painted with a technique as vulgar as their content. There was no room for subtle colors and elaborate compositions on a magazine rack crowded with competing pulp magazines.
The girls on these covers always seemed to be in peril, and ripe for rescue by the proper hero.
Young male readers were tantalized by the prospect of what lay beyond those slightly parted dressing gowns or those strategically torn shirts. They pored over these illustrations for clues to what awaited them someday. It's a mark of their innocence that their best plan for winning such favors was by rescuing a girl from space monsters.
If you're looking for a holiday from moral complexity, pulp art may be just the oasis for you. In fact, the owner of this marvelous collection, Robert Lesser, calls it “escape” art. But its simple mindedness is the source of both its joyful strength and its gnawing weakness.
Which brings me to my question of the week: Is it okay to like pulp art?
Let's put aside that this stuff is politicallly incorrect. My question is focused solely on artistic merit. Is this stuff anything more than “chewing gum for the eyes”? What are we to make of art that is not particularly well painted and does not challenge us mentally or emotionally, that raises no questions and doesn't expand our vision, but is undeniably likable for nostalgic reasons?
Let's put aside that this stuff is politicallly incorrect. My question is focused solely on artistic merit. Is this stuff anything more than “chewing gum for the eyes”? What are we to make of art that is not particularly well painted and does not challenge us mentally or emotionally, that raises no questions and doesn't expand our vision, but is undeniably likable for nostalgic reasons?
Beryl Markham cautioned us about the temptation to look over our shoulder at simpler, bygone days:
Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour.... Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone I learned it late.
This is a worthy sentiment, but I nevertheless think pulp art is a valid art form. The moral obviousness of these pictures gives them an ethical virility that you won't find in more sophisticated art. They are akin to religious paintings from the age of faith, which left no ambiguity about who was the bad guy, who was the hero, and which blonde needed to be rescued.
The fact that such ethical clarity is an illusion doesn’t mean it isn't art.
The fact that such ethical clarity is an illusion doesn’t mean it isn't art.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sharing the Sensible (In a Rich Man's World)
The thing is: I'm very excited about performance moving forward. And I love how it invades all sorts of territories. I do it, watch it, write about it. It's my cup of tea. That is precisely why I don't want to leave it with an "interesting experiment" tag. Experiments have their consequences, results, and it seems crucial not to stop at the freshman enthusiasm for everything about everything that is anything new. What I like most about the experiment I will criticize below is that it dared to go far, to talk to people, to uncover hidden layers in unexpected places. And yet, it troubled me.
In Gerardo Naumann's "Factory" performance during the Warsaw edition of the inspiring Ciudades Paralelas festival - we are taken on a guided tour of a functioning factory (in Warsaw it was an enormous steel factory). However, this is not your average tour. Here, we get the possibility of witnessing private stories of workers, to hear who they are, both within the company context and outside of it. The tour is at times poetic, at times simply human and direct. Every presentation mixes the description of a person's job with more personal matters. Our first guide is the factory's technical director, then we go all the way down the (wage) hierarchy to the gardiner, who also has his stories, telling us of his love for 60's music (Deep Purple et al.) and even making us listen to some of it. A truly human experience in an unexpected context.
So what is it that makes me uncomfortable about it?
It is an unwilling, yet uncritical, PR event for a huge, powerful and hardly uncontroversial business.
The project seems to follow closely the teachings of French philosopher Jacques Rancière - for several years now he has been advocating a change of paradigm in the way we look at others. Teaching something, or learning, should mean, above all, realizing how the way other people see the world is just as valid as ours - it is a structure that is already a "complete" structure, they are also "teachers" and we - students. To put it in other words - everyone is competent. It might just be a question of acquiring the possibility to further develop this competence.
Rancière gives this example: workers in a factory can also be seen as art aficcionados, as they have their (art, or aesthetic) specialities, their passions, their expertise. Tapping into this is, according to Rancière, a crucial step towards going beyond the simplistic emancipatory claim of passing on the "correct" sensibility.
The "Factory" project follows Rancière's ideas closely. And yet, all the while achieving an arguably closer relation with the subjects/performers, and while making us feel a bond with many of them, while amazing us with the aesthetic aspects of a factory, its dynamics and dramaturgy, it fails in an important aspect: it underestimates the power of the structure it works in.
"Just" showing the lives of the workers is never just showing their lives. It necessarily functions within the context. And this context, here, wins. The tour/performance becomes a scarily effective way of implementing propaganda. We are still given stories about how magnificent it is to work here, how everyone is happy, safe, friendly, how everyone who worked in the factory during communist times participated in strikes, and how the only mentioned case of someone getting fired... got immediately offered another job. And because a skillful theater director does it, we hardly feel manipulated. On the contrary, the "genuine" feeling prevails. We leave happy that things are as they are. We love the stories, the people, the parallel city, the way it works, the world it works in. It is difficult to imagine a better publicity.
But wait - could all this be true? Maybe it is a good company? Maybe it is happy and safe and the best of possible industry worlds? Well, it's enough to make a quick news check - there was a fire in the factory just a few months ago, and just recently the company just layed off many of their executive personnel (apparently they were transferred to another company for "effectivity reasons" and were subsequently fired). I dig a little deeper. ArcelorMittal - that is the name of the company, is owned by the 6th richest person in the world (with a personal wealth of $38.1 billion - link). The company made 10 billion dollars profit last year alone. On the other hand, since the company started taking over Polish factories, it diminished its staff by some 3000 workers in Poland (ca. 25%).
This type of criticism could be contested. Should this matter? Should the work of art take this into account?
Can it? How?
Can we play with the system, within the system? Can we work our works so as not to become victims of the same propaganda we would usually receive - or worse, not just victims, but advocates?
Or can we ignore this and consider that not all works of art need to be political, or not necessarily in that sense, that it can also be about the people who work there, that they too have the right to be important subjects, and not just the megarich owner of their company?
But if we just move in and focus on them, while remaining on the factory ground, if we call it a Parallel City (Ciudades Paralelas means Parallel Cities), aren't we playing the status quo game? Aren't we the perfect PR people, giving the company - and the world which it co-creates - our seal of approval, a "positivist" acceptance? (A disturbing trait of the performance is that the workers/performers come and go - without too much of an introduction, and with no goodbye whatsoever, so while we are kept entertained, they have nearly no chance of receiving our recognition, or of establishing a human contact beyond the script. The beginning and the end is clear - it is the Ciudade Parallela, the company, not the people). Doesn't the critical art, so cherished by Rancière, become uncritical because of the very same (human) aproach he proposes?
So how are we to make - and look at - art in all those parallel cities that are more and more often taken over, or at least manipulated by, the powers that be, be they economic, or more directly political?
The fight here is indeed a fight over the sharing of the sensible - how do we value what we see? How can we reevaluate it? What sort of sharing is this? What do we want out of this situation? How can we, as artists, but also as viewers (viewers are artists, but artists are viewers too, to many people's surprize), find a common ground without becoming the agent of some powerful megastructure? Should we worry about it?
Banning the word "Facebook" on TV might seem like a silly idea, but I know some theater companies who do not use any brands in their shows. And for them, it's not about having the power to change the world. It's about enjoying the possibility.
----
Curiously enough, I was told that when Naumann made an analogous performance in Buenos Aires, the factory was a small and badly run one, and some commentators thought he was too rough on it, making it look very bad. One possible answer is: this format simply gives you the possibility to take a peek inside - and whatever you find there has been there already. But another possible explanation is: it may not be enough to implement a "personal guided tour" formula if we want to move beyond the small industry into the big guys' terrain, where they know how to charm us, seduce us, and make it appear like it's all immaculate. Then, it seems, it would need to be a whole new ball game.
---
I have a vague recollection of reading about a performance by the great Brazilian visual artist and performer Hélio Oiticica (I couldn't find the reference now). I believe it took place in the 70's. Oiticica walked around the public space, pointing at different objects. The spectators which followed him understood (were told?) that through the gesture, the objects acquired the status of works of art.
Oiticica's enchantment with the world seems clear. This is what the world is like, he seems to be saying. Look at this piece of art! I couldn't have done this better. The only thing I can do is to point it to you.
What would happen if Oiticica did the same thing in the factory? Would the objects he pointed at stop becoming art? Certainly not. The factory would gain the status of an aesthetic object - it would become the same marvel as any of the trees, benches, stones, clouds. Look at this piece of art! I couldn't have done this better.
Could we not?
In Gerardo Naumann's "Factory" performance during the Warsaw edition of the inspiring Ciudades Paralelas festival - we are taken on a guided tour of a functioning factory (in Warsaw it was an enormous steel factory). However, this is not your average tour. Here, we get the possibility of witnessing private stories of workers, to hear who they are, both within the company context and outside of it. The tour is at times poetic, at times simply human and direct. Every presentation mixes the description of a person's job with more personal matters. Our first guide is the factory's technical director, then we go all the way down the (wage) hierarchy to the gardiner, who also has his stories, telling us of his love for 60's music (Deep Purple et al.) and even making us listen to some of it. A truly human experience in an unexpected context.
So what is it that makes me uncomfortable about it?
It is an unwilling, yet uncritical, PR event for a huge, powerful and hardly uncontroversial business.
The project seems to follow closely the teachings of French philosopher Jacques Rancière - for several years now he has been advocating a change of paradigm in the way we look at others. Teaching something, or learning, should mean, above all, realizing how the way other people see the world is just as valid as ours - it is a structure that is already a "complete" structure, they are also "teachers" and we - students. To put it in other words - everyone is competent. It might just be a question of acquiring the possibility to further develop this competence.
Rancière gives this example: workers in a factory can also be seen as art aficcionados, as they have their (art, or aesthetic) specialities, their passions, their expertise. Tapping into this is, according to Rancière, a crucial step towards going beyond the simplistic emancipatory claim of passing on the "correct" sensibility.
The "Factory" project follows Rancière's ideas closely. And yet, all the while achieving an arguably closer relation with the subjects/performers, and while making us feel a bond with many of them, while amazing us with the aesthetic aspects of a factory, its dynamics and dramaturgy, it fails in an important aspect: it underestimates the power of the structure it works in.
"Just" showing the lives of the workers is never just showing their lives. It necessarily functions within the context. And this context, here, wins. The tour/performance becomes a scarily effective way of implementing propaganda. We are still given stories about how magnificent it is to work here, how everyone is happy, safe, friendly, how everyone who worked in the factory during communist times participated in strikes, and how the only mentioned case of someone getting fired... got immediately offered another job. And because a skillful theater director does it, we hardly feel manipulated. On the contrary, the "genuine" feeling prevails. We leave happy that things are as they are. We love the stories, the people, the parallel city, the way it works, the world it works in. It is difficult to imagine a better publicity.
But wait - could all this be true? Maybe it is a good company? Maybe it is happy and safe and the best of possible industry worlds? Well, it's enough to make a quick news check - there was a fire in the factory just a few months ago, and just recently the company just layed off many of their executive personnel (apparently they were transferred to another company for "effectivity reasons" and were subsequently fired). I dig a little deeper. ArcelorMittal - that is the name of the company, is owned by the 6th richest person in the world (with a personal wealth of $38.1 billion - link). The company made 10 billion dollars profit last year alone. On the other hand, since the company started taking over Polish factories, it diminished its staff by some 3000 workers in Poland (ca. 25%).
This type of criticism could be contested. Should this matter? Should the work of art take this into account?
Can it? How?
Can we play with the system, within the system? Can we work our works so as not to become victims of the same propaganda we would usually receive - or worse, not just victims, but advocates?
Or can we ignore this and consider that not all works of art need to be political, or not necessarily in that sense, that it can also be about the people who work there, that they too have the right to be important subjects, and not just the megarich owner of their company?
But if we just move in and focus on them, while remaining on the factory ground, if we call it a Parallel City (Ciudades Paralelas means Parallel Cities), aren't we playing the status quo game? Aren't we the perfect PR people, giving the company - and the world which it co-creates - our seal of approval, a "positivist" acceptance? (A disturbing trait of the performance is that the workers/performers come and go - without too much of an introduction, and with no goodbye whatsoever, so while we are kept entertained, they have nearly no chance of receiving our recognition, or of establishing a human contact beyond the script. The beginning and the end is clear - it is the Ciudade Parallela, the company, not the people). Doesn't the critical art, so cherished by Rancière, become uncritical because of the very same (human) aproach he proposes?
So how are we to make - and look at - art in all those parallel cities that are more and more often taken over, or at least manipulated by, the powers that be, be they economic, or more directly political?
The fight here is indeed a fight over the sharing of the sensible - how do we value what we see? How can we reevaluate it? What sort of sharing is this? What do we want out of this situation? How can we, as artists, but also as viewers (viewers are artists, but artists are viewers too, to many people's surprize), find a common ground without becoming the agent of some powerful megastructure? Should we worry about it?
Banning the word "Facebook" on TV might seem like a silly idea, but I know some theater companies who do not use any brands in their shows. And for them, it's not about having the power to change the world. It's about enjoying the possibility.
----
Curiously enough, I was told that when Naumann made an analogous performance in Buenos Aires, the factory was a small and badly run one, and some commentators thought he was too rough on it, making it look very bad. One possible answer is: this format simply gives you the possibility to take a peek inside - and whatever you find there has been there already. But another possible explanation is: it may not be enough to implement a "personal guided tour" formula if we want to move beyond the small industry into the big guys' terrain, where they know how to charm us, seduce us, and make it appear like it's all immaculate. Then, it seems, it would need to be a whole new ball game.
---
I have a vague recollection of reading about a performance by the great Brazilian visual artist and performer Hélio Oiticica (I couldn't find the reference now). I believe it took place in the 70's. Oiticica walked around the public space, pointing at different objects. The spectators which followed him understood (were told?) that through the gesture, the objects acquired the status of works of art.
Oiticica's enchantment with the world seems clear. This is what the world is like, he seems to be saying. Look at this piece of art! I couldn't have done this better. The only thing I can do is to point it to you.
What would happen if Oiticica did the same thing in the factory? Would the objects he pointed at stop becoming art? Certainly not. The factory would gain the status of an aesthetic object - it would become the same marvel as any of the trees, benches, stones, clouds. Look at this piece of art! I couldn't have done this better.
Could we not?
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Bowling Pin Art Car Strikes Out - 1785 Bowling Ball Pyramid
What is the sound of 1785 bowling balls striking a pin car? If it happens in the woods and no one is around does it make a sound?
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Art for Poetry
My portrait drawing of Oscar Levantwas used for a poem written
by poet Jeff Roberts -
Sadly, Our Geniuses Linger
(for Oscar Levant)
Website: Jeff Robert's Poetry
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Help Charlie The Unicorn Art Car Go to Burning Man
Ken and friends are building an art car for Burning Man 2011 based on the legendary video “Charlie The Unicorn”. They have setup a Kickstarter project to help raise funds for its completion and a Charlie Camp group on Facebook.
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