...and want to learn how to do other stuff good too.
Still don't have a job. I'm sure everybody else saw this coming. Well, to be honest I did too, but the problem with being overly principled (fussy?) is not that you don't see the bus coming before it hits you, but that you just find it impossible to step out of the way. I will say one thing for unemployment though, it allows you a lot of time for reading. I think if all they taught children in schools was to become literate, that would be more than enough. Literacy and the ability to question are really all you need to become a decent and informed human being, and they certainly don't teach you to question things in any educational institution I've ever been to. Anyways, my love of the library and all its residents is restored.
I wrote an article for a local weekly paper a few weeks ago in my quest for a job (or $65, as it turned out), which kind of left me sour on the whole editing process, ie. "we have to cut arts to make room for ad space this week, so we're cutting the article from 700 to 350 words". But anyway, the process was one worth going through. I interviewed a local artist who had a show opening that week and the article was a preview of his show. Now, this artist is a highly motivated and very talented guy, who I also know personally, and his show was on a subject I am very interested in; the tar sands in Northern Alberta, so if there was ever an ideal viewer to write a review for the work it would probably be me. And I did write a favorable review, what of it actually got into the paper. But it wasn't really the review I wanted to write. The work
was formally great, obviously complex both in thought process and execution, deep, a whole lot of flattering adjectives. It was. The problem with it is the same problem that I have seen over and over again, including in my own work, and have begun to believe is nearly endemic to artists practicing in academia. It didn't say anything. The
objective was not to say anything. The prime motivation behind the work was a personal experience with one of the most destructive and controversial projects on the planet and one of the goals was "not to create a forceful standpoint for the viewer".
I don't understand this mentality amongst artists that it is somehow "unfair to the viewer" to present them with a strong opinion. The artist had his own strong opinions about the tar sands but intentionally focused on creating an 'experience' for the viewer that could 'possibly be true' rather than take a stance on the issue. This constant worshiping at the altar of subtlety, introspection and 'visual poetry' bothers me. I think all are valuable tools and certainly all are a big part of visual art, but don't just stop there. Present your own conclusions. When you see atrocity occurring in front of you it warrants a response and the correct response is shock, outrage, horror, sadness, whatever. Not quiet reflection, not subtle emotional cues supposedly leading to some vague universal idea.
I have certainly fallen in to this trap. Formalism is seductive, strong opinions are often unpopular. It is easy to get lost in the wholly cerebral world of your own introspective thoughts, especially when it seems like that's all the professors (and the art world) wants to talk about. Making art about these nebulous ideas like 'memory', 'art itself', 'time' or whatever is interesting, definitely, but I can't help but see it as just mental masturbation when you see what goes on in the world and devote your voice instead to such topics. I am especially critical when you choose a subject that is specific, and current, and does warrant discourse, and take it somewhere purposely intangible. Artists are in an especially powerful position in that we are fluent in a language every person understands at some level. This means we need to say something worth hearing.
Am I being too hard on people? Maybe. I've spent a lot of time devouring Chomsky, Klein and Roy lately which is probably not helpful to my already cynical nature. But, I've been thinking about this pretty much since I started in art school and wrestling with it in my own stuff. Anyway, you can't really say such things in 300 words and I kind of doubt it would get printed if you could, so there it is. If you actually read all of that, thanks, I appreciate it.