Obstructions

I'm having a bit of a studio crisis, in that I no longer know what the hell to make. I've submitted all of my grad school applications, and now the thought of making something with the materials in my studio feels regressive. I need to do something entirely new, but I have no idea what. I also don't know how I feel about making objects anymore. Everything feels dumb and insignificant and hackneyed and I know that it feels that way because it is. Worse, I can't figure out anything that wouldn't be. Maybe that's the problem--trying to make something new. Maybe I should just make the dumbest, most hackneyed thing I can think of and go from there. Even that's been done...

Sooooo I've taken to reading. I still haven't finished Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century. Luckily, it's still good.

In Charles Renfro's Essay "Undesigning the New Art School," the following quote stood out to me:

"Creativity is a form of reaction. Artists are more likely to find creative expression and programmatic accommodation by reacting to fixed space that contains provocative or insurmountable obstructions"

He's talking about architecture, but this is a concept that applies more broadly to art-making, and hit a nerve for me in particular. I've been told on more than a few occasions to consider the limits in my work--where things come from; why certain things are allowed into the process, but not others; how things are tested. Because I don't generally have a concrete answer for these questions beyond, "It's mostly intuitive," it's been suggested that I start applying obstructions or limits--rules to the way I work. I haven't really been able to think about that proposition up until now, but reading this passage today made me consider it from a different perspective than I had been (which essentially boiled down to a nose-wrinkling dislike of the notion of rules in general--why should there be limits?! Fuck rules! Down with the bureaucratic agenda! Etc...).

I think a lot about imposed limits; specifically, socially imposed limits as they relate to the construction of our performed identities. My train of thought is complicated, because the idea of imposed limits/ boundaries generally conjures oppressive connotations, which tends to trigger the angry sound that dwells in the recesses of my brain. Beyond that, there is a sneaky security involved in rules--they provide a cozy framework that can easily lead to complacency/ repression. I'm embracing the notion now though that limits can also provide a foundation from which to build. Fixed spaces containing insurmountable obstructions can indeed provoke creative reaction (and frequently do).

This fact was driven home when I finally yielded to a related suggestion that I watch The Five Obstructions. It.Was.Amazing!

The premise is this: Lars von Trier has his personal idol, Jørgen Leth, remake his film "The Perfect Human" five times, according to his instructions. He gives him limitations to work with. Cruel ones, designed to challenge him, to make him suffer through the process in order to break through his distanced stance, in order to close the gap between 'perfect' and 'human'. It's incredible to watch. At one point, Leth doesn't follow von Trier's rules to his liking, so he "punishes" him by having him do a version with no constraints whatsoever. Leth considers this "diabolical," and says, "I'd rather have something to hang onto." It's a really sharp illustration of Renfro's point--that artists are more likely to find creative expression through the struggle against seemingly insurmountable obstructions. Leth manages to create something gorgeous every time, not in spite of, but rather, because of, the obstructions set by von Trier.

In short, I get it now. But the question remains, how the hell am I supposed to set limits for myself? That seems counter-intuitive, doesn't it? It's more natural to react against limits set by someone else--an external entity that knows your weaknesses. I can't look at myself and analyze the weak points in my work with the clarity Lars von Trier applies to Jørgen Leth's. Although, interestingly, the final obstruction, in which von Trier himself takes over the production, results in von Trier revealing more about his own vulnerability as the aggressor--the entire project was ultimately more about his need to expose/ identify with/ humanize his idol than it was about Leth's inability to access his own humanity. So what would it mean to be both obstructor and obstructed? Is it possible to be both?

Grad School Portfolio...

These are the official 16 for Yale...

Layered Terrain (Yellow) oil on cut paper and tissue paper on cardboard, 8"x12"

Orange and Purple Growth cut paper, dimensions variable (roughly 7"x13"x3")

Red and Blue Growth cut paper, dimensions variable (roughly 10"x13"x1.5")

White on White Outcropping cut paper and wire, dimensions variable (roughly 7"x15"x6")

Spectral Bloom paper and gel medium on panel, 12"x16"

Sectral Bloom 2 paper and gel medium on panel, 12"x16"

Spectral Bloom 3 paper and gel medium on panel, 12"x16"

Festering Mass (Black) paper and gel medium on panel, 12"x16"x3"

Surface Fracture (Micro) paper and gel medium, 9"x12"

Surface Fracture (Macro) paper on canvas, 8'x5.5'

Installation View: Come Around, Come Closer

Come Closer, paper and wire, 8'x10'x13"

Detail: Come Closer

Come Around paper and wire, 4.5'x6'x15"

Creep Along, installation with enamel, paper, chicken wire, duct tape, dimensions variable (10.5'x18'x8' room)

Creep Along

Festival of the Arts Grant Proposal

I've made a proposal for a Festival of the Arts grant, which may result in me having money to do a large-scale public sculpture this spring. These are images of smaller-scale ideas that I've been carving out, which will hopefully give the committee some sense of what I have in mind, formally:

I've been carving out of scraps of foam core that I've found around the studio

These are the sorts of forms that I'm interested in (imagine them standing vertically, and larger than life-size so that you could look through and walk around them--there will probably only be one, but it will look similar to this kind of biomorphic form)

A larger one I'm working on

Imagine the kind of depth I could get from 30 sheets of this stuff!

I've also been working on an installation, which is done--I'm taking tons of images yesterday and today because I have to tear it down and repaint the room tomorrow. I'll be sure to post a worthy selection soon...

Crit Notes 9/19/11

Some visuals for reference:







And here we go...

Me: I've been collecting broken glass that I find on the street--that's what these boxes consist of. The canvas is covered in torn paper (that was a summer project), and the wood pieces are scrap...That's all I'll say for now

SD: Can you say more about where it comes from/ the motivating choices?

Me: Basically, just walking around the street, picking up glass--I guess I'm attracted to the way it reflects light, contains color; the aesthetic of the gutter/ the spray paint patterns that happen on the sidewalk--it's like a whole weird construction language. There are all of these found compositions...I take a lot of pictures

AS: Is that in the work here? That jaggedness/ graffiti effect

Me: Not necessarily--the idea of the discarded/ forgotten objects is I think

SD: I think there's a change here from your work from before. There are stronger sensibilities--color choices were more about design principles/ they were more polite. Now things have gotten this gothic-y, more baroque symmetry/ this primary color idea. That could be pushed. Reminds me of artists dealing with subcultures without tropes. Choosing specific sensibilities--you could pressure the tension--how do they grow

AS: Louise Nevelson's wood sculptures--transforming something found into something...spiritual? You're amassing material, line inside of the entire building of it. But also challenged by the paper--the contained experience working on the canvas versus the semi-pictorial structured sculptures

Me: I feel like the canvas was kind of a vehicle toward the boxes. I started gathering the glass because the shards were like physical, ready-made color versions of the paper scraps. It's a more organic thing in a way, picking them up and deciding how to use them

AS: I'm more drawn to the wall sculptures. The painting alone is inward versus opening up. You have this mass-oriented aesthetic. Think about limiting it/ canceling out, trying out help focus/ work with the mess

Me: It is kind of limited already--the palette is limited by virtue of the glass--it's chosen for me. There are predetermined elements--it becomes more about how to present them

AS: Even more

PK: And the color for the light comes about how...

Me: Experimenting, figuring out how it works. The red and yellow made sense. For the green and blue, I had to play around--red was too much, etc.

PK: How are you choosing the texts?

Me: Basically, they physically fit in the space underneath the boxes, so they worked in that utilitarian way. Other than that, I mean, they're books that I chose to buy and read and have around on a shelf in my studio

PK: Did you compose the boxes so that we'd see the books/ the egg carton?

Me: It sort of just worked out that way--I needed a support system for the light bulbs, and that's what I had on hand that worked best (I tried tupperware containers, but they weren't stable enough)

PK: If we run with the clues (the associations that can be drawn from the books), is that good or bad?

Me: You can do that. It might not be what I'm doing explicitly, but sure...

SD: off of what PK's saying, the relation to subject matter--you talk about detritus, but then you use this perfect abstract, formal language to make the objects. Push the deliberateness of the subject; pressurize provisional decisions (what fits better, and why?)

Me: You mean, in terms of why I decide that something works better than another? (like, why blue light vs red light?)

SD: Yes. Formally, not purely balanced. But what you look for points to what you need to find--strong feeling.

PK: I mean, you have these propped up on books about women artists and art school...I just think that's something that can be pushed, directed

CA: I'm interested in the wall sculptures and how they relate to everything else. Yes, the process is similar, appealing, created in the same environment, but there's a huge difference--painting the wood white obliterates the content. Plywood, 2x4s have content--painting them all white papers over the distinctions. The books retain their content--they're intact--that's a different strategy in play. Not saying the same each time, but is the content of the wood not important?

SD: Suspiria, Dario Argento--shattered colored glass--> 70s horror, but not bad. Your visuals/ interests illustrate/ enrich the subject

JW: Are the wood sculptures done?

Me: Don't know--gesso'd them to unify them, but it's only one layer, not really enough, but basic

JW: Gesso'd with intention to paint them?

Me: not really...

JW: It's clear that you're still building a language, that it's really early on--kinks still need working out. I like the expansiveness of the process, that it's inclusive--it's clear that it's in process. I lose the location of the light when I squint, which makes it better--it's not quite the transformation it could be (with the light bulbs). Maybe if the cube could disappear. That pink reflecting on the wood is my favorite part. You're in a tough but great spot. The problems, but also the options are at the forefront. Your folded drawing uncollapsed. Branching out. Push on, expand more, focus on taking it to the level as is implied--theatricality/ subcultures--focus, open towards; make decisions inside the work

SL: Excessiveness--organic out of nonorganic parts. Not the light-- out in the woods/ in the thicket. light unneeded--out of destroyed is glowing of light--stained glass--> spiritual, serene form. The white wood pieces are moderate in scale-- trying to hold back/ be succinct?

Me: More like outbursts--the canvas was such a slow process, wanted something faster to get out what I was trying to do, engage in 3D. Scale is determined more by my arm span/ the table than anything

SL: Out of flat?

PK: The light boxes with broken glass are starting to create space--created, animated explosion. The way they're arranged with the wood pieces creates the kind of space I think you're trying to go for more than any individual piece (walking around the box and almost colliding with the wood piece on the wall behind it, etc.). The red one more than the blue one

NL: Are the boxes finished?

Me: not necessarily. They're the kind of thing that could be built up forever...I'm still collecting glass, I could see adding to them

NL: Have you thought about pushing the drawing farther out from the wall?

Me: Not really. I did turn it around a lot to see horizontal vs vertical...

PK: is the light behind the canvas attached to the wall?

Me: yes.

GC: Do you have a guide for judging when something is working, for judging what is right and wrong? Interest in the impulsive. Reciprocity in how you are doing?

Me: It's more like trying to get at a feeling that matches the feeling of the initial encounter. If it translates, if the feeling matches, then it's 'right' or 'working', if not, then it isn't

GC: since you make a large number of works, is there room for one to critique another? Agree with JW, you're in an interesting place, but this is homeless work, unclaimed, on the cusp of something. You are always open with your work, always granting and responding intuitively--your intuition s getting really strong, but the next step is to bring in torque and tension to that. Important issue to contemplate through making work? Have discourse in the work

SD: work could get a lot more fierce, develop language. divine from the tea leaves, telling you about standardized installation, graphic. suggest and say something, divine the manifesto being presented by the work. Don't keep in niche. Charles Burns--graphic artist. you've got the language of traditional modern, formalized abstraction, but what's emerging is fierceness as sense from the work--that's what could be pushed

GC: said differently, there is of course always a level of energy involved in your work, but the ways of reaching it are not quite up to the same pitch as the energy you're bringing to it. Think blunt and dumb--if you glue the books together , how is the visual image compromised? Even for the gesso--there's something so recognizable about gesso--its absorbency...the white on the wood pieces could reach the same pitch in an energetic way--not that any of this has a laissez-faire energy or the energy of a yawn, but some resolutions don't meet on the same plane.

Me: when I was talking to you before about the mirror piece feeling contrived, I think that issue of pitch is exactly the perfect explanation for what is wrong

(this is the mirror piece, which I didn't show at the crit)

GC: Try in this process. Be flat-footed. Don't ignore or be a gymnast. Seen it from the beginning--theatrical, more lighting from behind doesn't take off. Black-white drawing has its own quality--it hasn't begun to transcend itself. Too accustomed. What is your task-master? What disturbs, pushes? I mean, to me, the lights turn it into some kind of jack o-lantern pumpkin piece...which is really selling it short

CA: picking up on GC etc. Bold moves--all problems on the table but critical eye to see what parts work. You say you have more boxes made, but why aren't you questioning the fact that they're boxes. Are the boxes really doing a service? Alright, it's a quick fix, but how can you make the intuitive better? What if you build forms from just the glass--what about one color? What would that drawing look like with just one light? Does it have to be those colors? Put out with a response, go back, question the elements, one premise at a time. Methodical for critical eye, come back again and go beyond contrivance

SD: make a lot of work. more raw--pull out again--look for what happens in the in between spaces--taking shots of work. I like the little glows--subtlety could come in. Red and blue vs black and white

GC: photograph, draw, paint, document from it, take it apart and put it back together

Music Cognition Lab

I had my first post-bacc critique earlier. I'll deal with that in a later post though. Right now, I'm excited about a website a friend just shared with me. So excited, in fact, that I feel the need to archive it here: http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/music-cognition/emotion2009.html

I love it because it provides the musical and verbal equivalents of the sounds (and the terminology, which perpetually illudes me), and because I've been meditating on the emotional structure of sound (music) for a while now. It's like another piece in a puzzle for me, one that mustn't get lost in the shuffle of websites I've bookmarked...

Buyer's Satisfaction; This American Life

Remember Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century)? Well, it's fantastic. Like, unspeakably excellent and inspiring, affinity-wise. Example: remember back in January, when I was thrilled to learn about minor keys, or, more specifically sustained chords resolving in minor? No? Well, that happened. Anyway, in this brilliant jewel of a book, there is an essay by Raqs Media Collective called "How to Be An Artist By Night". Now, every essay in this book is brilliant, but this one in particular has a layout that directly relates the methodology behind art-making to musical practice, locating fundamental steps on a kind of scale. One such step (number 5 on the scale), is titled "Minor Media". Quote time:

"Minor media are practices in a minor key. They introduce tonal alterations that rearrange the regularities made familiar by the repetition of major practices. They alter the mood or setting or emotional tenor of a practice by insisting on attention to irregular variations. They are ways of remembering, imagining, and accounting for things that do not get remembered, imagined, or accounted for in ordinary course...Minor media are the practices that can be stitched into the folds of everyday [methodological pursuits]--observation, recording, alteration, restoration, arrangement, rearrangement, ordering, disordering--one step at a time.

Minor media are not master strokes and do not seek to produce masterpieces, and they are not necessarily worked on by great masters. What they do allow is a dense layering (by one person or by many over lengths of time) of the work of art with a multitude of surfaces that produce a context, rhythm, and texture of accumulative annotations. It is this accumulation that occasionally yields the sharp significance that is the unique property of a work done in a minor key."

My knee-jerk response to this is a resounding FUCK YES!!! This passage completely encapsulates everything that I want to do. As I was finally able to explain in January, songs that resolve in minor keys are always the most resonant (to me, and apparently also to Raqs Media Collective). They are tinged with melancholy or thoughtfulness--they change your mood; they make you feel something you hadn't anticipated, which makes the experience you're having all the more powerful. I want to make art that does that! I want to be a minor media artist! And that's just one of multiple such revelations and affinities that have been bursting off the pages of this book, through my eyes, into my brain, then back out onto the pages of my scetchbook, which are scrawled with barely legible rants, made evermore vehement now that I have a whole book full of people who feel exactly as I do about the legion of issues discussed in this book!

One of the major thematic issues, which carries throughout most if not all of the essays, is the entwined relationship between institutions, the market, and the increasing professionalization of artists. Which brings me to the second section of the title of this post! The other day, on my way back to Boston from Philly, I decided to hunker down and finally commit to listening to a few episodes of This American Life. I'd been meaning to do this for a while--tons of people have been talking it up to me (in that annoying way that friends do), and it is definitely as awesome as everyone told me it would be (in that annoying way that things that friends are correct about are). But this blog isn't about confirming the awesomeness of public radio programs that my friends recommend to me. No, what makes this development blog-worthy is a particular phrase spoken in one of the episodes, a phrase that led me to actually pause, rewind, and replay so that I could write down the exact wording in my sketchbook. The episode was #339, Break-Up, and the phrase was spoken by Betsy Allison Walter when she was an 8 year-old guest on All Things Considered in 1987. This little girl was on the program because she'd written a letter to the then mayor of New York (Koch) about her parent's divorce, asking him for advice/ an explanation (I know, heart-breaking and adorable). Anyway, at the end of the interview, she reads a short book she'd written for other kids whose parents were getting divorced. Noah Adams jokingly asks her if she wants to be a famous writer and make lots of money, and her response is the phrase: "No, not money; just famous".

So why did I pause, rewind, replay, and write it down? Because that pretty much sums up my ideal art-making scenario. Money (the market, institutionalized hierarchies that determine funding, the pursuit of economic success) is, in my mind, fundamentally different from, and less desirable than, fame (the kind of well-known status that enables a broad, far-reaching scope; the ability to affect change and inspire people). This 8 year-old has her priorities in the right place, and I personally sympathize with those priorities.
However, as a young adult who's beginning to gain an increasing understanding of how the world works, I'm constantly wondering if it's possible to have one without the other (Is it possible to gain that level of influence without money?). It doesn't seem to be, at least not within our (capitalistic) system in which everything is monetarily valued. Things are only considered worthwhile if they yield money--that goes for ideas and activities as well as objects. Even if you disagree with that value system (which I do, in case you still had any doubt), the power structure and the corresponding distribution of "success" is still based on it. Right now, it seems that in order to attract attention from the institutions that determine and dispense culture, one needs a certain set of credentials, all of which require money. Money is the thing that validates what we do or make--probably because it's easier to measure worth in dollars than in concepts as nebulous as meaning, fulfillment or affect. This seems wrong to me, but is there any realistic way to escape it? I mean, the reality of this society is that we all need money to survive--food, shelter, clothing, transportation, all cost money. Without those most basic things, a person will eventually cease to physically exist, making any and all "higher pursuits" ineffectual by default (you can't make good, empowering art if you're dead). But at the same time, doesn't the ceaseless need for money leech time and energy that could otherwise be put toward the "higher pursuits" of truth, beauty, free thought/ expression etc. that should ideally be within everyone's grasp (that ideally enrich life)? Is it possible to have enough money to do whatever one wants without having to fundamentally compromise one's integrity/ fulfillment somewhere along the way? Is it possible to fully throw oneself into the pursuit of fulfillment without starving? Is it better to sacrifice meaning in order to "afford" freedom (monetarily), or to pursue idealistic meaning/ freedom without really being able to afford it (and if "affording it" means prostrating oneself at the feet of the culture makers, is the meaning you're after ultimately subconsciously or explicitly fit to the directives of those with the funding to help you afford some compromised version of whatever 'it' used to be)? Does anyone ever really afford both? Does anyone ever really get what they want? Does freedom (the kind of freedom we're all really after in one form or another) actually even exist?

Now, I'm sure that 8 year-old wasn't thinking all of those things, but what she said pretty succinctly got me there (and all of the essays in Art School effectively keep me there, but with some hope thrown in for good measure)

NYC II

Took another epic trip to New York this past Tuesday through Thursday! I was accompanied by some art history buddies, so things were on a pretty even keel, considering our mutual tendencies to devour and absorb any and all art.

We got in Tuesday afternoon and wandered over to Chelsea, where we visited a friend at James Cohan until the gallery closed. The show that's up right now, "Catch the Moon in the Water: Young Chinese Artists" was a pretty satisfyingly diverse survey of contemporary Chinese artists. My favorite piece was probably Hu Xiangqian's video/performance Xiangqian's Art Museum, which was hilarious and excellent and made me feel in good company conversationally. The piece consists of Hu Xiangqian standing in front of a microphone in a grassy patch in front of a brick wall, describing various works of art that he may or may not have seen, and which may or may not actually exist (some are well-known works that the audience could recognize, others he fabricates to sound real). It's pretty brilliant. I also couldn't take my eyes off of Chen Wei's photographs Records Hypnosis and House of Recovery. Really gorgeous. They kind of reminded me of Gregory Crewdson in a weird way.

The following day we finished up in Chelsea. The standout was Matthew Ronay's Between the Worlds at Andrea Rosen. OK, we walked into the gallery and encountered this box of black curtain. We had to circle the periphery to find the entrance, and when we did, it was like floating into an underwater cave/ forest/ dreamscape. Absolutely incredible--there were so many details to take in (screens of tiny carved wooden mushrooms; partially obscured light sources that added an undercurrent of magical/ holy energy to the space; owls that would suddenly appear on the periphery), but the thing I loved most was the simplicity of the materials. Everything was papier-mâché, fabric, carved wood, and simply applied paint. But simple choices in composition, color pallet and craftsmanship created this atmosphere that was completely engrossing. I wanted to live there.

Shows we also saw in Chelsea:
Against the Way Things Go at Gasser/Grunert (I really liked Joe Winter's piece, which investigated light and color by having viewers place pieces of colored construction paper under slightly varied light sources--2 variations of white light, 2 variations of yellow light. So, the color of the blue construction paper would look vastly different under the white light bulb than it did under the yellow light bulb, and slightly different under each type of white or yellow light. And each color had its own unique reaction. It was very simple and straightforward in its presentation, but still retained the phenomenological quality); Phoebe Washburn at Zach Feuer (she came and gave a talk at Brandeis this past semester, and I loved her/ her work. I didn't have the guts to talk to her then, and I didn't have the guts to talk to her when she was sitting in the office of Zach Feuer...); and Eraser at Magnanmetz Gallery (Shanti Grumbine's erased/ xacto-knifed newspaper pages were mesmerizing).

Later, we hit up MoMA and stayed until it closed (German Expressionists again, plus the Francis Alÿs, which was fantastic. It made me feel how I felt when I saw the Michelangelo Pistoletto show at the Philly museum, which is a feeling I still can't really describe).

Thursday was Lower East Side/ Chinatown day (because we were taking the Fung Wah back). The standout was Barbara DeGenevieve's Panhandler Project, which included a series of photos and an accompanying video. Essentially, the project consisted of her finding homeless black men and giving them food and a hotel room in exchange for their posing nude. The things involved in this piece!! I mean, race, class, gender, sexuality, exploitation discourse, the art historical history of the nude and objectification/ the gaze, on and on forever. But the beauty of the piece is the subtle suggestion of these things you need to think about in order to fully engage with it. It doesn't hit you over the head with an opinion or incite a blatant reaction outright--its ambiguity is what makes you think and feel the most.

Also:
"Lost" at Invisible-Exports (some interesting propositions, but nothing that really grabbed me); and Miriam Böhm, Rosy Keyser, and Erin Shirreff at Lisa Cooley (my favorites were Miriam Böhm's pictures of paintings, or pictures of pictures of paintings, which made me laugh while thinking about distance and remove)

The New Museum was under construction, so we got in for half price. The galleries that were open contained great things: "Charles Atlas: Joint's Array", which was gorgeous--an array of televisions all playing loops of video of Merce Cunningham's flexing and rotating joints, with a soundtrack of John Cage's ambient city sounds (touching/ poetic). There were moments when the images on a group of monitors would sync up for a brief interlude, and those moments took my breath away. Upstairs was "Ostalgia", a sweeping and eclectic survey of more than 30 artists from more than 20 countries across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics. My favorite piece was Mladen Stilinović's Dictionary--Pain, which spanned the perimeter walls of a room--each panel contained a list of words with the original definitions scratched out, replaced by the word 'pain'). There was also a video piece about Marxist educational practices in East Berlin before the wall fell--there was propaganda-style footage of a class debating the exploitative nature of capitalism, as well as an interview with a former student/ party member who moved to Hungary before the wall fell. I would have liked to have stayed to watch the whole thing, and I wish I could remember the name of the artist! We also went up to the roof balcony and reflected for a bit (actually, my fear of heights and love of sweeping views mauled each other internally, but that's kind of like reflection...), and then I agonized over which books I could actually afford to buy out of the 12 or 15 I would have liked to horde. I chose 2: Inside the Painter's Studio (which has been on my Amazon wish list forever) and Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century (which was just too apt to pass up).

And then I took the weekend to recuperate/ re-organize my studio