I don't remember ever being this angry for this long. I've held grudges in the past, sure, but they were all superficial and mean nothing. What little grudges there were, that is. But I don't ever think I was ever this angry about something for this long to the point where I start exhibiting some tell-tale signs of depression, namely having trouble getting up in the morning and a sharp loss in interests.
For the last three days, I've been tooling around with my fireworks show. As of right now, I'm already down with about half of the show. My mind is dreading the most complicated part to come once I get past a certain act.
When I take my breaks, I find myself not wanting to even look at the box of drawings I have started. To do so sends me reeling in feelings that range between utter worthlessness to that usual lack of confidence despite knowing better. I've stop reading the book that links animation to the major art movements after learning about Toon Town being the realization of Marx's utopian idea in an illustrated forum. And in their place, all I do is sleep and think about the fireworks show I'm making in the video game engine I'm exploiting.
This leads me to something Jack said in our meeting several days ago. He said that his hope is that when I leave college as an artist, that's all I do. I think about art projects while I have breakfast, while I'm work, while I'm taking my dog out for a walk, every possible moment.
Lately, I haven't been thinking about art so much as I've been thinking about entertainment. I've made the argument that you can make art entertaining. I've also made the argument that you can't make entertainment art. Hypocritical, I know. These past few days, I'm pretty sure there is a line that has been drawn. Yet you have games like Okami that bring art into entertainment and vise versa. You have Matthew Barney who treats his art films like any Hollywood studio would. Cartoons are referencing religious and cultural iconography in nearly everything they do, including their depictions of a generic Heaven and Hell. Do I even have to mention Mel Chin and his Melrose's Place project? And yet, I still feel like a line has been drawn separating the two.
Most recently, Jason's "Consider your audience ; it's okay to limit who the piece is for" has been ringing in the back of my head whenever I'm working on the fireworks show. Who am I making this for? Well, this project is definitely not for me. If anything, it's for people who can appreciate the time I put into it. So, in other words, the YouTube crowd, of which Jason is a member of on occasion. Is what I'm making art or entertainment? Definitely entertainment, but I see no reason why it can't be art. (Actually, I can, but I'm biting my tongue on that one since I've been in that position once already.) This means that if I display this in a gallery setting, nobody that is a part of that gallery audience will get it. If anything, they'll deconstruct it in an attempt to understand why it is even in a gallery setting. But when you deconstruct entertainment that has no meaning behind it, you end up taking something that is suppose to be mindless entertainment and perverting it into something more than what it is suppose to be. And I mean that in a bad way for most forms of entertainment that end up being deconstructed (video games, movies that have no moral lesson from the get-go, TV shows, popular music).
On the first day of Public Art Class, we had to explain why we took the course. Most of us frankly admitted that we had to in order to fill up a studio requirement to get our degree. I said something different. I knew then that my art didn't feel appropriate for the gallery setting and took the class to find other avenues. I never really got exposed to anything manageable until my bumper sticker project and the zine assignment, both of which I did surprisingly very well on.
Maybe my audience can't be reached in the gallery. Maybe because they don't go to the gallery. So does that mean that I'm producing entertainment instead of art? And if I am, why did it take me this long to realize this when I've been in the position before and was told to get out while I could because the program wouldn't benefit me? A fool's answer to foolish questions: I don't know.
Well, back to making stuff blow up in the digital world where they can't hurt anyone and I don't need an explosives licence.
2 comments:
Jon,
I usually do a lot of thinking before I write a comment but this time I decided to just begin writing.
The idea of a gallery and of a public space in the modern senses is relatively new. In times past except for a few privileged people folks spent their time working and eating and resting and getting what little entertainment they could. Most would have been not the least bit concerned with whether any of their entertainment was art.
Then there came a time when "artists" decided that they should have public spaces and galleries and that they should impact the public and it was all in the "real" world.
Now two things have happened: there is a retreat into the virtual world because it is so easy with modern technology and there is a reluctance to expose oneself to the uncomfortable which is easy when one stays in the virtual realm.
You are being angry because you have caught the educational system at a time when it forces you to consider the old ways but has not yet begun to instruct you about the new ones.
Art is simply entertainment that continues to enlighten upon repetition.
Robert
Hi Jon,
Sorry to hear that your frustration is lingering. At whom are you angry? This is a learning experience - you are in school to learn. Don't get mad or embarrassed that you're learning.
I'M NOT LEARNING ANYTHING is probably your response.
Yes you are. Your latest blog entry expresses the realization that not all art is meant for gallery exhibition. I've been suggesting that to you for over a year now. Does this let you off the hook for your senior thesis? No. You'll have to present something for the gallery, but it can be documentation of your process. For instance, if you decide that your bumper sticker piece for Public Art Class was your strongest work and choose to present that for your senior show, you would not only show the stickers, but the documentation of where some of them have ended up, as well as a strong thesis that expresses your intentions, beginning to end, as well as citing other artists who are working in this manner. Being an artist, at least in the academic sense, means showing an awareness of the world in which your artwork plays a part, as well as showing the work itself. When do you reach a point of not having to show such an awareness? Never. Because you will always be faced with the question of "why are you doing this?" whether you are a classical painter, an abstract sculptor, a free-lance animator, or an artist who does drawing installations. Maybe for some the reason is obvious: money. Maybe for others there is not a definitive reason as much as there is an impulse. But there is theory for impulse.
"I don't know" is not a fool's answer to foolish questions. A wise man will admit when he doesn't know. A foolish man tries to bullshit an answer. You are wise to admit that you don't know, and that you are still considering possible answers. There is dignity to broadening your understanding of the world. Shame comes from acting like there is nothing left for you to learn.
Maybe some of the shame you feel when looking at your box of drawings is from having the panel point out that you have more to learn. Maybe some of the shame you feel is from pulling such a personal and intimate process out of your head and having it raked across the coals by a careless panel. I suspect both apply. But neither one is reason enough to give up on this project. It's all the more reason to infuse it with more effort, more personal content, more research.
Jack is right - your art should be something that you think about constantly. It should never leave your mind. What is that for you? My personal interest in your box of drawings came from my misperception that you would be doing them constantly, that you wanted to draw non-stop. That's the kind of obsession that would make a piece like that interesting to me. I hate to see you give up on it when it's only a fraction of the way complete.
As for "art vs. entertainment" I thought you had put that old debate to rest. There are so many different types of entertainment, and so many different types of art, and so many many many areas where they overlap. Why are you trying to figure out these clear cut borders between them when the beauty of it is that they're all fuzzy, and intertwined and overlapping. YOU determine if it's art by the way you define it in your artist statement/thesis. You determine how it functions when you design it and slap it up in front of the viewers.
There is art theory that deconstructs Johnny Knoxville's Jackass program on MTV as performance art subversively pushing the boundaries of masculinity, violence, and personal space. Does his work find its way into galleries? No. Is it entertainment? It's certainly labeled that way. What's the difference between Jackass and Chris Burden's volkswagon crucifixion? Simple - are you ready for this? Chris Burden categorized his stunts as art, documented it as such, and inserted it into the fine art genre, while Knoxville categorizes his stunts as entertainment, documents it as such, and inserts it into the entertainment genre. Wow. The only difference between the two is how and to whom they present it? Holy shit - I can't believe it's so easy!
So that's where my "know your audience" song-and-dance becomes more imperative. In the genre of entertainment there are so many categories: sci-fi, reality, drama, comedy, dramedy, dramatic-reality, prime-time drama, daytime drama, documentary, etc... the list goes on and on and on. Do the distinctions matter if it's all under the umbrella of "entertainment?" Yes, because they all have distinctly different audiences. Sometimes the audiences overlap. Sometimes they're exclusively different. And in art it is the same thing. Classical art, conceptual art, graffiti art, performance art, minimalism, sculpture, modern dance, mime, drawing, printmaking, environmental earth art, found objects, and folk art. Some of them overlap. Some of them position themselves at the top of their own self-proclaimed hierarchy. Which one are you? Which categories do you not fit into? To whom are you speaking? once you figure it out, prove it by citing your allies. If Johnny Knoxville is submitting Jackass photographs to a gallery you can bet everything you own that he'll cite Chris Burden. Why? because it shows that he's aware of how his work fits into the art canon. If Chris Burden decided to make a television program about nailing himself to volkswagons, he would undoubtedly cite Johnny Knoxville in his pitch. As an objective theorist that is aware of both fields, you and I are able to compare the two and their different methods of entering the social sphere. We cannot do that if we're hung up on precise definitions of "what is art and what is entertainment?"
As far as your work is concerned, you are in art school working toward your Fine Arts Degree. Maybe in the past you were encouraged to consider the field of illustration, graphic design or computer animation. Maybe those were fields to which you are better suited and in which you are more interested. But you chose to stick with studio arts knowing that despite their similarities and overlaps, fine art functions differently than these other fields. It has a different market. It has a wider acceptance of media and form. It encompasses a larger dialog about craft, purpose, concept, history, theory, transformation, and process. It has its own arena for discussion and criticism. You have entered this arena. By simply pursuing your BFA you are including yourself in the banquet hall of fine art, and you are going to have to figure out at which table do you want to sit. And then you will have to conduct yourself accordingly.
Have you talked with Jack about your firework projects? Have you discussed with him your obsession over them, and asked him what it would take to enter them into the arena of fine art? You and I have discussed this before but you disagreed with any of my suggestions about their social relevance, so maybe Jack has some better insight for you. If the fireworks are all you think about then maybe that's where your art is. But until you consider larger issues, like the social relevance of gaming, the history of gunpowder, the concept of fireworks/explosions, violence as entertainment, and appropriating pre-programmed "creative engines" to create time-based drawings and most importantly where are you personally located in this work, the panel is not going to have any different response than they had to your box of drawings.
Having said all that, I've basically listed everything you need to present your fireworks project if you're willing to tackle the research and critical thought to lay the proper foundation for showing it.
The last thing I want to point out is that there is no such thing as meaningless entertainment. Everything that makes it into the media makes some kind of statement. To present something without being aware of it's implications is irresponsible. My observation about the lack of ethnic representation in the second Pirate's of the Caribbean movie was not something I pulled out of my ass. For a huge company like Disney to produce and internationally market a movie in which the only people of color are exaggerated savages is irresponsible and obtuse. Although Disney (claims it) wasn't making any statement, the meaning still reads like this: white people are civilized, people of color are exotic oddities. Everything has meaning. Even something as simple as the teletubbies implies that our culture is so obsessed with consumerism that we are willing to embrace infants as a marketing demographic. Moreover we are willing to dumb down their entertainment with baby garble rather than at least "subvert" it with helpful phonetics or speech sounds. Sure the makers of Teletubbies might insist that it's meaningless, but when they insert it into the social sphere it is automatically imbued with meaning. Disney is aware of this whether they admit it in their public statements or not. As an artist you too must be aware of this. At the very least, as a graduating senior of an art college you have to prove to the panel that you are aware of it. If what you are doing implies a different meaning than what you intend, you either have to own it, amend it, or accept that it has multiple personal interpretations. If the panel is scratching their heads saying "we don't know how to approach this" then you need to make it more accessible somehow. My suggestion is in form. Consider my email about my friend Andrew who filled the room with sketches on cardboard. Find a way to overwhelm them with to imagination into which you escape. I know the people on your panel. They are kind and intelligent and very open-minded about art issues. It is not THAT impossible to impress them.
I still believe that you can do this, even if you're still stinging from the panel's criticism. Don't stay disoriented for too long. You need this time to work on those 400 drawings!!!
Good luck with work tomorrow. I hope it's not too boring.
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