Contemporary What?

I saw a portion of this quote on a blog called Two Coats of Paint (I then went to the LA times web site):

"Clotheslines, floor mats and document shredders come to mind in Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia’s exhibition at CB1 Gallery. Hand-woven fabrics, pixelated imagery and religious tapestries are also evoked by his grid-bending abstractions, whose insouciance provides a nice balance between goal-oriented authority and seat-of-the-pants improvisation."
--David Pagel, LA Times, 2/10/12

I saw this posted on Facebook (then looked quickly for more information on-line):

hi i am talking this Saturday 2/11 3:30-5:30 re future of Art Orgs with some cool folks at USC Harris Hall followed by thei LLACPS art opening i expect a great discussion

3:30 to 5:30 p.m.: Over the Edge
Rochelle Steiner, dean of the USC Roski School of Fine Arts, will moderate a panel featuring artists, cultural critics and arts administrators on the future of community within the arts. Panelists include Mark Allen, Edgar Arceneaux, Anne Bray, Evelena Ruether and Carol Stakenas.

I was invited to this event through Facebook:

An informal selection of paintings and drawings by Ruth Trotter are on view from January 30 - February 24, 2012 at the Historic Gas Company Lofts Building in downtown Los Angeles.

Reception for the artist: Saturday, February 11th from 5:00 - 7:00

This is but a snap shot of the Art World events that can be found in and around LA on any given weekend. What is amazing is that I have lived here only 7 months and I am beginning to feel plugged into the contemporary art scene of Los Angeles. As a potentially emerging artist what does this mean for me and how does it all relate? How does visiting all three events alter how I see myself as an artist?

I have come to CGU to pursue my MFA because I am an artist and I have had the desire to take my work to “the next level” for many years. This week has turned out to be one of those pivotal weeks of graduate school for me (this is my second masters degree so some of the institution of obtaining a degree is already familiar to me). I had recently decided to add contour drawings of figures to my usually abstract grid works. This week I had 5 studio meetings all of which asked me: “why the figure?” Basically the question was more of a statement of – don’t paint the figure it’s not working for you! So while I am trying to absorb the different voices of my professors I am simultaneously trying to find my own voice as well as listening to and looking at the work of others.

As I visited the three events listed above and read all of the assigned essays I have become clearer while at the same time more confused by my efforts. The chapter on Collectors in Lindemann’s book and Chapter 4 in Taylor had one similar theme that I could latch onto: introducing the general public to contemporary art. It was only a short 5 months ago that I would have considered myself knowledgeable in the art world – knowledgeable enough to have wanted to pursue this degree; enough because I had been to many museums and some galleries throughout my childhood and adult life; enough because I have considered myself a painter since high school. However, I am not as knowledgeable as I would like to pretend that I am or am I?

Segovia’s works at CB1 Gallery are very interesting and could be viewed from both sides. I felt like I had been transported into my childhood when I walked into the gallery. The woven paper pieces reminded me so much of “going to market” with my mom and our maid as a child growing us in Mexico and Brazil. I could not tell you if it was the colors he used or the fact of the weavings reminding me of the bags we carried to market to bring our goods home. The nods to my childhood experiences could be because of the slightly cockeyed raw feeling the pieces have as they hung on a line between the walls, not unlike how our maids hung their laundry in their rooms without windows while they hung our laundry on lines outside. Has the fact that these pieces pulled up childhood memories made me a contemporary art insider or a member of the general public enjoying something outside my regular routine?

My next stop was to go to the Panel Discussion ay USC on: The Politics of Community. I was attracted to this event because I am currently leading a class on Collaborative Arts and Community and the panel proposed to discuss “looking to the future of community within the arts.” Each of the panelists was animated and passionate about their role in the art world in Los Angeles. I was most fascinated by the talk given by Mark Allen, the director at Machine Projects. The premise of Machine Projects as I understand it – it is to stage events that rely on audience participation and audience engagement with the artist(s) while embracing the possibility of “failure” or incomplete work. His explanation is that the events that Machine Project puts on are considered “completed projects,” even as they intend to blur the lines of “familiar and new,” “enjoyable and awkward,” and “finished vs. unfinished.” He also stated his own personal artistic need to explore the relationship between artist and audience or community. His focus is on introducing the public to the contemporary art world. Since I was a child, I have completely loved bringing people together to work on art projects – my mother has told me that I used to set up the long stone hallway in our home in Mexico with paper, crayons, and paint and I’d invite the neighboring kids in to “have an art class.” Over the past 15 years I have worked both in my city of residence and within my family to build community through shared art experiences. I often did not worry about “expected outcomes” because my focus was usually on what the participants could learn from one another through the shared experiences or my hope that the participants, if even for a brief time, would feel like they are an artist. Have I already been operating in a contemporary art mode all my life by engaging my public sphere in shared projects?

The third event I attended was to view the work of Ruth Trotter; a painter and art professor. I have been working with her since September as her TA at The University of La Verne – and yet I had never seen her work in person. In viewing her work I was at once struck by the feeling of delicate boldness of brushwork. Accomplished work in exquisite colors and compositions. Do I see this because I am beyond the “general public” or would anyone see the paintings and enjoy them on some level? I am really not sure. What I can say about her event is that friends of her friends were what I would consider the “general public” – they were at the show as partners to the people who directly knew Trotter. In speaking to several “general public” directly they had little to say about the art nor did they seem to care; they were much more interested in going out to dinner and other activities after the art show. As much as I enjoyed viewing her work, I left the show feeling empty while questioning the “art reception” concept.

So, why is this week pivotal? I think mainly because even in receiving harsh criticism for a risk I took in my own practice I did not cry, whither or back away; instead it brought me some clarity as to my process and my longer desires for myself as an artist. I will still attempt to put the figure into my work, but maybe not in such a literal way as a contour drawing in paint. I will continue to have the desire to bring people together through shared art experiences, I now know that there are many other artists in the LA community bringing this topic to the forefront of contemporary art practice. They ask the question: building a community vs. making art, as they search for a new framework. I labeled this essay “Contemporary What?” Because I feel like I need to define for myself: What is Contemporary Art? Is it making work or is it having others making work? Does contemporary art practice need to be loaded with abstract ideas similar to those presented in the Krauss and other similar essays? Can the artwork be unfinished and made by the public? If contemporary art practice continues to push the boundaries of artist and audience what will exist for the collector to collect? Are current trends an extension of Baudrillards’ ideas of what is real? My opening quotations came from the Internet and are all related to people I have met while at CGU. In a county with 10 million people it will take huge amounts of exertion to work on my goal of bringing myself to the “next level,” and as often is the case in graduate school finding answers only leads to more questions. The biggest question being: The next level of contemporary what?

Unsold Inventory

Besides being a wife and mother I have done lots of different kinds of work over the years. One of the things I have excelled at is real estate. I have purchased and sold 7 homes since 1989. I currently own 2. I know a little bit about the real estate industry. As I delve into the Art World, I try to make sense of it through what I know. In the real estate world, the slogan most oft repeated is: location, location, location. In the art world it seems that the most important information in building a strong collection of art is: name, name, name – the artist cannot be an unknown or the purchase becomes “risky” not unlike the risk of buying a home in a poor location. For typical home purchases buyers consider the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet, garage, fireplace, and so on. Still, in real estate the most important and relevant information is location and price. How does this correlate to the increasingly complex and growing art market? Is the name of the artist and the price the most relevant information? What else is relevant? In art, as in real estate there are variables to consider such as: size of work, type of work, idea behind the work, where the work has been before, cost of production, and more.

In a gross simplification of the process of bringing a home to market, a builder constructs the home and then the home is sold to the first buyer of the property. A typical sale of that same home after the current owner has decided to move includes: sellers’ agent, sellers’ agent’s broker, buyers’ agent broker, buyers’ agent, buyer and the mortgage officer. Typically the brokers are invisible for most of the sell/buy transaction; a process that can take anywhere from one month to over a year. However, brokers have the highly important function of branding and maintaining inventory. In the art world, the artist is like the builder. Roughly speaking, the brokers are the galleries and the auction houses. The art consultants are the agents that work with buyers and/or sellers. I have worked with several wonderful real estate agents over the years, both as a buyer and as a seller, as well as an assistant to a Damien Hirst type agent, the art consultant chapter in the “Collecting Contemporary Art” by Adam Lindemann felt very familiar. Each transaction is nuanced and involves many players.

The relationships that I built with my real estate agent(s) made all of the difference in how smoothly my transactions to purchasing or selling a home worked out. Often, it is all about who they know and the relationships they have developed that can seal (or break) a deal. In fact, in situations such as mine, where I was the seller 7 times (3 of those in the same town) my relationships to key players also played a role in the service I came to expect and in the deals I was able to put together. I completely loved the process of hiring contractors to re-create homes to my specifications (I created the drawings and shared my vision) and then I would ready the home for sale to work with my agent and find a buyer.

In my life before grad school, I was able to play the role of creator (remodeling with the help of contractors) and collector. As I begin to see these correlations I must ask myself – what role do I see myself in after school? Where would my talents best fit? How can I incorporate what I already know how to do in creating the life I want to live? Have I been thinking big enough? I have, in the past, worked with budgets over $10,000 and now in school spending $1000 on art supplies feels like too much. A home can shelter a family and art – well, I want to believe in its importance and I am searching for answers. One answer came to me a long time ago. In 1984 when I went to the mall to buy some prints to decorate my first apartment, I came home with no purchases. It occurred to me while I was at the mall that I could paint my own wall art. I have been doing just that ever since. I have been painting in order to not spend money on other artists’ work. If thinking big and spending $10,000 on creating an art piece seems ridiculous to me now then I really do not have a chance in hell of building my career as an artist. Yet I did not start with budgets of $10,000 in real estate. In fact, in the first home I bought and re-sold in Mountain View, CA I think I spent $1000 to “fix-it-up.” However, it DID sell. I see far too many artists, including myself, sitting on unsold inventory – therein lies the rub!

New Work

A beginning attempt at Abstract Grid, Expressinist Pop Art.

Thinking Long Term

          Have you read these words: I think I can – I think I can – I think I can? These words “I think I can” are from a popular children’s book, “The Little Engine That Could,” by Watty Piper. Following in the footsteps of last weeks’ writing, I thought I might try to synthesize this weeks learning and readings through the idea found in “The Little Engine That Could.” In this story, the main character is a little blue female train that finds out she has important work to do even though she has never done the work before that is being asked of her. As a child, this story was my favorite.

Why make art? Why paint at all? Do we really need the work? Having written about Daimen Hirst last week, I felt that the only way to truly immerse myself in what I have to learn about his work, and the question of why make what no one really needs, is to go and see Hirst’s work in person – so that’s exactly what I did. I went into The Gagosian Gallery for my very first time. The Spot Paintings are beautiful and exquisitely crafted (except the oldest one in the LA gallery that had little holes in the middle of each spot). Standing in the gallery the colored spots dance, mostly because of the way our eye and brain works, and all of a sudden you are seeing even more spots – the afterimage of colored spots (Itten). I think The Spot Paintings sell because they are easy to understand on a level of brutal simplicity making no need for Art History or Art Appreciation in order to enjoy the paintings. My favorite spot painting has spots that are tiny – 1 millimeter in diameter each – and there are 25,781 spots, but who’s counting? At a certain point my guess is that Hirst kept making this work because they kept selling. Making a living selling art is a cool thing – something I aspire to do! I think I can.

There were a handful of really good reasons for me to walk into The Gagosian Gallery; the primary reason being the “I think I can” attitude that I am working so hard to foster in my creative endeavors. If I can’t walk into The Gagosian Gallery, how can I ever presume to make art that reaches a level beyond the local community cooperative gallery I used to belong to? Larry Gagosian is a dealer of art at a high level. I tend to learn and remember things better when I go in person to learn. On this field trip, I was amazed to learn that many of the works on display are actually borrowed back from their owners for the worldwide Spot Painting event and that the event is short in duration – about a month in most locations. The Gagosian Gallery epitomizes my favorite quote from the readings this week: “It takes balls to open an expensive retail store that sells stuff that nobody actually needs and that nobody may want to buy” (Lindemann). While I was at The Gagosian, I ventured to talk to the “beautiful receptionist” and the lack of conversation was icy at best, but maybe it was my accent? (Insert smile here.)

No matter, I had other plans for the afternoon. Having felt the need to work in encaustic recently I went to go see encaustic work by Helen K. Garber at dnj gallery in Santa Monica. I was under impressed with the encaustic work. The Ruth Bachofner Gallery was nearby so I ventured in because the last time I visited this gallery I was impressed with the quality of the work and wanted to see what was new. Currently, Robert Kingston has his work on display and it reminded me a lot of Cy Twombly’s work so I decided to look at Kingston’s bio at the desk. I was pleased to find out that he attended CGU. To my surprise Ruth, (the owner I presume) treated me with incredible kindness answered my questions and even showed me a few pieces of work in her back room that were done by CGU students. I was shown so much kindness even after telling her that I am a current student that my familiar refrain came to mind – I think I can, I think I can.

Every day I ask myself: Why make objects that really have no value? Yes, harsh for sure! However, I feel as though if I am going to bring more paintings in this world there better be a really truly good reason for them. In this weeks reading, the art dealer Sadie Coles gave me two good reasons: “Art is an investment of money and ideas.” The money part was covered in my visit to The Gagosian Gallery. Art serves capitalism. The ideas part is what I have been spending hours and hours with during my studies at CGU. According to Robert Hughs (an Art Critic), the conditions that produce great art are: patience, internalization, ruthless self-criticism, and an engagement with the past. Marianne Boesky insists that artists must: have a level of skill, a deep knowledge of art history, and a deep commitment – as in being an artist by birth not by choice. The story of the little blue engine that could embodies persistence, believing in oneself, and relying on friends along the way, while embracing the possibility of doing something bigger and better than you initially thought you could do.

Returning to grad school after years as a mother and wife is difficult to say the least. Each day I try to dig up as much persistence, belief, and peer support as I can; thankfully that has been the easier part of this journey. Embracing the possibility of doing something bigger and better than I thought I could do is the much more challenging task ahead of me. I have yet to find a really good reason for making my paintings; I just know I have to. Twyla Tharp calls the reason for making the work “the spine” like a true north or a contract.  Hirst kept making the Spot Paintings because for that body of work his “spine” was that they are all about the love of color. So, it’s “off to work I go” to come up with the ideas behind my work – I think I can – I think I can – I think I can. In all honesty, I will keep working until I can get to the end of the story like the little blue engine: I thought I could.  I thought I could.  I thought I could.  I thought I could.  I thought I could. 

The Art of Color, Johannes Itten, 1973

“The Little Engine That Could,” Watty Piper

Consumer Consuming Simulacra

This week I bring you the story of myself as a consumer consuming simulacrum of simulacra. We will consider, Daimen Hirst’s spot paintings and the main character in Robert Lopshire’s “Put me in the Zoo!” a children’s book. Hirst’s spots are traveling around the world right now and being displayed in museums and galleries – locations that I have just learned are called “white cubes” in the Art World. Currently, some of the spot paintings are on view in nearby Beverly Hills. All the advertising around Hirst’s spot paintings reminded me of, “Put me in the Zoo!” a book I read to and with my children many times when they were young. The creature in this popular children’s book has spots that he can change. The creature may be a cat or a leopard, but we never really know because he is just an imaginary creature that never existed, except in the story that was originally published in 1960 and continues in publication today.

Now I need to share my unorthodox train of thought here – Lopshire’s spotted creature is the original simulacra or the place marker for the real thing. The spotted creature is an imaginary animal that can talk and learns how to be himself while altering his spots in an infinite number of ways. In my mind, Hirst’s spot paintings are the simulacrum of the simulacra: they are the spots (from the spotted creature) but they have no image or reality, only color spots. Hirst’s assistants have completed over 1400 of these spot paintings since 1986. In my opinion, the spot paintings are mass-produced commodities and the Art World seems to be embracing them. I could make a version of the work myself, as a painter it would not be that difficult at all to emulate the spot paintings – they are made with a formula of sorts. However, I would rather like to join the Art World by creating my own work. I say to you, please put me in the Zoo! You would if you knew what I could do! Here I am! I study for my MFA so that I might join the postmodern movement or whatever.

It is at this point that I began to wonder if anyone else has made the connection of the spotted creature and the spot paintings, so I Googled it! Sure enough the Gallerist NY has published an article about Hirst and the connection to the spotted creature. According to an article I found in the New Yorker, Hirst “has recycled tropes from Marcel Duchamp, Surrealism, Francis Bacon, Minimalism, and numerous near-contemporaries” in making his spot paintings. Good for him! Hirst has figured out his formula for success in the art world. I have found out that his path has been circuitous and unconventional to say the least. As I read assorted articles this week and I see Hirst at it again – this time his pig in formaldehyde – the following poem happens to pop into my mind:

This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed home.

This little piggy had roast beef,

This little piggy had none.

And this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home.

Then when I view the title “This Little Piggy Went to Market, This Little Piggy Stayed at Home” I realize oh! I knew that. On Friday, on my way home from my school studio, I really did feel like running all the way home and staying at home because what is real and what is meaningless is all mixed up for me.

Over the past 15 years I did stay home to take care of my children and I have returned to school because I felt ready to move out into “the real world.” The problem of course is how to define myself in this most strange world called The Art World. A construct with Artists, Gallerists, Critics, Curators, Collectors, and a crazy white man like Hirst who calls himself an artist but as far as I can tell he is an idea man not necessarily a crafts person, builder, creator, painter, or sculptor. Concepts run paramount to art creation, or so I have been told. I understand that the idea has to be good to keep it interesting then I think oh shit, shit…who is copying whom here? If I take a few of my favorite children’s books and paint from them, a body of work I will have made, but the connection to the art historical references would also need to be made as well. Then I feel a dull boredom thinking about art making in this way. There must be a different way. In the end, in the story “Put me in the Zoo,” the main character defines success by what does not work for him. He is not welcome in the zoo. This is not insignificant. I am not Damien Hirst, nor do I ever want to be. I am not a spotted creature in a book; all I ever want to be is Me. So that brings me to my final thought, I am a consumer consuming simulacra while considering creating more of the same.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2012/01/23/120123craw_artworld_schjeldahl

http://www.galleristny.com/2012/01/put-me-in-the-zoo-01172012/