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?