In Chapter 5, In and Beyond the Museum: 1984-1998 of Contemporary Art, Taylor, the topic of conceptualizing against the idea of fine art seems to be glorified and exaulted. With chapter subheadings like: Art as the Subject Itself, Installation as Decay, and Some Counter-Monuments the topic seems to be to make Art that does not belong in a gallery or museum, but then to be overwhelmed by joy when a museum or history book does pick up the work, especially if it is properly understood. Earlier this week, I was talking to Pagel about a painting of mine that has faces of young boys on it with bright red lips and I said, “The lips are bright red just to make fun of Pop-art.” Pagel did not like this comment and all but asked me to retract it – I couldn’t. Then in this chapter, I read: “Duchampian readymade joke, a Warholian play with the banal, and often a Beuysian fascination for the atavistic.” I wonder, am I not to have a little fun until I am written up in a book?
For some reason, the topic and idea of pushing against the institution made me want to look up the biographies of some of the artists in the chapter as well as some of the biographies of my current teachers. I suppose I became curious because many artists that are rebelling against institutions are educated in institutions; then institutions themselves evolve to accommodate the perceived rebellion, for example re-designed museums. I stumbled upon Artfacts.net as I looked for biographies. What a surprise to me! As artists work towards freedom from commercialization, commoditization and being misunderstood they are simultaneously being commercialized as objects themselves in an online ranking format. Artfacts.net I am sure has a sophisticated system of gathering data from across wide art market platforms to rank artists from one to a hundred and beyond. What is the art world if exhibition statistics, auction results, age, and sex are made available publicly and on-line? Are even the artists themselves a commodity to be counted and ranked like stock prices based on company performance? Is the whole world like this? Makes me want my Mom job back! At least the kids would instantly tell me when I was liked or hated and nothing was an “industry standard” in my days and hours with them. Not to mention the fact that I am not dead – the entire Artist ranking system exists in it’s entirety dead or alive!
I ended my last essay with a question: The next level of contemporary what? Now I ask: will the contemporary art market keep paying extraordinary prices for works of art that are not well crafted? This is a subject that came up for me when I visited the Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) this week. Normally I would not have visited this museum* because it is a “craft” or “folk art” museum not a “fine art” museum, but now I wonder why do we settle for so many pieces of fine art works that are not finely crafted? Several examples can be found in current exhibits down the street from the CAFAM in slick galleries. Why is it ok to go through an MFA program that requires no drawing skills or attention to craft? So much of what is talked about is conceptual this and that.
For two weeks now I have been reading and re-reading an article by Raphael Rubinstein about Provisional Painting; it is his second article on this topic the first was written in 2009, which I have also be reading and re-reading. There exists inside of me an extreme – on the one hand I appreciate finely crafted items and take them to be more serious, and on the other hand I tend to dash out my work depending on the mood or idea of the day wishing for my energy and enthusiasm and emotion to show through in the finality of the work. Often my desire for this burst of energy to show through conflicts with my desire for myself to have work that looks polished, finished, and well thought out. The conflict becomes problematic in what I can feel proud to say it is my work. Every piece whether fully planned or energetically created takes work, time, energy and passion. The question is what will be taken more seriously or what will sell. I realize that some of my peers have the goal of history books for their practice. I’d rather make a living selling the work, but I frustrate myself because why should the energetic work I make sell for the prices I think it deserves if I myself often dismiss other artists’ less-than-well crafted work as careless?
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