so yesterday was unproductive, artistically. i did have a meeting last night with stella perkins and zack smithey, two saint charles artists with whom i share a great ambition to become better artists. stella's greatest work, in my opinion, is her ability to convey femininity without a hint of the weakness that society has tended to place upon it. she excels, especially, in woodcuts. she can show the strength of being a women without the appearance of being a victim of a male-dominated culture, while at the same time allowing her figures to have grace and beauty.
zack seems to be a budding renaissance man, running the gambit from sculptural to textural and painting, crossing borders and never seeming to adhere to a particular style for too long. both artists have great ideas and we have decided to collaborate on work for a while, doing group shows and working on an installation that, if achieved, will be a full experience for the viewers but more-so for us as artists. i would like to touch on style for a moment and it's place in contemporary art.
style is both a doorway and a trapdoor at the same time, especially in a consumerist society that seems to be more impressed by logos and branding than by process or product. an artist gains notoriety for having a particular style, or a unique spin on the current trends in art and culture, but after a period of time, that style becomes passe and spent, and the work is said to repeat itself. now, there have been artists whose entire career was used on this notion. warhol for example used repetition and plagiarism as a form of art, which, in his time, was a valid commentary on the art world. he seemed to have been playing a joke on high society. the punchline was a bullet from a radical protege and popularity that led to a patriarch with warhol himself on the throne. am i saying that at a point warhol ceased to create art and started creating product? yes and no. yes he created product, but in a product based society, wouldn't the creation and mass reproduction of a product be art. is art a reflection of it's surroundings or is it the maker of it's own bed?
another example that comes to mind is motherwell, i.e. elegies to the spanish republic. for forty some years, motherwell used the same motif, more or less, and created 170 plus pictures with the title "elegy to the spanish republic. did he get locked in a movement of his own hand that led to this repitition? maybe he felt he never quite achieved the perfect composition. relying partially on chance, by use of large expressive brush strokes, allowing the drip to be used, and left to the mercy of his media, motherwell exhausted himself on the idea of large black formations, similar in aesthetics to sumi art of the orient. i don't think i have ever heard or read in any criticism that motherwell was a has-been for repainting the same picture. however, that seems to be a buzz word in contemporary circles.
as an unknown artist, still struggling to develop a voice of my own, i am constantly at battle over whether or not the current picture resembles too much of the later work. i seem to hinder my own output by questioning the brushstrokes. i hate this part of the process. i want to be able to simply create without the worries of self critique. argumentatively, i need to be working to build a portfolio so as to achieve higher accolades thereby allowing me the freedom to create more. a constant struggle of ethics, ego, and necessity.
francis bacon, willem de kooning, robert rauschenberg, picasso, diego rivera, all had distinct style to their work. i happen to love their work. why then am i afraid of style?
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
the shame of inspiration
so, many artists i know, or at least talk to, have torn judgements on the appearance of an artist's direct influences. some despise the give-in comparison of their work to a former master, be it picasso, basquiat, matisse, de kooning, while at the same time show no remorse in the blatant use of the tools these artists have given them. fuck that. to deny your history is to have no future.
if one were to view my work, they would instantly see my inheritances. i study the work of the aforementioned artists in depth, and by matter of course, their influence is directly noted. is there a musician alive today that has not heard the beatles? coltrane? dolly parton? doubted. and because they write a pop song in C, are they then merely a knock-off of some unattainable original sound? no.
as an artist, it is my job to connect to an idea and convey that idea to the best of my ability. i will make use of wildly popular images as well as extremely personal ones to convey a feeling that i have pertaining to that subject. this is what we do as humans, we co-opt ideas. we use colors to portray objects, just like every other artist. we use lines to define objects, but matisse is the master of line right? so it is done, move on. rothko mastered color, right, no more color. picasso mastered ego, so please start hating yourself. pollock popularized the chaos of drips, so watch your brushes! absurd.
there are art students who spend thousands of dollars and countless hours studying vermeer, only to graduate with a student show of mock outsider art. why? why should we study a technique only to abandon it completely in the name of originality? now is when you say, "well to break the rules, you have to know them". what rules, whose rules, when rules? i will say that the only rule is, metallica fucking rules! the rest of it is for jealousy and judgment. i hope this spell check is working.
you can see by my face that i look like my mother and my father, just as well, you can see in my work that i learned from my predecessors. i do not study michelangelo, i have no interest. the door he opened lead to picasso, matisse, and de kooning, who then opened doors for rauschenberg, johns, and basquiat, who in turn opened doors for me. i am not ashamed to say that the first person i recognized as a poet is jim morrison,(come on you lit fags, jump my shit about that), but it is truth. just as the first painter i connected with on a visceral level was basquiat. i will not out-grow these loves. i hope to one day develop a voice that is clear and inspirational, but i refuse to deny my father(s).
if one were to view my work, they would instantly see my inheritances. i study the work of the aforementioned artists in depth, and by matter of course, their influence is directly noted. is there a musician alive today that has not heard the beatles? coltrane? dolly parton? doubted. and because they write a pop song in C, are they then merely a knock-off of some unattainable original sound? no.
as an artist, it is my job to connect to an idea and convey that idea to the best of my ability. i will make use of wildly popular images as well as extremely personal ones to convey a feeling that i have pertaining to that subject. this is what we do as humans, we co-opt ideas. we use colors to portray objects, just like every other artist. we use lines to define objects, but matisse is the master of line right? so it is done, move on. rothko mastered color, right, no more color. picasso mastered ego, so please start hating yourself. pollock popularized the chaos of drips, so watch your brushes! absurd.
there are art students who spend thousands of dollars and countless hours studying vermeer, only to graduate with a student show of mock outsider art. why? why should we study a technique only to abandon it completely in the name of originality? now is when you say, "well to break the rules, you have to know them". what rules, whose rules, when rules? i will say that the only rule is, metallica fucking rules! the rest of it is for jealousy and judgment. i hope this spell check is working.
you can see by my face that i look like my mother and my father, just as well, you can see in my work that i learned from my predecessors. i do not study michelangelo, i have no interest. the door he opened lead to picasso, matisse, and de kooning, who then opened doors for rauschenberg, johns, and basquiat, who in turn opened doors for me. i am not ashamed to say that the first person i recognized as a poet is jim morrison,(come on you lit fags, jump my shit about that), but it is truth. just as the first painter i connected with on a visceral level was basquiat. i will not out-grow these loves. i hope to one day develop a voice that is clear and inspirational, but i refuse to deny my father(s).
somebody blew up america
amiri baraka (leroi jones) reads Somebody Blew Up America. this is one of the most controversial poems in the last fifty years, possibly since Ginsberg's Howl. Baraka was the recipient of the honor of poet laureate of new jersey until this poem caused a stir over four lines that infer that israel may have had something to do with the 9/11 bombings. baraka, a socialist/communist, was viewed as an anti-semite. now i ask you, is being questioning and critical of a world power inherently anti-semetic just because the people of that nation state are jews? he does not once blame jewish people or culture, in fact he blames no one but poses questions that were on the minds of many people at the time following the "attack". is it possible that an outspoken black nationalist, communist, and leader of working class people has been targeted by media in a plan to discredit him? well, it worked. the governor of new jersey asked for baraka's resignation. when baraka denied this request, the gov then tried to have baraka dis-honored. meaning he would strip baraka of the title. this having no precedence, he was unable to dethrone baraka, he decided to disband the poet laureate program altogether, leaving new jersey as the only u.s. state without a poet laureate.
i spoke to baraka recently, and asked him of the charges of anti-semitism. he told me that he does not have any disdain or hatred of jews, that this claim is ridiculous but expected from those in power. whether or not you believe him to anti-semitic, the poem is great and raises a lot of valid feelings. ezra pound, largely considered america's greatest poet, was a self proclaimed anti-semite, and still we teach him in our schools and herald his poetry to be of the greatest verse penned in the english language. i wonder if we would feel the same if pound were black.
i spoke to baraka recently, and asked him of the charges of anti-semitism. he told me that he does not have any disdain or hatred of jews, that this claim is ridiculous but expected from those in power. whether or not you believe him to anti-semitic, the poem is great and raises a lot of valid feelings. ezra pound, largely considered america's greatest poet, was a self proclaimed anti-semite, and still we teach him in our schools and herald his poetry to be of the greatest verse penned in the english language. i wonder if we would feel the same if pound were black.
book review: DeKooning: An American Master
de Kooning is the epitome of the american artist. an immigrant to this country, he went on from poverty and anonymity to become the 20th century american master. his influence is felt in nearly every media of art today, from painting to sculpture, he is often called the american matisse. the book follows de kooning from life to death, hitting on all key parts of his life.
the great thing is the amount of background you receive, not just on de kooning but on gorky, rothko, pollock, and other artists of the abstract expressionist movement. stevens and swan leave no holes in the history. i became so attached to the characters that i found myself crying at their sometimes tragic deaths and rejoicing with their achievements.
the book is a good read in length, and large enough in size to make you look fucking smart. harry potter ain't got shit on me, so take that you fifth grade bastard, i can read big books too.
the price is a little steep but being that it garnered so many awards, every library in the country has access to it.
while reading it, i became part of a hap hazard book club, by this i mean that two other friends, who are also artists, were drawn to read the book. we would call each other at pivotal moments, asking first what page the other is on, not spoil anything, and discuss, sometimes at length, what is happening in the story. there have been few books that i have read that have gotten the attention of my friends as much as this one. it changed the way we paint, the way we think about art, view art, critique and interact with one another as artists. it laid a bit of the groundwork for the now defunct WAC. after finishing the book, i made the decision to become what could be called a career artist. this simply means that i define myself as an artist AND act on that definition. working on jobs that i don't always enjoy but do so because they are artistic ventures and any day getting paid to paint is better than a day at the office, or factory for that matter. i can feel the burden that i think a lot of artists have felt. two kids, a wife, bills, and no steady source of income. but if perseverance pays off at all, then the outcrop is well worth the harvest.
Monday, October 8, 2007
new piece
i found this fence in the alley behind my garage.
freedom for wolves - spraypaint, latex, ink and gesso
on found object. approx. 6' x 9' amen.
freedom for wolves - spraypaint, latex, ink and gesso
on found object. approx. 6' x 9' amen.
blah blah blah and a cha cha
myself and a bunch of jazz dudes at the bowery poetry club in NY.
the reading was at a buffalo poets gathering they do once a month.
MOOSE!
the garage
so i moved recently from a 14,000 sq. ft. open space, to a small garage in my back yard. this move has changed not only the way i work, but the also the way in which i conduct the process. let me explain.
when i had the warehouse, i could move freely about, leaving in my wake a mess of materials. this lent to having multiple projects left unfinished and a veritable ocean of trash in my studio. now i have a garage just large enough to work on one piece at a time, and many times in the process of that piece i find myself cleaning. cleaning is a good thing.
in the fifteen minutes i take to clean and smoke, i can clear my brain of all of the bullshit that clogs it up while i work on a particular piece. are the lines strong? does this make sense? is it sell-able? is that a nipple? you know, garbage. i find that my newer stuff s really quite a bit more clear. less influenced by immediate surroundings (being that there are no surroundings). now if i can conquer the personal demons of my own art history, i might be able to produce something sincere.
when i had the warehouse, i could move freely about, leaving in my wake a mess of materials. this lent to having multiple projects left unfinished and a veritable ocean of trash in my studio. now i have a garage just large enough to work on one piece at a time, and many times in the process of that piece i find myself cleaning. cleaning is a good thing.
in the fifteen minutes i take to clean and smoke, i can clear my brain of all of the bullshit that clogs it up while i work on a particular piece. are the lines strong? does this make sense? is it sell-able? is that a nipple? you know, garbage. i find that my newer stuff s really quite a bit more clear. less influenced by immediate surroundings (being that there are no surroundings). now if i can conquer the personal demons of my own art history, i might be able to produce something sincere.
on the breath of death
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