The problem with “anybody could do that” art is just that – anybody could do it. (Not everybody does, of course.) But the ease can make a viewer skeptical. (This from me, one of those who tends to do “anybody could do that” art.) James Franco makes me dubious – especially after reading part of the Wikipedia article on a fellow who is apparently as multitalented as the recently departed Dear Leader.

This all begs the question, what does it take for us to take conceptual works seriously? How much critical rigor? Or what other proof? The Museum of Non-Visible Art is news to me, but the Kickstarter page is news at least half a year old. Please, go read that page, so you know what I’m responding to here.

So I wonder. Has conceptual art suddenly grown silly and flat? Where’s the line to be drawn, and who’s got any business drawing it? Is the joke on the buyer? Is anyone being duped? What isn’t subjective? And is a museum the best way to present it? Book? Website? Experience the art for free, but pay to own it? That’s an interesting take on the whole commodity thing. I recently finished Yoko Ono’s “Grapefruit,” which retreads Irwin’s “the art is the experience” ground (and fine ground!) but took away the visual experience and the physical experience, leaving only what happens in the viewer’s (but what’s there to view?) imagination. Of course, you could actually use a pail to take the reflection of the moon from the water, and keep emptying until there’s no moon left. Since we’ve now got some imaginary water, let’s also dip a toe into the notion of fantasy: sometimes what is imagined is far more satisfying than the real thing.

Pretty soon I’m gonna be singing, “Ah want that old time a’ rock an’ roll.” (1)

Meanwhile, come to Einstein’s Bagels in Urbana, and I’ll make you a sandwich. (2)

(1) I picked the Risky Business video because I recently watched Cocktail and found the young Tom Cruise to be rather endearing.

(2) And yet I continue with my ongoing episodic performance, <em>Making Piece</em>. I am certain that what I’m doing  (I make sandwiches with care in hope that beauty will save the world) matters, beyond questions of what is or isn’t art: exercising care matters. Pretty much everybody else thinks I’m at work, and that suits me just fine.

Belatedly got a look at Barbara Kasten’s work. To be fair: I missed her show in Chicago, and am looking at images on the Internet. It certainly isn’t the same, and it’s worth thinking about what happens to art when it’s reproduced in the various formats that are so typical today. Art is mostly NOT viewed in person.

The artforum.com review is worth a read.

For me, the works die when I realize what I’m looking at. It’s just a photo of glass and light: the whole apparatus is given away and the magic is gone. The toughest pieces in the Studio Constructs series are the ones that are most defined, where there’s a quick shift from a graphic image to the light-and-material in the photograph. Subtlety is overtaken by sharpness. This is where Uta Barth’s work shines: I know exactly what I am looking at, but it doesn’t matter, because the photograph is about what the light is doing, not about the apparatus of illusion.

Back to Kasten. This is one that I am more okay with, from the Incidence series. (The images is from her website.) It holds up better because it offers several readings, and I’m not sure what I’m looking at. The combination of markmaking and material has something to do with that.

Earlier this fall I looked briefly at some of her other work. The hardest part was how dated the material and color and graphic themes could be, despite the creativity of using mirrors and theatrical lighting with existing architecture to create these odd, color-saturated, collage-like images. I can appreciate it, but I can’t get past the graphic qualities. You can find some of them here.

The Screen Cyanotypes sometimes are reminiscent of Moholy Nagy’s photograms, but more often make me think of abstract expressionism. A few settle into a timeless abstraction that makes me think of a rippled sea floor, but the iron-salt-blue of the cyanotypes can head into draped fabric. I appreciate the experimentation with material and process, but for me, most of it just feels like that, and doesn’t become something else.

A few fragments on a beautiful movie called The Window (amazon link). It’s in Italian, subtitled in English:

Visually rich, subtle, beautiful, and ordinary. Well-composed shots that are like moving stills. Abstract shots, landscape shots. Soft colors (the kind that I love). Rolling terrain. Lots of diffuse light. So much of the familiar and ordinary. A portrait, of sorts.

I look forward to watching it again.

Three thoughts in response to a post that follows a debate that discusses the questionable necessity of the MFA, particularly to this quote:

“Anything is art as long as you can justify it using the codified language of academia.”

Thought #1:
The “codified language of academia” is just that – a unitary language. It necessarily evolves more slowly than what it discusses. Academic art language can be a sort of elitism, and it can be a shorthand, a language understood by one’s colleagues in the field.

Thought #2:
My first reaction, based on my experience, is to recognize that art is as rife with its own bureaucracy as anything else. There are definite expectations for what shall be presented at critiques… and critiques happen according to the university calendar, not according to the artist’s own earnest process. Responding to pressure to “explain oneself” has a real potential to prematurely force an artist away from exploration, and the lostness and messes that come with the territory, and into a position in which everything is (at least apparently) understood.

(This is problematic but not insurmountable.)

Thought #3:
Kevin Hamilton, professor of New Media in UIUC’s A+D department, gave an illuminating lecture last year. He linked the constant need for rational justification of art to – what else? – the world of hard facts inhabited by science and, more importantly, business. Art seeks (at least sometimes) to be a respite and refuge from that world, but must, particularly at publicly funded universities, justify itself using the systems to which it might provide an alternative.

Addendum 1, thought #4:
That doesn’t mean the experience isn’t worth something – isn’t worth a lot – on a personal level. In some ways that sort of time dedication to something that ultimately is personal is a kind of holy place, and a hell of an opportunity. The resources I have in my professors are profound, and I am glad to have access to their support, knowledge, and experience. My interactions with other grad students provides me with peers, conversation, challenges, and insight. In terms of learning to see – in every sense of the word – I’m not sure there’s a better situation. And these sorts of critical conversations are something I thrive on, whether my work or others’. There is bullshit in this environment (and I have seen it) and that can become a risky position. But there are also people who are able to balance their support of an honest creative struggle with the unfortunate reality of the academic calendar.

Addendum 1, thought #5:
The article talks about an MFA in certain terms – mostly money and career success. What it suggests is that the people with drive and talent are going to make it, no matter what. By seeking to be objective, it avoids speculation about the current climate in the arts, and how the benefits to a young person in this age are different than 40 or 50 years ago when the contemporary scene was moving and shaking in a different way.

Addendum 1, thought #6:
And for myself, personally: I don’t have a BFA, I have a B. Architecture. This is a rather different position. And I’m doing conceptual art. The right environment for me to grow by leaps and bounds is a university.

A bit of time spent looking at her work (I’ve seen several in person) and some time spent reading interviews with her. Reviews can be interesting, but interviews let the artist have a voice. Here are a few things, neither objective nor complete.

This interview was my favorite of what I read. Her position is clear, the things she’s thinking about and the things she hopes others will think about, are clear. It gives me food for thought, reading her ideas as though criteria for what will work.

Her Truisms, an earlier piece, were anonymous and wheat-pasted in public places. UIUC has a copy in a conference room; they’re an amusing read, but eventually the amusement of even the sharpest one-liners wears thin.

I’ve seen some of Holzer’s work in person. An exhibition at the MCA Chicago and a piece at the Art Institute of Chicago stand out in my memory. They were both interesting, captivating. The former is moving text, the latter is simply a huge pile of text. (Bold curatorial decision by the AIC to put her work in the museum’s main entry.)

Something I particularly appreciate in Holzer’s work is the implicit existence of the audience. These are performative works, after a fashion, and in that I find an intersection with my own work. For me, words are sometimes going to be effective… it depends what I’m going after. If I have a big crusade, it’s in asking people to slow down and pay attention.

Some things I read and watched along the way:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/arts/design/13holz.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/past/2010/179
http://www.cheimread.com/artists/jenny-holzer/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Holzer
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/178606
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/holzer.html
http://blog.art21.org/2009/01/23/jenny-holzer-writing-difficulty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ5etOY5Zq0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y74WGcc084M