Wasteland

Citation: Waste Land. Dir. Lucy Walker, João Jardim and Karen Harley. Almega Projects and O2 Filmes, 2010. Film.

Summary:

Waste Land is a documentary film that tells the story of Vik Muniz, a prominent Brazilian artist who lives and works in New York ,and who travels down to Brazil to visit one of the world’s largest landfills. While he’s there he embarks on a collaborative project with the people who collect and separate  the trash—known as pickers—and they make large scale works of art using the trash. The movie was inspiring when attention was focused on the lives, hardships, and aspirations of the pickers, but Vik Muniz is a rather self-centered artist (haha, what artist isn’t?!), and an argument could be made that he simply exploited the pickers for his own social do-gooder agenda, fed them false hope, and wrapped it all in a blanket of supposed altruism in order to continue his career as an artist. The film was disillusioning in this sense. 

Response:

This documentary was inspiring and moving to say the least, although I still am hesitant to claim that it is all because of Vik Muniz. I wasn’t inspired by him nearly as much as I was inspired by the incredible people he worked with (or should I say who he had working for him). At times I was on the verge of tears hearing the tales and hopes of the pickers, and at others I was disgusted by Vik’s first-world, high-end artist mannerisms and his phony understanding of third-world problems that he claims to have at the end of the film, sitting in his upscale New York loft, twirling a globe, claiming that he has no more desire for material possessions and that he is grateful for the “simple” things in life.  However, despite how disillusioning this documentary was, in combination with the book The Reenchantment of Art, I can say confidently that I am seriously re-evaluating my own artwork and my own aspirations as an artist and a person in general. I am feeling extremely uncomfortable in the sense that I do not feel that my art has as much of a purpose as it could given the amount of time and love and energy I invest into every piece. People tell me my art brings them varied amount of sensation, which is great, but at the end of the day it is art that I am making on a search for myself—which I believe is what I am expected to do at this point. Sure, there may be some underlying social-psychological commentary or meaning that can be drawn from my work, but I am now very inspired to do some research, become aware, become involved, and make work that can have a positive and greater impact…even if that impact lies in the concepts that fuel the work…it doesn’t have to be some grand production, and for me I don’t think that is possible at this point early on in my career, but it must be more than a self-gratifying search for self. Saying this, at the same time I cannot be a pretender and make art toward a means that I don’t fully understand, or as  fake altruism, or according to anyone else’s agenda.

 

Right now I am in the mode of creating first, analyzing second. My work all starts out as a visual narrative that I bring to life three dimensionally with clay. In the process of creating, I analyze, think, and find meaning within my work that I verbalize after the piece is constructed. This is working for me…or should I say it has been working for me…but now after reading The Reenchantment of Art and watching this film I feel rather at a standstill, and I don’t really know which way to turn. I don’t even know if I should be making objects anymore!??! Aaaa!!!

But I do have some questions about Wasteland:

Did Muniz actually ever pick trash? Or did he just minimally delegate the pickers he was “helping” from high up on the rafters?

Why did he feel he had to reference art-historical paintings in the projects he did with the pickers? I understand the Marat influence, but aren’t these people incredibly significant in their own right and so far detached from this “art-about-art” reference that it doesn’t make sense? Or does the concept lie in this detachment and the elevation of the mundane to the status of high-art? Did he do this in order to get into a museum/gallery/auction in order to make money? Is this ok if the money wasn’t for him?

Did he actually help these people or just feed them a sense of false hope? We can take what we want from all their testimonies but to me this movie was very tragic in this sense, however uplifting it was at times. 

Suzi Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art

Citation: Gablik, Suzi. The Reenchantment of Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991. Print.

Summary:

Gablik’s book calls for a new approach to art making, one that dismantles the modernist approaches of art, like disengagement and the minimalist absence of narrative and content, and calls for something far and beyond: an engaged, empathetic, participatory, and socially responsible approach to art. She also calls for an artistic revival of the things in our lives that currently too often dismissed because of our rational modes of perceiving the world: things like the cosmos, myth, and magic, the mysteries of the subconscious, transcendental and visionary experiences, the things that constitute soul, the idea that we are all interconnected with one another and the earth as well. She illustrates this by claiming, “the sickness of our time [nihilism] is not the absence of mythic vision, which is ever present in the unconscious, but our cultures denial that it exists, or has any significance for modern life” (56). Her book is about completely reframing our contemporary approaches to art-making, which in summary become “ ‘practices of the self’ that do not separate the self from society and withdraw it from social responsibility’ ” (quote from David Michael Levin, 65). 

Response:

 I think this book is the most refreshing inspiring and insightful book we’ve read this semester, and the one I can relate to the most. I am truly compelled by the kind of art Gablik is encouraging in this book, for many reasons, and especially how she illustrates that nihilism and disengagement are no longer valid or realistic solutions for art or for life in general. I have been thinking of many facets of this book since we have begun reading it and how/if these come into play in my own art making practices, including:

• ·         The difference between the disengaged artist and the participatory artist
• ·         The difference between art as an “end” and art as a “means to an end”
• ·         The idea that we as artists have tremendous social responsibility and we need to embrace this
• ·         We as artists are responsible for bringing to light the  things that others won’t
• ·         The idea that everything is interconnected
• ·         The idea that “ ‘being too rational is a handicap’ ” (42).
• ·         Activism in the name of art
• ·         Illustrating a problem without an idea of what a solution for it could be is futile
• ·         Art about art is “endgame” art, and needs to be something more conceptual than this
• ·         The idea that art can be celebratory (something I questioned in our first weeks of class), yet it must retain some evidence of conceptual importance.

As far as our class discussion goes, it seemed that people either totally agreed with Gablik or totally disagreed. I do obviously agree with her more than I disagree, but some interesting points were brought up in class concerning her use of language. We seemed to agree that her idea of empathy as a completely feminine characteristic was problematic, which I agree with. Anyone, male or female, is capable of empathy. We need to realize she uses this terminology, however problematic, to combat the modernist mode of art making, which she considers to be patriarchal and masculine, in exchange for what she considers to be a feminine approach, one that encompasses “empathy and relatedness to others” (63). I liked Michelle Lassaline’s idea of replacing the word “feminine” with the word “human” or “humanistic.”

It was also interesting that so many people were so turned off by her language, especially in the chapter in which she calls for the re-mythologizing of art, and the re-introduction of things like magic, spirituality, and the mysterious. Someone even referred to this part of the book being “way too granola.” We discussed the idea that we, as now rational and scientific beings, are conditioned to dismiss this mystical language…something I found very interesting. Gablik brought up the idea that we live in a time that can be considered “ ‘ the age of embarrassment about God, about the numinous…embarrassment about owning to our inner world…’” (53). I am not a religious person, but I am somewhat spiritual and hope to become more so. I really appreciated and was excited to see language like this being used in what could be considered a scholarly book, and found the idea of us being conditioned to dismiss this language extremely compelling. 

It was also interesting to see that she referenced Allan McCollum in her book, who was one of the artists I did my midterm presentation on. She brought up some stimulating points about his work that I appreciated thinking about, and which I didn’t previously think about while researching him for my presentation. Speaking about the supposition that art (specifically minimalist and modernist) has lost its ability to be narrative Gablik claims, “Life presents itself, in our current society, as an endless accumulation of meaningless spectacles,” (31).  She continues by criticizing McCollum’s work Plaster Surrogates, which are plaster casts of black frames and empty white backgrounds, by saying, “And so it is that art survives its own disappearance” (35).  I thought this to be curious, because I believe this is the exact point that McCollum cleverly sets out to make...even simulations of conventional art objects (a painting in a frame) are now considered art because this idea of what constitutes art is so numbing and broadened. I guess this is the bigger idea that she is criticizing, that art has unfortunately come to this point of art about art being nothing of conceptual importance…art coming to the point in which meaninglessness is the meaning…which is McCollum’s concept.  

The questions I am most asking myself at this point, a point in which my original intentions for wanting to make art are challenged, a point in which the carpet has been pulled from under me, are:

Gablik illustrates that art that is simply an artist’s “search for the self” (114) is no longer the answer, but for us as young aspiring artists in art school, shouldn’t this be the first thing we do in order to make art regarding issues we know we confidently care about??

For Gablik, can the element of self-expression still exist as a relevant factor to be considered or analyzed in the art making process? I believe that she would say it can, but it has to be taken beyond being simply this…social engagement and conceptual relevance are of more importance for Gablik.

Judith Richards, Inside the Studio

Citation: Richards, Judith Olch. Inside the Studio: Two Decades of Talks with Artists in New York. New York: Independent Curators International (ICI), 2004. Print.

Summary:

Inside the Studio: Two Decades of Talks with Artists in New York is an intimate collection of writings by artists functioning in New York during the 80’s and 90’s. It provides great insight of the personal opinions regarding art, art making, and the studio practices of some of the key artists working in New York at this time, and is a great companion text to have on hand for any young aspiring artists.

Response:

I think this book is effective in what it sets out to do. I enjoyed reading the first-hand accounts of the artists and prefer this format to an interview format, which the book could have easily been written in according to some agenda. Allowing the artists write in whatever format they choose allows for the greatest degree of originality and personal insight. However, Michelle Lassaline brought up a really interesting point in our class discussion, which I did not pay attention to while reading the book: each artist first has their work represented in a photo followed by a writing excerpt, and all the artists are represented in a photo after their respective writing samples. This format totally has the ability to alter our perceptions of the artists, and allows us as readers to disregard whatever the artists have written, and instead judge and formulate preconceptions of them by first looking at these photographic representations. I agree with her that I wish the artists had not been visually represented in the book, because there were some artists who I didn’t read about simply because I judged them by their artwork or by their personal image…which obviously isn’t a good thing! If the book consisted merely of the artists’ writing it could have been more effective, and would require more effort from the reader to dig and explore.  

As far as our presentation assignment goes, the three artists I have chosen to present are: Duane Michals, a photographer and writer, Amy Sillman, an abstract painter, and Allan McCollum, an artist who works with a variety of materials, whose work is prominently sculptural installations. I chose these artists because their art was relatively appealing to me at first glance, and also because I wanted to focus on artists who work with mediums that I am not personally very familiar with. Below are some brief notes and images taken from my PowerPoint presentation on these 3 artists.

Duane Michals:  

Duane Michals has influenced me a great deal as an artist. From what I’ve read about him from Inside the Studio, interviews, and other books, I can agree with a lot of what he thinks regarding art, art making, and life in general.

• ·         He is a photographer most known for confronting, challenging, and overcoming  the conventions, limitations, and expectations of photography in a variety of ways.

• ·         What seemingly most fascinates Michals is the belief that because of its democratic and documentary nature, the camera and the photograph are representative of reality, with the ability to capture what one sees with one’s own eyes. However, and agreeably so, to Michals reality is much more complex than the physical world we are presented with: reality lies within us as human beings, and to Michals photography is a way to make visual the intangible things we feel and experience on the inside.

• ·         Michals also challenges the conventions of photography by adding written text on or alongside his photographs, believing that the photograph itself is not always sufficient in communicating the photographer’s intent. By doing this, he adds a dimension of poetic intimacy, mortality, and humanity, as the text seems to be personalized to each individual viewer, and reveals a sense of vulnerability while voicing emotions that are too often pent-up.  

• ·         Michals realized the potential of a camera to record a false appearance of reality… “a tool for invention rather than a straightforward recorder of appearances” …and that appearances should not be taken as representative of truth. At the same time he realizes that we place a huge importance on the camera for the purpose of verifying reality.

 

 In context, Michals’ work related to ideas we have explored in the class such as those in Ways of Seeing by Berger. When Michals adds accompanying text to his images, he challenges our preconceptions of that image and tinkers with the belief that photographs are representative of truth, when in fact they are just simulations of reality. What we see is affected by what we want to see…what we see is affected by what we read…there may exist tension between the two, and the words that are written on Michals’ photographs may clash with what we see/want to see/saw before reading these words.

Amy Sillman:

• ·         It was difficult to find much information on her beside her website and reviews from art critics who only talk about the formal and aesthetic qualities of her abstract work, having to do with color, balance, line weight, gesture, etc. It is difficult to contextualize her artwork because of this. A lot of what she says her artwork is about does not translate for me unless I read her statements or titles telling viewers what it is they’re seeing. It’s not that I don’t like her work, but to me it isn’t much more than a bunch of colors energetically painted on to canvas…I feel bad saying this for some reason, but f I had to tell someone what her wrtwork was really about I would be at a loss for words.

• ·         For me this brings up the questions of: in a time that majorly emphasizes a shift toward the conceptual importance of artwork, concept being something that is becoming more important than the art product itself, what are the challenges that abstract artists face? Can they default on their choice of making abstract work in the sense that form can outweigh concept? Is abstract art a more true form of art in the sense that it heavily relies on emotion, feeling, and subjectivity?

Allan McCollum:

• ·         Applying strategies of mass production to handmade objects, McCollum’s labor-intensive practice questions the value of the unique work of art.

• ·         Although his art may be easily dismissed with the notion that his installations default on a shock factor---because of the dizzying quantities produced for each exhibition—I believe their remains a specialness in the sense that everything is unique and is made by hand although it appears to be mechanically produces…there remains a human element that at first appears unfathomable, but that exists as the driving force of his artwork nevertheless.

• ·         He embraces the notion of individuality among the masses, and that although the individual may easily be lost or overlooked in the context of the whole, the individual reigns supreme, although its status may be challenged or trivialized. 

In context, McCollum’s work relates to the idea of mechanization and the resulting loss of individuality because of it…Walter Benjamin and The Work of Art in the Mechanical Age of Reproduction. Although McCollum works in a "mechanized" way, each of his pieces, are made by hand and each are unique although they do not appear to be at first glance.

 

E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops

Citation: Forster, E.M. “The Machine Stops.” The Oxford and Cambridge Review, 1909. Print.

Summary: 

“The Machine Stops” is an ominous short story that illustrates the downfall of a future dystopia. Civilization is located under the earth, and is one in which humans reside in isolation in hexagonal-shaped rooms, where everything of concern—which isn’t much—is at their disposal at the press of a button. Everything in this world is controlled by and revolves around the omnipresent Machine, including the cycle of night and day and the very air they all breath. This is the story of something rare within this world—a dissenter—named Kuno, who finds his own individual way (considered heresy) to venture to the surface of the Earth, and thereafter predicts the downfall of the Machine to his mother, who like everyone else, is an oblivious worshipper of this man-made contrivance that eventually malfunctions and brings about the demise of civilization. This demise is what in reality will pave the way for the start of a new and more pure humanity, a heaven of sorts, exemplified as Kuno claims “ ‘I have seen them, spoken to them, loved them. They are hiding in the midst and the ferns until our civilization stops. Today they are the Homeless [meaning the deceased]- Tomorrow…’”  

 

Response:

First off, I was surprised that I had never read or even heard about this short story until now…it is something that everyone in my generation should be paying attention to…not to mention it would make a terrific movie if done effectively. Secondly, I thought this story was a great dovetail to all the theory and criticism we have been recently been reading about technology. It is rather prophetic in the sense that although it was written before everything we have read about technology thus far, it creatively illustrates all the fears and hesitancies theorized in the other readings that were all written in the past 30 years: the fear of obsolescence, the absence of direct experience, the inability to formulate original ideas…in a sense, the loss of what it means to be truly fulfilled as a human. This story references something that was brought up in Carr’s The Shallows: “You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say space is annihilated, but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have lost part of ourselves.” I have already ranted about this fear of obsolescence and the loss of sensitivity to even realize what we have lost in exchange for what we have created, and although I am not going to rant about it again I will just say that it is something that I find very compelling, very unnerving, and something that’s worth a great deal of investigation.