#art discussions

[shadowboxerinc]

Wknd Update: From The Met

6.17.23 Good Evening creative peeps! This weekend we will go into something different this time. This is like an art series. The Metropolitan Museum of Art features Arts and Activism: Environmental Protection and Contemporary Indigenous Art. For those interested, watch the over hour long video below… From the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s YouTube channel Join featured artists and the curator of…

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[wideeyedsmile]

I think the whole AI artwork thing would be a lot cooler if all the artwork added to the data bank was added consentually and all artists involved were credited. Like you could have individual artists submit their works for a consentual AI, and program it so any works that were used to create a given image were credited in some form. Maybe even have the credits coded in so it'd be impossible to steal art using the AI. Wouldn't that be so much cooler? Using AI to make a cool image, and then checking the code on the image to see which artists work went into it that way you can go "oh i like this art style, let me follow them! Maybe I'll buy a piece from them!".

(Note: I do not understand how coding works, so I do not know for a fact if you can embed credits into the code of a given image, but I think it'd be neat if you could)

[shadowboxerinc]

Wknd Updates from artnet

Wknd Updates from artnet

5.7.22 Last post for today from artnet. Found several videos from their YouTube channel. Watch these videos to peak your interests. Hope you liked these Art Angle videos from artnet. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, be safe, healthy, and blessed. Featured image: Pexel

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[aaminahshakur]

When Discourse Isn’t: Critical Discourse of Artist-Run Art Spaces

The following is the summary paper I wrote for a class following attendance at a Critical Discourse panel put on by ArtPrize Grand Rapids in September 2015. A recording of the event can be viewed here. 

The Unapologetically Midwest: Artist-Run Art Spaces Critical Discourse session was intended to discuss the unique experiences of spaces being run by individual or collective artists. The panelists represented different types of artist-run art spaces, from Jehra Patrick discussing running a non-profit gallery out of a major Minneapolis institution but doing so as a working artist, to the opposite type of situation with Mike Wolf talking about a DIY-community-based artist collective originally organizing within a highly-stigmatized neighborhood in Grand Rapids.  Robert Elmes discussed the grandiose plans for Galapagos Art Space in Detroit, involving large-scale space-taking and appropriation of vacated buildings, while Alexander Herzog spoke about the power of tiny spaces and community building by and for artists in Milwaukee.

There was, in fact, almost no actual conversation – the purported intent of “discourse” – at this event. Each panelist spoke at great length about their own artist-run art spaces but in a way that was effectively little more than mere marketing for their own project. No references to other similar projects or models were mentioned as also existing in the Midwest or as inspiring (or being inspired by) the present projects. Based on the descriptions given it would appear that artist-run spaces are simple to obtain, fund and maintain. The focus seemed to be on convincing the audience of this simplicity, as if there are no disparities of resources that determine who is able to engage in such activities.

Patrick’s project is run out of a major institution that does provide extensive funding. Elmes’ project has major foundational funding and takes advantage of impoverished areas and tax breaks offered for urban renewal through the arts. Herzog is managing a project that was begun by two tenured professors who are also studio artists and bring to the project their private financial support – while also remaining a small enterprise to control costs. Wolf’s project that was originally community-based and unfunded has now been swallowed by a major institution (KCAD) with additional support from a growing organization (Avenue For The Arts, via Dwelling Place) and has been able to do extensive fundraising. None of the panelists were blunt in grappling with the reality of their financial backing or the ways that might impact our definition of “artist-run”. Elmes was the most honest about the explicitly capitalist leanings of his project and beliefs that ownership of real estate made a difference – even if bought at the expense of the actual community in which artists are taking over. Wolf critiqued this without acknowledging that the DAAC is no longer the small independent organization with anarchist leanings it once was, but a part of mainstream institutional arts programs now, including the Avenue for the Arts whose catchphrase literally is “Artists Take Over”.

While Wolf raised the issue of artist-led gentrification, he conveniently did so as if it were not a critique also now being raised against the DAAC. In fact, the discourse was cut off “due to time” at about this point rather than allow Wolf to deepen the discussion. Going to questions, the issue was taken up by the first – and only – questioner, and therefore conversation was completely shut down rather than engage the issue openly, honestly or with any respect for the audience.

Plato’s idea that art can be used to influence people in negative ways against the state was not much in evidence – quite the opposite, despite their objections, the panelists and their projects are almost in league with the state. Art as a social justice critique was not up for discussion at this panel. The claims of artistic genius and self-absorbed value were in great evidence, with all the attendant arrogance that artists are necessary and “right” just by virtue of existing. Kant’s ideas about the artist as genius were, however, balanced by expectations of ethics and moral values. This is why the question of the ethics of gentrification, and indeed actual displacement as advocated by some panelists, would have been a useful addition to a true discourse.

Art for art’s sake, art as community for fellow artists without connection to the broader community, and the professionalization of the arts seemed to be prevailing attitudes. There was an almost palpable sneering at La Vie Bohème as an artistic lifestyle and a heavy focus on obtaining legitimacy. The lack of desire to address any type of political ramifications of art or any social justice models is, at best, irresponsible, but it does call to mind Nietzsche’s theory of art’s purpose being to bring pleasure to an otherwise bleak life. In the sense that the panelists’ projects mainly center artists hanging out with other artists and looking at each other’s art, Nietzsche may have had a point.

The singular highlight of the discourse that I took away towards my personal practice was Herzog’s recommendation that anyone can start a gallery or artist-led space by simply starting small. Literally suggesting cleaning out a shed or opening a room within one’s home as options, Herzog pushed the idea of small spaces being sustainable. Unlike The Suburban, however, this brought ideas to my mind of a genuinely community-centered practice. Speaking with a classmate after, we noted even as poor working student artists, we could conceive of opening a single room within our apartments. I envision a space that would be open to members of my neighborhood, encouraging the poor children and youth to engage with art and opening dialogue among adults with no formal arts education or higher-class cultural experiences. My space would not be “for artists” to maintain an insular scene, but available to all. The goal would be to encourage the “mixing of classes” and making art accessible and relevant to those who do not feel comfortable or welcome in mainstream art spaces.

Drawing on Tolstoy’s theory of art as a means of communication and holding a moral obligation to be accessible and understood by “everyone,” I envision artist-run spaces that decenter the artists themselves and instead genuinely build community and dialogue through the art.

[thelivelist]

Returning

I return to art museums

and to the places and the pieces

that move me. I think that saying that to most people would summon a unison and choral response of "Why?"

It's like anything really. Why do I re-watch my favorite movies and why do I find a song a play it on repeat for hours or even days at a time?

To this I response: Why do people continue to go to church?

That's all the same shit too. It's an experience derived from the same tradition and the same book. It's the same ideals and moral block by block fortress that is built reinforced and funded every Sunday.

I'd rather be at a museum on their weekly or monthly free admission day than at a weekly church service.

I go back to exhibits I've seen the week before because they may have something different to say to me or I may have missed something before.

It is not just the art, but the space it inhabits.

I have been museums and galleries, that host a bit of a stuffy, turned nose attitude towards their art and the space, but the best ones aren't like that.

A museum is physical poetry. It is an elastic, holy space. It's as blank, dense and complex as the canvas of life is. I'm always amazed when I enter a space that has gone from one exhibit, from one life, to another. 

I'm not saying that church is not beneficial to my life. I'm a preacher's kid, so I grew up in the church. I come from a family of stanch believers. I feel a strange warmth whenever I see light reflected through stained glass windows. Churches, as buildings as holders of our souls, like these bodies, spacial poetry as well.

I've just always found more connection to myself and to whatever creative force is guiding me or made me or is watching, when I'm in an empty sanctuary.

When you empty the container of the dogma, of the rules, of the social standards, societal pressures, of the boundaries, of the bloodshed, of the racism, of the sexism, of the homophobia, of the politics, of the finely tuned limited message of what is infinitely spiritual (but only in a certain direction) defined by one finite ancient book; in the empty sanctuary, I am full.

In front of the same painting, I saw last week, I am full and sure that if I am able to reach something that is illusive and that I feel must be shared, that I could be on these walls too and I could pull people in and let them go again.

When I communicate, I'm an artist; I'm a creator.

When I stir the invisible order of my own understanding of the universe, when I try to go deeper and connect, I am a mystic;

so I visit the cave adorned by kindred spirits again and again

because my bible is written on the road;

on the bottom of my feet as well;

it's broken up across the world;

and I go and return trying to put the pieces together.

[tinavaughn]

Is all art good?

Is all art good or should others decide what is good and what is not? What do you think?