Another take on the notion of 'discipline'

We've been talking about academic disciplines, about the space between them, about how they might be constructively merged or usefully kept separate. But there are other ways to conceive of a discipline, as Lewis Hyde does in his book, Trickster Makes this World. I want to quote him at length:

Popular conceptions of [John] Cage tend not to see that for him chance operations were a spiritual practice, a discipline. One kind of courting of chance is exactly the opposite of discipline, of course - the young person putting herself at risk, the gambler on a spree, the speculator playing with a relative's money. Cage was a playful man, but these are not his uses of chance, as he himself struggled to make clear. In recommending non-intention, he once explained, "I'm not saying, 'Do  whatever you like,' and that's precisely what some people now think I'm saying...The freedoms I've given in [a musical score] have not been given to permit just anything that one wants to do, but have been invitations for people to free themselves from their likes and dislikes, and to discipline themselves."

In many ways, the discipline Cage recommended was as stringent as that of any monk on a month-long meditation retreat. He asked that intention be thwarted rigorously, not occasionally or whimsically. he worked hard at chance. He would literally spend months tossing coins and working with the I Ching to construct a score. It took so much time, he would toss coins as he rode on the New York subway to see friends. One famous piece lasted less than five minutes but it took him four years to write. And when the piece was finished, it was not meant to be an occasion for improvisation; it was meant to be played within the constraints chance had determined. "The highest discipline is the discipline of chance operations...The person is being disciplined, not the work." The person is being disciplined away from ego's habitual attitudes and toward a fundamental change of consciousness. This is Cage's version of Duchamp's "forgetting the hand" (142-43).

So perhaps another thing that interdisciplinarity does is diminish the power a discipline holds over us. It maybe our constant want to be free that ("to do whatever you like") that drives us toward interdisciplinarity, and our reluctance to "be disciplined" that drives us from our aesthetic or technical homes.

The non-show!

Is this a show or an event? Do an event can be a show or a show an event? What ever it was my little conclusion of an entire year of work in my studio. Lets not forget that the street became my studio for the second half of the year! I have to admit that I struggled a lot with this idea of bringing back into 4 white walls the information provided by my outdoor studio. After setting-up an arrangement in the gallery space for the review, I realized that the DISPLAY had noting to do with the actual work!

Why do I have to present something for my these show? The show will be NO SHOW! That was my reflexion when I moved to Philadelphia in august. I finally considered my thought of the time, and the non show became a new intervention. I decided to act the exact same way I act when I go out with the heads: arriving on-site without telling the assistance that this will append!

I would also like to share with you guys my conversation with Sean Stoops, an independent curator, introduced by Gerard - thank you Gerard - I basically talked about my work, my process and my non expectation every time I go out with the heads! I did not try to talked differently then when I talk to someone in the street, but be specific in my approach of the street and my interpretation of it. I am curious to hear what Sean as to say about my reflexion and the way I have been expressing it to him.

Hope you enjoyed the NON-SHOW! I really appreciated your participation to all of you and every time I go out with the heads - IN in this case - I get new information in order to create something more sophisticated in the future.

Louis-Pierre's non-show becomes a show...

Gabriel started referring to the lights inside Louis' heads as 'brains' ("Daddy, ths one lost his brain!")

Gabe and Leslie went for height, but heads tended to roll, not stack...

Louis-Pierre was the consummate host - eager to hear any interpretations of the work...

Adults seemed to prefer to participate by documenting. Dan was very involved in this task.

Last class discussion made me think a lot. After talking about Menand's Interdisciplinarity and Anxiety made me re think about my question about interdisciplinary in an Institution. Through our my 2 years in Tyler, I have been thinking about where I stand as an artist. Going to classes upstairs at the painting department and having many many studio visits, I didn't understand why people were asking me to identify who I was as an artist.

I felt a lot of overlaps in my work that was about printmaking and painting. The dialogues between the two departments were complicity different. I knew I had a stronger connection with printmaking but I wasn't making any "prints" in my work and the painter had a strong connection with my painterly work. I enjoyed the classes and continued taking classes upstairs but really didn't know why or where I stand. That is when I started to think about interdisciplinary. Why do we divide departments when the contemporary art dialogues doesn't necessary require which departments we had our degrees on.

I have been asking myself this semester "why am I doing what I am doing?". I have certain habits in my practice and never questioned them. I simply just made work. My thought for right now is that I have been avoiding the most basic stuff in my work. Meaning I wasn't covering my basic elements. I narrowed down a lot of elements. After our last class and the discussion about Menand's Interdisciplinarity and Anxiety made me realize that I need to redefine how my disciplines exist in my practice. Going to Tamarind Institute was to learn and master the medium of lithography and coming to graduate school afterward, I didn't need question about the medium anymore. Therefore I didn't need to go over any basic learning of the material that I was interested in. My attention was to develop my practice in graduate school and making more work related to the meduim helped me develop my creative thinking. I slowly recognized my habits of making. The process of physically engaging myself, using the same surface and materials was the main overlaps that I never questioned but never ignored.
The work that I have been making recently allowed me to recognize some fetishes of printmaking practice.
Krauss's Sculpture in the Expanded Field made me rethink about my relationship between printmaking. It allowed me to accept where I am coming from and how I should take printmaking in to a positive practice.Learning the discipline is very important (at least in my art practice) because I took me to where I am right now. Last class made me think about where I can go with my work.

Interdisciplinary

Big discussion Friday around the subject of interdisciplinary in the context of the institution. What can bring or not an open program in a school of art ratter then a set-up like Tyler where we can find specific departments? I was explaining in class the way the educational system works in France: you come with an idea and they guide you in the good department in order to realize it.
That sound to me like the best way to create, but I am aware that it could be very difficult in an institution like Tyler to manage this kind of system. It could be hard to financially plan a system that allowed students to flip from department to department, but more creative!
I would like to thanks Gerard for this discussion, it opened my mind to another position that I didn't thought before. I don't know if I am an artist, a painter or a print maker, but I am me, so far!

Sculpture In The Expanded Field

This weekend my parents visited me for the first time since I started the MFA program. Both had been to Philadelphia before, but neither of them had spent so much time on the fringes of the academic art world.

The weekend started out with a visit to the Tyler Grad Thesis Shows at the Tower Gallery. I was excited that so many of my peers would be in one space at one time so my parents could meet them. That is where they were encountered by their first few instances of obstacles of understanding. Asking people what department they were in and then what there work was proved confusing. "I am in the photography department, but my work is sculptural." "I am a painter, but I am mostly making installation." "I am in the fiber department, but I mostly do soft sculpture." If everyone was doing sculpture, you can imagine their surprise to see that the sculpture MFA candidate in the exhibition showed two videos.

We talked to another sculpture grad about this at length. Vanessa said, "Yeah, the only one in our department who is really making traditional sculpture is Tim." It sounded like the rest of them were focusing on video.

Back at school when I guided my parents on a pretty good tour of the facilities, there were even more examples of the kind of art that Mr. and Mrs. Shealey just could not have expected. And upon finding the Wolgin bust, my stepfather said with some relief, "Now, this is sculpture."

True. My parents are NOT members of the art world, but they do not live underneath rocks, either. I think what they questioned is completely valid and one that we, in the middle of the ebb and flow of art discourse forget: why call something sculpture that is something else? Why not just call it video. (For example).

In the essay "Sculpture In the Expanded Field," Rosalind Krauss discusses how sculpture has morphed in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. She uses diagrams to show how maybe sculpture should be freed from certain other artforms and they should have their own name: marked sites, site construction, and axiomatic structures. Including sculpture, these artforms are varying degrees of landscape and "not landscapes" and architecture and "not architecture." To be honest, these designations seem a bit dated to me and, if it is helpful, I am happy to have them included as viable alternatives to calling everything sculpture. But I don't think that they get to the heart of the issue--the heart that is still very much beating today.

Krauss, in the beginning of her essay, writes of the broadening definition of sculpture in 1979, "We had thought to use a universal category to authenticate a group of particulars, but the category has now been forced to cover such a heterogeneity that it is, itself, in danger of collapsing." I believe that renaming facets of art and various trends within art (like site constructions) do not solve the problem of this collapsing. And perhaps the collapsing is not the problem, but the inevitable sign of things to come.

Interdisciplinarity is what most contemporary artists want for themselves. One should not forget that the context of my story began in an art school environment where people have to apply to specific departments. But, once they are out in the world, away from the academy, they are not necessarily going to say "I am a photographer" if in fact they are mostly making sculpture.

That said, these words begin to lose some meaning over time if we allow the boundaries between disciplines to be so malleable. My suggestion is, however, that the art should trump our concern for vocabulary and ability to discuss these things. Like Krauss says towards the end of her essay, our art lexicon is "organized instead through the universe of terms that are felt to be in opposition within a cultural situation" and that specific mediums do not matter so much. It is when we challenge the structure (in this case definitions) that we make the most interesting and progressive work. When you ask a Tyler grad, for example, what their deparment is and what there work is like, they are giving you answers that have to do with what is going on with their art practice right then, in that moment in time. They can use mediums to describe the situation, but ultimately, if they are like the majority of us, they cannot be defined even that rigidly longterm. They might be making sculptural altars today and will be painting tomorrow. Or maybe not painting.

It might make for more confusion with artists' parents, but I think they can handle it. And I think, by the end of the weekend with my parents, they were enjoying the play they could have in talking about art.

My Presentation to Foundations

I wanted to tell you about my presentation to Katie Murkin's foundation class before I completely forget everything.

Katie's class was finishing up a unit on color theory and when I asked her if there was a way I could gear my presentation to what the class was studying, she asked if I would create a presentation about how I use color in my work. The challenge seemed initially easy: my work is colorful, therefore there MUST be a lot to talk about.But the truth is I really hadn't talked about the color in my work before. Color had always been what I considered a self-indulgence--I printed the color combinations I liked. Of course there was room to talk about this in my presentation, but I knew there had to be more to it than that.I asked some of my students in my silk-screen course what I should talk about. They said that after an intensive color theory unit, they are almost afraid to approach color. Thus, my goal was to inspire the Foundations students to have fun with color.

Basically, I organized my presentation around three areas: color inspiration, historical or contextual reference, and emotional utility. First, like I said, I use the colors I do because I am attracted to them. When I see other artwork, and there is an amazing color combination, I remember it and try to apply it to my work. This is what I called color inspiration.

Second, I talked about my academic and personal interest in the civil rights/peace/anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s and the art that came out of that time. Like protest art, my work is attempting to be socially conscious. I talked about my reverence of Sister Corita Kent. She used some methods that the class would be familiar with: complimentary colors make something POP and get the attention of the viewer, even if the image is one that might make people want to avoid, like this one depicting a Newsweek cover. Or with regard to her poster that has a Camus quote in red white and blue. Kent is using a common color combination to make an association for the viewer. It says, "Apply this quote to you and your feelings about the United States." But it is her other posters, with their bright, cheerful color combinations that really inspire me. These pallets unify and welcome the viewer. They do not push him or her away.

Additionally, I come from a rock n' roll poster background. I showed posters of the artists from Providence that have inspired me: Pete Cardoso, Darren Johnson, Xander Marro, and Brian Chipendale. Each artist uses his or her own style, but the bright, unorthodox color pallet continues in there. So, in this way I showed how protest posters and rock n' roll posters and their color pallets influence my work because they are part of my background.

And the lastly, I talked about how I came to realize that the pallet I loved aesthetically and the pallet that was rooted in the political movements I find so inspiring was also very effective in transmitting my artistic agenda. I came to realize I could use these unabashedly wild colors with my political messages and people were more likely to engage with my work BECAUSE the colors made the topics more accessible and less serious. Wild, playful colors softened the seriousness of the message. They introduced a certain amount of humor, especially when they were used in the context of a serious environmental or social problem. In this way, I started to see that color was a tool I employed.I believe the presentations went well. Katie was surprised how on topic it was with what she was teaching. Students seemed interested (although shy) and everyone seemed to follow along with what I was saying. But more than anything, the exercise of thinking about how color plays a part in my work helped me to better understand myself as an artist.

Intelligent life at other graduate schools

 (NOTE: I received this announcement from Ricard Torchia this morning; if you are free I hope you can attend)

The Graduate Student Association of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is pleased to announce the Second Annual FOURTH WALL PANEL REVIEW, a unique public event designed to shed light on the professional contemporary art world.

The panel brings together a distinguished critic, artist, and curator to publicly review and discuss digital images and written statements submitted anonymously by the MFA thesis students from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art's Graduate Program. The afternoon concludes with the selection of three artists the panel determines are most competitive for residencies, exhibitions and other professional opportunities. The event provides its audience with an unprecedented opportunity to gain a better understanding of the criteria and selection processes for grants, residencies, and teaching positions that usually occur behind closed doors.

Encouraged by the resounding, standing-room only response to last year’s inaugural event, this 2010 version will present three new, world renown jurors to help carry this developing Academy tradition forward. Join us as we collapse the fourth wall between artists and the people who are able to help their careers develop.

Panelists:

• Carol Diehl, Artist and Critic
• James Hyde, Artist
• Robert Cozzolino, Curator of Modern Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts


April 20, 2010
1:00 to 4:00 PM
Hamilton Auditorium
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art
Broad and Cherry Streets Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Housekeeping

Dates for next two class meetings:

Friday, April 23, 12:30pm to see and discuss Louis-Pierre's show
Thursday, April 29, after 3:30 pm to see and discuss Myungwon's show
please confirm that these times work for you!

Next, for Leslie's benefit, I would appreciate it if you'd post a few sentences each in response to the readings we discussed. Since Jose and Myungwon didn't read the "Sculpture in the Expanded Field," I would like to post your reactions to the conversation around it. And since Louis-Pierre was new to "Interdisciplinarity and Anxiety", please post a wrap-up on that.

Next, we talked about having an end-of-the semester dinner at my place. I'm floating Thursday night May 6. How does that sound? Myungwon's suggestion that this be a potluck was very generous and could make it more fun.

Finally, I wanted to thank you for a fascinating conversation yesterday and for the very interesting posts that have popped up on the blog in the last week (and especially for the pictures that accompany them!). I will post comments on each post this weekend, so take a look when you get a minute...

Thanks! - g

I've been posting about how printmaking for me had been a TOOL in order to disseminate my message or dialogue in older posts. I can even tell that my message had change trough years or even better, it had been sophisticated, but at last in it root is mainly the same. In order to deliver this dialogue I've done some graffiti, music etc. Printmaking I had found by now its the medium that describe and contribute more to the context of my work and even farther I understand it also develop the dialogue to the contemporary social status. And this is rooted in all the discussion we had on all the specific tools printmaking bring to the artist, replication, low cost production etc. So at last it does not only contribute my work aesthetically but conceptually.

I preferred to be called artist it this answers one of the first questions.

Art by itself do not have attached any subject or concept in it "natural" essence. In other words art is a neutral system with the opportunity to develop its own codex trough an individual experience. One its the subject who molds the medium through cognitive process.

I've done some sculpture, ceramic, painting, performance, digital media, etc. Like I said printmaking at certain point answered to my reality.

Also right now I'm in the moment of asking myself how my subject can be stringer with other medium in specific circumstances? Well it started to change to a more 3dimensional state.

So at the end my stance its whenever my work and a medium fit and share the context of its subject. So now I'm an artist and who knows if other discipline at last brings something to my personal subject I''l take my chances and make another jump, at last art is the tool I'm using right now but the times may change maybe may the tools.

Louis's heads in the park

Louis' heads at Norris Park .

What if printmaking.......

..was not existent anymore? I would feel OK with that but I would find a way to multiply. The multiple is a key component of my work and this, probably because of printmaking. No, so far I have never been interested in the way prints were made but by the result they bring to the work. Like Leslie mentioned in her post, we use silkscreen to print on walls and litho to obtain multiples values, but if we invert those techniques and find a solution to print on the wall with a litho stone? The work would become something else and this is what I am looking for in my work .

Also by extending the surface to a 3 dimensional one, I need to be aware of the kind of material I'm using. What I am realizing is that several print makers will focus on a technique and incorporate it to all their subjects. Do the work become more about the technique or the actual subject? If the gesture is your main goal, like the action painting in the 50's, then do the subject painted is really important or if the action is the subject? I think the action is the subject and today, with sculpture and mix media, we need to be aware of the material we use and if we print, what is the imagery we are using. We are no longer in the 50's and people outside the art world as references about everything!

I feel that the challenge is bigger, but also animate my creativity by questioning, not just the subject, but the support and the technique I am using to express my idea.

If Printmaking were outlawed tomorrow.... than....

If Printmaking were outlawed tomorrow, what about your own practice? Would you be able to continue in another medium?

I think I mention last week at the PMA that I don't consider myself as a print-maker. I have been thinking about this question about myself being considered as a print-maker or as an artist throughout 2 years of graduate school.I fell in love with printmaking when I was in undergraduate and the story goes on very cheesy(which doesn't need be written).
Anyways, I slowly realized that I was drawn in the the process of making an image. Lithography was the tool for me at the time and therefore I made my decision to move to ABQ, NM to learn more about the medium. Going to Tamarind was one of the best experience that I had in America.
Coming from Tamarind, I had a lot of questions for myself in my art practice.
Tyler made me think about why am i doing what i am doing. I don't have my final answer for the question but I do know that I am a very process oriented person. I am not only very attracted to the lithographic images but also the making(process) of image. However, I realized I wasn't really interesting the idea of reproduction and multiples. It was about the making and printmaking was the tool for me to make the making. I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for printmaking. The way of thinking about the materials and surfaces and the idea of physically engaging myself through the process of making are the overlaps that I have in printmaking and my current works.
The physicality of the black pigment (Xerox toner) and how it creates an image on a plastic surface (Myler) are the things that I am working with. I don't make prints for my own art practice, however, printmaking will be very very very missed if it were outlawed tomorrow.

Readings for Friday, April 16

Sorry that it took me a couple of days to scan the readings, but they are now online at the Readings page of the class site...Remember, we agreed that Leslie and Louis-Pierre would cover the Krauss and that Myungwon and Jose would cover the Menand.

Also recall that the Krauss was written 30 years ago about the way sculpture was changing to incorporate media and processes not ordinarily associated with it. When you read it, you might subconcisously slip in the word printmaking when ever you see sculpture. You may want to try to find analogies for the

Lastly, recall that Menand is writing about trends in higher education in general. He uses an art analogy on p. 112, but, for the most part, he is writing about the relations between a desire for academic expansiveness and a responsibility to perpetuate one's area of study into the next generation. Again, you need to focus what he says on what we're discussing.

So what's your job?

Each pair will summarize the article for the other pair, connecting it to the topic of the seminar. You may want to illustrate your summary with images that clarify the connections you draw.

In summarizing, you will pose and address questions about the articles. Your questions might run along the lines of Krauss observes specific other disciplines being annexed by sculpture, what other disciplines are being annexed by printmaking and how? or The "expanded field" of sculpture allows us to recognize some fetishes of sculpture practice that had been overlooked (the base, for instance) - what are the unexamined fetishes of our practices? or Menand's analysis of academic disciplines leans heavily on the role of outside certifying bodies to perpetual disciplinary traditions...do such things exist in our practice and how are they supported? or Do Menand's assumptions about the training of professors apply in our field of study?

If printmaking were abolished...

Gerard proposed a little mental exercise for us in Print Seminar. He asked, "If printmaking were abolished--if it were outlawed tomorrow--what would you take from the medium as you make other things?"

The question reminded me that Gerard had recently given me the personal challenge of making something that is not at all printed. Because printmaking is so process driven, and because, as young grad students, we all tend to make everything start to finish, when I am working on one project, I am thinking about the next. Given that I am usually printing and watching the effects of the prints, I have ideas that are print-based. But I liked the challenge and I had wanted to make a mold and create multiple three dimensional versions of my circumcised kosher dills. So, one thing I think will always pop into my mind is multiples. Multiples are closely related to prints because they rely on the idea that there is power in the mass. While I think there is something exciting in multiples, and while I imagine I would experiment with molds and making multiples if printmaking were abolished, I don't think I would spend my time trying to transform other mediums into printmaking.

The reason why? Printmaking, in particular when you think about which printmaking technique you want to/have to use, is a group of processes that give you certain effects when utilized to their fullest potential. You want continuous tone? Lithography. You want to print on the wall? Silkscreen, etc.

What I would take from printmaking is the desire to learn a process and apply the strengths of that process to my work. Perhaps that means I would spend my time in the craft world, learning sewing techniques, glass blowing and flame work, or how to cast something out of clay. And all the while, learning these techniques, I would be thinking about how I could apply them to my greater artistic point of view. What can I say with glass that is not said quite as well in any other medium?

I think above all, printmaking, with its emphasis on technique, has made me someone who desires to master a process and then apply it to her artmaking. Then again, maybe that is who I am to begin with and it is the reason I fell so in love with printmaking. Whatever the answer, one thing is true for me as an artist--I enjoy knowing a process, I enjoying learning and doing. As an artist, I am both a point of view and a maker.

Initiated vs realized

We know the names of people who initiated the works in this show, but seldom those who realized them.

Seeing Pepon's work and questioning the way his piece was made and through which company or technician doesn't distort my perception or the meaning of this piece. I would ratter see a achieved piece created by the artist and crafts by a professional than the artist trying to be technician of multitask. Than I question the essence of the work: did the artist enjoyed more the process of fabrication than the subject matter?
I can compare this position as a car company who as THE designer of X model, but not the one who put the pieces all together. Is he still the creator of the vehicle? I would definitely say yes and I think that in my practice, if I could afford having a specialist helping me to realized a piece, I would go directly with this option. I had an EXPERIENCE during the break with the framing of my prints. I wanted to save money and build my own frames, but I ended up paying more because I was unable to do a job as good as a specialist in framing.

I think that I need to understand my limits, and accept that certain things cant be crafts by my hands. If a specific subject need a specific type of material that I cant manipulate, I would ratter find someone realizing it for me than changing the material of it to a type that I can manipulate. It changes the entire meaning of the piece.

Here is the best example I can give you so far about my personal practice, by putting the heads outside and asking people to display them the way they perceive the work, they realize something I cant do!

I would like to share the images with you guys, but I do not know who to post them, next week if you can help me I will share.

Week 12 Question

Today we visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art and looked at work that emphasized conceptual strategies over technical processes. Or did it?

What I want to hear from you this week is about the importance of non-medium specific, conceptual information in your own work. If printmaking were outlawed tomorrow, what about your own practice would you be able to continue in another medium?

As a reminder - next week we'll talk about some readings about interdisciplinarity. I will email you when they are available on the website. Have a great weekend.

Check this out

Jose Roca posted on Philagrafika's blog, and I thought you might be interested. Here's a blip...

I am writing this post in relation to Roberta Fallon's article calling for the establishment of a Philadelphia Biennial. I must say that I agree with Roberta in most of what she says. But I also think that Philagrafika 2010 is exactly what she is calling for.
Philagrafika is an international Biennial-type event (in our case, Triennial), that brings together local, national and international artists. As other events of this type, it showcases the local scene (artists, curators and institutions) to the large public that visits the event, and prompts collaboration with the international artists that come and work here. It is a proven fact that in those cities which have a recurring international art event the local artistic community thrives, because of the exposure to new and challenging art, and by the relationships and working partnerships that usually make part of the implementation of large shows.

Virtuosity, contributing or not?

Personally I understand, that the point where virtuosity and subject matter intersect is where we can say each one of these two elements contributed one to the other. Of course the subject matter must be addressing contemporary question at the time in order to establish a successful dialogue.

I’m going to start with the artist Christiane Baumgartner and her large format woodcuts, at the PAFA exhibition. I personally like the work. The inclusion of a singular type of carving that open the door for a quick allusion to any kind of communication media (specially television), make a contribution in a way so precise and specific, that is hard for the message to get lost between the work and the spectator. Woodcut, which is a medium with a lot of political history and content, and also because of it own process. This at the same time making an intersection onto the new ways of looking and understanding visual images, television. Even when the image the artist used is not completely contemporary, the reading one can do from it still is, still commenting about the warfare status in which we are sink.

The main fact; the artist is able to do this without using a woodcut just by a simple manipulation in some graphic design software and then printing it from a plotter. But the medium ads certain historic aspects, or maybe talks more about the reality or situation of the artist, and all that is understandable trough the process exposed. But definitely this two aspects virtuosity and subject matter helped each other in the conversation of this work.

Would this exhibit be worth $30 dollars?

Would this exhibit be worth $30 dollars to show a friend? If so, what justifies the price of admission and if not, what would make it worth that?


I thought PAFA show was put together well and lot of works were exhibited combining the 1st and 2nd floor. But was it worth paying 15 dollars per person to go see the work? As much I like the exhibition I do think it's over priced.

I consider myself as a reasonable person. I support the "arts" and when it comes to paying for admission at a show I think about who is the money for and where does the money actually go? In this case at PAFA, I am not that comfortable paying 15 dollars to enter the show.

First off, I thought it was strange that the other Graphic Unconscious Shows didn't ask for admissions and PAFA is the only one so far. Than where is the money going?
I'm not that familiar with PAFA as an Institution but from what saw from the tags on the work and of course the show, it seems like PAFA is a very conservative institute. Like what Leslie said the show was traditional comparing to the other shows and the way that they labeled the artist's work, we can tell that PAFA likes to keep it within their own family.
How do I feel about this as an outsider to the Institution and am I willing to pay and support this? Personally, after seeing the museum next door and looking around the school I have doubts about how the admissions are used.

Also, the propose for Philagrafika was to give people opportunities to rethink about the propose of printmaking. Even though, PAFA had the most traditional approach to printmaking, the works were still showing and pushing the limits of a what printmaking can be. No longer confined to drawers, no longer an absolute isolated technical specialty. Being a part of Philagrafika, PAFA should have lowered the admissions to less than 5 dollars or donation based admission(pay what you want). It's a very sensitive matter when it comes to money and attracting people to come see a show. Considering the propose of the Philadgrfika show, PAFA is defiantly having their own stand on being the "Golden Getto".

So than is the show really worth 15 dollars? As much as I enjoyed the show I don't think it was worth 15 dollars. MOMA general admission is 20dollars (students-$16) and it is still a lot to ask from a museum. However, MOMA has a lot more to offer to the audiences than PAFA. Meaning that there are more artwork and knowledge of creativity that you can get out of (most of the time). Also, the money might go for advertisement to invite people to be a part of the art world. What I'm trying to say is that MOMA has more propose where the money goes.

How would the 15 dollars would make it worth it? Giving more opportunities to the people that has no connection to the institution. Personal connection, touch, and opportunity to the "others".An artist's talk and have a printmaker come and explain the process to the visitors.

What do you gain and what do you lose?

Gerard asked: Whether you like it or not, by virtue of your graduate degree, your practice is at least partially situated in printmaking. What do you gain by that and what do you lose?

On the heels of the annual Southern Graphics Conference, I feel attached to the printmaking world in a way I might not feel as intently otherwise. We are a small bunch of nerds who, if there were costumes, might gladly show up to the convention dressed up as cans of ink and rollers. That said, when I walk into the PAFA Graphic Unconscious Show, I feel a little less a part of something.

I think this feeling is part of the answer to what you gain and what you lose by situating yourself in the printmaking world. On the one hand, the printmaking world is one which addresses aptly "concepts like accessibility, democratization, dissemination, and transience" in such a way as to "inform diverse contemporary art practices while expanding the realm of printmaking itself," as the PAFA gallery guide states about the show. The thing is, I am not quite certain the show at PAFA does that very well. With some exceptions, the whole thing felt a little dry.

When comparing the PAFA show to three of the other Graphic Unconscious Shows (Moore, Temple, and the Print Center), the PAFA one is the most traditional. Yes, the Christiane Baumgartner woodcuts are enormous and impressive in their perfect replication of photographs through handcutting means. And yes, the exhibition did feature artists from three different continents, so there is something to be said for diversity in the show. But unlike its Graphic Unconscious counterparts, most of the works were traditional wall hangings. Very few exhibited a modicum of color. And while print mastery was at its peak, innovation was not.


The biggest exception to this observation was the Pepon Osorio piece. Printed in an unconventional way (enormous ink jet? In pieces? We were mystified), with a more sculptural presentation, on the floor, Osorio sincerely approached the "transience" spoken about in the brochure while expanding "the realm of the printmaking" in contemporary art. The piece made us ponder not only what it meant and how we were supposed to feel, but also how the piece was fabricated and what its implications were for printmaking as it was included in the show. It was the only digital print AND that printmaking was most likely accomplished by another printer (both HP and the human component). But unlike Osorio's piece, the others were less curious.So back to the question: I think that my foundation in printmaking is mostly a positive thing. I feel a kinship with other printmakers and I think the department does lend itself to addressing political and social issues (as is MY interest) because of the qualities and characteristics inherent to printmaking. But I am personally interested in pursuing a career as a contemporary artist. Could printmaking be a hindrance?

The answer is YES IT CAN. If printmaking is not seen as a tool, but rather an insular world, then printmakers will not be seen as artists first, but as craftsmen. I do not mean to diminish the importance of craft. I believe actually being able to MAKE things to be of the utmost importance. That said, an artist is more than just a maker. An artist is also a spokesperson. An artist is a statement maker.

Philagrafika has the opportunity to really highlight this point: printmaking is a part of the contemporary art world, not separate from it. The other shows exemplify the various ways printmaking is pushing its own boundaries. They take what we KNOW to be true of printmaking and they smash it, magnify it, tear it up, and/or re-purpose it.

But we need a reference point. And we need to fit Kiki Smith in there somewhere, right? Someone had to have the stiffer, more traditional show. It might as well have been PAFA.

Instruct, clarify, gloss, comment, disseminate?

Anyone here had ever though how many times we find that things we though were complicated are not. They are simple but with language or terms complications? Had you ever ask yourself why? Personally I think that information in general is devaluated and this is a real popular problem. Quantified information in any ways you want to look at it, is power. This is how we get trouble in only few steps. Why news channel like CNN are so criticized all around the world; well I guess and everyone agree, is because how they use a huge system like that to misinform the popular masses. The aftermath of this situation let us know how power is manipulated by media and how big is the power information comprehend itself.

It was 1999, I will like to know whom of you know what is the WTO, and what happened with it that year. World Trade Organization had one of their most important conference in Seattle. At the same time in the same city one of the biggest protest I've personally had seen was taking place, all against the unfair commercials trade planning being proposed there. Thousands of people protesting. All media announced trough their stations that only few dozens of young kids where protesting in the outside. I saw the real videos.

The reason why I bring this it because my question, and not only mine but every question we got, goes around the same matter. The managing of information.

Printmaking since the beginning helped the whole world to start a revolution against illiteration. It made possible for everyone to read to go beyond, it broke the social hierarchies in education, it opened the door it gave the same opportunities to everyone.

So knowing this we got to understand that the more information you got the big your responsibility is. But we got also to understand how illiteration know had take over again, misinformation is it new shape. That is why when we want to disseminate information in a social political context we need to deconstruct that illiteration we got to simplify again the simple (that has been complicated to made it unreachable), in order to deliver a real message or to literate in some way. We live in a visual society (for grace or disgrace), and with visual art (specially with printmaking and its democratic possibilities), we have the opportunity to develop a very specific way or to construct a particular message, in other words we can develop our own kind of dialect to communicate. At the same time this give us a notion of the power we can acquire trough art in a specific context.

And now that you had mention Lady Gaga, this is why people like her just represent a social failure that depoliticized real problems of our society, they help to dissinformate by naturalizing the social contemporary problems with the power she had been able to acquired. She is not addressing anything else than a reflection of a colliding society. I will close this writing recommending a book for the ones of you that have not read it, "The Prince", by Niccolo Machiavelli (1513).

Where are we meeting tomorrow?

Friday, April 2: Catch up and de-brief.

This means that we are meeting at the seminar room at 3:40pm tomorrow?

Just wanted to make sure....

Thanks.