For whose benefit is a work 'popularized"?

I have been reflecting on the question for several days, and I am not quite sure if I have the good answer or if there is a good answer. I think that we have to see it has two distinct parts: the artist and the viewer. By mentioning 2 distinct parts, I wondered if they cannot become one. This is where my work takes place - precision, where I would like to see my work taking place.

I am trying to obtain a maximum of audience for my work by putting it outdoor and reaching a new public, a public that has not been alerted. Does it mean that I become beneficiary of this action? Probably I am but it also help me resolving questions around the work and the position I take. On the other hand, I think that the viewer also benefit from this kind of interventions where he doesn't have to change is routine in order to see the work. I mean by that, he doesn't have to go to the museum or any other specific places to see a piece of art.

I guess I do not know exactly if the work become popularized, or if the artist take the credit or if there's no popularization. Talking recently with Jose about Lady GAGA, I think that she is the best example of who can we popularized a product, because of course I see her as a product! Here's a great article on her and her carrier. http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/65127/

After reading this article I questioned if what is she doing is for the public, for her or for both? It seems that everyone takes advantage of it, but in order to consume it who far do we need to commercialized the work. This is like saying that some artists do not have their place in museums, but they are presented in those museums. Is there a matter of connexion, of talent, of chance?

I definitely think that I need to promote my work more in order to get a bigger audience. 2 weeks ago I was on South street, the crazy FLASH MOB night, with 50 heads and I felt that the work really took place in a popular culture. I loved it, does it mean that the work becomes popularized. Probably, and its maybe what I am looking for!

Link to some thinking about the SGC Conference

On my own blog, I have some thoughts about Saturday's panel from the SGC conference. I would greatly appreciate your comments on it...

Thanks - g

Does the Low Need the High More Than the High Needs the Low?

I think, in order to answer this question, it is important to define roughly what low and high mean to me. When I think of high art, I think of the kinds of master works you see in museums--large scale paintings and sculptures, refined pieces, pieces that fall into (however loosely) art movements that are known by a greater number of people. So what is its opposite? Low art is harder to define. Are we talking about the consumables? Package design, posters, ephemera? Graphic and industrial design? Album covers? Crafts? Or are we talking about outsider art? Pieces made with found or cheap, unconventional material? Messy and coarse art? Art that is never shown in museums and in few galleries aside from those niche galleries that show the work of their own kind? While I believe the question in the title of this article refers to the former idea, the more streamlined consumable art, I believe it is important to address this question of outsider art, too, because we often treat it as "lower" even if we claim to appreciate it.

While Pop Art clearly referenced the impact of consumer society in its Tomato Soup Cans and comic book halftone dots, the connection between high and low art is not always so obvious. High art, on one hand, often demonstrates the sentiments of the "higher" society of that time--the intellectuals, nobility, bourgeois, what have you. Low art, be it consumables or crafts, were much more attainable by the everyday person. Whether it was something they made or bought, these pieces, too, reflected the people.

I would guess that there was a switch at some time. Before the avant-garde, high art basically served to promote a certain type of lifestyle--a goal--for which people could aspire. Paintings of people dressed smartly, acting appropriately, were the norm. Since the dada, surealism, etc., high art has focused more on the criticism of people--what is wrong with society. Low art (meaning consumer goods or craft) continued to be goal-oriented.

Outsider art, however, is generally a combination of both. With the example of the Space1026 collaborative piece in the Print Center's Philagrafika show, you can see how the artists are referencing recognizable (yet other worldly) space--a yurt as seen in Turkey or Mongolia--but are marking it with colors and textures that are their own. It is not necessarily saying you should live here, but rather, what is it about living that is truly important? There are recognizable things in this yurt that you have in your home, and there are things that are not. Question your surroundings. Question what is important to you. In this way, in making a statement about life and goals, the yurt is an example of how outsider art can approximate hihg art. But a yurt, pillows, chairs, the interiors in general, are referencing craft (or low art) more than they are high. So, in this case, outsider art is referencing low art. Low art needs low art as a lexicon.

If collaborative works were given the credence of works made by the lone artist, if Space1026 had a piece bought by the MoMa, if the stars aligned in such a way that their work BECAME high art (simply by virtue of getting this level of recognition by the system), then it would go from being considered low art to high. Thing is, it won't.

People who are not from my generation may walk into the Print Center, and whether they like the Yurt or not, they will say something to the effect of "Wow, how unique!? How original?" As a Rhode Islander tapped into the print culture of Providence and Pawtucket, I looked at the Yurt and wondered if it had been made by Xander Maro. The connection between Space1026 and the remnants of Fort Thunder, the Dirt Palace, and other Olneyville, Providence enclaves, and the work coming out of other meccas of the hip (Detriot, Brooklyn, San Francisco), all have a "look." As Gerard pointed out, the outsider art of this kind of demographic, a mostly white, anglo-protestant, college-educated, skateboarding, noise rock listening subculture is different from the aesthetic of Self Help Graphics, whose posters happened to be situated right next to the Yurt.

Self Help is a group composed more of first or second generation latino americans, often the first in the family to go to college if. And these are but two of the kinds of "outsider" collaborations that exist. My point is not that Space1026 or Self Help do not make unique, innovative works. My point is outsider art lies in this weird inbetween spot, neither a blip on the radar nor the next wing of the modern art museums.

To compound the issue, national chain stores, like Urban Outfitters, coop the aesthetic of collaborations like Space1026 (either by hiring them to make window displays or products or outright stealing the fashion they wear and selling it to the masses). This connection between a slightly higher art and low art keeps outsider art from ever attaining the status of the true high art. It is never given the chance to shine because its pervasiveness in our pop culture pushes into the camp of cliche too early.

I feel like this sounds like I am anti-Space1026 and that couldn't be farther from the truth. There gallery openings are always on the top of my agenda and I, dare I say it, wish I were one of them. I think the spirit within Space1026 and collaboration is what will be the vanguard of the next art revolution. And I think it is unfortunate to say this, especially considering how I felt in the yurt (cozy and also stimulated to the nth degree), that Space1026 needs to modify (or completely overhaul) their aesthetic in order to divorce itself from the Urban Outfitters low art association.

In short, high and low art are so interrelated and overlapping, it is hard to distinguish one from the other. But because consumable low art is not taken seriously, in order to make a strong social commentary, outsider art needs to remain separate from consumable art, whether or not outsider art wants to be low or high.

La Resistencia

I consider that the Medium Resistance show got a simple objective which for me was easy to read. Art that meets and needs a craft process within.

This also makes us things about the new questions being made of that craft process and how that phenomenon is meeting with the new technologies or new historic junctures. New crafts? New mediums? and trough that new dialogues? Which sometimes one can tell how them fails. For me not all the works in the show meet as well as others. For example, I can understand the potential of the "projector boxes", but personally I can tell that they do not work and I feel they were out of context (place, theme, object, technology), they poorly connects and after all trying to look at the projected image can be frustrating.

Otherwise, other work were great not in the way they were crafted only but because of the subject matter for example the Radical Cartography for me is an amazing social deconstruction and the way craft approach to the project was super well managed. In other way, Piper Shepard's work was a great example on how to see a regular beautiful craftsmanship, easy to enjoy and gorgeous, the fact I personally did not like was her work in the middle with the pins. I thinks that was a curatorial mistake (the placing was to central and that tends to make more weight in the single artist).

Anyways at the end I felt that having a show like this between Philagraphika was a necessity. At the end there should be a space for new definitions and new questions every time you visit the subject of the contemporary art as this festival did.

Medium |resistance

Desire of beauty or desire of process? First think that came to my mind after seeing the show and comparing it to Moore College. In those 2 exhibitions I can completely feel the role of the curator(s) when its time to combine different artists in the same space. Which one is more intellectual, I'm not quite sure, and does it really matters? Again we are constantly between 2 phenomenons, art and craft, or art and design, or,... or,... or...!





Do Jeff Koon is a creator who hires craftsmans? Do his work is consider craft or creation? What is the step between the moment we call something art and craft? When I was in France, this concept was really present in our discussions. That's why french artists do not create any material art these days. The creation as to take place in their heads and when it becomes material, they talk about craft! Should we stop doing material art? It seems like people still enjoy to see figurative art more then anything else. Surveys can tell!





I would like to leave you on this youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbF54CBzDcU&feature=related



There is 3 parts, and the reason why I'm interested in this specific video his because I am curious to hear what is your opinion on the role of beauty. Alexander McQueen is, was the designer of Lady Gaga and committed suicide last month! I looked at the 3 parts several times and I am still looking for the beauty in the show. Models refused to walked for him because they were terrified! What is fashion today? Beauty or......

Teresa Jaynes lecture at Tyler

It didn't escape my notice that when she was talking about the logistics of planning Philagrafika's sprawling exhibit offerings, Teresa Jaynes (the artist who is their Executive Director) mentioned a blog the curatorial team kept to share and exchange ideas and images they scouted out work for the shows.

I really expect participants in this seminar to comment on one another's posts and to make observations about the shows you've seen and the issues they bring up. We've not heard much about the Medium Resistance Exhibit yet, for example.

This month, we're talking about popularization and through prints. Friday we'll be at the Print Center, and I will also want to talk about the Pablo Helguera videos (you can watch them all on YouTube, after you look at the series intro above). I know it's a busy time, but let's not lose sight of what we're talking about in seminar!

Curating and Risk

I had hoped to see some of you at the Curating and Risk symposium on March 13. Given the dissolved lines between artist and curator, the event had a lot to say to people in both areas of the field. Here are some impressions, and I have notes I can discuss in detail when I see you later this week.

Remember, I asked you to comment on a classmate's post before we meet on March 19.

We will meet at the Print Center on that day.

I would like to conduct class a little early that afternoon, if everyone is amenable. I'll contact you via email to set up a time.

Hope everyone enjoyed a productive break - now one more push to the end of the year...