Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
that most frightens us.
we ask ourselves, who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won't feel insecure around you.
We are meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of god within us.
It is not just in some of us: It's in everyone.
And, as we let our light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
lowbrow rising
Juxtapoz "art & culture magazine" is now the third largest selling art magazine, a marker of cultural currency for a movement that only appears to be growing.Initially I dismissed it because I judged that approach to art to be lacking in what DJ Martinez refers to as simultaneity. In other words, it is characterized by skill, aesthetics, formal concerns, but where are the ideas, content, and politics?
Now, as it continues to exert ever greater influence on visual culture, it can no longer be ignored and I find myself fascinated by it, and needing to reexamine my own perceptions and values around art. Is the seemingly gratuitous obsession w/illustrational aesthetics and childish imagery, often put forth with nihilistic attitude, a more honest expression of our collective existence at this moment in time? Is the notion of an art of resistance that dares to challenge the audience a la Beuys or Martinez simply outre and out of touch, now seen as hopelessly naive?
what's your take on the visual culture represented by juxtapoz?
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Worship False Idols or Make Great Art: How Do You Define Success?
What advice would you give to the current generation of aspiring artists?
My only advice is to spend less time on thinking about success and put all the energy in making art itself. Otherwise your relationship to your art changes. It becomes less genuine and honest. Art should not be born from pressure of becoming successful but something deeper. This is always a danger and the cause for mediocrity in art. If a great idea or art is born, everyone will come to it sooner or later. This is a fact.
--Shirin Neshat, interviewed in Linda Weintraub's In The Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art, 2004, pp. 214-221.
Did you sell anything at that show?
No. My shows have never been about selling art. My interest and concern is in the creation of meaning. I am not really concerned with the free market or the fashion of the day. One of the questions is: is it possible to create work that is effective, complex, and deeply visual and to remain in a mode of experimentation using simultaneity, multiplicity, proximity, and agency as active ingredients to produce art?
--Daniel Joseph Martinez, Ibid. pp. 374-383.
I've always felt that the most important thing for an artist to do is to find some way to make a living that has nothing to do with their work, and to be happy with that, and to keep the financial burden off of their artwork . . .
So you don't think that that is a distraction from your artwork?
Well, it might be a distraction, but it's completely unrealistic for anyone to graduate from art school and think that they're going to make a living off their work [laughs]. That's a fantasy a lot of people have. But if somebody can be happy in their life and be making work, they have to understand that that's success . . . But the important thing is to keep it together for the long term and to believe that if you're able to do something interesting, people will eventually pay attention to it. That I firmly believe. But whether you're going to make money off it, or not, that is a different story. The art world is not a meritocracy. . .
Well, it seems like we're having a crisis of identity. Right now for us, it's money, you know? That's what has become the new code. But that's probably inherently unhealthy as well.
You put you're finger on it. Because if the measure of success is money, you have a built-in conflicted situation where people are going to be unhappy. I think it's important for people to understand that the way the art system is set up, you're always waiting to be validated from the outside. The biggest struggle in the arts is to realize that you have to validate yourself from the inside. You're going to be set up for disappointment and failure if you believe that the only way to be a success is to be validated from the outside, because you can't control that. There's no way to control the reaction you're going to get from the world.
--Tony Oursler, Ibid. pp. 304-313. (my bolds).
My only advice is to spend less time on thinking about success and put all the energy in making art itself. Otherwise your relationship to your art changes. It becomes less genuine and honest. Art should not be born from pressure of becoming successful but something deeper. This is always a danger and the cause for mediocrity in art. If a great idea or art is born, everyone will come to it sooner or later. This is a fact.
--Shirin Neshat, interviewed in Linda Weintraub's In The Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art, 2004, pp. 214-221.
Did you sell anything at that show?
No. My shows have never been about selling art. My interest and concern is in the creation of meaning. I am not really concerned with the free market or the fashion of the day. One of the questions is: is it possible to create work that is effective, complex, and deeply visual and to remain in a mode of experimentation using simultaneity, multiplicity, proximity, and agency as active ingredients to produce art?
--Daniel Joseph Martinez, Ibid. pp. 374-383.
I've always felt that the most important thing for an artist to do is to find some way to make a living that has nothing to do with their work, and to be happy with that, and to keep the financial burden off of their artwork . . .
So you don't think that that is a distraction from your artwork?
Well, it might be a distraction, but it's completely unrealistic for anyone to graduate from art school and think that they're going to make a living off their work [laughs]. That's a fantasy a lot of people have. But if somebody can be happy in their life and be making work, they have to understand that that's success . . . But the important thing is to keep it together for the long term and to believe that if you're able to do something interesting, people will eventually pay attention to it. That I firmly believe. But whether you're going to make money off it, or not, that is a different story. The art world is not a meritocracy. . .
Well, it seems like we're having a crisis of identity. Right now for us, it's money, you know? That's what has become the new code. But that's probably inherently unhealthy as well.
You put you're finger on it. Because if the measure of success is money, you have a built-in conflicted situation where people are going to be unhappy. I think it's important for people to understand that the way the art system is set up, you're always waiting to be validated from the outside. The biggest struggle in the arts is to realize that you have to validate yourself from the inside. You're going to be set up for disappointment and failure if you believe that the only way to be a success is to be validated from the outside, because you can't control that. There's no way to control the reaction you're going to get from the world.
--Tony Oursler, Ibid. pp. 304-313. (my bolds).
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Reminder: It's all about the Ideas/Medium is just medium
You're known for highly stylized, aesthetically seductive films. With Dumbland, it seems you're exploring the other end of the visual spectrum. Is running the gamut from high to low part of your obligation as artist? Has it been cathartic for you?
No, it's not about that at all. It has to do with the ideas. When you get an idea, it tells you pretty much everything you need to know. There are 65mm ideas, and then there are crude Flash ideas, and then there are DVD ideas or painting ideas or furniture ideas. When I started getting ideas for one thing after another, they just happened to go with the drawing style you see in Dumbland. And as I'd do the drawings, more and more ideas would come to me.
--David Lynch, interviewed in Juxtapoz, March 2006 #62, p37.
Artists transform material, and that material can be almost anything, including ideas or social formations. This is what Beuys meant by “social sculpture.” For Beuys, art involved the transformation of matter into spirit.
--David Levi Strauss
No, it's not about that at all. It has to do with the ideas. When you get an idea, it tells you pretty much everything you need to know. There are 65mm ideas, and then there are crude Flash ideas, and then there are DVD ideas or painting ideas or furniture ideas. When I started getting ideas for one thing after another, they just happened to go with the drawing style you see in Dumbland. And as I'd do the drawings, more and more ideas would come to me.
--David Lynch, interviewed in Juxtapoz, March 2006 #62, p37.
Artists transform material, and that material can be almost anything, including ideas or social formations. This is what Beuys meant by “social sculpture.” For Beuys, art involved the transformation of matter into spirit.
--David Levi Strauss
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Someone sent me this email. What do you think?
do NOT Accept This New Coin!
Do YOU?
U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins
You guessed it 'IN GOD WE TRUST' IS GONE!!!
Who originally put 'In God We Trust' onto our currency?
My bet it was one of the Presidents on these coins.
All our U.S. Government has done is Dishonor them, and disgust me!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE
Together we can force them out of circulation.
Please send this to all on your mail list !!!
Would it be art to boycott this?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Hi Everybody!
This is what I think this blog is about. We are artists who have been paying attention to what goes on in the art world, our culture and society. We are not happy about how things are and want to take action to shake things up, wake up other artists and people in general. Personally I believe being an artist comes with the responsibility to be a mind opener, enchanter, provocateur, someone who messes with conventional programming and actively or passively :) contributes to human evolution. This blog should be a place for people who are not afraid to take risks, who speak what is on their minds about art today and who are not afraid of being judged. Basically it should be an open portal for any expression we want to make in any form. It is also encouraged to critique and react to what people put out here. We have established this to have a vivid dialogue among artists who are well aware of our culture and of what the artworld wants to see and hear to be regarded as a "successful artist" but don't give a damn if it doesn't serve the evolution of art and our personal artistic development. This is not for the feable minded artist who only looks for approval and can't handle any intellectual punches. This doesn't mean that we should fight. It just means that we should be able to express our thoughts and emotions freely without fear of judgement. If you will be judged, you don't have to take it persobnally or it can be food for thought. We also don't have to agree on everything. I like to do a short visualisation before I enter this space visualizing that any and all blockages, fears and limitations are dissolved and my mind and feelings flow freely. I surround myself with love and connect with my heart chakra. Then I connnect my heart with my brain and my power center. I open myself to the universe and ask that my talents and inspiration may be used for the good of all. I am free of anger, doubt and fear, and smile. That doesn't mean I turn off my intellect. It just puts me in a better place for action and interaction.
Here is something about Joseph Beuys' work that I find inspiring. Multiples can be produced via media in larger and cheaper amounts than ever. I believe that has a huge impact on art and also a lot of potential.
-i
Joseph Beuys Multiples
The influential German artist Joseph Beuys regarded multiples as a crucial aspect of his activity that, because of their low cost and reproducibility, could communicate his ideas to great numbers of people. He made nearly 600 multiples from 1965 to 1985 in myriad forms: in addition to graphic works--woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, and screenprints--there are found objects, photographs, records, audio cassettes, videotapes, films, books, leaflets, posters, postcards, printed matter, and works that inventively combine these media. The themes explored in the multiples echo and restate those addressed in every other realm of his activity, from politics, teaching, and environmental activism to sculpture, performance, and drawing, thus providing access to the full range of his ideas.
Joseph Beuys (1921 - 1986) is one of the most celebrated artists to have come of age in post-World War II Europe. His life was a gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) into which he poured all of his abundant energy, passion, and creative genius. His artistic activity--powerfully evocative sculptures, multiples, drawings, films, and performance events--is inseparable from his political activism, his teaching, and the charismatic persona he shaped for himself as shaman, prophet, and visionary. Beuys believed wholeheartedly in the power of art to effect social change. Today, his influence can be seen in the work of a generation of artists who absorbed his ideas about the unity of life, art, and the social organism.
Here is something about Joseph Beuys' work that I find inspiring. Multiples can be produced via media in larger and cheaper amounts than ever. I believe that has a huge impact on art and also a lot of potential.
-i
Joseph Beuys Multiples
The influential German artist Joseph Beuys regarded multiples as a crucial aspect of his activity that, because of their low cost and reproducibility, could communicate his ideas to great numbers of people. He made nearly 600 multiples from 1965 to 1985 in myriad forms: in addition to graphic works--woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, and screenprints--there are found objects, photographs, records, audio cassettes, videotapes, films, books, leaflets, posters, postcards, printed matter, and works that inventively combine these media. The themes explored in the multiples echo and restate those addressed in every other realm of his activity, from politics, teaching, and environmental activism to sculpture, performance, and drawing, thus providing access to the full range of his ideas.
Joseph Beuys (1921 - 1986) is one of the most celebrated artists to have come of age in post-World War II Europe. His life was a gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) into which he poured all of his abundant energy, passion, and creative genius. His artistic activity--powerfully evocative sculptures, multiples, drawings, films, and performance events--is inseparable from his political activism, his teaching, and the charismatic persona he shaped for himself as shaman, prophet, and visionary. Beuys believed wholeheartedly in the power of art to effect social change. Today, his influence can be seen in the work of a generation of artists who absorbed his ideas about the unity of life, art, and the social organism.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
asian drawing portalStrategies of Resistance/Keeping It Real
Conversations between Daniel Joseph Martinez and David Levi Strauss on art after The End (of modernism, art, history, etc.) and teaching (and for us, studying and practicing!) in the present context:
After the end: strategies of resistance
Teaching after the end
They have a way of cutting through all the art world/market BS and getting down to what really matters in practicing art with consciousness and integrity.
After the end: strategies of resistance
Teaching after the end
They have a way of cutting through all the art world/market BS and getting down to what really matters in practicing art with consciousness and integrity.
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