Did the title peak your interest? Isn't fear of judgement and rejection a big issue for artists and most humans in general? Shouldn't we do something to dissolve that?
A friend of mine just told me she only copies art and does very safe artwork because she thinks the stuff in her head is just too weird and she feels that showing what's in her mind is like walking naked on Times Square.
That made me think what if we called for an ARTIST WALK against fear of judgement and rejection. What if 100's of artists agreed to walk naked on Times Square. We just discussed public art and if it should be self explanatory. Most people can relate to that fear of rejection and fear of doing something out of the ordinary and acceptable. It would also be a protest against the business of museums and galleries who expect artists to be a certain way and do certain art. We need to break out of that people pleasing mode.
Even if we got arrested, we would have some impact and get publicity. What do you think shapeshifter? Is this too naive and crazy?
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11 comments:
I attended a lecture tonight at SFAI by visiting writer Hilton Als, about Diane Arbus and NYC, and he pointed out the difference between the artful (eg Arbus) and the solipsism of the widespread documentary impulse (eg MySpace).
Documentary solipsism is all about oneself; it never goes beyond one's own experience. Artists, even if they are working with the material of their own lives, at some point remove self from the story and let the story tell itself, a break from the self to tell us something about the world, of human experience.
The more I make and study art, the clearer becomes the utmost importance of thoughtful intention in making effective, compelling work.
I think in the proposed Artists Walk the intention is confused: it's a walk against fear of judgment, but that fear is something internal, personal, that is essential to the creative process and to living the art life. The fear is something we have to get to know intimately if we are to continue sustainably and to grow in our work. To publicly demonstrate against something that we individually and personally need to come to terms with strikes me as misguided. The fear of judgment is not the fault of the gallery system. It's part and parcel of our process, something to befriend rather than try to escape or overcome, and we need to take responsibility for that ourselves.
At some point in our development as artists we have to acknowledge that this path is our own choice. No one's forcing us to do this; if it's too hard, we can choose to do something easier. Art that is about how hard it is to be an artist strikes me as solipsistic to the point of being self-absorbed, at risk of narcissism and self-pity, which I'm not interested in when there are so many more compelling subjects and reasons to make art.
I do think we need to devise ways to provide internal support and form external like-minded artistic community in order to give ourselves ongoing permission and repeated reminders that validate for ourselves what we are doing. Your friend is an example of someone who needs to come to terms with internalized negative messages/voices about art and give herself permission to do her own work. Part of this comes from being clear on the deepest level on one's intention: why I make art. But I don't think the nude walk en masse is the best way to do this.
The other part that I find confused about this proposal is that it would take place in a historical context of other acts of mass nudity that have already taken place, which may obscure the intended meaning. Women in Nigeria bared their breasts in protests against oil company imperialism and won. And then there's the work of Vanessa Beecroft. Not to mention this, in international news just last weekend on Cinco de Mayo:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/avest001/3101news/
Context has to be taken into account in the construction of effective work, informed by an awareness of related activities that have gone before that shape the meaning of our own work.
In our artist group, we've been examining in depth the conversation between Daniel Joseph Martinez and David Levi Strauss that is linked in one of the early entries on this blog, and one of the things Martinez teaches his students is Generosity/Responsibility. To me that's what's compelling about the previous three examples of socially engaged art, a larger sense of responsibility in the world and a generosity that drives work that is about something larger than oneself.
I do agree with the need to break out of people pleasing mode. Returning to Hilton Als, he talked about how he chooses people to write about, women in particular, who just do it, who are fearless in their pursuit of what they want to do, their own idea of success. They are successful in part because they don't need men to love them any more and they just want to work, don't waste energy seeking approval. My own attachment to people pleasing is coming up as I struggle to finish a semester project and find myself doing all sorts of weird things that add no value to the work and only delay completion.
We are not that far apart with our ideas. I will take this further though because I'm probably questioning the big picture. I agree that art is about something vbigger than oneself. I think the outside is the inside. As above so below or something...:) It reflects each other. Even our most personal issues are projections and manifestations of ourselves. We are all connected and I don't believe an artist should just deal with his fear on a personal level. Artists might just be more in touch and see what is and are able to show society a mirror. I'm not saying that walking naked is a great idea but I also don't think that it would be a demonstartion per se. It would be the artist offering him or herself as a martyr to open doors for others to follow in stripping away fears and unleash potential that is otherwise blocked, face how ridiculous and silly fears really are.
Fear of judgement isn't the galleries fault. They are just being reactive to what is and we artists have the responsibility to shake up what is and how what is.
Walking together naked to tackle fear is the opposite of escaping it. It is befriending it as you said. It is showing oneself at the most vulnerable and coming out of it stronger.
Being artistically gifted doesn't only mean taking responsibility for ourselves. It also makes us responsible to be shamans and healers of our society whichever way we choose to do that.
This isn't about how hard it is to be an artist. It is about how human fear of judgement inhibits everybody. It is deeply ingrained in our culture and perpetuates throughout generations. As an artist you are in position to break rules and confuse. Confusion correlates to chaos. Chaos asks for a new order sooner or later. It is necessary to destroy to create something new. Too many artists only want to preserve and perpetuate. I think this is the problem with listening to established artists preaching. They might be flawed because they succeeded in the old system in the first place and much earlier we agreed that it is time for change. When I think of change i don't think of minor adjustments and improvements. I think artistic revolution. A fresh start not disregarding everything that has been done before at all. It means having the courage to create from within entirely and with the frredom to ignore everything you have heard about what art is or should be. I think that we all have access to higher wisdom from which true art can be created and our art historians and preachers are operating too much from their intellect. the connection to emotion, instinct and intuition is missing and degenerating.
I went to a energy healing seminar ones. there were people of all walks of life and the healer found a common denominator very quickly. It was fear of rejection. He talked about ways to befriend this fear and use it to energize yourself. there was tremendous relief and appreciation among the audience after having been faced with the silliness of fear of rejection. It's very beneficial to ground yourself and bring your energy and feelings into your body rather than over analyzing and judging things too much.
We do not need anybody to validate us or what we do. Screw that! The only validation we need is the enjoyment of doing what we doing. Nobody has a right to tell an artist they shouldn't be doing art when he derives pure joy out of whatever they do. i also don't think that anyone should have the power to determine whether something qualifies as art or not. It might in a thousand years from now and only because we don't understand or reject it today, doesn't mean it has less than things we agree with.
I'm tired of people nominating themselves as judges of art. I wish they would all shut up and go meditate LOL.
Allow the new seeds that are around germinate before you stare over our shoulders and give your opinions on the new art we are giving birth to.
When a new seed is planted, you don't dig it out every day to check on how it's doing. That's how you make sure nothin g new will grow!
YOU WROTE: women in particular, who just do it, who are fearless in their pursuit of what they want to do, their own idea of success. They are successful in part because they don't need men to love them any more and they just want to work, don't waste energy seeking approval.
I find that this is a sad and twisted development of our society. On one hand it's good that women don't look for approval. one the other hand it leads to more separation and selfishness. It would be great if we managed to stay loving, vulnerable and open while having the courage to take on a challenge instead of shutting down our hearts and emotions and just going for success no matter what. We are still humans who are social creatures and need to be part of a family and comminity. These women live in denial and just burried their pain and true needs. I'm sure someone could push their buttons and it would turn out that they are actually emotional landmines ready to explode. They just built a wall around themselves., It's not natural!
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My own attachment to people pleasing is coming up as I struggle to finish a semester project and find myself doing all sorts of weird things that add no value to the work and only delay completion.
I know that very well myself. Maybe it's your fear of greatness and new gigger responsibilities:)
To censor oneself due to a need for validation is obviously counterproductive. On the other hand, to work as an artist without critical analysis of the field you are working in is essentially a mindless activity that puts at risk the health of the field of art. There are plenty of flaky artists already guilty of this, which is why there is so much bad, irrelevant art out there and why society in general doesn't take artists seriously. Growth as an artist does not take place in the absence of criticism and the ability to engage in self-criticism.
If one wants to make effective art with the potential to transform the world, it doesn't just happen without tremendous discipline, using all of one's faculties and resources, in the studio and intellectually. It's not something that happens on a whim, but rather is a product of long-term sustained inquiry, and includes an awareness of the ideas and actions floating around in contemporary culture at the moment, and the historical context in which it's taking place. Meaning is a function of context, and artists are engaged in the creation of meaning, so we do need to pay attention to context if we want our work to live up to conveying our intended meaning to the people around us who inhabit the world we all live in at this moment.
As for the comment about women who no longer needed men to love them, the point was these great female artists were rare among women in our misogynist society in that their identities did not rely on male validation in order to feel whole. As far as I'm concerned, to be a self-determining, self-possessed individual shows exemplary strength and is something to be admired, and is necessary in order to become a great artist.
What's truly sad and twisted about our society is that it demands that women be otherwise, be dependent on men for self-esteem, and that to be self-determining as a woman artist means being seen, even by other women, as shut down, in denial, and ready to explode.
Doing what you feel is your art is far from working mindlessly. I am addressing the detachment of validation from the outside and widely acceprted contemporary norms.
Again using the analogy of a seed that is growing...too much critical analysis can become counterproductive in itself. A lot of the process of creating can be a non-critical approach to allow uninterrupted and free flow of something higher than what fits into man made norms about what art should or shouldn't be. Joseph Beuys admitted everyone who applied to art school and I think even today the artworld doesn't recognize his message.
The danger of overanalyzing and critical approaches is to think too much about validations and judgement whether it is your own or by others who you give the power to judge. I am not initmidated, impressed or anything else by anyone's entitlement to judge art no matter how they got that "title". I listesn to and read everything. I'm very open to all information and opinions but I also always question anyone regardless of which position of athority they seemingly hold. Everybody is an artist and nobody can decide which art is or isn't worthy.
Reality will show what is effective and you never know who your work resonates with. Even if you only touch one single soul, you did a good job!
Who are art critics even your own art critic to prevent art from beeing valid and deprive it from its development and right to exist.
What is the health of the field of art? who are we to become discriminators of what is good and bad art. Artists of the last century already proved that any art can become highly regarded.
We cannpt function as control freaks who analyze, criticise and forget that art has to do with feeling as well. Feeling often cannot be put into words. It's mere experience and that is the beauty of art. It has its own language that words and thoughts alone cannot grasp.
It can be very mindful but it doesn't have to have any contextual intellectual meaning. Why? Who says those are must have criteria for art that validate art?
Just like music can be transformative without an intellectual written analysis. It's a sensual experience that art is able to provide as wel without having to be political, critical etc. If you as an artist are able to transform your viewers no matter how, than you are not only the jokester and trickster. you are the magician.
Art might have lost the public's attention because it became to intellectual. We need to go back to the eleental forces of art which does require us to be focused, pure and mindful. It requires us to be wise and attentive and to instinctively feel what touches people and goes deep.
I think thinking that you have to apply self criticism in order to grow might be too harsh. I would suggest reflection, mindfulness, forgiveness and loving yourself and what you do with seeing things that don't work as caring teachers that are making us better instead of beating ourselves up through criticism.
I recommend reading the book the Power of Now by eckhart tolle. there can be tremendous messages in the present that can be perceived without keeping history in mind. history is already stored in the back of our minds and can be a burden if we think we have to weave something being in the context of everything in order to convey menaing.
There is also always the possibility that others before us were wrong or theur ideas and understanding doesn't apply to our times anymore. It's good to let go and to look around at what is now and to respond to that just by being yourself. That wouyldn't make you flaky as an artist. Some art is flaky because the artist didn't care for and love what he was creating. Whatever you do with meditative concentrated focused energies will be felt by others.
Regarding our discussion about women, I would say that even after all the feminism and freedom that women achieved for themselves we still haven't achieved balance where a woman can be self reliant, dteached from others, independent and 100% happy with it. I agree with you that women should never depend on validation of their self esteem by men but unfortunately in order to be independent most of these women still have to go to the other extreme and cut themselves off of men instead of having it all. there is still tremendous hidden disrespect and jealousy among men towards women who are free spirits because these women truely intimidate them. It's cultutrally and probably even genetically ingrained that the man wants to be the stronger sez and have control. A woman who is free and self-determined and possessed and maybe even attractive ans smart evades any form of control and that scares most men. She's like a wild cat who fascinates them on one hand but poses as the enemy on the other because she automatically challenges men. They will probably not want to marry such a woman because they feel she is unpredictable. Even free spirited women crave a relationship and if they say they don't, they are either in denial or not telling the truth.
It's entirely possible, if not desirable, to be critically engaged with a capacity for self-criticality and at the same time be abundantly creative, just as it's possible to be a self-determining individual, female or male, with an open and loving heart.
The original post asked what we thought about the proposed artist walk, and I provided honest feedback, pointing out in specific terms where I saw weakness and lack of development. In response is posted an extended anti-intellectual argument against critical practice in general.
What's that about? Do you really want honest feedback, or only sycophantic encouragement and agreement? If you don't value or are not open to criticism, why do you ask what others think? As a serious artist, can you honestly say that there is no place for criticism in your process?
What's so wrong with paying attention to what other people are saying, whether it's informed critique of our work, critical theory, or the wisdom of more experienced artists? What's so threatening about that?
I'm not saying that we embrace these offerings to the point that we lose our own identities as artists. At a certain point in our development, we do achieve a level of self-knowledge and self-possession that enables us to apply critical rigor and benefit from the wisdom of others, without risking our own productivity or identity, in a way that is conducive to accelerated growth.
One would have to be at an early stage of development as an artist to believe other people's opinions have the power to deny a work the right to exist. Only you can do that to yourself; critical opinions are just words, just opinions, for us to choose to learn from or not.
Why not view these offerings as gifts to learn from, rather than threats to your development?
What's a greater risk to artistic and spiritual health is a tendency towards dualism and gross generality, the likes of which would censor criticality from artistic practice and, again, presume that self-determining women are somehow dishonest or emotionally flawed. Criticism does not deny any art the right to exist any more than self-determination precludes the capacity for mutually respectful loving relationship.
Here's the thing about choosing to live a self-determined life: it's all about facing reality, dealing with facts as well as the honest opinions of others, and only then, in the face of the truth, autonomously choosing how to act, and taking individual responsibility for our choices. It's not about building walls, burying needs, or denial, but rather the exact opposite: it's about being honest first and foremost with ourselves.
If we need to operate in a vacuum in order to create, hermetically protected from critical analysis, then what does that say about our ability as artists to deal with reality, and to make work that is grounded in an awareness of it?
Great art and great artists are all about getting down on the deepest level to what is real.
you are projecting my dear. i don't need agreement and have no problem with criticism. shapeshifter can shape at any time and has no ego:)
the only difference is you try to define and stay within parameters and i enjoy the freedom to shift and expand:)
what really is, is probably very simple and if we knew we would most likely cease to exist.
what really is, as what you refer to, is a matter of perception by the individual or mass consciousness at any given time.
why is work/making art so important to you is the question.
let the contradictions speak for themselves:
"i don't need agreement and have no problem with criticism."
and yet
"I'm tired of people nominating themselves as judges of art. I wish they would all shut up and go meditate . . ."
"We cannot function as control freaks who analyze, criticise and forget that art has to do with feeling as well . . ."
not to mention
"Who are art critics even your own art critic to prevent art from beeing valid and deprive it from its development and right to exist . . . "
and on and on. 'nuff said?
what happened to:
"It is also encouraged to critique and react to what people put out here. We have established this to have a vivid dialogue . . . This is not for the feable (sic) minded artist who only looks for approval and can't handle any intellectual punches. . . . 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. . . That doesn't mean I turn off my intellect . . . "
the food for thought has all come back up undigested, and intellect unplugged in order to "shift and expand."
the most disappointing part is that instead of taking responsibility for it, you would rather choose to hide behind the username, of all things, in attempt to duck the issues, to bail out on the discourse rather than face the real challenges it presents.
in doing so, you've vacated this process of integrity, undermined any potential of productive dialectical outcome.
this experiment in meaningful blogosphere discourse appears to have met its failed end.
lol you're quite observant and still you need to be reminded that you also are shapeshifter! i can yawn from listening to art critics blabber and at the same time take notice of it. that doesn't mean i have to integrate it into my art. let the art critics make art if they know so much. i take what works for me and still often realize that they see too much into whatever they criticize. so do you.
i would say the dialogue has been quite vivid lol and you provided all the necessary criticism.:)
who is feable minded? lol.
if you refer to me, i have no problem whatsoever to read or hear anything people throw my way or i come across. as i said before over-analyzing is a waste of time and energy. if it feels right i consider it, i will even think about it deeply if i consider it necessary..that happens quite a lot but i will not let it shape me in any way only so that my work and process fits into someone else's picture of what art should be.
why do you think the food for thought is undigested? it provided the fuel for shifting and expansion:)
don't be disappointed. you're taking this too personal. it's a chance to grow and not to fight! it's not about wrong or right. it's about allowing limitations and boarders to expand.
you are already acting like wanna be art establishment. artists need to have the freedom to be jokesters, tricksters, alchemists, piss people off, provoke, etc. transformations often happen with friction and through emotions experienced. artists do a great job when they are able to trigger emotions. that means they are pointing to something unresolved and make the audience deal with it. that makes the artist a healer too.
regarding contradictions. we do live in a dualistic world after all. those are less contradictions as they are different expressions and point of views of what is perceived. you're making me smile with your responses:))
If you accuse me of hiding, then you are accusing yourself. you should be disappointed with yourself just as much as you are with me.
I'm not hiding. If you ask i'll tell you who i am. There's no need for attack.
my guess is you're a girl, probably asian coming from an old traditional culture based on pressuere, expectations and judgement. i might be wrong. i have a lot of imagination:) but that's what it seems like. i think you're very smart just a little too uptight.
vacated this process of integrity, lol are you studying law as well. do you want to evict me from the art space? am i being too difficult and rebellious or just unreasonable, maybe a playful a changeling. je suis l'enfant terrible.
don't be so deterministic and fatalistic, what you need to do is RELAX. art is serious but not dead serious and seriously not a reson to kill a blog:)
what you're doing is the opposite of expansion and allowing. you want to further limit so much that noone can breathe and express anymore. remember observant one, the blog is also about free expression which can produce something that is of higher value and beauty than intellectual controlling.
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