OK, Let’s open it up but step back a bit. In 2008 questions about what is or is not art have become a bit of a red herring. In 1970 maybe the question “What is art?” meant something. Up to that point art had been more or less a monolithic institution that needed to be shattered. Probably since the Renaissance, but certainly since the crushing rise of the Academy in the late 18th century the term “art” had served as a kind of heavily policed border, a cultural Berlin Wall. On this side of the term “art” was Art, largely defined along conservative disciplinary traditions, (oil paintings are art, stone or bronze sculpture are art, etc.) On the other side of the term “art” lay all the rest of human activities that were clearly not-art. Along came minimalism, conceptualism, pop, feminism, earth art, “happenings”, art brut, fluxxus, and installation art, all building on skirmishes that Dada, and to a lesser degree Futurism and Surrealism had fought, to little real impact, in the opening decades of the century. In the 1970’s artists tried all manner of strategies to whittle away at the barrier between “high” and “low”, between art and life, and this time with some measure of success. So much so that by the late 80’s “art” as a term had to a large degree collapsed, and simply fractured into commerce in the same way that the Berlin Wall was reduced to rubble, packed into zip-lock baggies, and sold by the ounce. If artists weren’t selling out or trying to work the system in ways that were much too clever or Machiavellian for anyone’s good, then they pondered what it meant to be an artist.
But this is 2008. I mean, now some 40 years down the line, to use the vernacular, “It’s all good.” Right? Now we are painfully or giddily aware that there is no activity that de facto cannot be considered art. It’s all dependant upon the context of production and the context of reception. So, I urge you to skip the question, “What is art?” altogether and ask instead something a little more direct, and less academic: WHAT IS AT STAKE?
In your choice of materials, practices, subject matter, audience etc. What is to be gained, what lost? And for whom?
What is at risk? If nothing, then perhaps, just perhaps, you have recovered a limit horizon for what should be considered art—and, unfortunately, you have come down on the other side.
But this is 2008. I mean, now some 40 years down the line, to use the vernacular, “It’s all good.” Right? Now we are painfully or giddily aware that there is no activity that de facto cannot be considered art. It’s all dependant upon the context of production and the context of reception. So, I urge you to skip the question, “What is art?” altogether and ask instead something a little more direct, and less academic: WHAT IS AT STAKE?
In your choice of materials, practices, subject matter, audience etc. What is to be gained, what lost? And for whom?
What is at risk? If nothing, then perhaps, just perhaps, you have recovered a limit horizon for what should be considered art—and, unfortunately, you have come down on the other side.
How would you reinvent your discipline? What is at the core of your practice? What materials? Practices? Assumptions? Who could lead you out of your world as it is now given?
In the novel of your life, who or what would play Beatrice (your muse, inspiration) or Virgil (gritty no nonsense guide) to your Dante and lead you the hell out of, well, Hell—remember that for Dante Hell was not so much about fire and brimstone as much as it was simply being doomed to eternally repeat the same activity over and over again. Without risk, choice becomes meaningless- one option serves just as well as another. Without meaningful choices there is no real freedom.
Define your risk.
Push it to its edge.
Share your mania, (A three-word sentence that is about as good a definition of art as I can formulate.)
And reclaim your freedom.
You are an art student after all.
In the novel of your life, who or what would play Beatrice (your muse, inspiration) or Virgil (gritty no nonsense guide) to your Dante and lead you the hell out of, well, Hell—remember that for Dante Hell was not so much about fire and brimstone as much as it was simply being doomed to eternally repeat the same activity over and over again. Without risk, choice becomes meaningless- one option serves just as well as another. Without meaningful choices there is no real freedom.Define your risk.
Push it to its edge.
Share your mania, (A three-word sentence that is about as good a definition of art as I can formulate.)
And reclaim your freedom.
You are an art student after all.
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