Romancing the LookyLoos- David Hickey

This article was very telling of how people perceive art and music and the artists themselves. I found this very comical almost because the realization that we make art and/or music for people just like is pretty apparent now taking a step back and thinking about myself and other artists I know. Musicians that I know want to start off with their "independent label" but want to become "known" and yet they wont settle for becoming a secular artist. They dont want to sell out but they want the fame that comes with it. Being a participant instead of a spectator is a huge difference in how they interact with the artist or musician, but often times the spectators are the ones who empower the upcoming artist the most because of their authority and separateness from the artist, and their lack of care in general for the truth of the artist. In the art world the necessity for social networking and interaction is key in this day and age. But, does this mean you need to sell yourself to the spectators or is there a place to still be true to your work or art and yourself and to surround yourself with participants who are just like you.

Cage

"Something has been done almost everywhere, " he said. "So it leads very much to the complexity of life. Leads us to the enjoyment of complexity (Cage). Cage in this piece of writing talks about chance operations, and putting pieces together to create a composition similar to a piece of music. And that these pieces of music cultivate a sense of wholeness and complex ideas into one moment to create artwork. Speaking about such things as methods, intention, discipline, and devotion, are aspects I think any artist needs to take into consideration when they are constructing their moments in art or music alike. Also, as many artist follow along with Cage- imitation in their artwork, and often learn from other artists through appropriation in order to achieve some mastery. But the most eloquent line in this writing was when Cage was quoted saying that art should spill out of being beautiful and move over to other aspects of our lives. I think we often overlook that art shouldnt just be whatever we subjectively call beautiful and it should reinforce our other parts of our lives that influence how we live and who we are as artists in the world.

DJ Spooky-Rhythm Science

In this piece of reading I found it very interesting how he spoke about how the notion of creativity and originality and blurred today. There is so much of a mash up of sounds, music, knowledge, art already in our existence what we make is a lot of the same pieces of our naming something or remaking of something already in existence. Copies and repetition are embraced and manipulated to create new names for something. As it says in the article, quoting Goethe, "Our country, our customs, laws, our ambitions, and our notions of fit and fair- all these we never made, we found them ready made; but we quote them". This reminds me of my how the found objects I collect create my work and my sense of understanding what they found pieces used to be which enforce my ideas and my artwork created from them.

Bachelard Reading

Reading Bachelard resonates with my work as an artist and how intimate spaces or presence seem to emanate from my work. The house being the corner of the world, and a place where imagination runs throughout the home you grew up in, reminds me of times as a child where I used my imagination to create places for my things or treasured belongings. My house felt safe, and my things were safe inside these places in the home. The space you call home and the construct of having a roof sustain shelter from everything seems to safe keep us from the outside world, of reality. Homes also hold memories that reality cannot recreate, or reinvent. Within homes or our families homes we create memories that hold within that space and never leave. They may change the look of the space but the memories and imagined places we once lived or spent quality time with family in never leave our memory. I love the poetic language of the cellar or garret, and the attic within the home. The spaces where we have our deepest, most intimate moments or places where our deepest secrets are kept are often those places within the home where we fear to go, or to explore for fear of emptying ourselves out or our secrets to an unsafe place. The houses we live in, grew up in, or our families helped cultivate our lives in have an impact on us and our deepest memories of our lives.

second crit for drawing

first crit for drawing

Things I needed to post!

John Cage:

I loved all the talk about method and process, sets of rules and processes that he made for himself, especially concerning layout. Something I was exploring around the time I read this reading. Establish a set of rules, and then set out to break them. Art impacting life is something I need to practice more, and not letting my life impact my art.

DJ Spooky:

The thought of remixing and sampling obviously is something I firmly believe in and this confirms my beliefs. This was easy to read for me. I really liked the part about automatic writing; this is something I also do often. I have a tendency to do some automatic paintings that don’t necessarily end up right side up, sometimes its good to get some shit out and fall on your ass at the same time…

Rings of Saturn:

I’m glad I didn’t read this when I was depressed… I read this reading on pain medication after being in the hospital, so I found the hospital part really funny. It was not easy for me to relate to Flaubert's problem, I’m not sensitive and I could never be confined anywhere, nonetheless my couch. I was pretty turned off and it couldn’t keep my attention, whoops.

Air Guitar:

Call me stupid… been done, but this reading was great. It was written in a way where I could really hold on to it. This might be because of my attachment I have with music and just being around industry and industry folk. I can actually deal with music people much better then I can deal with art people. With them its easy to convince someone that your cooler then them if you throw the intimidators on and your best “poker face” (no pun intended), considering it is the industry of cool”. With art people, its not that simple… it’s a test to see who can be more socially awkward and introverted... be cool… but don’t look it… be rich, but dress like a slob… makes a lot less sense to me and I really truly suck at it. The reading got me thinking of a world that could be flipped, where the fans are the museum goers and the artists are rock stars. You have your indie folk, your metal folk, some classic rock and some sweet hip hop. The attitude might be different, the cloths, the red carpet, the fans, the “lingo” but we are all making something that appeals to the senses. It got me thinking about my work, specifically the text work. As do most of us, I think we all listen to some form of music while we work. My list spans from Bach to Britney Spears to Bauhaus and Missy Elliott to Ministry. I see my work kind of like songs, especially those, they just have the audio missing, but if you close your eyes you know what kind of tone those lyrics go too.

Happy Holidays!

-Brett

meg - weekly drawing

alexis marcou

i greatly appreciate the craftsmanship of marcou's work, but what struck me most about this piece is the concept of things/people being encased in ice. it brings up notions of death and entrapment, which i attempt to deal with in my work. but i also find the idea of ice melting and revealing something fascinating.

meg - weekly drawing

janine antoni

this is a piece by janine antoni where she draped the rawhide of a cow over a cast of her body, which was removed afterward. i'm drawn to her appreciation of materials and the way she uses them as the vehicle for each piece's content rather than traditional 2D visual symbols.

Andrea Zittel-victoria

Ideological Resonator #1
2010
Latex on wood

Kara Walker and Elizabeth Neel- I don't know y these images won't come up

first on is Neel, warnling, 2011

and second is Kara Walker Untitled, 2009

Response to Romancing the Looky-Loos

After reading Hickey's Romancing The Looky-Loos I had started thinking about the idea of "selling out" and having fans as an artist. It's interesting to think about people staying around you, or as an artist, enjoying your work, because there is something in it that they want for or wish they could do themselves. Then once acquiring a fan base this person or artist wants to keep them around, so will do anything- including change their style or even stunt their artistic growth, just to keep these people involved and interested. So, to me, the question is, who is creating the work once it is shown to an audience? We all have crits and show our work to others looking for feed back and input on how to make it better, better so people will like it. We then change things based on the reactions we get from others, it's just a natural action. Are we always selling out? Is making art and then never show it to anyone a better way to avoid influences from the outside world? I may be ranting, but this is what I was thinking about through the entire text. I just had more and more questions that can't really be answered. It was very interesting to read, I like to think.

final project

i think this goes with my toilet drawing haha!

hockey sketch

for warmth

Robert de Saint Phalle

last writing

Dave Hickey’s “Romancing the looky-loos” raises important questions about selling out. I found it interesting that Mr. hickey believes most artists begin playing for those you like and are “like you”. However, in the age of youtube stars, those who make videos make them out of pure self-indulgence devoid of spectators or even participants (as Mr.Hickey believes participants are the audience of meaningful connections.) To the author, Looky-loos are spectators whom eventually lose interest of those with “talent” and express a dramatic shift from covertly hating the things they desire most to show outright discontent of one’s celebrity. Hickey then goes on to explain the participant, which I agree has its inherent problems such as “losing interest at the moment of accreditation, always assuming there is something better out there, more in tune to there own agenda’s.” But at least the participant works to increase the social value of things. Another problem is that the same institutions that sanction uninspired arts for the “use” of spectators are in line with the same institutions that create artists. Hence the example Hickey uses when he find that artists can’t simply call upon their art friends as participants. Entourages are a quick fix to having a “comfortable, local as well as social activity” and bringing attention from everywhere, but as soon as it gets “too” big and is owned by the institution then you must abandon it. Or so hickey suggests.

Hochunk funk

"Romancing the Looky loo's Reading response - Victoria

Is this essay saying that we let people dictate who we are and what we will become? In the beginning Hickey comments on hoe people who support do so because they want to be like you, they want to have what you have and when you don’t have that anymore then they will find someone else to aspire to be like. What I get from this is that once someone sees what they want in us they stick around and if we like that, to be followed and admired we will do what is necessary to keep it. This makes me think of the popular girls in high school. A number of girls follow one because they want to be like her and on her side. Even though they hate her they will still follow her because its the next best thing and she as the leader will do what she has to maintain her power. If I am not an artist who has followers but I “follow” contemporary artists, does that make me a spectator in Hickory’s father since of the word? One who views artist’s work because they want to be like the artist? If I see my peers work and think about it more then I liked to admit and secretly hope that I become successful before they do, what does that say about me? I do not want to be considered successful because I am followed nor would I personally see myself as successful even though that would be great. I would consider myself successful whenI can speak the world that which I want to be apart of. It is then that I will have no doubts about if I am a spectator or an artist.

Weekly artist Andrea Zittel - Victoria

I was looking through Andrea Rosen Gallery for information on the Reception thats happening for Roni Horn, and I came across this artist. I just think this is a beautiful piece.

Weekly work - victoria

two parts of a series of upcoming paintings, first time i actually used oil for entire paintings all semester.

Crit work - Victoria

For those you don't realize, this is a to scale drawing. This is a baby giraffe and they are approx. 5-6 feet at the time they are born and 12 year old girls are approx. 4.5-5'2 ft. I did my research I didn't just decide to put a random girl and a midget giraffe together.

a weekly drawing of sorts...

or a reason that a few were missed haha... didn't i look like hell, god.

artist, Kaye Donachie

The quality of light in these paintings is simply gorgeous. The delicate use of shadows provides a subtle yet prominent existential force in these paintings, with a really nice style of representation leaking into abstraction. An all around win in my book!

weekly drawing

pen and latex, trying to create atmospheric depth with minimal marks and color field.

crit pieces

From Darwin's "Origin of the Species"

reading response

This reading resonated with my recent questioning of the expected viewing audience for produced work. The structure of school permits the expectance of weekly, educated discussion about work, which is a main highlight of being a student. The awareness of school ending brings up the responsibility we each have of finding our own satisfaction with our practice, and the necessity of finding answers to our own questions as they develop and unfold. The things we make are questions and answers in themselves that only lead to further questioning, leaving artists in a constant snowball effect of development.

It will always be strange to separate the world of creation from that of presentation, I’m not sure if the translation of the mentality of creation can communicate authentically in the viewing process. Success of the maker’s mind to be viewed through each piece is perhaps the highest goal of art, but there are so many aspects of the creation process that are inevitably lost when the piece is hung and separated from the maker. These separations are discussed in the reading, when the continuously changing audience shifts more and more from personal to estranged as the popularity rises. Widespread recognition is a primary goal for most artists, but the catch-22 is the expanding disconnect that arrives with the recognition. Dave Hickey acknowledges this well with the closing statement on page 154, “You may be assured that what is being glorified in public splendor is just the residue, a mere simulacrum from which disinterested spectators may infer the experience of participants.”

Weekly Drawing

The artist I've included this week is Mark Bradford (top), whose immense collages resemble city plans or aerial views of urban environments. He also collages in bits of newspaper, magazines, comics, and other found material, which one can see when looking up close at the work. My drawing (bottom) this week is a larger sized web drawing, upon which I have made a variety of gestures, which serve to contrast the systematic arrangement of the lines embossed into the paper and to build a relationship between digital and analog ideas, which are played out upon the surface.

weekly drawing

Drawing #9

Response to "Air Guitar": Romancing the Looky-Loos

What Hickey identifies in his writing, which is the dilemma of the famous artist and the issues of ‘selling out’ and fan relations, I think is a little odd to think of in terms of being a visual artist. For performing artists and those in the entertainment industry, this particular section of Hickey’s book was relevant, I think. But another idea that Hickey introduces that I do agree with is the notion that all of the big, important events/exhibitions/displays/etc. in any artistic culture boil down to the informal relations that preceded their advent. I thought it was so pertinent that he mentioned the mentality of the young artists he encountered, all of whom seemed to have the belief the artist is in a group of ‘others’ that are excluded from the rest of society. It raised a question for me as to who I make connections with and what kind of people I think are important to show my artwork. After reading Hickey’s work, it seemed to me that even showing my work in a forum that is mostly artists isn’t such a bad option – someone within that group is bound to have friends or a connection to someone of importance.

I also enjoyed the phrase, “spectator-food’, which I took to imply that once one’s work has reached a broader public domain, or, as Hickey says, “the domain of normative expression”, wherein one’s art has transcended one’s control. This idea reminds me of something that Francis Tucker has told me several times over, which is basically the same idea: Once you sell an artwork or loan it to whomever or whatever institution, it is totally out of your control. The art, at that point, becomes more autonomous and the artist does not determine its life anymore. Fortunately for the artist, Hickey suggests that the moment these kinds of things happen that the artist should move on. I agree with his idea, and I don’t think that ‘moving on’ necessarily means starting over or beginning something drastically different. I think it’s more a matter of acceptance of the way things work.

Another line of Hickey’s that struck me was “…you may be assured that what is being glorified in public splendor is just the residue, a mere simulacrum from which disinterested spectators may infer the experience of participants”. Hickey seems to suggest here that one’s efforts, despite how genuine they may be, do not elicit the idyllic publicized situation. I think the academic institution, particularly for visual artists, does a good job of preparing the young artist for this somewhat tragic result of their future efforts. Even if Hickey’s idea is a little dismal – one can’t have the cake and eat it, too – I think it is good to be disillusioned about such fantasies sooner rather than later. After all, the fantasy of being a rock star or famous painter or whatever and being understood and having a sincere relationship to one’s fans is a little much, which makes me wonder where such an idea originated, anyway.

Overall, the reading left me with a sense of isolation as an artist. Not that my work or I exist in a bubble, but on a social level I know that I am separated from people in other fields. Contrary to the ‘fading high-school friends’ that Hickey described, I do keep in contact with a few, in order to understand what kind of work they do, and to remember what it is like to talk to someone about something that isn’t art. So I do not think the state of things, in terms of the artist and their work in relation to the rest of society, is awful. It is practically where I expected it to be, and the conversation Hickey has with Waylon Jennings only serves to underscore its reality.

My Final Drawing Assignment

We're always told what a useful tool it can be to making drawings of paintings. Here are some mine, from other people's paintings.

crit piece

included in this post is my piece from this week's critique. I did the drawing from a polygonal structure that I worked through using a labyrinth floor-plan design as a means of making a drawing. I then played with edge and value to shift the image away from flatness, which led to obscuring the image of the maze and making a relationship between the larger polygonal structure and the finer linear drawing seen up close.