Is Reality a Handicap?
This is just a thought to throw out there. Fisher6000 and I talk about this all the time, but it should be put in writing so it can be unpacked. I've seen a lot of art now and I've seen a lot of art that leans on reality too much, and I'm not talking about realism. I really don't like John Curin's work, but not because of its illusion's. I'm talking about art that relies on its ties back to reality to substantiate its worth as vision.
There's a strain of documentation's in art and this actually relates to MKCronin's post. Piccinini is making two bodies of work. One is clearly a leap of imagination. It opens the doors to meditations on bioengineering, the nature of humanity, the nature of being a creation, the question of moral obligation and terror. The other pretends to document a reality. How much other art do we see that says "I am valid because I am well researched?" I look at Janine Gordon and I see (despite curitorial protestations to the contrary) a documentation of a subculture. I am looking at the Whitney Biennial catalog for 2002 right now, and it says that she goes beyond documentation into her personal interactions with her subject. I don't see it, and even if I did, how is that more than documentation? Does it create? Is it imaginative? Does it go beyond the obvious to create new questions? I have no doubt that Bank Violette's installation at the Whitney was well researched. Burnt churches, oppositional culture - natch. Anyone who went to a public high school is very familiar with all of this, and they didn't have to pay $12 dollars to find out. No, they were trapped with it, (or in it) for 4 years. This is only research. It is simply, metaphorically, tracing reality and saying "look, if you didn't go to public high school in the past 30 years, i bet this is new to you." It is no more revelatory or creative than if I traced a photo.
At Socrates Sculpture Park right now there are bird traps created from drawings of bird traps. If you read the plaques you find out what these things are. Is there anything in making facsimiles of old traps that couldn't be done just as effectively by having people look at the original wood cuts? They are all grouped together in a sculpture park, effectively removing them from their effect, but reframing them doesn't make them more meaningful. They are artifacts. They document that a few hundred years ago people devised these ways to trap birds. These objects would be at home in the American Natural History Museum, and they would lead to the same imaginings.
I think there is a huge difference between presenting people with raw material that leads them to think in new ways, as Piccinini's sculpture does, and presenting people with evidence. The evidence is independent of its circumstances in the way it provokes thought. You see a model of a bird trap at ANHM and you might buy a nice replica and take it home and muse about trapping birds. You see a model of a bird trap at SSP and you take a picture and you muse about trapping birds. If you're given to it, you might think about deception and safety and trapping, but you're given to that kind of thinking you don't need a sculpture park to trigger it.
My friend Chris Verene, who is photographer, makes me rethink my conception of Gailsburg life, and other situations that I would never question, because of his intimacy with the subjects, because he sees beyond what I would see if I did the research. Even Tom Friedman, who can rely too much on punchlines makes you rethink spaghetti. And as much as I hate his position, John Curin casts a new light on art and art collecting. It's hard now to see certain old masters without thinking "melon breasts."
Art has no business restating reality. That is for documentation. Art is creative, or nothing.
This is just a thought to throw out there. Fisher6000 and I talk about this all the time, but it should be put in writing so it can be unpacked. I've seen a lot of art now and I've seen a lot of art that leans on reality too much, and I'm not talking about realism. I really don't like John Curin's work, but not because of its illusion's. I'm talking about art that relies on its ties back to reality to substantiate its worth as vision.
There's a strain of documentation's in art and this actually relates to MKCronin's post. Piccinini is making two bodies of work. One is clearly a leap of imagination. It opens the doors to meditations on bioengineering, the nature of humanity, the nature of being a creation, the question of moral obligation and terror. The other pretends to document a reality. How much other art do we see that says "I am valid because I am well researched?" I look at Janine Gordon and I see (despite curitorial protestations to the contrary) a documentation of a subculture. I am looking at the Whitney Biennial catalog for 2002 right now, and it says that she goes beyond documentation into her personal interactions with her subject. I don't see it, and even if I did, how is that more than documentation? Does it create? Is it imaginative? Does it go beyond the obvious to create new questions? I have no doubt that Bank Violette's installation at the Whitney was well researched. Burnt churches, oppositional culture - natch. Anyone who went to a public high school is very familiar with all of this, and they didn't have to pay $12 dollars to find out. No, they were trapped with it, (or in it) for 4 years. This is only research. It is simply, metaphorically, tracing reality and saying "look, if you didn't go to public high school in the past 30 years, i bet this is new to you." It is no more revelatory or creative than if I traced a photo.
At Socrates Sculpture Park right now there are bird traps created from drawings of bird traps. If you read the plaques you find out what these things are. Is there anything in making facsimiles of old traps that couldn't be done just as effectively by having people look at the original wood cuts? They are all grouped together in a sculpture park, effectively removing them from their effect, but reframing them doesn't make them more meaningful. They are artifacts. They document that a few hundred years ago people devised these ways to trap birds. These objects would be at home in the American Natural History Museum, and they would lead to the same imaginings.
I think there is a huge difference between presenting people with raw material that leads them to think in new ways, as Piccinini's sculpture does, and presenting people with evidence. The evidence is independent of its circumstances in the way it provokes thought. You see a model of a bird trap at ANHM and you might buy a nice replica and take it home and muse about trapping birds. You see a model of a bird trap at SSP and you take a picture and you muse about trapping birds. If you're given to it, you might think about deception and safety and trapping, but you're given to that kind of thinking you don't need a sculpture park to trigger it.
My friend Chris Verene, who is photographer, makes me rethink my conception of Gailsburg life, and other situations that I would never question, because of his intimacy with the subjects, because he sees beyond what I would see if I did the research. Even Tom Friedman, who can rely too much on punchlines makes you rethink spaghetti. And as much as I hate his position, John Curin casts a new light on art and art collecting. It's hard now to see certain old masters without thinking "melon breasts."
Art has no business restating reality. That is for documentation. Art is creative, or nothing.
posted by gypsy_kat at 9:42 PM
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