Working in Isolation: a dialog with history

And David (part 2), last but certainly not least, as I said above, I do agree with your comment that making art is socially responsible but not all artists see it that way and not all art is responsible. The instruction of social responsibility is tricky because so often instruction is based in fashion, what’s current, and that dilutes the importance of taking responsibility with one’s work. But to never discuss the reasons for taking responsibility with one’s work is perhaps worse. To be allowed to make work in “unlimited and uninhibited freedom to produce and express”, as Benjamin Buchloh describes in his essay is irresponsible on the part of educational institutions. It just sends the message that “you are all that is important” which we as mature adults understand (hopefully) not to be the case.

As you say yourself, “contractually however the supplier is bound to supply what is required” which to my mind reinforces my point that if we expect society to support us and our work we owe a debt of responsibility in what we produce and present to society. Perhaps it is because I am American (remembering the “Contract with America” years of Papa Bush), but I feel we are bound to supply what is required – and I don’t mean just making work that people want like the pretty seascapes you’ve mentioned before. I mean making work that fulfills both our personal needs and that of society. That is not always easy; it requires boundaries and limitations, something a liberal society doesn’t always like.

www.jlbfineart.com

In response (part 1) to Rob, Justine and David’s comments on my posting #11, thank you all for your comments, I’m delighted to have sparked such a discussion. Forgive me for being a bit tardy to reply, I am preparing for a solo exhibition and the opening is coming up on the 25^th, so I’m a bit distracted…..

Rob, what sounds so interesting about the experience you describe with your Soviet sculpture is the location of this massive work. The first thing that comes to my mind is to ask whether this is an example of appropriated art (something David mentions in his comment), particularly given the political history of Northern Ireland.

Another point you make which I find interesting is the question of outdated political works. I must admit, I have always felt uneasy with political artwork, partially for this reason. Times change, society changes, values change, if we make art to last is it responsible to make work that is potentially confrontational or explosive? What does it mean for us as a society when work outlives it’s time and becomes something possibly ridiculous? Do we retire it with reverence or do we forget about it only to see it appropriated (perhaps) and used for purposes which are possibly inappropriate? There are lots of questions surrounding ‘responsibility’.

Justine, I’ve read your blog and that is one of the things I took away from it, was this concern from the workers that your work be more than just self expression. I find this compelling because this is a slice of society, what I mean is, there are as many people who are not interested in art as there are those in society who are. Do we only talk to those who are interested? Rather like preaching to the converted, isn’t it? And if we only talk to those who are interested, are we fulfilling our responsibility to society as David outlines in his comment? I share his idea “that making art is in its self socially responsible”, I feel a keen sense of responsibility to look at issues of existence, experience, of living life itself because I feel continued reflection on what it means to be human is something we and society needs to do, especially in times of increased technological advances and military conflict. I also feel a responsibility to discuss art issues with people who have no connection with art. I feel their grievances against art and artists are important because they are our real critics.

You ask “how can you justify your work as primarily self expression to people who don’t have a way into art; it is seen as self indulgent and useless”. That is a very good question and an important one. Why is self expression important? For me, it’s important because my expression of something interior may touch someone’s own experience. I think this is the essence of connection, it is how we stay connected as a society and one way we keep our humanity. But when people feel excluded from finding “a way into art” the importance of self expression breaks down.

I would be very interested to know what kind of art the quarry workers want from you because what I read behind their concern that you make art that is not just for yourself, is a desire to connect with you and what you are doing and what you produce. It sounds as if they are asking for a way in.

Reading Benjamin Buchloh is like taking a hit to the solar plexus. He doesn’t pull any punches, nor should he.

I recently read ‘Figures of authority, Ciphers of Regression: Notes on the Return of Representation in European Painting’ published in October Vol. 16, Art World Follies (Spring 1981), published by MIT Press (kindly sent to me by Becky Hunter). Buchloh states,

“Paradoxically, however, both traditional Marxism and standard liberalism exempts artists from their responsibilities as sociopolitical individuals: Marxism through its reflection model, with its historical determinism; liberalism thorough its notion of the artist’s unlimited and uninhibited freedom to produce and express. Thus both political views extend to artists the privilege of assuming their determinate necessity to produce unconscious representations of the ideological world.” Man!

I admit, I don’t fully understand the Marxist side of his comparison, but I understand completely what he is talking about from the liberal side. When I was in school, that is exactly what we were being taught, ‘express yourself,’ to such an extent that it became facilitated self indulgence. It was all about expression, we never discussed any responsibility we were going to have as future artists. Is this being discussed now in art school? I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like it.

With an art world increasingly run by market dictations, perhaps this is a fundamental question we need to ask ourselves as artists; what is our responsibility to society as an artist? If we expect society to support us and our work, we must certainly, then, owe a debt of responsibility to society through the art we make and present.

What do you think?

www.jlbfineart.com

I work in the studio on Mondays. It is my day for art and I am available to no one. This is what I was thinking about on Monday as I worked on new work.

I returned to my childhood today. I wasn’t reminiscing or having sentimental memories of my past, it’s a past I’m not always happy to revisit. But my work in the studio today took me there unexpectedly.

I have several things going at once here, and strangely, they all are funneling my thoughts in one direction.

I worked on six small works on paper, a writing sample for a competition, an exhibition entry and another work – it may be sculptural, it may be painting, it may be conceptual, in fact, I’m not quite sure what it is and whether I face legal action if I exhibit it. It’s this work which has hit me forcefully today.

The six works on paper, as a group, are called ‘6 obliterations’. I found things I did not expect to find in these works. They actually are completely different than what I intended to make. They connect to my history, too, and have set my thoughts on this path back to my childhood.

The writing sample has a curious theme of crime and punishment (in relation to art). I chose as my subject a statement of contemplating my actions, my crime, against this last work which I cannot yet define. It involves a book written by someone else and actions perpetrated by me. It is these actions to this book which has struck me with such force.

As a child and I think for my whole childhood, I scribbled on anything and everything which came within my reach. Nothing was safe. I marked, broke or left trace on everything I knew. I once even used scotch tape to lift the gold leaf from my grandmother’s harp. That de-gilded patch remained in my view until the day I sold the harp to fund my move to Europe. Every time I saw it, my subconscious reminded me it was mine, I did it, I made that mark.

The actions and marks I make today on someone else’s book make me feel the force of those memories and I remember the strange feelings I had as a child creating my own world within someone else’s world. They were strange feelings of absolute abandon in acting on my thoughts, making my inner space visible; building a world that only I knew and understood. It was a sort of isolation, but it was me isolating and removing myself from the world I looked out on. I left that world to create my world.

Clearly, as an adult, one must move away from those kinds of fantasies in order to function. But the unexpected return of those feelings today as I work has left me with a profound sense of my history, my existence, my self. The weight of which I can probably never express.

www.jlbfineart.com

In response to a discussion with David Minton on my post #7.

Let’s look at some definitions of self, identity and obliteration; we seem to be going in circles around the meaning of these words.

From Webster’s New World Dictionary:

self: 1. the identity, character, etc. of any person or thing 2. one’s own person as distinct from all others 3. one’s own welfare or interest

identity: 1. the state or fact of being the same 2.(a) the state or fact of being some specific person or thing; individuality (b) the state of being as described

obliterate: 1. to blot out; efface 2. to destroy

efface: 1. to rub out; erase 2. to make (oneself) inconspicuous

I understand there to be no distinction between identity and self, they are one and the same.

If you try to place self and identity in a hierarchy of intentionality, you could perhaps say self exerts intention and identity displays motivation, with the distinction being self and intention are less defined than identity and motivation. Identity and motivation are often specifically named. But I believe it is erroneous to make this distinction because what I intend is the genesis of my motivation. I think self and identity have come to appear different and distinct only because identity is often defined in concrete terms such as I am a parent, I am a teacher; whereas, the self often remains nebulous and undefined as some part of ourselves which guide and direct our being. Our self is our identity and our identity is our self.

This argument of the non-existence of self and that we are made top to bottom by social influence is not something I have studied in depth yet but I have encountered many references to it recently. I agree (as far as I understand the argument) that we are entirely made by social influence and the self has very little, if no self determination, we can make choices yes, but the way we come to make a choice is determined by all the social influences we have ever experienced in our lives. And I believe this supports my argument that the self is defined and obliterated by its context. The self is defined by the context in which it finds itself, and this context obliterates the self, not always as a complete annihilation, but often just as a diminishment.

The concept of the self as some directing, autonomous, pure part of our being has been challenged, and I think rightfully so. We, none of us, exist without reference to what is outside ourselves, so a view of the self as somehow untouched by the exterior we experience, yet in control of our being is illogical. I refer to the self because whatever is being debated about the existence of the self at the moment, we each of us exist in time and perceive of our existence in the world. So an exploration of self is still valid.

I am one of six billion, no one has exactly my DNA, but I share the same 99.9% of everyone else’s DNA. No one has had exactly my life experiences, but our individual experiences are similar enough that we are all able to understand one another’s experience, that is, as in contrast to understanding what it is like to be a cuttlefish. No one has experienced the exact things that I experience in moments of time, but we all experience the same synchronous moments of time. I am unique, but I have to admit, I find it hard to say what is unique about me.

www.jlbfineart.com