The Estheticist (Issue 9, March 2011)

Dear Estheticist,

As a latino artist making art about my culture, I often ask, “what’s the point of making this kind of art?” Sometimes it seems futile… everyone always says “Uptown is so far”… Is it up to me to bridge the gap?

—Washington Heights Girl

Dear Washington Heights Girl,

It is very difficult to be an artist negotiating two cultures, but it is that very need to negotiate that will make you stronger. You have been presented with both a gift and a challenge: you come from a rich background of cultural references, and you live in a situation where it is possible for you to take distance from them and see them critically.  You should not see yourself as a Latina artist against the white mainstream, or someone who needs to abandon her background to be accepted, but rather as an artist who is informed by both a latino background and a downtown art world.  And the people who may reject your art or claim you as one of their own don’t decide where you belong: they are all actors on the social and cultural environment that you are to respond to as an artist.

Both places are imperfect and uncomfortable, and both will at times appear to make you feel foreigner. But it is a necessary condition for an artist to be an outsider:  it is a necessary standpoint to better comment on reality. So while it may be a burden to, as you say, “bridge the gap”, it is essential for you to maintain a relationship between those two worlds, and use your frustration as energy toward creating more art.  The wrong direction would be to give up either uptown or downtown. As you grow into a fully –formed artist, those physical barriers will prove themselves as more psychological than real, and you and your art will eventually be able to subsume both.

Sincerely,

The Estheticist.

Dear Estheticist

As a white male philosophy major, I find myself in a position of culture-less-ness. I identify with little geographical or religious heritage. In my artistic endeavors, I find myself embracing technology as a mediator between myself and history. I honestly enjoy this bridge of philosophy, art, and technology, yet sometimes feel left out of a greater cultural movement ( e.g. latino art, etc.). Am I over-eager to attach to “the now?” How should I reconcile  my lost soul?

_MDL

Dear MDL,

Firts it is important to recognize, as you seem to do already, that we don’t choose our background— or lack of it.  This is a condition that we can’t change, and thus it is of little use to worry about how it could be different. However, there are two other things for you to think about. One of them is that the absence of a past or a culture, while perplexing, can also be incredibly liberating. Octavio Paz once wrote that Americans are successful because they are born toward the future, whereas Latin America is forced to develop looking toward the past. You should take advantage of the condition that affords you to carry a heavy weight of history. Secondly, there is nothing wrong on wanting to engage with the present, but to cling to any set of labeled movement, be it self-proclaimed or imaginary (eg. latino art) doesn’t turn you automatically into a motivated or original thinker. Your solution is not to find a culture, but to find motivation and ideas. You should travel, have experiences, engage with your times, meet people that you may feel are kindred spirits, and through those experiences you will eventually create a culture of your own, which in turn will lead to your artistic vision.

Sincerely,

The Estheticist.

Dear Estheticist,

A few weeks ago, after contacting the curators of an exhibition, I received an official email letter from the institution’s curatorial team stating that my work had been reviewed and that “after careful consideration,” it was not going to be included in the show, but that they would keep my files for “future possibilities.” Last week, I received a beaten down and dirty envelope. To my dismay, it was the same package I had sent to the curators. Unopened, and still bearing the red marks of “return to sender” it was accompanied by a US Postal note stating that it had been lost in transit and couldn’t be delivered. Besides the inefficiency of the postal service, and the time that took them to notify me, I am distraught by the curator’s claim that my work had actually been reviewed and archived for later consideration. What to do? Should I print and frame the letter along with the returned envelop and include it in a future exhibition called “Rejects From the Heart?” Should I create a public performance denouncing this rather (un)common practice and call it “My Missing Files?” Pictures included, should I Tweeter it, Facebook it, MySpace it (does this one still exist?) Should I call the Ethical Commission on Curatorial Practices and Exhibitions? or should I discretely and valiantly TAKE IT LIKE A MAN and swallow my semi-broken artistic aspirations, pride and prejudice?

Please advice… I plea to your moral, aesthetic, and ethical wisdom.

Hector Canonge

Dear Hector,

Your frustration with this mishandling of your materials is perfectly understandable, and it is not acceptable for any organization to mail artists a form letter about their work without having even bothered to check on whether a submission was indeed received.  However, the circumstances around these kind of situations are important to consider:  you did not specify, for example, the kind of organization you interacted with (which makes a difference, as I shall explain ) and on whether your submission was an unsolicited one or if it was sent in response to a call for entries. If, for instance, you submitted an unsolicited proposal to an alternative art space or gallery,  I would be a bit less indignant toward them. It is no secret that non-profit art spaces and galleries are inundated by unsolicited requests, and they have a hard time to keep track of all submissions, which prompts them to regularly send form letters. This, while not a nice practice, is about the only thing they can possibly do to keep up with the avalanche of requests they get, and this practice is bound to result in ocassional glitches like the one you unfortunately just suffered. However, if in contrast you submitted in response to a call for entries ( either for an art competition, foundation, or art space) and you received this response, the act reveals a serious incompetence and error in their selection infrastructure and would put into question the objectivity or value of their entire selection process. Artists who submit to competitions, calls for entries, etc. are entitled to having their materials be opened and reviewed, and at the very least be seen by the actual decisionmaker of the opportunity (that is, not a random intern). As such, it is appropriate to write a letter of complaint to the director of the organization, and if it is ignored,  go public about it — not out of vengeance, but in the interest of pressuring them to correct the problem in the future.

In any case you need to see this oversight not as a curatorial verdict on your work but as plain and simple mismanagement. It may only be a consolation prize, but you may agree that it is still better to be rejected by accident than intentionally.

Sincerely,

The Estheticist.

Dear Estheticist,

What is art?

Sincerely,

Swiss Girl

Dear Swiss Girl,

Congratulations for being the first one in the history of this column to ask the more basic question about art.  George Quasha, a New York artist, is in my view the authority on the subject. Quasha has spent many years collecting video interviews with more than 800 artists, curators, writers, etc. responding to this question.

http://www.quasha.com/art-is/art-is

When one reviews the many responses, it is clear that there are as many answers as individuals. This suggests that the main issue about this question is that it can never be given a final answer, as whichever provisional answer is given can immediately be contradicted by a new way of interpreting what art is. Art is a discipline designed to transform itself permanently, along with its values and structure, thus no satisfactory answer can be given.

Sincerely

The Estheticist

Dear Estheticist,

Here is my dilemma: I get this email from a Gallery called XXX Fine Art in Chelsea to come in to visit because they like my work.  A while back they had seen my work in an art show and left me a card.  I must admit I did not like the work in their gallery but I thought I would feel it out maybe there would be a change in curation.  I go in and they tell me I should apply to this competition they are having for a show there as well as in Korea and it costs $60.00 (the woman points to the bank in Korea on the application that I should send it too). It was all nice but after I left I decided not to apply. I thought it was a little shady because the work hanging on the walls in no way resembled my work. So then I get this email that thanks me for my submission (they assumed I applied) but I did not get in. I was like huh? then I see on their web page the deadline was in January. Did they really need my money that bad? I want to email them back and tell them that I never bothered applying.  Is this a flat out scam that I should report to the Better Business Bureau?

Sincerely,

Artist who feels that XXX Fine Arts must think Artists Are Idiots

Dear Artist who feels that Able Fine Arts must think Artists Are Idiots,

You did well in trusting your instinct. The fact that the work you saw on view was substandard and not connected with what you do should already be, automatically, a reason to walk away.  If what you see looks bad, it is bad — there is no use in hoping it may get better in the future. Furthermore, art galleries have no business in creating competitions, let alone asking artists to pay them to review their work. While it is not an illegal practice, it is professionally slimy and revealing of a business with zero credibility. Galleries like this prey on uninformed artists to capitalize on their eagerness to be exhibited in New York, and unfortunately there are always those who fall for their scam, thinking that they will get positive exposure and status.  They don’t realize that, with galleries like these, they would be better off selling their works on the street— either here or in Korea.

Sincerely,

The Estheticist.

Dear Estheticist:

I am curating a large international show. An artist whose work I have followed and admired for long invited me to give a talk at a seminar that he is organizing. I accepted. Meanwhile, during the curatorial meetings with my co-curators his name was mentioned, and we all agreed that his work was perfect for our show. I disclosed immediately this possible conflict of interests. I personally feel that there is none, but, as they say, “Caesar’s wife should not only be honest, but look honest” I would like to go forward with the invitation, but am afraid that it will be read as a quid-pro-quo situation. Any advice?

Sincerely,

Concerned Curator.

Dear Concerned Curator,

For starters, as I assume that you are recognized curator since you are curating a large-scale exhibition, an invitation by an artist to an event is not quite comparable to the opportunity you would offer to him: an invitation to this seminar, I presume, is not a distinction that would substantially enhance your position in the art world.  But setting that aside, what the popular refrain that you mention should add is that even if Ceasar’s wife is and looks honest she may still not look so to those who want her to be dishonest. What this means is that there is no way that you can possibly prevent a public misreading of your actions.  As such, you are left with proceeding with what you consider the most appropriate way according to your curatorial expertise as what matters the most is to make the best exhibition possible. Being overly concerned to what the rest of the world may think or say about your actions may lead you to make the wrong curatorial choices. If you (and your colleagues) think the artist you admire is the appropriate artist for this exhibition, not only may you end up replacing him for a less ideal artist but you will also take away this opportunity from him only for a hypothetical fear of a public backlash.  Remember that other saying, that “hell is paved with good intentions”: many shows are constructed out of political correctness, desire of inclusivity, and other moral rules that, while perhaps democratic or fair, can result in terrible exhibitions.

Curators (and artists) who mainly operate through cronyism quickly reveal themselves as such, as this practice displays a pretty visible pattern that shows them acting out of opportunism and connections rather than an integral and objective vision. If you have not had such behavior in the past, your track record should speak against those suspicions.

Sincerely,

The Estheticist.

Dear Estheticist

What is the best question someone should ask about art?

Julien Isore

Dear Julien,

Opinions may differ around the attributes that such a question would have, but I will put forward that the best question one can ask about art has to address on whether there is an underlying order in the variability of the process by which art becomes relevant.

I explain: I am assuming that the best question about art should arguably be the one which helps us dig the deepest regarding the very nature of art. However, this is easier said than done, because the more familiar questions about art offer little enlightement toward the issue and actually are closer to non-questions. To better understand this, let’s look at some of those clichè contenders for the best question about art: “what is art?”, or perhaps “how is something art?” If you think about it, you will realize that the last two questions have been more or less rendered obsolete by the avant-garde: it is fairly established that anything can be art and that there are set mechanisms that make it (or can make it) so.  For this reason, questions about how something is or becomes art are not that problematic or controversial— they are closed questions.  A similar nonstarter is “is this good or bad art?”, as you enter into the quicksand of subjective evaluation, from which you are not likely to emerge with any useful knowledge. In other words, closed questions of this type only refer to definitive, but un-inspiring answers.

So what is more important is to figure out not why I like an artwork and you don’t, but how is it that an art work gains relevance in a particular moment and time amidst a group of people. More promising is the question “how does art become relevant?” along with the more specific “how is this art work relevant to us today?” which presupposes that there are criteria that would help us determine relevance, so that question can only be answered by previously answering the mother question: “are sets of criteria to determine the relevance of art or a specific art work variable, and if so, how?”  The answer to the first half of this question, if art history is any indication, is yes:  evaluative criteria in art vary according to cultural and social periods,  and while some constants often remain (say, we generally agree on the general importance of, say, Velazquez) it is not clear to us, up to this point at least, on whether there is a clear logic to the mutation of taste and of evaluative criteria in art. It likely is caused by a wide set of factors that move us from period to period, deciding, for instance, that Picasso from the standpoint of 2011 may not be as important to us as is, perhaps, Duchamp. But we have no way of predicting how that perception may change again (for all we know, maybe in one hundred years we will decide that, say, Lèger, was the greatest artist of the XXth century). The key lies in answering the question: is there a constant within the variability of art that help us understand its relevance for a particular time and place?  That may be the best question one may ask about art, as answering it may let you know not only what is it that makes us gravitate toward certain kinds of art today, but also what art may look like tomorrow.

Sincerely

The Estheticist

Dear Estheticist,

Is it ethical to push a painter to the train tracks if it will kill him but stop the train and save the life of two video artists?

Y.o.

Dear Y.o.,

No: it is unethical to waste the commuter’s time and prevent them from arriving on time to their real jobs.

Sincerely,

The Estheticist.

The Neologist

Direct Labor

Term used to refer to the amount of actual physical or mental work involved in the creation of an art work, often with the purpose to argue for a higher or lower price.

Collection Mining

Practice by dealers and curators of discreetly gauging the collection of a rich donor during a reception at their home, with the hopes to identify their interests and influence possible future sales, purchases, or donations.

Regression

Term applied to artists who, after trying a new style in their work that results unsuccessful, revert to a previous style that was better received critically.

Chaperonage

Factor taken into consideration when assessing the social ranking of a yet unknown quantity in the art world by seeing who this person is being accompanied at a social event. Considering his chaperonage, he must be a really hot artist.

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2 Responses to “The Estheticist (Issue 9, March 2011)”

  1. slip slidder says:

    What would you say is the wiser career choice: Painter or Poet?

  2. Omar says:

    Dear Estheticist

    I see myself as an emerging artist, but lately I feel lost because I’ve almost abandoned art production these past couple of years due to my grade thesis an some personal affairs. I used to think a lot about art and developing ideas for art projects of my own, but now I feel some how “disconnected”.
    I seriously need to get back to art production in order to, first, “reconnect” with the art world, second, get back to the art exhibition scene.
    What do you think would be the better way to get back on my feet?