I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Princess Diana
Criticism is an act of love.
Chairman Mao
I pursue no objectives, no system, no tendency; I have no programme, no style, no direction. I have no time for specialized concerns, working themes, or variations that lead to mastery.
I steer clear of definitions, I don't know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-committal, passive; I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty. Other qualities may be conducive to achievement, publicity, success; but they are all outworn - as outworn as ideologies, opinions, concepts, and names for things.
Now that there are no priests or philosophers left, artists are the most important people in the world. That is the only thing that interests me.
Gerhard Richter, Notes, 1966
16 comments:
No videos? Is this a statement about the co-opting of user-generated conteny by social networking sites and corporations---whose business model is to sell viewers to ads based on aggregated content that they get for free in the first place....I demand a Mike Egan video!
Joao
you gotta go look on the internet for his videos man!
shiiiiiiiiitttt!!!!
Shall we discuss the painting? Ryan Sullivan and I just finished it. I call it Powder Puff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPctNq3W9Uo
I call it puffed prow
The painting interests me because of your relationship to Ryan, and his to you. The concept of trust among friends to explore mediums you where once unfamiliar with is what draws me to this work. Artists collaborate all the time...it's the amount of trust we share with those other artists that's important. How much do those painting mean to Ryan? I know he cares about the ones wrapped in plastic and hang on the wall in the lounge. Does he care if you fuck up the small ones? I'm not asking Ryan to give you work that he doesn’t want to, but the question of value arises, I question the authenticity of the piece because of it. Is it an exercise or is it a finished work of art? Devils advocate
OK, it is a finished work, without question. But it might read as an exercise. That's a better statement, less bitchy.
Mike you are the Mad Hatter!!!
Value, authenticity, and the question of exercise vs. finished work are just not things that I think about at all. Powder Puff is a painting; the main question is: what do you see? The process of casual, experimental collaboration applied in a dedicated fashion is just how these paintings were made. If anything, the process is only a reflection of our shared lack of use for traditional modes of authorship. It is also interesting to see the paintings that each of us make on our own in comparison to these. I think the format of this blog naturally (but unintentionally) is a reflection of the way in which artists individuate and isolate themselves in order to establish a strong, clear identity that can easily be identified and processed. If an artist works in another mode, the identity signal becomes fractured, and the question arises: Who is making this
My response is simple enough. Does it matter?
To this question of individuation, to what extend is the notion of that methodology itself problematized by things like alter-egos and the pervasive use of alternate identities as a creative heuristic in contemporary practice?
Are you not also assuming that the work would thus be some form of expressive psychology under these conditions, something that is decoded through 'reading'? Are you propping up false notions of authorship to justify using an alternate methodology?
It's interesting to think of Kippenberger's work, as much as the renewed interest in his work is plagued with problems, in light of what you're saying...
The importance of Value and authenticity in collaboration...
Robert Rauschenberg's "Erased de Kooning Drawing"
I think about what I want to look at, what I think is interesting. My own tastes usually lead me to something that is loose and subtle but also direct, with as little pragmatism or constricted artistic notions as possible. I honestly do believe that art can be light and fun and sweet kiss of sunshine in the corner of a room or prop decoration. The point of collaborating with Ryan is to completely avoid the responsibility of authorship, which is the ball-and-chain of any praxis. I think collaboration is not exactly common because 1) it confuses the audience as to who exactly is the "genius", a concept which I suspect most artists still unfortunately believe in, and because 2) the singular artist(author), who has total control and ultimate responsibility over a project, is not free and open to possibilities that might blossom if they gave up some of that control to another person. I wanted to give up control. I wanted to give up my internal fascism and fight it out with Ryan. Yes, it is an exercise - it is practice - which in turn, is just as real as anything else. This is what we did.
The painting is a covered in sand. The sand obscures the portrait of a woman. On top of the sand is a single black mark, which is positioned to correspond to the location under the eye where athletes often dab black greasepaint to decrease the glare from the sun. Football players do this. At the many different high schools I attended, there was every year without fail a powder puff football game. Any girl at the school could sign up to play football in a single game. The girls would wear the uniforms of the boys on the "real" football team. The girls with boyfriends on the football team would wear their boyfriend's jerseys. As an additional component to this role playing exercise, many of the girls would wear black greasepaint under their eyes. The background of the painting is a faded grayish pink. The painting is small, 12" X 18". The powder puff games were really rough. I used to see girls fight each other, and none of them wore pads. Many of the players would boast after the game about how bad they busted each other up. I participated in two of the powder puff games as a cheerleader. This was fun because I got to talk to a cheerleader, get her uniform, then dress up in drag as the cheerleader, who I was attracted to. This made me feel like I had friends, but really I was just a clown. I think the clown/jester is an interesting model for artists. Everybody laughs but the jester, in this case me, who did not play football, did not get to hook up with cheerleaders, but did get to wear their uniforms and did get to have the girls laugh at me. It was a way in. Of course I took it too far and sort of weirded everybody out. But whatever. The point is, this is a feminist painting.
I really like the fact that she has a weak chin. She looks so dowdy. All the girls I remember playing powder puff were blonde and hot. This woman looks like an author or librarian. Poor frumpy thing. Also, kudos on the colabo work. All of us need to learn how to step away from our work and let a trust-worthy person in.
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