Progress report

I thought maybe a progress report of the physical work I am doing/have done up to this point, might be helpful...

-I started my physical work by painting and drawing overtop of photographs I had taken of things in the natural world. I was trying to add a layer of artifice to 'the natural' and an obvious 'personal hand of the artist' to the work.  I wanted to take something of the natural world and turn it into art.  I wanted to take a beauty that is very seductive but push it past something that is "pretty".  However, after a review, it was pointed out that adding this layer of artifice wasn't translating as artificially reinventing the natural elements being depicted, because the viewer cold not move past the photographs themselves.  They were photographs I had taken and therefore the viewer's relationship to the photograph was not what I wanted.  I wanted the viewer to see what was in the photograph and read it as a representation of the natural world, then see the layers of artifice I put overtop of it as the 'work of art'.  But, because the photographs were originally by me, 'the artist', they weren't being read as representations for something else, but as the art themselves and therefore the layers of artifice ('the art') overtop, were not making any sense.  From there I knew I needed to work with someone else's works. The original work could not be by me. 

-Since the next iteration of the project was proposed, I have since been gathering a little collection of paintings and photographs from everywhere I can find them for a low cost. Paintings and photographs of landscape sceneries, and other depictions of 'things from the natural world' (animals, wild flowers, trees, leaves, etc).

-I have taken pictures of all these works and have begun to manipulate them in varying degrees.  For example, i started with a photograph I found of autumn leaves on a grassy background.  ( I bought this for three dollars), I took that pictures and actually remade it physically with real autumn leaves and grass, that I then put in a picture frame like the original.  The colors are brighter, the layout differently composed, but all in all, the collage 'picture' is of the same thing. Then I photographed my collage and put it in photoshop. After a few quick photoshop alterations, I had an interesting looking black and white abstract photograph (done in a digital watercolor style). this took me no more than a half hour. Next I took that digital reproduction and printed it out and used it as a reference to paint an actual abstract oil painting of the collage. Lastly I took all four reproductions and hung them on the wall all next to each other and asked passerby's to identify which of the four is 'the art'.  Issues considered were 'framed and not framed' 'time it took to make' 'cost' 'media (oil paint says art, photoshop doesnt)' etc.

The physical products of this are not stunningly appealing to me, but it is starting to raise some of the questions I am hoping to address.  

-Next I have my photography series.  I have been taking pictures of people/families/couples who own these landscape/nature paintings in their houses, hung on there walls, with them posed in the picture alongside these works.  I am trying to understand people's relationship to these works.  Why they choose to hang them in their houses, above their couches, etc. how do they view them- as art, paintings, photographs, decorations- what is the language they use to describe them?  I have two sets of these so far and will have many more after returning from Thanksgiving break (I found it is easiest to use family friends, or people who I am in some way affiliated with but do not know all that well).  After the first two rounds, and the conversations that took place, I now have a strong desire to also film my encounter in these people's homes (if they are willing).  Unfortunately the print was on the wrong kind of paper and so it needs reprinting, but one photograph I took was of an older couple siting on their couch, both with hands crossed in their laps, with their nature landscape painting hanging on the wall behind them.  At one point I took this picture and hung it above my couch in my studio and I really enjoyed the relationship I had created there- I want to look at this more.

-Lastly, I have been out filming about 15 times (approximately 20 hours out).  I have gathered just over 10 hours of footage, and imported about 8 of the 10. The 8 hours that are imported have been cut, and cataloged (or labeled) to make editing much quicker-finding clips will be simpler, I will not have to look through every clip to find what I want.

-I am waiting to finish the tape to export the remaining footage, which will be finished, imported and cataloged by the end of the weekend.

-I have begun work actually editing a few small pieces of the film together trying to illustrate visually my intentions for the film.  Last thursday however my hard drive power supply fried (luckily the surge protector did its job and that was ALL that was ruined), so I spent all of friday at IT moving my files from my hard drive to a loaner hard drive while I wait for the new power supply to ship...(thats about two to three weeks) In doing that, I had to move the entire capture scratch to the new hard drive, so all of the clips disconnected- final cut basically could not recognize where the original clips were being stored so the clips will not play in final cut until you reconnect all the media.  The majority of the work I did this weekend was reconnecting some 200 clips by hand in final cut so the project was playable/editable again. Apparently some of the clips were lost in the transition to the new hard drive so I will head back to IT soon to find where they went.  Other than that the film is ready for editing again.

-I also have a list of local(ish) 'craft shows' 'art shows' for the months of October, November and December and made it to the two that have taken place so far. One in Dexter and one in Grand Rapids. There is another this coming weekend in Brighton that I will be attending.  I have just been going, taking notes, getting some film footage, taking a few pictures, and talking to some of the booth owners.  I am not sure where these experiences are leading me, it is mostly a research type of activity at this point.  I have gathered some flyers though, looking at how these craft shows advertise themselves- as art shows, as crafts, as decorations,  to buy art for your house, etc.

-Meanwhile the physical work is going on, I am entertaining and stimulating  my brain with books and books and books.  Of particular interest to me so far, i found a play by Moliere called "The middle class gentleman" (there are a few posts about that here on my blog), Baudrillard's "Exit from Dialog",  Bourdieu's "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste", Kant's "Observation on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime", Huysman's "Against the Grain", and  Elkin's "Why Art Cannot be Taught" (for my own sanity). 

"..the buyers did the editing."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/arts/design/04auction.html?_r=1

Found this article today- thought it was pertinent.

Below are a few paragraphs excerpted from the article that really caught my eye concerning the ideas I am trying to sift through and talk about. Or possibly some examples of why I am allocating a grotesque amount of time and energy to addressing these topics.

-a concerned artist

"It wasn’t surprising that such a classic Impressionist image brought a strong price. These prettier works are what buyers have been gravitating toward since the recession began. In May at Sotheby’s, three paintings that had belonged to an heir of Henry O. and Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer — celebrated collectors who left prime examples by Degas, Cassatt, Courbet, Manet and Monet to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1929 — were snapped up by collectors at solid prices."

***(please ignore the emphasis on 'impressionism', but rather, gravitate your attention towards the description of 'prettier works')*** I don't want to have a discussion about impressionism, I am not attacking impressionism- I am attacking taste.

"After the sale, as the audience milled outside Christie’s [the gallery], James Roundell, a London dealer, perhaps summed up the auction best when he said, “It was a night where the buyers did the editing."

***(I am noticing a theme. Sound familiar... recall Moliere's play perhaps?)

Influence of Reading- Moliere's Middle Class Gentleman

Selling Art or Selling Out?!!?!

Who's buying our ideas anyway? Do most young artist even understand WHO they are making art for?

Do I? Do you think?

MUSIC MASTER
(To Musicians) Come, come into this room, sit there and wait until he comes.

DANCING MASTER
(To dancers) And you too, on this side.

MUSIC MASTER
(To Pupil) Is it done?

PUPIL
Yes.

MUSIC MASTER
Let's see. . . This is good.

DANCING MASTER
Is it something new?

MUSIC MASTER
Yes, it's a melody for a serenade that I set him to composing here, while waiting for our man to awake.

DANCING MASTER
May I see it?

MUSIC MASTER
You'll hear it, with the dialogue, when he comes. He won't be long.

DANCING MASTER
Our work, yours and mine, is not trivial at present.

MUSIC MASTER
This is true. We've found here such a man as we both need. This is a nice source of income for us -- this Monsieur Jourdain, with the visions of nobility and gallantry that he has gotten into his head. You and I should hope that everyone resembled him.

DANCING MASTER
Not entirely; I could wish that he understood better the things that we give him.

MUSIC MASTER
It's true that he understands them poorly, but he pays well, and that's what our art needs now more than anything else.

DANCING MASTER
As for me, I admit, I feed a little on glory. Applause touches me; and I hold that, in all the fine arts, it is painful to produce for dolts, to endure the barbarous opinions of a fool about my choreography. It is a pleasure, don't tell me otherwise, to work for people who can appreciate the fine points of an art, who know how to give a sweet reception to the beauties of a work and, by pleasurable approbations, gratify us for our labor. Yes, the most agreeable recompense we can receive for the things we do is to see them recognized and flattered by an applause that honors us. There is nothing, in my opinion, that pays us better for all our fatigue; and it is an exquisite delight to receive the praises of the well-informed.

MUSIC MASTER
I agree, and I enjoy them as you do. There is surely nothing more agreeable than the applause you speak of; but that incense does not provide a living. Pure praises do not provide a comfortable existence; it is necessary to add something solid, and the best way to praise is to praise with cash-in-hand. He's a man, it's true, whose insight is very slight, who talks nonsense about everything and applauds only for the wrong reasons but his money makes up for his judgments. He has discernment in his purse. His praises are in cash, and this ignorant bourgeois is worth more to us, as you see, than the educated nobleman who introduced us here.

-In the end, the music is actually crap...and the ballet is set to match.  So did these artist lower their standards to cater to the bourgeois and their lacking concept of art... OR did 'the Middle class gentleman' like the work because it was not beyond his realm of thinking in the first place, and he understands not what real art is. Was Moliere thinking of this standard as he wrote this play- knowing full well these plays pandered to the whim of the middle class, who could afford (in masses) to attend them. 'The Middle Class Gentleman' is painted as the idiot of the story.. but is he the real fool? 

Lil' Wanye says Jay Z is not the best rapper alive..

So its been pointed out that

'its not working'.

no?

yes.

Its not working?! Whats not working?!

I did these paintings (see below) to start working with the idea of applying my hand as an artist (my artifice) to this natural aesthetic.  I painted over top of  photographs of sunsets, abstracts of flowing water, bird guts, afternoon light pooring in through a hole in the ceiling, and a couch in the middle of field of flowers.

Its not working.

Ok, why? 

Well, you as the artist are painting over your own original work- you are trying to talk about class associations of certain aesthetics, but you are also taking about originality of those ideas and aesthetics and how that carries value.  Painting overtop of your own original pictures (even if they are of this 'natural aesthetic') isn't working.

You're right.

So I looked to Shaw, Lawler, Levine, even Duchamp and his readymades.  Their simple gestures of re-appropriation of work, ideas and concepts seemed to fit. There is something here.  

So, inspired by the painting in my studio (which to me, epitomized this idea of layering artifice over this natural aesthetic-putting it in another context-the gesture of hanging it upside down, talking about it as art instead of living room decoration) I started collecting pictures and paintings to do this to as well.  

Purple sunsets over incandescent waters...how divine. 

I've been filming.  Filming Filming FILMING. I have four hours of footage now. probably a full  half hour of that being REALLY good- usable toward my idea.  Thats just how it goes.

I even started playing with an audio track- to give some foundation to start layering video into it to give as examples.  

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!

It's been done. Kind of.  Its been done by people I know even.  It never occurred to me, until they pointed it out.  Don't go there. 

And its not working anyway...they said.

Whats not working?

I'll tell you later.

Presentation time.  I present.  I thought I was clear.  Good examples Anna.  Someone from the class said I made sense, so it must be working...right?

Its not working.

WHATS NOT WORKING?!

FOR GOD SAKES WHAT? POINT ME IN A DIRECTION DAMNIT!

Ok ok, heres a direction.  You are talking about class.  But you are talking about it incorrectly.  You are talking about this aesthetic tied to the middle class (I wont argue with you on that- you have a point there) but you are trying to elevate this aesthetic to work within the world of high art- the intellectual critical realm.  WHY?  THAT MAKES NO SENSE.  I don't think you are grasping the historical context of class struggle.  Since the fall of the Aristocracy the middle class has dominated.  Marx was determined to see the proletariat-the working class- rise up, but instead the middle class acquired dominance and has since dictated taste.  Because of the majoritive dominance of the middle class everything is oriented toward the bourgeois.  Historically the middle class even dictates taste.  High art rose out of a reaction against this determinate view.  They wanted something critical, intellectual, set apart.  The high art world does not cast the judgement of 'poor taste' onto the middle class, but rather the the middle class has subjugated the high art world because the entire capitalist, industrial, commercial industry has been oriented around the middle class-everything is for the middle class.  I mean artists have worked to bring the low brow taste to the high art world- but this works because both class have been marginalized by the dominance of the middle class- they had a commonality.  SO I ask- why would you want to bring the middle class taste to the high art world- the middle class will reject it and the art world will reject.  What is critical about doing this? Why is this interesting? Its not working.

I can't argue. But I'm not sure I wholly agree.  I can't argue...yet.

So as much as you (addressing the professors here) want to see more work- I think I need to go back to the books.  There is something here but it needs more research. sorry :(

wavesofbliss

I am interested in what creates and constitutes an appealing aesthetic and why different populations and classes of people differ in their opinion about this.  Is it a matter of taste, class, social construction?  The Artists Komar and Melamid did a series called the People’s Choice where they polled 11 countries on what constituted the most wanted and unwanted things in a painting.  Though the final assemblage of paintings differed greatly in appearance from country to country, one thing nearly all of them had in common was a resounding like of, and desire for, the representation of natural aesthetics- landscapic settings and sceneries.  What is particularly important to me about this is the use of the poll to determine a general desire for the natural aesthetic.  As representative of the American democratic polling system, the outcome was a reflection of the broad publics opinion on art, instead of the bourgeoisie highbrow intellectual circle that encompasses the art world.  Conclusively it is determined that this ‘natural aesthetic’ has a direct tie to the middle class- to the general public.  It is ‘of’ and ‘for’ the general public and has been class-afied as a middle class aesthetic.  It is looked at with objection by the general art world as largely incapable of producing high-art.

            I would like to challenge that assumption.  To confuse the distiction between middle class/ middle brow (where I come from) and high brow art.  

http://awp.diaart.org/km/painting.html