And thanks Goran. I should have remembered my own list of “what to do” when Duncan and I were talking.

I liked the comments you yourself wrote on the Swiss Art Sharkforum about this after your big controversial article there made so many waves, Mark. Im quoting you.

“Beyond complaint, though — what will be the NEXT steps for Sharks and their allies and kin? In short:

What can we do to improve the situation?

First of all, make extremely high quality art. Particularly with well-honed technical abilities. If you DO NOT now have these skills, this is NO surprise as they are seldom taught in art schools any more. But GET them. That ability can not be denied nor taken away from us and will outlive many an overblown curator justification.

Second, openly criticize the situation. Step on toes. Stop kissing butt.

Third, offer and create constructive alternatives, even perhaps to the point of creating your own artworlds, venues and so on. Attempt to add a positive answer to every correct criticism you level.

Fourth, encourage others who do the same. Help build critics and curators and especially other artists who pay attention to what is around them, who have independent minds, who are more than simply careerist toadies. Even support your “enemies” (to an extent) if they finally seem to see the light. Just don’t trust them behind your back.

Fifth, network in a POSITIVE sense, even internationally. And that’s what we are doing now.

Sixth, leave doors open. Tell the truth, be upset about hypocrisy, but be willing to “let it go” if they improve, if the purveyors of pedantry and their groupies gain consciousness or make overtures toward reparation.”

And Amy, thanks for your comments. It just struck me that although we did use “trope” (although I use it in its lingusitic sense as “figurative” image or word, not in teh artworld sense of repeating theme), and although I do think we said “notion,” we never once used that trendy artworld habit of using “reference” as a verb, —using the correct form “to refer to.” So we get some browny points.

Thank you, Thank you.

Joe

As there were around 1000 drawings in the show and that the drawings are only 1/2 of the equation of what makes comics great, you gotta understand how hard it would be to fit in entire stories, many of the stories in their entirety were presented for people to sit and read in books, and purchase a copy to take home in the gift shop. There has always been a problem presenting art in sequence in museums, take the tapestries show that’s up at the Art Institute right now. Many of the Hangings are just one piece from a larger narrative series, one of which is presented in it’s entirety which is just massive. I think the ICA in Philly did a fine job of this for the recent Crumb show, most of the stories were presented in their entirety but with a solo show I think that the space is going to be more affordable, but unfortunately the space is usually offered to the “Masters” first and not that Crumb is undeserving, I feel like theres just room for more.

Comics, for a really young medium in terms of art history and presentation by larger art institutions (and I know you know about your art history based on the discussions within this podcast) I think presenting these “out of sequence” artists expands the critical view of comics contemporary or in history. I don’t feel like the view of comics presented in the show was “narrow” of course presenting comics into a gallery space is a difficult task, and am wondering how you have addressed this in your own show. That and the idea of comics made specifically for gallery walls I think there’s a couple bugs, that can be worked out (See Jim Woodring’s “World’s Largest Minicomic” complete with neon spinning illusion device that I feel was comparable to a Flavin or Turrell that was in the Raw, Boiled, and Cooked show.) or take the Comic Abstraction show which I felt was an attempt to shoehorn comics onto the Contemporary art scene, further confusing those unfamiliar with the medium. I love Herrera’s stuff as well as Mehretu but just diddnt see the necessary connection that this show was based on, some how trying to do comics a favor. Thanks. But, no Thanks.

Well anyway, I think the show sounds great and will try to get there to check it out. I love Dale Messick and Had Illustration class with Melody Shickley in College and think she is great!

Best,

Joe

We get it already that artists don’t necessarily have to make the work; to the extent that perfunctory outsourcing was ever a critical dialectal process, the point has long been made. That’s probably also true for displacing or suppressing virtuoso artistic technique to bring attention to art’s conceptual underpinnings, to critique authorship, etc..

I believe there is value in what you call the double loop of learning. I find I need to use my hands in my own work. I also think that in a collaboration or even in outsourced execution of art objects, the translation/dialogue that occurs in the outsourcing/division has to involve some adequate substitution for the “loop of learning” that occurs internally to an artist who both conceives and makes an art object/artwork him or herself. The artist and viewer have to value aesthetic quality of the art objects/art presentation for either the “loop of learning’ or the substituted dialogue to matter. What you call the corporate procedure of “masters” commanding impersonally, unimportantly involved “slaves” to do their work comes out seeing the making of the art objects and their aesthetic appearance as perfunctory and not relevant.

Feeble Painting and Neo-Conceptual work are related, both being derivative of Dada, but not identical. Let’s say it this way: Feeble Painting is painting that can be accepted by non-visual curators reared on bad video and Neo-Conceptual antics.

I understand your assertion of the division in Neo-Conceptual art between planning and production; the idealism in which you paint it is indeed the standard explanation, and sometimes can be true. Nonetheless, I point you back to my critique in the interview and its reiteration above in comment 66: it does indeed completely mirror one of the most common, repressive and unhealthy aspects of our culture. And the lack of being forced to continuously “test” every aspect of your production in a Deweyian double loop of learning, which occurs when you are making the work yourself, even in collaboration, has been one of the great mistakes of teaching, leading artists far too often, usually in fact I would say, to quick one-offs with hardly any personal investment.

Which is different from separating the skill/rigor of production from conceptual skill/rigor; separating modes of production from conception of the work does not have to mean sub par production, and the separation enables artists to engage multiple media in which they may themselves not have the requisite skill/rigor or enough lifetimes to dedicate to acquiring that skill/rigor. Something is changed in the dialogue between the mind and the hand, since the mind and hand reside in different people and have to be translated, but this doesn’t have to result in feeble work.

I do NOT really think that painting is the ONLY way. I am just pointing out that it is one of the BEST ways, no matter what the know-nothing pundits espouse. I do believe almost any form is actually okay, used in a metaphor(m)al fashion, not as an end in itself (Formalism) nor as an illustration of received notions (Neo-Conceptualism).

BUT — BUT would like to repeat an important insight which two jazz musicians made to me (Douglas Ewart and Davyd Johnson), back when I was highly conceptualist. They pointed out that ones means of production are indeed themselves an important aspect of the art, are a metaphor in and of themselves and in combination with the end product. And as I discussed with Duncan, if you use standard corporate procedure of “masters” commanding impersonally, unimportantly involved “slaves” to do your work, then your work is at the very least colored by that, if not an enforcement of it. I am very much a supporter of installation, and a maker of it too. And I think painting is growing by absorbing such concepts. As you know, I am very non-traditionalist and would never espouse a form for itself, but rather for its functional, expressive and philosophical usefulness.

Narrative is a good question, JDS. Something I have intellectually struggled with. I have difficulty with it — I prefer, e.g., epic tales or almost purely “painterly” descriptive things in poetry, super hero and detective stories in genre, and so on — things that are structurally rather iconic. I have been using “loops” a lot recently. I drive my wife nuts with films for example. We’ll see them, then when we talk about them I can’t remember the particulars of what happened, but I remember all the sequential structure in intense detail — what cuts they used and when, cinematic stuff and so on. Maybe I am naratively “challenged”, but most narratives bore me. I prefer song structure to story structure. I think that may be just a personally important thing, not of wider importance. In Exhibition-Sequential-Art, e.g., C Hill also works in my direction, Andre Molotiu is even MORE abstract, yet several others use “real” stories. Good question, though.

Steve H, I especially like your differentiation between “elimination of unnecessary details” and — as you term it so well — “sub par method of production.” My point is summed up well by Judith quoting Conceptual artist Burn, “inadvertently turned into a dumbing down, … deskilling means a rupture within a historical body of knowledge—in other words, a dehistoricization of the practice of art.”

JDS — great thoughts too! Thanks! I think your professor is making a logical error. Among other things, he is being anachronistic — shoving a concept backwards in time in an inappropriate, i.e. useless, fashion. Your discussion of the “braid” of art history is wonderful and I intend to steal it (I’ll cite you!). Some threads are indeed direct results, others not. Some are new threads, some start and stop and so on. But there IS a flow, hence the inappropriate anachronism of your prof. It brings no new light to the subject.

I’m not convinced with the argument that painting is THE way towards change, if I dare put it that way, and also the linking of painting with technical skills, and the importance of them. I tend to think that if you really have something to say, you end up finding the means to say it best, for me the issue is having something to say and what. How do you judge that? I admit that I haven’t gotten around to too many exhibitions lately, but when I do I tend to end up confused with my own emotions. PoMo when good is interesting but rarely seems produces objects that would be interesting to collect (meaning objects that speak for themselves, that you would want to remember because of what they are and not because it can be gratifying to speak about them socially; like telling a joke). I’m not saying that those object are just a joke (I know, some of them are meant to be…). The fact is that I can understand why people buy pomo objects and I often do like them, but I also feel their limitations and ultimately would want more from an art object. I also understand how our own projections define the interest, or not, that we can have for any artwork, and how relatively easy it is to manipulate those projections (probably every good salesman knows that), and how difficult it is to see things with a “neutral” eye. So it seems like it would take a whole dissertation to go around those issues and not just a paragraph that can be easily misunderstood…

But 99% of the “Traditional art” I see is using neo-everything and to me ends up being almost worse because it’s like history stopped but the artists didn’t notice. I end up in a yes/no situation that I have yet to sort out and then end up thinking that my own work has the same issues and limitations…

I’ve been hoping that all the writing about myself I have had to do for an interview would help clear up my brain for that type of thing, but I end up feeling stressed with written statements because so many seem to stick on to you like a tattoo and are so hard to remove when you get past them. A feeble excuse for not blogging about art as I perhaps could be… It’s also true that my “career” as an artist is is a struggle and I do feel that sticking my nose out will probably just make it worse. A thought that I truly hate and of course a good reason to fight…

First, it was nice to have similar sentiments to my own so eloquently expressed! Honestly, I agree with almost every point you make about the state of art in contemporary society. The comparison to Mannerism is a wonderful analogy, and the fine arts are most certainly in a state of decline from the peak of mid-century high modernism. I also found your view on conceptual art as a Puritanical derivative to be (I wish I had a better term) mind-blowing. And your call to push through to a new style or genre is absolutely necessary.

I have often thought about why we are in an artistic lull, and I personally attribute it to being burdened by a modernist sensibility. In this, I don’t mean that Modern Art or art history is a burden, but the emphasis we place on it, is. For example, I recently wrote a thesis on Dan Flavin and the question of an association to a readymade came up. I argued that his fluorescent light was not a readymade for several reasons (that the functionality was not negated, that the lights were not questioning aesthetics, and (most importantly) artist’s intention). I was told that I was wrong. After several discussions with my professor– who claimed that Impressionist paintings were assisted readymades due to the fact that they bought their paint– I came to the (forced) realization that everything in modern art was going to have a readymade quality. Now, I am not arguing that my professor was wrong in his views, but that just because DuChamp established this point, doesn’t mean that it should being applied to all art. And I have often thought that the idea of “art is defined within the context of the museum” is trite. In general, there seems to be a reliance on these standards that were previously set and an inability or fear to reject them.

I also thought about your rejection of a linear model to art history, and proposition of a “braid.” I believe that the point you are trying to make is that elements/styles/genres are not direct results of a previous movement, but are “woven” with influences from different sources. I agree, and thought of it as an analogy to knitting. Comprised of a single thread that has been twisted and turned, each stitch is attached to a previous source, foundationally supported, yet existing on its own and providing an opportunity to serve as a support for the future. In the end, there is not a line, or even a braid, but a fabric. I hope this makes sense and is useful in some way!

Finally, I agree with the idea of fine art deriving from comics or graphic novels… I like how it reflects on “contemporary” culture and is something that was previously considered low-art to be appropriated to the status of Fine. But, one concept that I had not heard in either interview, was the revival of a narrative (as different from a sequential instillation). Do you think that narrative has any part within this style, in terms of what you are trying to accomplish?

Originally deskilling was used to describe a complex dialectical process by which virtuoso artistic technique was displaced or suppressed in order to bring attention to art’s conceptual underpinnings. Artists as disparate as Karen Kilimnik and Robert Morris have been characterized in terms of deskilling, while the ongoing fascination with Duchamp buffs its sheen. But where deskilling once referred to an analysis of artistic production that articulated strong critiques of authorship and of the commodity status of art, the term has morphed into academic shorthand for perfunctory or outsourced execution.

In 1981 the Conceptual artist Ian Burn used the word deskilling to describe the way in which vanguard artists of the early 1960s divested themselves of the obligations of physical production and invested more in conception and presentation. A move away from traditional craft allowed artists to take up a number of critical positions with respect to the production of unique objects, to isolated studio work, and to the gallery and distribution systems. But once these deskilling strategies became established, and especially once they began to be taught in art schools, their critical force seemed actually to be in concert with a system capable of both absorbing and commercializing conceptual art. More poignantly, as Burn saw it, deskilled art as a genre didn’t just devalue traditional skills; it devalued disciplined training itself. What had been a democratizing impulse was inadvertently turned into a dumbing down, for, as Burn pointed out, “skills are not merely manual dexterity but forms of knowledge. The acquisition of particular skills implies an access to a body of accumulated knowledge. Thus deskilling means a rupture within a historical body of knowledge—in other words, a dehistoricization of the practice of art.”

The Dave Hickey question is a good one. Duncan and I actually covered much broader discussion in dinner before the interview, but not Hickey or this question.

You yourself have also expressed similar reservations about the current artworld and/or art instruction (although you are far more diplomatic than I am). Likewise Peter Schejldahl, Donald Kuspit, and many more way back to Suzi Gablik have done likewise.

Hickey is, of course, well-known for his contentions against academicism and in favor of the “effects of rough-and-tumble free markets on art,” as has been written. Through his writing, Hickey has gained a significant international reputation beyond mine. I have also often enjoyed his rather curmudgeon-like yet substantial attacks. Nevertheless, if I may be so bold as to take issue with my “betters,” there is a wide gap between us. In short, he and several others of his direction are (at least in my eyes) rather reactionary, which is not always wrong, let me add, but not what I want. That is, they are looking back to some point in the past which was purportedly better and seeking a return to it. So did the Renaissance artists and scholars, the early Baroque, and others. I just plain don’t think that way. I am trying to envision where to go NEXT. I have never been interested in that wholesale quasi-Oedipal rejection of the near past for an earlier “better” time — seems rather Reagan-like to me. Rather more like a Jazz musician, or most philosophers, I am trying to “advance” by subsuming precursors in a more comprehensive idea, one which must, however, begin with analysis and criticism.

Sometimes I feel Like Hosea to Wesley’s Amos. Perhaps I, then, analogous to Hosea, see art as a lover, and express pain that the artworld has now a broken, prostituted relationship with it. ANd I want to start again, build a new loving relationship. Wesley speaks bluntly, like Amos, treating the silly presumptions of the artworld with scorn, concentrating on injustice.

But back to Hickey (and others). The main thing is that no matter how wonderful many of their sharp criticisms are, many have frequently terrible taste, proposing solutions to a problem which are already symptoms, and poisonous ones, of the problem. Like proposing bleeding for weakness, as in the Middle Ages.

As an illustration: I felt especially so with Gablik. She writes that wonderful book, Has Modernism Failed?, then follows it up with some of the most god-awful proposals for what she sees as “good art” in her lectures afterwards. Likewise, I Hickey’s commitment to “emotionality and sensuality” is unclear, flabby, and simply NOT in much of the work he then champions anyway! (E.g. Stephen Prina, John Currin, etc.)

I do rather like his complaints about art education though, too. And he said this great phrase:
“We’ve gone through 40 years of art becoming more vulgar. … You’ve got to recognize the end of things when they end. So I ask you: Can you get more vulgar than Richard Prince?”

Also, Hickey’s rampant neo-liberal (as we say in Europe, so “Reaganite” in USA terms) almost mystical belief in a so-called free-market (unregulated Capitalism) surely does not need to be even discussed now, as the cause of our current collapse, nose-diving into a Depression (hopefully soon halted).

I am not all THAT pessimistic. Although the offerings I see are also rather limited, as you suggest concerning even such wonderful thinkers like Jameson. The political facet is indeed important, but there are many other factors.

I need to go into what I see as some solutions, but that would be a whole other interview. Here, we concentrated on the analysis of the problem itself, which I believe Duncan also clearly sees, he has a good analytical eye, but one he “sorta” wants to resist, due to his tainted education. Like a Flat Earth believer confronted with photos of the spherical Earth. He is, however, a wonderful person to talk to and argue with. He is sincere.

Maybe you, Jim, I and Hickey, Kuspit, some Consensus Believers (practically any “international” curators would work) and some others could fight this out in public sometime!

Thanks for the comment and question again!

After “Art and Globalization” (the 2007 event; the book is almost ready for editing) I have become somewhat pessimistic about the possibility of getting outside the box… no one at that event, from Jameson and Buck-Morss to the many interesting Fellows, had ideas along those lines that weren’t political.

I only wish Duncan had asked you how your position differs from Dave Hickey’s: he also rails against sycophantic behavior and conventional art educations, but in his case, the answer seems to be something like sensually engaged and emotionally honest work….

I am just back from Zürich; I gave a lecture at the Taktilität series (Stefan Neuner) at the art history institute, and then a whole day of seminars with an interdisciplinary art-science group. It looks like my annual visit to EIkones in Basel will be bumped up to May, so perhaps I’ll see you then.
Best,
Jim

I think this Neo-outsider young painters movement comes from questioning the academy, the ubiquity of theory based art, and digital media and the move away from the handmade. Artist began to paint as an act of rebellion, but of course there were also artists who just simply found a language in painting without regard to what was happening in the academies, or perhaps it comes out of extreme slackerness. So now in 2008 the results are a lot of crap painting and lack of connaisseurship (sorry for the bad spelling) Generally speaking, It seems that in the USA artists tend to me more sentimental and embrace the primitive places their work evolves from, the strong physical components, and weird mix of very personal and historical information and reject theory. so many young artists refence Darger or outsider artists, all this narcisissm is getting very annoying, every idiot collagist is a savant. Thank goodness the Economic Crisis will probably put us out of this misery.

Hey Jennifer!

Thanks for the great comments on my interview. Du hast es gut gemacht, gell! And thanks a ton for listening — it was all pretty particular to the artworld. By the way, YOU were one of the GREAT kids!

You made wonderful connections between Mannerist Sophistry in the artworld and in the banking world. I had never thought about that. Pretty amazing.

Ich hoffe wir sehen uns bientôt in le Suisse Romand!

OK I don’t feel targeted…I’m working for a bank, so I got a job, earning ok in audit, disagree with most people but learning to bite my tongue ;-P…is that a “real” job? Wouldn’t you call that someone who wasn’t good enough for Management…?

don’t think banks are earning much money today either, makes me wonder if banking should be a „commercial“ activity? hehe…

You’re so right about artists lol..with some exceptions of course! I was one of the good kids right? Watch it now… oh right, you were talking about the artsy students right .

Success and ass-kissing isn’t only an art world issue, unfortunately.
Connaisseur?! Must be our equivalent of „specialist“ right? What a joke concept anyway, it has a certain connotation that implies you know almost everything, and I simply don’t see how such a thing is possible or how such a title can even be given. Mannerism, does that basically mean that in the end we live in a world of what business terms wouldn’t describe
as counterfeits, cut & paste, substitution, plagerism, not what you know but who you know, selling an idea instead of something real, following the flock instead of thinking out of the box simply because you can’t leave the safety zone, etc?

…..liking
your interview btw….wondering if I shouldn’t publish it on facebook ….but now you are talking about isms and real artsy stuff and you totally lost me, nevertheless entertaining.

How’s my “feedback”?

As for OstSchweiz, well I was slaving away in Zurich for 4 years before I finally decided to return to the Romandie and got a job in Lausanne. I still have to go up occasionally for work but St-Gallen and area is unlikely. I’ll definitely try to show up to the 2009 Rosen reunion. I must admit, the “culture” on this side of the country suits me better Do you ever come in the Gegend?

Gruss Jennifer

I did kind of stampede some of Duncan’s questions, talking too much, but I felt that important questions were opening, even as I feel he himself is resisting his almost inadvertantly growing awareness of a larger set of truths than he learned in school, mostly due to what he learns and shows us in his podcasts. (I have learned a lot at BaS.)

I wish we had gone into particulars of my art, as concrete example, rather than continuously circling back to him wanting a list of rules (so to speak rules for what is to be obeyed or attacked), when my point was the avoidance of rules. When he kept battling my thoughts on the PoMo academy thereby, I felt like when I talk to that one kid in class who wants hard and fast things to memorize, when I am saying “put the answers in your own words, give me your own thoughts” and they keep saying “but what are my thoughts, just tell me what I should memorize as my thoughts and I’ll write that on the test.” Sorry Duncan. Other than that, I enjoyed the discussion immensely. And our discussion before taping was even better. More open and wide-ranging. In all, I had great fun talking to Duncan.

I’m usually, in most regions I inhabit, just trying to think clearly about what really happened, and even more so, why others have tried to hide aspects of what happened. It is kind of like being a detective and historian in one. Which is what many artists do, actually, in their work, come to think of it, as I muse on it at this moment.

Hiding the facts is indeed moral corruption, and of more consequence than the actual facts themselves.

The idea of involving “everyday,” or industrial, or what-have-you, materials and products and so on I found exhilarating at first — a way to get the mundane world into art in a new way, a conceptual expansion of Rauschenberg. But it has become a crutch far to often, is what Mark Francis means and I agree.

I like your piece “Murder,” Joseph, particularly.

Philosophy is important, because as Jay Rosenberg wrote, in fact everyone does it at least to an extent, and thus one should make an inquiry into the grounds of our thought — which is often more implicit than explicit. It affects us more than we realize, often becoming the taken-for-granted situation (as the Danto-Dickey institution theory of art has become), and/or is the enforced belief structure (as I replied to Duncan about his self-professed Derrida-clutching art school days).
, Yet, simply, I meant, IF it is your interest — do it. Do it for yourself; don’t memorize or apply what others in positions of (temporary) power insist you must do or use. Go find your own theorists who inspire you. Think about what is offered, but be prepared to be, perhaps, only in partial agreement or in active disagreement, not only full agreement as seems to be demanded often now. New ideas can be real eye-openers, but also flavors of the week potentially too. As you so nicely exclaimed at the end of your post.

I like the analogy of the icon — a direction wherein Conceptual Art really worked. As an aside, I LIKE much Conceptual Art. It was a great influence on me. I do take issue with the enforced academy of Neo-Conceptualism. To make an analogy, it is kind of like making a boring, superficial version of Zen into the enforced State religion. It is not only wrong, it goes against the whole spirit of the original — thus adding hypocrisy and boredom to the mix (taking us back to Jesus’ primary target of criticism in the religion of his day — taking the letter for the spirit, and making a boring, officious display of it all).
Thanks for the dialogue. I’m probably going to cite your icon analogy in the future!

Thanks for trying Jeff! Keep it up — I don^t know why it wouldn’t register here on BaS — mine all get through, although the site can load slowly, I’ve noticed. I sent you my other email, try that!

I didn’t get to Jeff in my interview because we covered so little of my art and development, speaking mostly about my art historical and philosophical side. Jeff Hoke is the creator of one of the most fabulous books in existennce, an imaginary Museum Of Lost Wonder, which is reviewed here on BaS:
http://badatsports.com/2007/episode-71-van-straaten-hoke/
and Hoke’s great website is here:
http://www.lostwonder.org/

He and I have been collaborators in the past — on dioramas at the Field Museum, but also as an artworld critical art team, Staff and Eddie. Long ago!

You are right, not “dinosaurish” Dee — a re-evaluation — or perhaps simply an evaluation, which never occurred, is needed. That is not old or new, simply mindful, not mindless, and critical thought in the real sense.