87 Comments

1. 

   The Shark on November 30, 2008 at 11:44 pm

   Duncan welcome to sharkdom:

   The Stepford Shark

2. 

   amytalluto on December 1, 2008 at 11:27 am

   Duncan and Mark, that was a really interesting discussion! Lots of stuff to think about.

   I say that even though you subjected me to the word “TROPE” several times.

3. 

   Richard on December 1, 2008 at 12:15 pm

   Duncan needs a rehab program for use of the word Trope.

4. 

   Mark Staff Brandl on December 1, 2008 at 1:02 pm

   Thanks Amy! Any particulars?

   I’m the one who introduced and pushed ‘trope.’ DMacK used it too, but you have to shout at both of us. Trope is my Big Interest.
   (http://www.sharkforum.org/2005/11/my-dissertation-begins.html)

   So I need to go to the program too!

5. 

   amytalluto on December 1, 2008 at 2:15 pm

   Hm…so many things. I liked your characterization of the current state of art as “Mannerist” and the hopeful tone that we might be heading for a new Baroque-like period. I liked your term “feeble painting” and appreciated your lack of bias in acknowledging there were some paintings you did like within that group. Selfishly, it was nice to hear a defense of painting…since I mostly read on blogs and in art mags that it is irrelevant. Your explanation of the difference between conceptual vs neoconceptualism was a new one for me to chew on too.

6. 

   amytalluto on December 1, 2008 at 2:15 pm

   At the very least, neither of you said “NOTION”

7. 

   Mark Staff Brandl on December 1, 2008 at 2:30 pm

   I use “notion” often as a stylistic substitute for “idea” or “approach” in my scholarly writing. Fiddlesticks! (Bet you haven’t heard that word in ages.) I could use “m.o.” instead, but it makes us all criminals.

   Thanks, btw. Yes, I know that “Neo-Conceptualism” / end of Conceptualism thing, as I described, ain’t taught much in ChiTown, Duncan fought me on it too, as you may have noticed, but that IS the world-wide art-historically accepted, and completely correct, designation for “that” work of the 90s. Whether liked or not.

   Stick with painting. Painters will, as always, battle, absorb and subsume painting’s enemies and thereby change and modify art once again.

8. 

   amytalluto on December 1, 2008 at 2:49 pm

   I approve of the liberal use of “Fiddlesticks” in any and all scholarly writing.

9. 

   Mark Staff Brandl on December 2, 2008 at 5:50 am

   A REAL POST ABOUT THE INTERVIEW

   I said Vasari copied Duchamp! I was leaping ahead — in my head — in my argument (as I often do). He, of course, copied Michelangelo, with additional pastiched parts of Raphael and Leonardo and a few others.

   A term I wanted in and forgot, yet not created by me: “Yellow pages art” — thanks to yBa painter Mark Francis from London. His wife is a fine artist influenced by Conceptualism to some degree; he uses that term for the type of Neo-Conceptualism I decried here — get some typical idea, then don’t use your hands, just get on the phone, look in the yellow pages and order a bunch of stuff. Viola— installation! A snotty, but lovely term.

   Something else that didn’t make it into the discussion here, I can’t remember if Duncan and I got to it, but I had intended to mention it. When discussing art education, I wanted to point out that Tony Fitzpatrick’s quasi-mentoring situation in his studio is one of the most promising and fruitful art education situations I know of!

10. 

    duncan on December 2, 2008 at 10:38 am

    Comments that concern what we should post should just be emailed to me at badatsports@gmail.com thanks. Lets stay on topic.

    field mouse/Stepford/duncan.

11. 

    The Shark on December 2, 2008 at 10:52 am

    its not Stepford/duncan, it is,

    {The Stepford Shark}

12. 

    amytalluto on December 2, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    oops were we off topic?

13. 

    Daniel Anhorn on December 2, 2008 at 1:14 pm

    interesting discussion…though the numbers of artists comment could be relative to world populations…In 1500 world pop was 450 million , today 6.7 billion.
    Of course there are more artists today, and more ways of practicing, and back then there was “only” sculpture and painting.
    And “artists” were considered tradesmen, rather than an independent autonomous self expressive beings.
    Plurality of practices isn’t a problem, just the quality of each piece, and whether they are in service to an idea, rather than mere genre fillers.

14. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 2, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    Good points Daniel. And a problem is whether they are more than the mere illustration of received ideas.

    My point was simply a glut of overproduction of students of art, more than a glut of artists. My fear being that we who teach them are misusing them rather than doing them a real service or doing society a real service. I think “real” artists will find their way anyway, even or maybe now especially without a school diploma. But the others bother me. Did they really get anything from it? And why do so many of my compatriots feel it necessary to try to turn out hundreds of carbon copies of themselves? In people who then will go on to nothing in that direction.

    Duncan, maybe here are some ideas for nicknames other than Field Mouse:
    http://www.saskschools.ca/~gregory/animals/

15. 

    amytalluto on December 2, 2008 at 2:04 pm

    Daniel. Word.

16. 

    Daniel Anhorn on December 2, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    I agree with many of your points…The deskilling of art was one point i ran up against a few times before. Though i think the word “student” in the true sense of the word is equivalent to “artist”, in the sense that it relies on an innate CURIOSITY, where the student/artist will seek, rather than receive, and this will be based upon their own expression of their life’s experiences, in the closest approximation of their ability to express such things. The ability to recognize this is confounding, in the sense that we “learn” in a fashion after our “masters” …and it takes a loooong-ass time to recognize that. Painting is but one language, among others, that we can learn to negotiate, or learn, albeit with whatever “accent” we personally bring to it. Whether we recognize the language for ourselves, and what it says to others, is a formidable challenge.

17. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Yes. But a darn amazingly wonderful “agon” or formidable challenge! And I am worried about giving the best to curious students who deserve it, of course. It is a bit different in Switzerland where it is far far harder to get into schools of any sort, but cheap to almost free if you do, so the dynamics are different. And where the state universities, polytechical “Hochschulen” and so on are better than the private ones by far, but there are some similarities in questioning the appropriate education of those who wish artistic training.

18. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 3, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    Now I think Duncan and I should take over Hello Beautiful and call it Hello Damn Rules, What Rules.

19. 

    Anna on December 4, 2008 at 8:42 am

    I like the discussion. Too bad not more about your daily life, like this one.
    http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2008/06/art-space-talk-mark-staff-brandl.html

20. 

    Stephen lee on December 4, 2008 at 8:51 am

    dear Mark Staff Brandl,

    re: Academies: my comments and your reply on derek Guthries blog

    I enjoyed listening to your interview,the reference to shakespeare and the prison where current artists shop for influences is pointed and unusual. A system that produces Stepford artists I refer to as ‘tick-box artist’. That the rules are consensus and commercialism I would call corporatisation.
    The anti-puritanical or Calvinist approach to Neo-conceptualism, what I referred to as ‘thin and weedy conceptualism’, where an artists gets a ‘slave to do the work’, is also a very striking comment. However I have reservations about encouraging parallels with the Catholic Counter-reformation of the Baroque. I’m still figuring this out I agree it’s braided and not linear.
    Thomas Crow makes great reading, also Robert Rosenblum’s ‘Art of the Nineteenth century, the first essay on painting gives insight into the Royal Academy in london. Here the Academy is described in an insightful way in relation to American painters and Joshua Reynold’s painting is shown to be not so guided by rules as we might imagine. You can use anything you like that I write, but as I’ve started writing a bit for Art Monthly you might cite any direct quote. (see my letter ‘Educational Taylorism’ on AM web under ‘The Future of Art Education’ debate, plus this month’s AM reviews. There’s also a good review of a Chicago show ‘1968’ at DePaul Uni.’Thin and weedy conceptualism’ (a gem I think), is from my friend the critic Peter Suchin.

    PS I think I may have met you at the Field museum, I worked there in 1985- exhibitions dept.

21. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 4, 2008 at 9:38 am

    You are a wizard with words, Stephen (Tick-box, Weedy, etc.) I love them!

    I’m not “encouraging parallels with the Catholic Counter-reformation of the Baroque” in any way. I know what you mean, and what would worry you about that, me too! But first — remember that Baroque is taught all too simply. It was indeed part Jesuit Counter-Ref,as usually taught, but much else as well. Caravaggio was certainly no Counter-Ref type, and probably the greatest Baroque artist of them all, one of the greatest artists of all time, is Rembrandt, a clear Protestant “booshy.”

    More importantly, what I am trying to do is make an analogy to is the structure of the developmental change as it occured then and is needed now (I only alluded to it, but a similar thing happened from Baroque then Rococo to the Neo-Classical/Romantic period, and several other such transitions between “stronger” and transitional periods). I do not want a neo-Baroque. Not a neo-Anything, that is mannerism. I seemingly didn’t make that clear enough. I am thinking in historically parallel structures, so to speak. Making analogies, not suggestions for stylistic emulation in any fashion. Thanks for bringing that up! That’s an important point.

    I love Rosenblum’s work, have communicated with him personally about it (especially the Northern Romantic Tradion book), but disagree about the academy. First, primarily I am refering to the French Academy under LeBrun, second, I am refering to the academy as an ideal, and thirdly, I think he’s simply wrong. Look at most work, and the chief work, which came out under Reynolds (and their ignorance of and surpression of William Blake, who was far beyond them). They had a wee bit more openness than the French academy, but neither much openness nor enough.

    We MUST have known each other — I was really busy then though, at the FMNH. The last couple of years before I left I was the technical project director of building the new Egypt Hall (Mastaba and all that), and that was pretty complex and hectic. What did you work on?

22. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 4, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    Oh yeah, Stephen’s post reminds me, I was able to go to Europe, persuing my soon-to-be-wife, because I cashed in my Field Museum pension and sold out a whole show of paintings, largely due to the success of a work I had in a show I co-curated with Jane Calvin at the Hyde Park Art Center.

23. 

    W Kandinsky on December 4, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    I agree with you. As I have said, before being dead, “The majority off artists seek only for some new technical manner, and produce millions of works of art without enthusiasm, with cold hearts and souls asleep.” As for these artists, “There are complaints of excessive competition, of over-production. Hatred, partisanship, cliques, jealousy, intrigues are the natural consequences of this aimless, materialist art.”

24. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 5, 2008 at 2:44 pm

    Thanks Wassily. I didn’t know you could write in English as well as German and Russian and French. You are language talented for someone no longer among the living.

25. 

    Daniel B D on December 5, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    consensus is never conducive to any pioneering spirit

26. 

    Stephen lee on December 5, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    hello again,

    I recall in your interview you mention the idea of a Straw man and you make reference to both liberalism and messy painting as straw men. I find this very interesting as my sculpture was about this very thing. After Chicago we went to Baltimore/ Washington and I was active as an artist during the period known as the culture wars in DC. At this time I met Derek Guthrie. My straw men were life sized figures that were a cross between English corn dollies and Apellachian corn husk dolls. Some looked like scare-crows others like tightly woven crafted figures. I also made a straw tank and a cold-war jet at Arlington art cetre. I like the theme of the straw man as it it has many metaphores- a fall guy, clutching at straws, an effigy,a fertility image, a Guy Fawkes or the guy with no brain in Wizard of OZ.

    At the field museum i was an intern from SAIC and worked as an art handler on the art of Cameroon. This show was very worthwhile for me as later in Baltimore I met Joyce Scott and was able to understand her beadwork in the context of cameroon art.

    I remember one time you and the FMNH exhibition team, took me out and showed me how to drive Chicago style- this was a hairy but amusing experience.

27. 

    John Smith on December 6, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    So I listened to the interview and initially thought Mark sounded like a real jerk. Gradually though I started listening to what he was really saying and became fascinated. While I don’t always think through what I’m doing as clearly as he does- I feel like what I’ve been working on really relates to these ideas. I’ve thought a lot about the difference between the pop artists and what I do (and apparently what he does) which is born out of comics. I learned how to draw and my love of art from comics, so I don’t even really see a difference between a page of Krazy Kat and a Cezane in terms of artistic worth. I haven’t become quite as cynical as him, but I do have a less intellectual dissatisfaction with a lot of “neo” conceptualism. There’s something alienating about the lack of the human hand that really doesn’t do it for me. I completely agree that a return to skill is essential to the next Renaissance. Lately I’ve been very interested in a return to the techniques and materials of the golden age of newspaper comics (King, Herriman, McCay etc..) Herriman and his line especially I see in Mark’s work. Great interview. Duncan, you did a good job keeping it from being TOO self serving.

28. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 6, 2008 at 4:18 pm

    Thanks for the thoughts Ray. I’m interested in your “Saturday Night” Piece. I realize I can be kind of an agressive jerk. It comes from my conviction and perhaps pathological certainty, along with having to fight the Consensus Cliques day in and day out. I am happy though! I am definitely NOT cynical, though, I am stoic, perhaps, but as I said in the interview, I generally look at the positive aspects of the situation we are in, I am simply very critical (in the original meaning of the word). To analyze what is wrong is often nowadays seen as somehow not properly “boosterish”. I think it is being clearsighted. Speaking of clearsighted, thanks for seeing Herriman! — he is a big influence on me, as is Gene Colan for similar reasons Most generally this is not noticed as they are so little known in the fine art world. I have to add that although Duncan said it a lot, I found the idea of Richard’s to interview me not be self-serving. They have interviewed Tony Fitzgerald, who has also served as a kind of moderator (and I LOVE his pieces), interveiwed other artists who became contributors, interviewed Tony Tasset and then had him interview his own wife — there have been other more “insider” things. I am first and foremost an artist, then an art historian, then a critic (incl. Art in America and Sharkforum as well as BaS). A so-called “artist who writes.” And anyway, when a curator gets interviewed, no one calls that “self-serving”, e.g., and do you think THEY are serving their own interests in art any less — generally far MORE than when artists do several artworld tasks. Why are limits placed only on artists? I have been interviewed by about 40 places on radio and TV, besides BaS. I think it was a delight to argue with Duncan and get to show him the error of his ways. He’s really great fun to talk to.

29. 

    John Smith on December 6, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    Yeah I didn’t mean that last part in a negative way at all. It easily could have been two hours of insider baseball but all the topics you discussed were (or should have been) interesting to any artist. By the way for anyone interested the “saturday night”piece you can check it out here. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3001/3082601939_bd3438ba64_b.jpg

30. 

    Bill Dolan on December 6, 2008 at 9:30 pm

    “The visual art world is no longer visual…It’s become the dropping off point for every loser from every non-visual category.”

    I agree with this. A lot of the conceptual and performance work seems to be more of a half-assed stunt to get attention. Sometimes it involves a scientific, sociological or psychological theory or observation, but is presented without any basis in any real knowledge of the subject, just a lot of talk. If you don’t know the subject well, are not a musician, actor, etc. you can make an art piece and get a lot of attention.

    Now there are some great conceptual artists out there — Packard Jennings comes to mind. He works with a solid idea and creates very strong visual work to present his ideas.

    I also agree with Mark’s explanation of the deskilling of art. If the music world was more like the art world, The Shaggs would be huge and we’d be listening to a lot of similar junk.

    As far as the educational system goes, producing Stepford artists, I think this happens in higher education in general. My own school emphasizes careerism in business. It’s all about following the necessary steps to graduate and get a nice middle-management position in a solid company. Since the ’80s, everyone gets an MBA and learns “Management.” In my own corporate world experience, I’ve seen some of these people that have bounced from industry to industry. They don’t really understand the business they are in, but can cite certain “gurus” and spend most of their time finding or creating projects that they eventually present to their superiors as proof that they are indespensible to the organization.

    I also like Mark’s explanation of feeblist painting. I had always assumed that it was the product of the feeblist painter’s original booster/promoter/dealer’s demonstration of his or her power in the art world. If Saatchi says it’s good, it’s good. His idea that curators are using this junk to prove that painting is a mockery of itself makes a lot of sense.

31. 

    Bill Dolan on December 6, 2008 at 9:37 pm

    I also agree that artists should learn real philosophy, etc. — real techniques.

32. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 7, 2008 at 9:54 am

    That’s “Lane RELYEA” by the way.

33. 

    Gina Beavers on December 7, 2008 at 2:33 pm

    Hi, thanks for the really interesting interview.

    Could you expand a little on what you said about, what I see as a contradiction-although I’m probably misunderstanding something-the idea of art movements not ending and yet the need for ‘neo’ If they don’t really end, then why the ‘neo?’

34. 

    Steve Hamann on December 7, 2008 at 8:59 pm

    Hey Dudes,

    Thanks for the shout out. It was good seeing the show at the Sharkpit. MSB works are amazing to see in person. The interview was awesome and dense. Too much to take in once. I like specifically the definition of “Neo” Conceptual, as the conceptual movement ended in the 80s. I also love the thought that MSB’s comic style is not “ape”ing comic style ala Pop, but more of a respect of comic craft.

    Sorry I was so late in posting, but the comment section has made me itchy lately.

    steve

35. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 8, 2008 at 1:55 am

    Good point Gina. What I meant is similar to what in category theory is called “categories with fuzzy edges” — that is, there is no HARD and FAST end, as it can appear when taught. No one proclaims “BEGINNING” and “END” — BUT they do have high-points and fade -ins and fade outs. Is that clearer? E.g.: It is CERTAINLY no longer the Ottonian Medieval period, nor the Renaissance, nor Cubism, etc. Second, periods overlap, but mostly fade. The “neo” part everybody talks about as if it were my idea — it is not mine, it is standard art historical usage. This has simply been REPRESSED, especially in Chicago, for a political agenda. Most Neo-Conceptualists and their theorists world-wide indeed call it that and are quite clear that it was rebirthed after Conceptualism, New Imagism, Pattern and Decoration, Neo-Lots-o-stuff, Neo-Expressionism, Neo-Geo, Appropriation, THEN Neo-Conceptualism.

36. 

    Derek Guthrie on December 8, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Stephan Lee and Mark Staff Brandt have introduced the idea of mannerism and the academy into the discussion regarding the state of contemporary art. Both terms today carry the idea of a decline in the quality of art and or art production. Mannerism is post Renaissance and the Academy is post Mannerism. The difference being that the Academy was a manifestation in part of Public Taste that found voice and presence in the 19th Century as disposable income became available from working and the new middle class which entered into the Market place of the academy. The academy and the French salon was yesterday’s art fair. Stephan cites with his revisiting of 19th art journalism in his post the words and textures of the then emerging public discourse.

    The art fair today is an extended market organized by the extenuated reach of modern communications which gives a new presence to Vox Populi and the ominance of appalling taste, usually called Kitsch .Maybe the new name for Kitsch could be post contemporary.

    Derek Guthrie

37. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 8, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    I agree Derek — the Super Fairs are the Salon. I also love the term “post-contemporary” (or if the decon types would get ahold of it, “postcontemporary;” they get hot about that French and German-like hyphenlessness). Especially since looking at it logically and semantically, there can be no post-contemporary, yet with the pureposeful spinning of wheels going on, your term seems dead-on.

38. 

    Dee on December 8, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    The interview, interesting as it was, has left me feeling very cynical. It feels like a difference between now and the post Renaissance Mannerist period and the French Academic period is that (to my knowledge) neither the Mannerist nor the Academic period deconstructed art to the point of meaningless, nor did the preceding periods. When art has been critically deconstructed to point of meaningless, the tools/means/logic of deconstruction apply equally to attempts to reconstruct or to build anew. Perhaps the problem lies in the tools/logic? Absent a paradigm shift, the only thing left is spectacle, and then boredom in the face of spectacle.

39. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 8, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    Good points Dee. I hadn’t looked at it quite THAT negatively, but you may be right. Certainly your last sentences ring very true. I AM hopeful, though, and see possibility in artists consciously building toward new ideas and developing their OWN interests, not memorizing those of others, in the dialogical fashion I sketched out. It probably won’t be easy, but a good fight is worthwhile anyway!

40. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 8, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    It was great to see you too, Steve H! I hope we (or at belast you) get going on some more art critical comics and cartoons soon! Maybe we can do a show and book of all of them together after a couple years!

41. 

    Dee on December 8, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    There’s always possibility in individual artists consciously building toward new ideas and developing their own interests. Along the way, and at the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I think we also have to reexamine the validity of some of the premises/givens that got us to this point.

42. 

    Jeff Hoke on December 8, 2008 at 7:49 pm

    Wrote a reply weeks ago, but it didn’t go thru. Trying to write you back via email, but it’s not connecting to your server. Will keep trying. – Jeff

43. 

    Tom Nakashima on December 8, 2008 at 11:31 pm

    Great interview Mark! I really enjoyed your thinking and found myself again again concurring with your line of thought. I cannot remember the exact wording you used to describe conceptual art (something about illustration). I have always differentiated conceptual from perceptual art by the direction of the reasoning. It seemed that Stella & co. placed the stress idea (as means) producing object (as ends) — then there was the shift — the idea becoming paramount – idea as ends. At that point (and I think you are dead right on your reading) “illustration” became the means of bringing one to the idea (ends), thus conceptual art. I see it as a kind of high illustration. Indeed dealing with big ideas rather than Rockwell’s “First Haircut” – but illustration all the same. While Stella used the concept of concentricity to “produce” the black pin stripe painting objects, Hizer used the the object/earth work to bring us to the concept of two negatives yielding the positive. I have always thought that was such a concise idea — that one would go out into the landscape and by “not” seeing something you could come to an understanding of the idea intended. I think that the closest cousin to conceptual art was the icon – which through a combination of magic (sacramental blessing) one would produce an object that could theoretically bring one to a concept of something metaphysical or perhaps an epiphany.
    Unlike you I only dabble in philosophy, but I couldn’t agree with you more on the importance of philosophy to the development of really profound ideas in art. Your statement about understanding Derrida and Foucault rather than the curator’s distillation and/or misunderstanding of such is so so true. I minored in philosophy and after 20 years of reading I still have difficulty in grasping Heidigger, continental philosophy and all that followed. I have for some time been interviewing artist (who are supposed to be postmodernist) and I usually find them to be interested in the same aesthetic ideas that modernist struggle with. I think that too many artist have just accepted the tag postmodern with little or no knowledge of what a commitment to that fork in philosophy entails.

44. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 9, 2008 at 2:01 am

    Thanks for the comments Tom! I googled you — some interesting collage/paintings you have there¨I’ll get on to your comments later today or tomorrow when I have some time. I have to go walk the dogs and teach painting.

    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:
    https://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.

45. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 9, 2008 at 5:36 am

    One point I may not have made clear, Tom. I don’t really think all artists need to actively be involved with philosophy — that’s my thing, and seemingly yours. (Mine are Comics, Sign painting and philosophy as well as installation and painting). As I tried to say, I think the process of agonistically interacting with your own influences, your own thoughts and perceptions, your own “story” (as Tony F so wonderfully calls it), is the important activity.

    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!

46. 

    Joseph Bolstad on December 9, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    Going back to the issue of “Yellow Pages Art,” I think it was Vito Acconci who said that as an artist most of what he did was sit at a desk with a phone and the yellow pages.

47. 

    Mark Staff Brandl on December 10, 2008 at 4:42 am

    I didn’t know he said that so clearly! I like much of Acconci’s work (not all). I helped build one for the MCA, actually, years ago.

    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.

48. 

    pedrovel on December 10, 2008 at 9:41 pm

    great lecture by Mark.

49. 

    Anna on December 11, 2008 at 6:05 am

    “Do it for yourself; don’t memorize or apply what others in positions of (temporary) power insist you must do or use.” There is a rule for you Duncan.

50. 

    pedrovel on December 11, 2008 at 9:10 am

    I love people like Mark who have to rewrite the history of a region when others try to hide it…hiding the facts is moral corruption…