The Blog as an Extended Artist Statement

“What, exactly, is a blog? This question is our contemporary moment’s shibboleth.”—Jonathan T.D. Neil, Sotheby’s, Los Angeles

Yesterday, at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference in Atlanta, Georgia, I served on the panel called, Making Feminist Meanings Across Worlds: Print, Digital, and Networked Feminisms and Women’s Studies. The following is a shortened version of my paper, “The Blog as an Extended Artist Statement.”

Renowned art critic Jerry Saltz says, “You may think your work is about daffodils; I think it’s about scrambled eggs” (1). As a feminist artist, I don’t want to risk this type of misinterpretation, so I rely on language to supplement my art practice. Many artists feel that a one-page artist statement will suffice to explain their work, but to play it safe, I’ve written Artist In Transit, an 85,000-word blog.

Digital sociologist Karen Evans writes that in the mid-90s, theorists were generally hopeful about the digital age. They perceived it as an opportunity for traditional communities to be “superseded by open, democratic, placeless cyberspaces in which equalities of wealth, class, gender and ethnicity had no purpose” (2). A few years later, blogs appeared, and took on this challenge.

In May 2009, the same month I started my blog, the power of social media to spur social activism was underscored when a blog by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was censored, removing three years’ worth of posts critiquing the government. He was later held in police custody for 81 days, arguably related to his activism. Going back to 2009, feminist art blogging was uneven: that year, Mira Schor lamented that at times, the contributors lacked professionalism and accountability (3). My goal was to be an exception, especially because I intended the blog to be a tool for tenure consideration as an academic art librarian. In my presentation, I spoke not from the perspective of a librarian but from the perspective of a feminist artist, touching on the capacity for blogs to promote art and art criticism, to spur new art ideas, and to encourage networking within the real and virtual art world. “An artist’s statement….gives you validation [and] visibility,” (4) and I feel that blogs can function in a similar way.

Before exploring these topics, I started with the basics: What is a blog? What is an artist statement? Jonathan T.D. Neil, Sotheby’s Director in Los Angeles, writes, “‘What, exactly, is a blog? This question is our contemporary moment’s shibboleth.” (5) Perhaps an easier definition to start with, then, is that of the artist statement. Definitions of the term ‘artist statement’ are plentiful and varied, but I particularly like this one by curator and art historian G. James Daichendt: “Usually a testimony of the interests, background and goals of the artist, this document explains, justifies, or contextualizes the work of the artist…The best artist statements prepare viewers to enter and engage the work.” (6) When I started my blog, I set out to capture elements that studio professor Deborah A. Rockman associates with artist statements, namely the sources of art ideas, ranging from favourite artists to influential books and articles (7).

Artist statements resemble blogs in several ways, making for a reasonable comparison: art critic Edward Sozanski notes that artist statements reveal the psychology and personality of the artist (8) and curator Lydia Yee feels that artist statements are “an opportunity to tell a story” (9). The story I planned to tell with my blog was how my art ideas developed. Initially, to borrow the phrasing that came out of a study at Rutgers University, I was more of a ‘meformer’ than an ‘informer’ (10). As the scope of the blog broadened to include art criticism of shows relating to my own work, it became something of a feminist soapbox.

The challenge in writing about gallery shows is that as artist Kate Britton says, “social media and networked culture has rendered everyone a critic” (11). Experts waver on whether a blog is a legitimate venue for art criticism and artistic expression. However, the two artists mentioned earlier are indicative of the credibility of blogs: in 2010, Mira Schor received a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant to develop a blog for a year about her art as a counterpart to her latest book, and in 2011, Ai's translated posts were released as a book and endorsed by curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist and by the directors of the Tate Modern (Chris Dercon) and Yale University Art Gallery (Jock Reynolds). My hope is that if I can write well-considered, thorough reviews, people will give my studio work a chance. Although personally, I find that blogging distracts me from creating art, I do believe there’s merit in the strategy undertaken by senior artist Denise Green; long before the 2.0 era, she began writing about art to establish credibility in an art world divided by gender (12).

The blog is a way to motivate myself to keep on top of what’s happening farther afield, but it’s also a way to let outsiders know what’s happening in North Bay’s small but vibrant arts community. Some days, it feels like the return on investment is minimal, but lately, as a result of promoting others online, I have developed unanticipated and fruitful connections locally. These experiences demonstrate the importance of keeping the ‘meformer’ impulse in check, and demonstrate what Hrag Vartanian, editor of the arts blogazine, Hyperallergic, says: “The online world is as much about giving back as it is getting. And if you think you’re going to put something out there because you want it back immediately, then you are not going to get it back. But if you help people online…you’re going to get it back tenfold” (13).

Sources:

(1) Qtd. by Wojak, Angie and Miller, Stacy. Starting Your Career as an Artist. New York: Allworth Press, 2011, 18. Print.
(2) Evans, Karen. “Re-thinking Community in the Digital Age?” Digital Sociology: Critical Perspectives. Eds. Kate Orton-Johnson and Nick Prior New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 79-89, 82. Print.
(3) Schor, Mira, A Decade of Negative Thinking. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Print.
(4) Wojak and Miller, 131.
(5) Neil, Jonathan T.D. “Can I get a Witness?” Art Review, Oct. 2011, 139. Web. 1 Aug. 2013.
(6) Daichendt, G. James. Artist Scholar: Reflections on Writing and Research. Bristol, UK: Intellect Ltd., 2012, chapter 4. Web. 1 Aug. 2013.
(7) Rockman, Deborah A. The Art of Teaching Art: A Guide for Teaching and Learning the Foundations of Drawing-based Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 131. Web. 1 Aug. 2013.
(8) Qtd. by Grant, Daniel. The Business of Being an Artist. 3rd ed. New York: Allworth Press, 2000. Web. 1 Aug. 2013.
(9) Nieves, Marysol, ed. Taking Aim! 1st ed. Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 2011. Print.
(10) Naaman, Mor, Boase, Jeffrey and Lai, Chih-Hui. “Is it really about me? Message content in social awareness streams.” CSCW ‘10. February 2010: 189-192. Web. 1 Aug. 2013.
(11) Britton, Kate. “Social Media in Contemporary Art.” Das Platforms Emerging & Contemporary Art, 21, 2011. Web. Aug. 17, 2013.
(12) Green, Denise. Denise Green: An Artist’s Odyssey. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Print.
(13) Nieves, 229.

Art ? Craft

“...what about the need for art to come to craft?” -- Isidora Spielmann

Before heading to The Mansion in Kingston for a panel discussion entitled Art ? Craft yesterday, I happened to read an article on this very topic in the spring newsletter from MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, Winnipeg). In ‘No More Bins,’ a reference to Laurie Anderson’s eschewing of unnecessary categorization, author and craft-based artist Heidi Eigenkind says her “deep seated aversion to binary structures” (1) surfaces when someone makes a comment like ‘some potholders are just potholders.’ It’s interesting that some people can see the distinction between art and craft so simply while others—like last night’s panelists from the Organization of Kingston Women Artists, Diane Black, Margaret Hughes, and Isidora Spielmann—are struck by the complexity of their relationship.

Margaret Hughes observed that art and craft are starting to merge again, reminding us of their parallel status and professional integration in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. I have to agree; as I wrote in a post about a textiles show at Project Space last fall, “craft and art have become rather comfortable bedfellows.” What does it mean, though, when someone can’t admit who they’re sleeping with? What does it say about me that the first time I crossed the border with my textiles sculptures, I referred to them as ‘craft’ rather than ‘art’ even though I have always thought of them as the latter? On a subconscious level, I must have assumed the customs official would be more willing to approve their admission to the US. And I’m sure I’m not the only fibre artist who has hesitated about responding to a call for submissions for a craft show because of how it will affect the perception of my art long-term. These examples suggest that the art/craft question is not an inconsequential one.

Isidora Spielmann noted that it’s common to talk about the need for craft to come to art, but what about the need for art to come to craft? Damien Hurst was cited as an example of a conceptual artist who is relatively divorced from the process of making. It brings to mind Mira Schor writing in Wet (Duke University Press, 1997) that all artists can’t seriously go “back to scraping sheet gut every time you need a sheet of tracing paper.” (2) Yet there’s something inspiring about Margaret Hughes having built not one but two kilns by hand and Diane Black being a modern day blacksmith. Schor has a good point when she says it wouldn’t be a terrible fate if painting, long the golden child of the art world, were to become ‘relegated’ to the realm of craft.

All three artists have approached a variety of media with fervour, aiming to perfect their technique and to infuse their work with meaning. They’ve switched between art and craft over time, and they feel comfortable in both worlds. What can we make of hybrid examples like Spielmann’s couture garments on which she has painted by hand, or of Hughes’ inclusion of her own pots in her still lives? The waters are muddy indeed, which poses a challenge for art librarians like myself in terms of cataloguing images, but it’s exciting to see this cross-over. Clearly, these are artists to whom the dismissive statement, ‘some potholders are just potholders’ does not apply.


Sources:

(1) p. 5.
(2) p. 185.

Wanting more of Schor

“For any cynic who has survived art school or served on a gallery programming committee, 'Trite Tropes' is a ‘must read’.”

Even though it would mean being exhausted on my birthday, I booked the overnight bus last week so I could attend an artist talk by Lynda Benglis before heading home to Canada. I’m embarrassed to admit that when I learned her talk at the New York Studio School had been cancelled, I did not act my age: I sulked for the better part of the day. And what does a librarian do to cheer herself up? She goes book shopping, naturally. I chose Mira Schor’s A Decade of Negative Thinking (2009, Duke University Press) because I felt the dark title would be a good match for my mood.

My own negative thinking was quickly abated. The only criticism I can make is that Schor’s writing is so luscious that I wanted to relish and reread each sentence before moving on, which slowed the entire experience. Her series of essays on contemporary art is so compelling that I forgot all about the overwhelming stench of urine as I began reading in the bus lineup outside Penn Station. Since Schor is a native New Yorker, I trust that she’ll perceive that as the highest form of compliment should she ever read this post.

It’s much easier to write a post about a book that makes me want to bang my head against the wall than a book that makes me want to nod my head, and Schor’s falls into the latter category. Unfortunately, head nodding contributes little to academic discourse, unless it’s to emphasize the continued relevance of a classic. Nonetheless, it’s worth mentioning that Schor’s observations and opinions rang true for me repeatedly. The book begins with ‘She Said, She Said: Feminist Debates, 1971-2009.’ When reading the first essay from this section, ‘The ism that dare not speak its name’ in which Schor identifies a troubling trend of women artists not associating themselves overtly with feminism, I found myself thinking, “Yes! Elizabeth Sackler spoke about that very problem at Invisibility to Visibility: Are the Major Museums Opening Up to Women Artists?” (Brooklyn Museum, March 27, 2010). In the same essay, Schor writes about the importance of the feminist perspective to media literacy and includes excerpts from disturbing news stories as proof. The following morning, I read the free Metro newspaper on the Go Train to stay awake after losing a night’s sleep. Rather than falling mercy to fatigued head bobbing, I engaged in deliberate head nodding with Schor in mind as I read two shocking stories: one about a seven-year-old New Jersey girl whose step-sister allegedly facilitated sexual abuse of the child by multiple men in exchange for cash (no author, Associated Press); and the other about a convicted 27-year-old rapist from Ontario who said one of his victims should now “know to keep her doors locked” (Mattos). These are just two examples that I found myself heartily agreeing with Schor about.

The middle section is on painting. As a non-painter, I’m going to take the liberty of skipping over it in my discussion even though I did enjoy reading it. The final section, ‘Trite Tropes,‘ prompted me to vacillate between head nodding and defensive head shaking. For any cynic who has survived art school or served on a gallery programming committee, ‘Trite Tropes‘ is a ‘must read.‘ Schor considers what makes art predictable. I was laughing along as she rhymed off clichéd elements to which contemporary art is prone: “On one jury in which I participated, we decided that a moratorium should be declared on family photos, cartoons, waifs…” (221). Then, as if a slide of my work had been inserted into the carousel, “underwear, childhood, dresses…” Hmm, it would seem that using dresses and underwear (or ‘intimate apparel’ as I delicately referred to it in a recent grant report) to critique childhood socialization puts me in dangerous territory. I’m too invested to change now, though.

In this same section, in a priceless essay called ‘Recipe art,’ Schor facetiously establishes a formula for art world success, which basically involves combining tropes to create one-liners. Although my artistic preferences lean toward the cerebral (but not at the expense of accessibility), I was reminded of the value in one-liners from a current call for submissions for a wearable art competition taking place next month. The instructions underscore the importance of being able to ‘read’ the work from at least six feet away. If accepted, I’ll probably have between 30 seconds and a minute on the runway, so modelling a one-liner is arguably the only viable option. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Sugar & Spice, my cupcake bra, or a variation of it. That brings me to another element of Schor's book that provoked me.

Schor subscribes to the tenet that women are still seen primarily as sexual commodities in spite of major advances. Reading this, I nodded my head once again, acknowledging its regrettable relevance even to a seven year old. Reflecting on my own work, I immediately thought of the cupcake bra and the title of my recent show at Gallery 1313 (Toronto), Titillate. I’m not confident that complicity and self-righteousness (i.e., my belief that I’m creating titillating work for a higher feminist purpose) can co-exist. Someday, someone may call me on it, so in the meantime, I’m trying to sort it out.

Truthfully, I didn’t buy Schor’s book because of the dark title, but rather because of its coverage of feminist art blogs, as I’m preparing a presentation on my blog for the Art Libraries Society of North America conference later this month. As much as her coverage of the 2.0 world is exciting, it’s intimidating for me to respond to it from a 2.0 platform. The reason is that Schor critiques the inconsistencies and confusion about feminism that characterize many art blogs. I fear that mine is shaping up to be a combination of head nodding and head shaking, with a fair bit of knee jerking thrown into the mix. If Schor has focused on a decade of negative thinking in her book, in my blog I have chronicled a year of conflicted thinking. For those of you who know me well, you know I’m not referring exclusively to my art, and I appreciate your support. Thankfully, art offers much needed respite.

SOURCES:

---- (Associated Press), “Teen, 15, charged for selling 7-year-old stepsister for sex”, Metro News, April 1-14, 2010. Print.

Melinda Mattos, “Rewriting cultural norms is the answer,” Metro News, April 1-14, 2010. Print.

Mira Schor, A Decade of Negative Thinking. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Print.

Book cover added 2020 via fair use/dealing. Source: https://www.dukeupress.edu/a-decade-of-negative-thinking