Concept art: is it really that lame??

Posted on | 2/6/11 | No Comments

Whos Afraid: of Conceptual Art?
 Today’s musing is going to be about concept art. I know many people outside the art world do not see the value of concept as art but I am absolutely convinced that art is no more than a pretty image without an “idea” behind it. So today I am going to tell about how I met Pepon Osorio (with no clue of how important he was) and fell in love with installations and concept art.

Once upon a time after I had been studying poetry writing at the UPR for a few years I randomly found a flier advertising the opening of the new art building. There would be a workshop on installation building with Pepon Osorio. I decided to go and met a hyper active, grouchy, bossy older man (Osorio) who was constantly shouting. It was more an assistantship than a workshop but I did learn quite a bit. We started with conceptualization and the idea that the piece should be silver. We used recycled materials and built a large chandelier type thing and covered rocks in tin foil. This was the point where I began to realize that anything and everything could be art. It was also where I learned about the art school I eventually attended. I did not enjoy the experience at the time and have only recently come to understand how valuable the experience was and to what extent it shaped my view of art.

I think (this is purely my view and probably not shared by other artists) that conceptualization and intent is an essential part of any art piece. But when it comes to concept art, the idea is everything. The physical aspect of the piece can be anything but without that idea (usually expressed in the choice of name) the piece is meaningless and IMO, without any value. The thing I absolutely hate about concept art is that it has become an excuse to show crappy, half assed work with no thinking behind it. The industry seems willing to accept anything under the term “concept art” without analysis or thought and this, to me, is immensely stupid. The whole POINT of concept art is to make you think, analyze, question, justify, rationalize and even argue about the art. It is not to write a 7 page rationalization or justification of your crappy piece. If I can not find a meaning in a piece with the name, observing it and reading the same short blurb any other piece would get, well, the piece was probably not very well conceptualized and it isn’t clear. I mean, we don’t all have to come to the same conclusion or perspective but we should all be able to come to A conclusion or perspective without reading some long rationalization.

After the workshop with Pepon (Textos Entretejidos: Instalacion/Perfomance/Memoria 2004) I did some research on him and learned a bit more about his work. He is an installation artist who makes surprisingly complex pieces and got his start as a social worker. I think this background gives his work an emotional depth that I haven’t seen in other work. His work centers on the family, politics and culture and IMO communicates emotions rather powerfully.

As for specific concept pieces that I find effective, I thought I’d bring up Hirst since I have been researching him for another post. In general I find Hirst work to be very over rated and overpriced but I did come across one piece of his that I liked and a deconstruction of one of his pieces by another artist. “A Thousand Years,” Hirst’s piece in which generations of flies are born and die while consuming rotting meat in an enclosed glass box. The concept is of life and death is one that has always interested me and along with the short, meaningful name, I think it is a perfect example of a well thought out piece of concept art. It is engaging and absolutely commands a response of some kind from the viewer.  The other piece that I was amused by was “Black Sheep” the deconstruction by Mark Bridger of Hirst’s “Away from the Flock” in which Bridger poured black into the formaldehyde tank containing a sheep. I found Bridger’s deconstruction to be more thoughtful and clever than Hirst’s original piece.

Category: , , , , , , , , , ,

Art as commodity: Hirst & the value of "art"

No Comments

 I was asked to do a review of Damien Hirst and while I originally planned to do so referring to concept art, my complex feelings towards his work have convinced me to approach him from an easier angle. Today I want to write again about “art as a commodity” and how value is placed on a piece.  I’ve said before that I do not believe “talent” to be essential to become an “artist” and I think this statement is embodied in Hirst. It is well known that much of “his” work is created by assistants, with him doing the conceptualizing. I read on his Wikipedia page that an assistant once asked him for one of his dot paintings and he told her to paint one herself since she had done others. I can’t remember his exact response but it was in the vein of “the only difference between my work and yours is the money” which I think illustrates exactly my point. I personally have a complex view when it comes to assistants although it may simply be because I will probably never have any, though heavens knows that I could be doing much larger and more complex work with a few. My point being that I do believe conceptualization is a major component of creating a piece. On the other hand I also believe that if an “artist” signs off claiming a piece, that piece had damn well better have had some work beyond "I thought it up!" (conceptualization) done by that artist.

Read more »
Category: , , , , , , , ,

Should art outlast the artist?

Posted on | 1/22/11 | No Comments

Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications)

I love the ephemeral nature of art, and I'm not just saying that. I believe that the value of art comes from its transient nature. Graffiti artists, concept artists and installation artists seem to understand this nature instinctively. I understand that this point of view is not common to the art world. In fact this industry seems to be geared mostly towards making as much money as possible from as few artists as possible, saving some pieces for hundreds of years. Take Picasso for example. What is his value now? What do his pieces mean? Of course his art sells for millions of dollars, something I find vaguely obscene considering that most artists die impoverished. Then again art is now considered an investor's market because of the very transient nature of art and artists. The fact that artists die effectively limits the supply of their art, which automatically jacks up the price, whether the piece is worthwhile or even good.

Read more »
Category: , , , , , , , , ,

The role of art in the rehabilitation of youth offenders

Posted on | 1/21/11 | No Comments

Using Literature to Help Troubled Teenagers Cope with Societal Issues (The Greenwood Press Using Literature to Help Troubled Teenagers Series)inside/out: a Guide to Arts & Arts Education Resources for Children and Teens in San Francisco
I was a volunteer guide/translator and then an intern at a gallery in Albuquerque by the name of 516arts a few years ago. This gallery is (was?) a non profit and focused on education rather than sales. They had a very strong education program. I think the coordinator has since left the art world, overwhelmed by the same sense of disillusionment that attacks so many young artists. But before then I learned a great deal from him. One of his (in my opinion) most important projects was a program he set up with a local juvenile detention center to have groups of these young boys brought to the gallery. These were as far as I know, low level youth offenders, not say, murderers or repeat offenders, so they had field trip priviledges. Sadly, the man from the detention center told us that around 80% of these kids were back in the center before a year had passed. This was seriously crushing for me even though I only saw most of these kids once and I was only able to participate maybe 4 times. Today I am going to describe what we would do and why I believe in this type of project and it's role in the rehabilitation of offenders. I also believe it wouldwork with adults and I hope I get a chance to pursue it again at a later date.

Read more »
Category: , , , , , , , , , ,

What is the nature of art?

Posted on | 1/19/11 | No Comments

The Philosophy of Art (Foundations of the Philosophy of the Arts) Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies)What is the nature of art?
It seems that there are two different views from which to approach contemporary art. You have one side where all people expect is essentially a pretty image that they can use to decorate space or a wall. On the other hand there is a sort of expectation, in what you could call the more "real art" world, of "deep" meaning being embedded into a piece of art, when in reality that "meaning" is imposed by an external source (by the viewer, reviewer, gallery, etc). I think that this is a throwback to one of the original uses of art (or what we now call art) as a means to show God, for example the prototypical Venus: a wide hipped mother Goddess with pendulous breasts. She was not "art" to the people who made her, but a visual reminder or representation of their gods. Now however, this human tendency to add meaning where there is none is taken advantage of by hustlers and salespeople who market art for the masses. Despite this easily manipulated trait, the art world remains active and possibly because of these hustlers, it remains fresh and ever changing.

A friend once told me that conceptual art is what is made by writers with no talent. I think this is an interesting concept. "Bullshit" is well known facet of the art world. You can find it everywhere from the titles of pieces to excessively long and detailed descriptions of the art and even in how people speak about it. Strangely enough, talent is not a prerequisite for becoming an artist. It is more important for the creator to speak or write well and have the skill to communicate ideas. Essentially the making of art is the practice of making ideas tangible and in some cases physical.

Category: , , , , , , , , ,