Transience
Ink on 2 pages of bristol, each 11"x14"
Oh, great. You again.
Sharpie on canvas, 22"x28"
Batty
Sharpie on canvas, 22"x28"
Contest entered: Richard Solomon Breakthrough Artist Contest
Images entered: Transience, Oh, great. You again., Batty as well as
Marco
Oil on found wood, 4'x6'
Wiz
Mixed media on found cardboard and construction paper, each roughly 8.5"x8.5"
Work: Trolls!
Writing: Reanswering those lovely questions.
1. What work have you made that seems most yours? Why?
Mark the Fail Zebra. It is my life's work, simply put. Dinky drawings, sad text, overly emotive rabbits, the term "cute" being solicited no matter how much blood I draw, it's just me in a nutshell.
2. Who are artists that are making work that relates to you? Are there other influences? How are these other influences connected to your work?
There are so many artists whose work I admire in the fields of writing, illustration, and music, often overlapping. Joey Comeau, writer of A Softer World is friends with Ryan North, the genius behind Dinosaur Comics, who ended up being the writer for Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time comic book. Gerard Way, My Chemical Romance's lead singer wrote the best selling Umbrella Academy graphic novels working with artist Gabriel Ba', who in cooperation with his brother Fabio Moon created the masterwork Daytripper. And the illustrator James Jean, who did the original covers for the Umbrella Academy comic series also did the cover of Freaks! Alive on the Inside!, one of my favorite books. These have all lead me to other connected artists who have influenced my work.
3. Discuss, in your own words, why you think this is so.
I think it's a bit ridiculous to say any civilization lives without art at all. As discussed in the book art includes craft, which is present in all things made. If the quote suggests that civilizations can't survive without the western artist-centric idea of art, then I think that's a bit silly too, because as the book says, Eastern civilizations are still producing craft-centric work.
4. Which of these ideas resonates most with you? Why? If they all resonate, how do they differ?
I think the best one could hope for is that by focusing on the self, you reveal a universal truth. Humanity is not as varied as we'd like to believe. Giving an honest account of a normal slice-of-life can say everything about the human condition.
5. What do you notice about yourself? What are your methods? Subject matter? The answers do not have to be limited to art related topics.
I seem to work in stories, playing between writing and illustrating, usually something of the dark-humor variety, or somewhere on that spectrum. I like collaborating, although I'm extremely picky.
6. What do you care about? The answers do not have to be limited to art related topics.
I care about people, overall I suppose. I think a lot about the human condition and depending on my mood, try to think of ways to make the world better (humor, kindness, winnie-the-pooh stuff) or spiral into depression and rage about how nobody is self aware and constantly causes pain to one-another. So I write to avoid the real world, or critique it, or critique myself for being assuredly hypocritical. Humor helps the biting sarcasm go down.
Work: Starting on "Bats" drawing.
Reading Response: Interview with Thomas Joshua Cooper
"They (people at his gallery) move the work into the appropriate contemporary art context with dignity. I can't do that and I don't think that it is my job. My business is to make pictures with enough authority and clarity to absolutely validate the procfess that the gallery engages in with their clients."
He's right. The modern art world (the individualistic, interpretive one) works in a gallery system, but it preceded the gallery system. Though galleries hold sway over what is shown, and consequently what even has the possibility to be deemed good or bad by the public, that sway is only delivered by the power of modern art over the modern art viewer. Quality and integrity of concept, over pretense or format or avante garde-ness, is what drives things forward.
Galleries are nothing without art. But art is still art without galleries. Just sort of a fun revelation that quote lead to.
Work: Finished "Oh, great. You again."
Reading: Expressing an Artistic Attitude
I've been thinking a lot lately about my cartoons and what they say.
After showing my grandmother the above "Oh, great. You again." image, all I got was "That's so cute!"
What.
It's said that comedians are the saddest people of all. I often describe myself as angry or sad, and I like to think that I use humor to explore those ideas, but I often wonder what exactly comes across.
Early in this class I referred to my work as "stupid" which Laura mentioned was noteworthy. Maybe it is.
I think attitude can be divided into:
My personal attitude (my temperment)
My work's attitide (its tone)
My attitude towards my work (my opinion)
Work: Sketch work for "Oh, great. You again."
Reading Response: Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin is a bit of an anomaly for me. I actually respect her work, ideologically. I'm really not a photography guy, and I'm not really interested in the cool "punk rock transient artist kid" scene. But her work doesn't pretend to be anything referential to the culture she's chosen to be a part of. It's just documentary. Literally anyone could do what she's doing. It's the art of life, captured over time. And I think that's respectable. Especially since she makes a point to not talk during the exhibitions.
I think this does bring up a good question of "What makes a photo-worthy moment?" Sure, her friends poop and do drugs and that's controversial imagery and when they get married and die it's sort of controversial too because alternative lifestyle people do normal things?!?!?! And yet, what about eating a sandwich? What about sitting and just thinking? Just because her friends let her take photos at what are culturally taboo moments, doesn't make those moments more representative of a life than culturally acceptable ones. Just a thought.
Reading: Gregory Green, Intro/Interview Section
So I'm feeling fun this week and decide to just pick a random page in the book. I open to a delightful picture of a Moltov Cocktail. I say delightful becase 1) It's well drawn and 2) I realized that I already knew a lot about Moltov Cocktails and that made me feel good.
The artist in question here is Gregory Green, who's mission is to "undermine existing concentrations of power and distribute it among the people." Which, before we even get started, is not really anarchy. Anarchy is chaos, not equilibrium. But that's semantics.
Gregory actually seems pretty level headed, I loved his notions about taking off his "artist hat" and putting on his "business hat" and the idea that he doesn't always wear leather and spike his hair and play into all the other Hollywood fetish-ized aesthetics of an "anarchist."
Here's what I don't like:
1. He has five art dealers. Why does someone trying to subvert existing systems use them? Rage Against the Machine gets asked this a lot, because they're signed to a major label and... I mean really they're just a band. Why not be activists? Well because it gets their message out, is their statement. But does it? Does singing songs about anti-government or leftist sentimentality to a sweaty mob of inebriated 17-30 year-old's get the point across to the right audience? Does having five art dealers that help you get into syndicated galleries make you punk rock? No. Being poor because you're trying to do everything yourself is punk rock. And it sucks. But you chose to be punk rock so you have to deal with it.
2. He went to grad school. Not punk rock. Not anarchist. Grad school isn't even pretending you just want to "further your skills." It's explicitly to enter into the market for your chosen profession... or become a teacher.
3. We are living in the most DIY-friendly era imaginable. Greg complains about not being taught in school "how to make it in the art world." Not only does that happen now-days, but it's vaguely irrelevant. Before there were schools, there were people DOING things that MADE the rules up that later got taught to people too afraid to just stick their own necks out. If you want to get famous you don't need to be part of the system. Make a website, make funny videos, get self-published for like $5 a book and go to craft shows and market yourself. All by yourself. Like a person who doesn't want to support the system. If you get paid cash, you could even be a total prick and not report any income to the government and instead make a bunch of flyers for your awesome pseudo-political concept book or whatever hardcore DIY anarchists who drive a crazy van full of radios and guns do. There is literally no excuse to be in the system if your art is about not being in the system.
Then again, once your little indie operation gets off the ground, people will want to join you and you will BECOME the system, man. Isn't that just a bummer.
I really do like this guy though. Or maybe I just want to burn stuff down.
