Tuesday, April 29, 2008

From "An Alchemist With One Eye on Fire" by Clayton Eshleman

So we have this reading for senior seminar that we were supposed to "translate in terms of visual art"...but I have a real problem with this, because I think it already applies;

What might a responsible avant-garde in poetry today include?

1. Radical, investigational writing that is raw, often wayward, in process; poetry as an intervention within culture against static forms of knowledge, schooled conception, cliched formulations.
(Now with this passage, if you just replace the words; investigational writing and poetry with words like art, this totally applies.)

2. Writing that envinces a thoughtful awareness of racism, imperialism, ecological issues, disasters and war. 
(and wants to do something about it...again switch writing with art)

3. Multiple levels of (visual) language- the arcane, the idiomatic, the erudite, the vulgar, the scientific; relentless probing; say anything; not just "free speech" but freed speech

4.  Transgression, openning up of the sealed sexual strong rooms; inspection of occult systems for psychic networks; the archaic and the tribal viewed as part of everyone's fate.

5.  Treating boundaries like stage scenery.

Notes from class: WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF ART IN THE 21st CENTURY?
-Art used to be made for the world, now art is made for the ART world, completely disconnected with the actual world.
-Gary Gaffney says "Art is the collision between man and universe."- 

Installation views from my thesis exhibition




Salty Cheeks Series (1-4)





On Criteria (Walter Darby Bannard)

What is good art? Bannard states that questions like this are "intrinsically unanswerable and that bearing down on them doggedly and fruitlessly merely compounds the misunderstanding which leads to their asking." Alright, fine, I agree, but that's just a really scholarly way of saying what I have learned in the past four years....In art, THERE ARE NO ANSWERS, ONLY QUESTIONS!

"Goodness, goodness in general is not identifiable. It is not substantive; is has no characteristics. It cannot be an entity in itself. Goodness is a consequence of particular judgement and exists only within the setting of that judgement. "

"Great art always presents itself for reevaluation. It is always brand-new. It comes to each of us with no assumptions, no criteria, no history, no pedigree, no "consensus." 

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

yes,

I cannot believe my senior show is up. I always knew it would eventually happen but the whole thing is really surreal and kind of anti-climatic. While setting up I realized I didn't have enough work, so I ended up cutting two entire pieces on Sunday, I had a mini-breakdown but got it done and I'm actually pleased, not nit-picking at the way the show is, I'm calm. I feel this big wave of relief, like I'm going to graduate and I did what I thought was impossible. The gallery talk was the worst part for me, I was just uncomfortable and completely rushed through it but the thesis review which I anticipated being horrible wasn't bad at all. Yay! I'm finally able to just BREATH.