Ever since my residency last January at the Vermont Studio Center, I’ve been thinking a lot about the new paths I’m taking in my work, specifically, the introduction of color and pure abstraction in my work. Examples of this work can be seen here and here.
The response to this new work has been fantastic. People are going crazy for the color. I’m pleased by the reaction. Well, mostly pleased. Let’s take a step back.
I think my first mature work was my hand-drilled wooden pieces. I have a phrase that I like to use and it applies to this work. It (the work) is doing something. There’s work that does something and work that does nothing. I’m not sure how to define this phrase, but its meaning is crystal clear in my mind. The hand-drilled wooden pieces do something. The white paint on wood pieces do something. The clear coat on wood pieces do something too. As for the new colorfully painted works, I’m not sure they’re doing something.
When people react to the new paintings, they often say that they love the color. Well, color is easy to love, isn’t it? Who doesn’t love the perfect shade of red, a vibrant blue or a subtle green. If you’re favorite color is yellow and I used yellow in a specific piece, chances are you might like the piece. But why? Because it’s a great work of art? Or because it’s yellow?
When someone says they like the new work because of the color, I’m not exactly sure how to take the apparent compliment. Sure, I made the choice to use the particular shade of yellow in a particular way, but is that doing something? Is it doing enough? Is it the easy way out?
The same can be said of abstraction in general. What does pure abstraction (reductive or minimal work) do? How does it contribute to society? What value does it add?
Now that I am working primarily as an abstract painter, I struggle mightily with the questions above. Am I simply making decorative objects, or am I making art? I don’t struggle with these questions with regard to holes/white paint/clearcoat, and why is that? There’s something about the new paintings that feel almost too close to design. And that bothers me.
But here’s where things get weird. When I look at the work of other abstract painters – Malevich, Rothko, Marden, Kelly, etc – I don’t question the validity of their work for even a second. I love encountering their work. I love being absorbed by their beauty. Ultimately, I love that it was OK to them to make that work. They devoted their lives to it. While I am certain they struggled with similar questions as me, they persisted. They probably felt they were doing something and I agree.
So why do I question whether or not I am doing something?
I guess I wonder what pure abstraction has left to say. Are we left making the tiniest possible discoveries? Are there any great discoveries left to be made? What is it that I want to discover?
My current position with regard to the numerous questions above is that I am simply trying to discover my own unique artistic voice, whatever that may be. My artistic life has been occupied with various related projects. Some, I felt I was doing something, some, not so much. In total, however, I feel I have done something. And that’s enough to keep going, even though that question still nags me: are color and abstraction the easy way out?
I’m reading this as “doing something within the art world”. I have my own problems with this. Some days I’m just like, screw this. I do have to sell some things, no matter how theoretically pure I want to be. Avoiding things because they’re too pretty seems like a bad thing. Something can be both aesthetically pleasing and intellectually challenging. I can understand wanting to avoid stuff that is too easy or cliched or kitsch (aww, a cute little puppy dog painting! a Kinkade cottage!), but avoiding color seems like going too far. Taking things too seriously gets boring. Plus minimalism was already done 30-40 years ago.
Hi Kamilah,
Thanks for the comment. Like I said, I’m not totally sure what doing something means, but it’s not related to commercial success. It’s not related to showing the work. Both of these are in a large part out of the control of the artist. It’s more along the lines of saying something (new?) or adding something to the dialog. But it’s more than that, too, and it’s in complete control of the artist.
I’m not sure I agree with “Plus minimalism was already done 30-40 years ago.” As a conceptual framework and/or discovery, sure. But there are tons of artists working in that mode or something similar (see Kirkland, J.T.). I think minimalism/reductivism may be re-emerging more as an aesthetic rather than conceptual framework (architecture/design is leading the way in this regard). And in my opinion, it’s desperately needed right now.
Just to clarify, I’m not belittling minimalism. I know that your work is minimalist. My own work incorporates text (which has been done), and figurative painting (which has been done since the dawn of humankind). Simply being original is not a worthwhile goal, obviously. It’s nearly impossible. I think maybe artists should try to remix what has been done. Show it in a new light, get people to pause and consider it for a moment, enjoy it. Your work has some tension between smooth minimalist surfaces (whether colorful or black and white) and organic wood grain. I feel like that’s interesting. I wish I could articulate it more, but, like you, I feel the need to “do something” but I’m not alway sure what that something is.
Thanks Kamilah. I think you hit the nail on the head with “Show it in a new light, get people to pause and consider it for a moment, enjoy it.” If we can accomplish that much then we’ve certainly done something!
A quote for you from Erin Manning’s book Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy:
And if you have not yet read Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, you might want to pick that up too.
AAS,
Man… you and your books!
I actually saw who’s afraid of red, yellow and blue (2007) when it was shown at Pace in NYC. I definitely thought the installation did something, but I’m not sure I’d go as far as Manning. In fact, I’m not even sure what she’s talking about, though it sounds profound and important. I’m sure it is. I just didn’t get that much from it.
As for the Weschler/Irwin book, it’s probably my favorite art book of all time and it has greatly influenced my work of the past two years or so.
Thanks for the comment!
Every artist, I think, asks themselves the same questions, and I think that’s important. You accept the other painters because it’s not your work, and perhaps you’re being too hard on yourself. Obvioulsy there is some reason you’re being drawn to do what you’re doing, so I would just go with it and let that be that. Who knows, maybe this work is even leading to something else. It seems creating a piece is mixture of great planning and gut feeling. Just because something seems easy doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate. Obvioulsy, you are very much making “something”. I would worry when I make nothing.
Good points, Travis. Thanks for commenting. There is the area between doing something and doing nothing that everyone has to experience at some point. I’m there right now, and will continue there until I believe I am doing nothing.
Good luck on your show opening this weekend. I look forward to seeing it, probably next week since I work down the street from the gallery.
A few thoughts:
- Worry less about dichotomies, decorative v. art. Why one or the other? It can be both. Are you saying that art can’t be beautiful and pleasurable?
- If something evokes a reaction it is doing something and is contributing to the art world.
- I’m not sure what your struggle is with your current abstraction work. All your work is abstract.
- Easy is copying or making reproductions. As long as you are making original work I’m not sure what is so easy about it.
-Worry more about your own reaction to the work and act accordingly. Do you find it interesting? Do you enjoy it? Are you just making it for someone else’s approval or response? Sounds like you are struggling with people liking your work but you aren’t sure about it. Are you unsure about it because people like it or because it is still immature work in your mind. If it is still immature, keep altering and playing around with it until you like it more.
- Color isn’t easy. Picking colors and arranging them to say something that makes sense is difficult.
Hey Rob,
I was sitting down to watch my UK Wildcats play basketball online and your comment came through. I have a few minutes before tip-off so I’d like to respond.
First, thanks for the comment. I’ll address each of your points:
“Are you saying that art can’t be beautiful and pleasurable?”
I think what I’m wondering about is if art can be just beautiful and pleasurable. Or, should it be just beautiful and pleasurable? Should it do more than that? I strive for beauty in my work, but I also want more from it.
“If something evokes a reaction it is doing something and is contributing to the art world.”
But what is it contributing, and is that enough of a contribution to make it worthwhile?
“I’m not sure what your struggle is with your current abstraction work. All your work is abstract.”
Some of it does more than others. I think my holes in wood work does the most of everything I’ve made.
“Easy is copying or making reproductions. As long as you are making original work I’m not sure what is so easy about it.”
Perhaps “easier” should have been my word choice…
“Color isn’t easy.”
For the artist, no doubt you are correct. But for the viewer, it’s much easier, I think.
Thanks again!
The angst of the abstractionist – I know it well.
Quite possibly we – humans – are hardwired to relate to images of real things hence the popularity of recognizable subject matter. Those of us who favour abstraction may well feel on the fringe, and understandably so. We’re outnumbered, at least that’s the case in the small West Australian town I live in. I believe that pure abstraction is not easy in the same way that swimming against a current is not easy. If we have commitment to our practices, though it may sometimes falter, it will in the long run keep us going.
Regarding what abstraction contributes to society, what value does it add? Well, again, we may be hardwired to make marks, to express ourselves. Yet, we live in an overly-managed and administered culture which pushes other values, namely: If we can’t see it, it’s not there. If we can’t measure it, it’s not real. If we can’t make money from it, it’s not worthy. These thoughts can silently creep into our minds and sabotage the creative side of our selves. By being committed to pure abstraction, in a way we are engaging in a resistant act, dare I say a political one.
J.T.,
Perhaps this discussion has died; having just run across it, though, it’s new to me, and I feel compelled to respond. I hope that’s okay . . .
In particular, your phrase “doing something” has real resonance with me–even though I’m not an artist, I’m interested in the question of what Art “does” and where exactly that doing occurs. As it happens, John Berger has an essay called “The Work of Art” (in his Selected Essays–though ostensibly an unhappy review of a book called Art History and Class Consciousness, Berger concludes with a description of “art as a potential model of freedom” as “the will to push” (itself a nice phrase). At least as I understand your phrase “doing something,” it seems that Berger is speaking to that dynamic.
Here’s how Berger describes the interaction of artist with his/her materials:
“When a painter is working, he is aware of the means which are available to him–these include his materials, the style he inherits, the conventions he must obey, his prescribed or freely chosen subject matter–as constituting both an opportunity and a restraint. By working and using the opportunity he becomes conscious of some of its limits. These limits challenge him, at either an artisanal, a magical or an imaginative level. He pushes against one or several of them. According to his character and historical situation, the result of his pushing varies from a barely discernible variation of a convention–changing no more than the individual voice of a singer changes a melody–to a fully original discovery, a breakthrough. [. . . . This will to push] is intrinsic to the activity of rendering the absent present, of cheating the visible, of making images.
Ideology partly determines the finished result, but it does not determine the energy flowing through the current. And it is with this energy that the spectator identifies. Every image used by a spectator is a going further than he could have achieved alone, towards a prey, a Madonna, a sexual pleasure, a landscape, a face, a different world.” (434-435)
I think there’s something to be said about ‘art industry’ that is missing from this discussion. We live in a world engaged with the making of stuff. Somehow in my own abstract art practice, I find solace in my industry. Very simply put I know but just to add to what’s here.
Also about colour. If I am attracted to let’s say, ‘yellow’. It may have certain resonance for me & generate quite another reaction in another viewer. That is the nature of communication & memory. What do you see, when I see yellow? What do you remember from being there that night?
Therein lies, for me, the pull to paint yellow, or blue or green & add my story, my text. See it again. This way.