Did the Art Bubble Burst ?

• Or did it just float away.

The recession has arrived in the once unlimited high priced art market of just a few months ago. Art’s too expensive said Damien Hirst after his painting of four skulls that was estimated to sell for around 3 million dollars in New York this November did not sell. The work “Beautiful Artemis Thor Neptune Odin Delusional Sapphic Inspirational Hypnosis Painting had No Buyer.

But don’t despair Hirst is estimated to be worth 200 million pounds, so he will be just fine.

Damien Hirst with Friend

Who Is Damien Hirst? http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/hirst_damien.html

• But those who have invested in high priced art recently while the market seemed to be a safe haven for their money may not come out of this Depression unscathed.

Hirst says in a philosophical way that this is what Artists really want.

• “People who bought things are not going to sell them that day. That is what an artists wants, for people to hang the works on their wall”. As an artist, you don’t stop making art because people are not buying”, said Hirst.

If you are a working Artist then you must see the humor in this current art market situation. If you are a buyer enjoy your gutted cow, on your wall.

• First if you are a working Artist, Recession is a way of life, Recession is ever present in your career.

Most of us are not Damien Hirst’s. Most of us just struggle to keep working and yeah we make art even if no body is buying. And yeah we all hope that someone will come along and appreciate all of our hard work and ideas and buy our art to hang on their walls.

• But art has become an investment for many buyers, art is not an aesthetic thing for them.

Art is a commodity, goods for investment and exchange. And with the recent decline in the financial markets it was hoped to be a safe haven for their money.

• But that idea, that kind of thinking about art left most of us out in the cold begging for paint so we could go on making art even if no one was buying. At least we have the skills to make signs,
  
• “Will Make Art for food”…!

Perhaps those art investors will trade for signs that say, “Will work for a Hirst or Picasso”. But where will they stand with their signs, at Wal-Mart or Sotheby’s?

• Now I don’t want you to think I am trashing Damien Hirst, I really am not.

I’d take 3 million for a painting in a heart beat. Hirst is a remarkable Artist and Art Marketing Genius, no doubt about it!

• The Collectors and Dealers are part of the “Art Market”, a market that is driven by it’s own forces.

Sometimes by forces that are brutal and sinister.

• Adolf and the boys murdered thousands of Collectors and Art Dealers for their art collections during WWII. But this is just a foot note in how sinister the art market can be to make a point.

Read about the PBS documentary, “The Rape of Europe”, great art in the grip of the Nazis. The program airs or aired respectively Monday November 24 th on PBS.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/movies/2008426931_tvrapeofeuropa24.html

• So back to you and me as working artists.

How do we deal with this art market. Most of us are asked to pay to show our work by galleries, museums, art shows. We are expected to do all the work and then pay to exhibit our work. We even are expected to pay fees just to get someone to look at our work.

• These fees are part of the SUBMISSION applications for art shows.

And yes I am as guilty as any other curator who has produced art shows or art fair and art auctions. When I worked in the museum field we asked artists to pay fees to look at their work, to pay for shipping and framing and we expected to take our cut if the work sold. But it did bother me as an artist and I did except it as a curator who wanted to produce a show, and raise money for a fund raising art fair. Frankly as a Non-Profit art organization we needed the money to keep operating. And so I could as a curator justify my behavior.

• After all it is how the market works, isn’t it.

It is SUBMISSION to the market forces. I can tell you that it is a part of the market that weighs heavy on the minds of many curators and art directors in non-profit gallery’s and museum’s around the country. But they have to keep their organizations going, so they continue to do what works, for themselves.

• But who’s at fault?

Someone came up with the ideas to charge these fees and we artists agreed to the pay them. And so the rest of the story is history.

• And how much money have you made as an artist paying to show your work, did you gain the respect; notary you had hoped for?

Did your career advance or did you just buy another line on a resume; so you could pay to show your artwork in another show that you paid to show in?

• Recently I was solicited by a gallery that wanted to represent me.

I won’t name the gallery or state, but I will tell you about the offer, which I thought about and investigated seriously.

The gallery charges a yearly fee of $800 dollars, Then an exhibition fee of $1200, Then a Framing Fee if needed, estimated at my price for 20 paintings at about 4750. dollars. I would pay shipping to and from the gallery. Most of my work is large and I estimate shipping and crating to be in the $5000. dollar range. Then add insurance another $1000. and the total cost to get a show $12,750. dollars. And then they want a meager 30% commission on all sales.

• Not a bad deal really, is it.

So if I sold say all 20 paintings, yeah right; I could gross $50,000. less $12,750 for costs leaves $37,250 which is what I would pay commission on which is $11,175.dollars. That would leave $26,075 which then if I take material and labor $8. dollars and hour off, $12,550, that leaves $13,525 profit, not bad. The only problem is I have to invest $12,750. up front and I would have to sell all 20 paintings.

• But why would a for profit gallery be expected to take the chance on me without any financial risk on my part?

Business is business after all and this is where Damien Hirst excels. He makes that investment, he takes those risks and he has been fortunate up to now and I think he will continue to be successful.

• As an artist I may be fooling my self about the time I or you put into your work so the Minimum wage may be a fantasy. And my sales may not be as strong as say Hirst’s. And then there is the reality that if I invest $12, 750. dollars into a show I might just need that sign, only mine will say,

“Won’t Lie I Need a BEER”.

You read this far and thought I had the answer, sorry dudes I don’t but would appreciate yours.

• But back to Hirst, he says he is willing to sell for less because the Big Bubble floated out of the auction house.

So what is his next idea, it is a different market and a different market tactic. He is looking to capture the middle and the lower end with volume.

• He has opened a store “ Other Criteria”, 36 Bond Street, London, England and on line.

https://www.othercriteria.com/index2.php

Hirst offers goodies from $30 pounds to well thousands. You can buy prints, Photographs, Tee shirts and sculpture. Marketing to the masses.

But to be sure many of the items are affordable for most budgets and are worth looking at if you want a Authorized Damien Hirst. He also carries the work of other artists in the shop. I like the Tee Shirt, MENTAL on the front and HEALTH on the back by Rachel Howard, in red of course.

I don’t care much for the FLASH gallery it loads to slow.

You can get a poster of the Diamond Encrusted Skull that was produced for the show “Beyond Belief” at White Cube designed by Hirst for 30 pounds among others. And you can get Prints like “All You Need is LOVE LOVE LOVE” Silk Screened, thats the heart with butterflies for 9500 pounds. Really not a bad price when you consider Hirst fetched I think around 6 million for one of the original paintings.

• Yes the Recession has arrived and Damien Hirst like us is ready to chip away at the market bit by bit to make ends meet.

But then you and I have been here in this depressed bubble for well, EVER.

So what worked for Hirst, how did he succeed, what did he do or realize that we all missed? Some people say, well Hirst does not do his own work he has an Art Factory. True so did Tiffany and hundreds of other artists throughout history, didn’t they. Even Di Vinci got his start in an Art Factory, only it was called something else because factory’s hadn’t been invented yet. So as for Hirst that was a good idea, volume has rewards.

But is that why we make art, is that why we should make art.

• Hirst and his mass production and marketing and his work is ART, I think.

The Hirst phenomena is art itself. A reflection of the society that we have become. Raw and open Hirst’s work slaps us and the collector in the face, but we didn’t notice because it is what we are. We have become Gutted Cows or perhaps Sheep. We follow the trend. We Consume and Consume. Damien just brings it all home and it is gobbled up like the Thanksgiving Turkey. And we come back for seconds. Does this make him bad, no it just makes him smart.

• So I ask.

What could I do with that 12,750 dollar investment, what could you do, What could 10 of us together do with that money. We are all going to spend some amount of money over the next year and if that money were pooled together what could emerge?

• How many artists do you know that are trying to make a living or want to make a living.

How many $25 dollar fees and shipping costs will you spend this coming year to show your work. 10 times the investment I talked about for that proposed gallery show is &127,500 dollars.

• Could you and your friends start your own version of an Art Factory, Gallery.

For that kind of investment you could hire a sales assistant to staff the operation while you produce art.

• You will spend the money any way and you know you will.

We have all SUBMITTED to the system as it is today. But we have a chance to change that system if we choose too. Damien Hirst used the existing system to his benefit very successfully, now he perhaps sees the next evolution.

• Imagine if collectors started buying original art to live with, Imagine if your neighbors became those collectors, people who want art for it’s “Artistic Life Quality” value above it’s market worth, “Art For Art’s Sake”.

• Wait that could be arts market value? “Quality of Life”.

The possibilities are limited only by our imagination by our submission to what is the system.

Now if your a gallery owner who wants to give me a show because you have faith you can sell my work, because you have buyers that you feel will buy my work and you are willing to earn your 50% commission then call me, or write me or email me. And we will talk and perhaps reach an mutual agreement to both our benefits. Oh just kidding I got a check book.

• But this article is for you the working, living artist, who needs to make a living and a living wage.

But going it alone is hard and often unrewarding. Think about collaboration, talk to other artists you know.

We have been taught not to sell our work, not to collaborate to be individuals. To be teachers, it’s a job that has a pay check. Just ask a university art professor, who just invested $100,000 dollars into their education. Who works a job so they can be an artist as you and I do at what ever pays the bills.

But we do need each other and each other’s talent and ideas to succeed. And if the current system works for you keep on keeping on.

For the rest of you and for me, “What’s New, What is New, What Can Be New, Changed or Perhaps Recycled. ( History ? ) Arts and Crafts movement?

Recycle Ideas, Renew, Reuse. Maybe that’s a Green statement. It could be green in your pocket?

• I know an Art Dealer who only represents deceased artists. They don’t talk back or have new ideas or opinions or make new work. I am not ready to sign with him either.

Related Stories/Links

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/arts-too-expensive-says-hirst-worth-163200m-1021669.html

Is investing in Art a Safe Haven for Your Money, “Is Art the New Gold”? by david eubank October 2008

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/is-investing-in-art-a-safe-haven-for-your-money-is-art-the-new-gold-2/

Do the Arts Need a National Bailout?

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/do-the-arts-need-a-national-bailout/

Filed under: Art, Art Marketing, Art News, How to, How to survive as a Working Artists, Investing, Movies, News, On Art, nazi loot , Art Ideas, being an artist, damien hirst, How to survive as a Working Artists, Investing in Art, Mental Health for Artists, nazi loot

Dancing Bones Ink Talk, by Barbara Guran-Eubank

 There’s A new Blog about Tattoos in cybertown.

 Barbara is the TATTOOING SHAMANATRIX at Dancing Bones Ink, Ink.

Specializing in mid-life ( or any other time period ) crisises with custom self-affirming Totems.

Yes she’s talking to you……

 

Finally I convinced Barbara to write about tattooing.

Visit her Blog and you will find solid respectful information about tattooing and the tattooing process from design to finished tattoo. She also talks about the thinking process of getting a tattoo, tattoo design and how she works with her clients.

 

In addition to all of this she just has fun. So if you have questions about tattoos take a look at Barbara’s Blog. If you don’t find what you seek already there, contact her, leave a comment or ask a question… Talk Ink

Talk Ink to me

http://dancingbonesinkinc.wordpress.com

Dancing Bones Ink Inc. Website

http://dancingbonesinkinc.com

 

Filed under: Art, Art News, News, On Art, Tattooing, Uncategorized , About Tattooing, Barbara Guran Eubank, Dancing Bones Ink Inc, Montana Tattoo Artists, Tattoo

The Cleveland Museum of Art goes Transparent. Returns Looted Treasures to Italy

Donkey Head Rhyton, Greece, 475 B.C.

 

 

• Maybe it was an Indiana Jones type archaeologist who first acquired some of the treasures from ancient Italy and smuggled them home.

Maybe it was more sinister figures that committed theft and profited from their looted treasures.

• The fact is the Cleveland Museum of Art has done the right thing to correct the mistakes of the past, even if the mistakes were not theirs to begin with.

The museum has agreed to return 14 looted artworks in question to Italy.

The agreement between the museum and the Italian government is friendly and both sides have emerged from the process in a win, win agreement.

Timothy Rub the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art said that he is very pleased with outcome of the agreement between the museum and the Italian government.

• Rub said, the museum decided to immediately deal with the claims made by the Italians in a thoughtful and transparent way to resolve the provenance of the objects that date back to Etruscan and late Gothic periods.

I am sure that it was a painful and difficult process for all those involved. The objects came to the museums collection in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

• Read the full account and view the objects that are to be returned here in the cleveland.com article.

http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2008/11/cleveland_museum_of_art_1.html

 

• You might be asking yourself, How could a major American Museum have Looted art in their collections and not know?

The fact is the looted art business is very sophisticated and profitable. Even the experts as in this case are often fooled.

• Today the world is a far more open and transparent book. The information technology that exists today, that we almost take for granted did not exist 20 or 30 years ago.

Collections like the one at the Cleveland Museum of Art contain thousands of objects perhaps in the case of Cleveland tens of thousands.

• Each object must have a documented provenance.

Provenance is the history of the object, its origin, its linage of ownership along with the recored transactions of the objects exchange from owner to owner.

• Often those records are incomplete, lost to history because of time; destroyed by natural disasters, like (volcano’s) and war, (world war II and now Iraq) or just thrown out by the next successive generation as estate trash or clutter.

 This opens the door to those who would profit from the sale of such objects in their possession.

Those who might undertake the re-construction of records to create a legitimate provenance.

These individuals at experts too.

• Individuals who count on the lack of information and the inability to trace an object across the vastness of the world with limited resources, man power.

 Today the world has as they say gotten much smaller. Information now is shared at the click of a mouse.

Museums host their collections on the Internet. Visitors and investigators can search a museum collection from their desk anywhere in the world. But this change in technology has also given those individuals who would deceive more power to create false records too.

• Museums face the daunting task of managing their records their collections, especially those museums that have been around for a long time. Large and small the same rules and standards apply.

In the past provenance was not as stringent as it exists today. Museum professionals have set the modern standard very high and they require rigorous and a transparent provenance to establish the legitimate ownership of an object. Where in the past such standards were perhaps not yet invented or followed. Today that has changed.

• When Alexander looted conquered cities and took his treasures there was not a worldwide web, no modern technology.

With the period that followed World War II and now Iraq all of that changed, but there are still many treasures lost and not accounted for and being searched for today nearly 70 years post World War II.

Large museums have full time staff members who are experts in the provenance of collections where smaller museums may rely on volunteers to get this important work accomplished.

• Resources, money are precious and often not prioritized for such time consuming and expensive investigations into permanent holding in a museum collection.

That is until someone shows up and makes a claim.

• Then it is all about how that claim is handled and Cleveland I think sets the standard for the modern ethics of collection management.

Transparent, thoughtful, and honest action and most important regardless of cost, doing the right thing is the key to success.

Over the span of history many, perhaps millions of mistakes have been made around the world in the search of legitimate provenance for an object.

• Every museum in the world has an object of questionable history in their collection.

• You as a collector may to hold an object of question in your personal collection.

Be assured that the next time that object or artwork changes ownership it will be looked at far more closely than in the past.

• Always make sure you have the best most transparent provenance for any artwork or historical object you buy or that is donated to you or your museum.

Even the private collector should establish a solid collection policy that establishes the rules of behavior for you the collector or you as the museum professional to follow.

• If an acquisition does not meet the standard of your policy then do more research or walk away.

But remember this case in Cleveland where all parties concerned won and take your lead from their courage and actions.

• Resources for you the collector or museum volunteer or professional
  

Northern States conservation Center offers classes and material on collection management and policies.

http://www.collectioncare.org

Another great Resource in Conservation on line “COOL”

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu

Good Luck

 

 

Filed under: Art, Art Marketing, Art News, Investing, On Art, Uncategorized , Art Collecting, Cleveland Museum of Art, Collection Management, Looted Art, Looted Artifacts, Museum Management

Plastic Oceans Update: Man Made Continent of Trash a Fantastic Story

Junk Raft

 

 

• Back in March I wrote a piece on the Plastic in our oceans.

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/man-made-continent-of-trash-a-fantastic-story/

Today a the News Hour feed reports on the Junk Raft, a journy into the sea of plastic on a raft made of , well plastic.

• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/science/plasticoceans/index.html

Science educator Marcus Eriksen and photographer Joel Paschal set sail from California on June 1, 2008, on a raft made of plastic bottles and an old airplane fuselage. Eighty-eight days later, they landed in Hawaii. Eriksen, who made the trip to raise public awareness of the problem of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans, describes the journey.with comments from NOAA. Credit Newshour.

These Guys are just nuts. Listen to their story, it too is fantastic!

• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/science/plasticoceans/slideshow_raft/index.html?type=flash

• NewsHour Pod Cast; Listen

MP3: Some scientists and environmentalists believe that more than 5 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean has become a soup of plastic confetti — the remnants of plastic trash that travels on ocean currents from the world’s shorelines. Now, researchers are trying to quantify the extent of the problem, and learn more about how plastic pollution affects fish, marine mammals and birds. NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels reports.

• In fact you can ask Charles Moore himself questions on the Continent of Plastic at the News Hour Forum website along with other experts who will take your questions and give you direct answers.

• Just follow this link.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/science/july-dec08/plastic_11-13.html

• I am glad that the media is picking up on this story. It is urgent that world governments begin to regulate the disposal of plastic in our oceans.

SPEAK UP NOW NEVER BE SILENT

 

Filed under: Environment, News , Charles Moore, Continent of Plastic, Plastic in the Ocean, Plastic Oceans

Rodchenko, Heartfield, Fairey, the Vocabulary of CHANGE

Up Date

New Jan. 18, 2009 L A Times Video with Fairey on Obama Posters

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-shepard-fairey18-2009jan18,0,4824476.story

Shepard Fairey

• Visual Art is a language that is passed on to successive generations.

Everything visual is borrowed from nature and of course human enterprise. Much like any written language, English, German, Russian or Chinese new words are invented as change happens. Each generation teaches the next. Artists are the same. In every language new words, new technologies are developed as society and civilizations change. Words like Website, Internet, Pixel are new. In Visual Art the same is true, Three Point Perspective, Photomontage, Xerography become part of the new vocabulary part of the new craft that is passed on to the next generation. Images throughout the visual history of art are learned and recycled into new often more dynamic and innovated images. Artists embrace new technology and advance their skills and ideas to reflect their time to reflect change in their place in history.

The Year was 1917

• The light bulb, electricity, the internal combustion engine was just emerging to the global masses.

Russia was becoming a new society shaped by new technology and ideas of social justice for the worker. The October Revolution changed their history and the people began to build a new future. The Bolsheviks over threw the Democratic Provisional Government that had arisen after the fall of the tsar. Change was eminent.

Aleksander Rodchenko 1891-1956

Aleksander Rodchenko (1891-1956) declared an end to painting in 1921 as he experimented with alternative mediums in the field of design, photography and photocollage, and matured with the new society to became one of the most influential artists of the new Russian Cultural Bureaucracy. Along with his lifelong companion Varvara Stepanova he founded the Constructivist movement.

Live Badge, Rodchenko 1936

• Rodchenko believed that the avant-garde goal of art was to associate artistic progress with the political goal of social progress.

The Constructivist regarded their systematic investigations of material and formal logic of art as an essential part of creating a Communist society.

1918 the Berlin Dada scene introduced another young artist John Heartfield.

John Heartfield 1891-1968

• By 1938 John Heartfield was a leading anti-Nazi propagandist who used art as a weapon to defeat Adolf Hitler.

He took photography, photocollege, photomontage to a new and innovative level using the technology of the day to advocate for change. Heartfield created front covers and posters for AIZ (Arbeiter- Illustrierte Zeitung) a magazine that published anti-Nazi propaganda to combat the terror the Third Reich had unleashed upon the world.

The Spirit of Geneva, John Heartfield

John Heartfield  born Helmut Herzfeld 1891-1968. He changed his name in protest to Heartfield in 1916, he was critical of the nationalism that over took Germany and the anti-British sentiment prevalent during World War I. Soon these new social ideas would develop into the Nazi Party into fascism. Heartfield was a witness of change that had ushered in the industrial revolution and the ideas communism, fascism and imperialism. All a reflection of how the world changed.

• Heartfield like Rodchenko had strong beliefs in the power of images, images that could shape a society.

Images that could influence the masses. Propaganda designed to change their world.

• Changed happened in 2008. Suddenly the system began to fail, the light bulb had reached it’s pinnacle and had become a destructive force along with the internal combustion engine, progress seems to have stalled, shifted.

Frank Shepard Fairey (1970- Present) was born in Charleston South Carolina.

Shepard Fairey 1970 - Present

Sometime between 1989 and 1992 Fairy created the Obey Giant phenomena by accident while messing around with a copier.

They Live Movie OBEY

• He lifted the OBEY slogan from the movie “They Live”. From there he created a new innovation in the vocabulary of visual art and propaganda for change.

Fairey has gained recent attention from his Obama campaign poster designs. Fairey is a student of all that is around him, his visual vocabulary is broad and he has learned the lessons of history and past masters well.

The voices of Rodchenko and Heartfield scream loud in Fairey’s work. Fairey through his experience as a skateboarder and art student was able to recognize his chance discovery, his new innovation in the vocabulary of visual art and create compelling and targeted art of change. Cutting, pasting, copying he creates social messages for the masses.

Operation Oil Freedom, Shepard Fairey

• As Rodchenko and Heartfield made images of their time Fairy follows their lead with recycled graphic design for todays audience.

His work is a reflection of our world as it is today. A world where we are running out of resources a world where great social change is emerging.

Lily Brik poster, Rodchenko

• It is the young in all of these examples that first embraced the new ideas of change.

Perhaps the older among us were or are to established in the old systems and feared the inevitable change that had to occur as one system ended and a new on began as did the Romans.

Shepard Fairey Poster

• What pushes change and what shape change takes depends on the circumstances and the society in which change happens.

Perhaps if we look at the images of each of these artists we can see the visual change that reflect their time, their art.

• Propaganda is most simply advertising. It is a medium designed to sell products and or ideas.

The content of the images and text are intended to convince you the viewer to buy Brand X or to believe in Brand X.

• Words and images coexist in a juxtaposition to enhance each other respectively to make the sale.

Now whether that sale is dish soap or a new political doctrine depends on the propaganda on the intent of the words and images. Images become familiar and are exchanged freely between multiple purposes, some good some bad. We as the recipient are bombarded with these well thought out intellectual designs aimed at our understanding of the visual vocabulary. YES we all understand the visual vocabulary of our time. Shock images make us look up and pause, if just for a moment to absorb the message intended for us.

• When artists Like Rodchenko, Heartfield and Fairey use their skills we stop and look.

We absorb the message through all of its elements of design and intent. All of these artists are people of idealistic hope. Hope for a better future. Whether it is to design a future of equality, or to stop oppression or even to save the planet all were and are hopeful for a better outcome than they themselves had experienced.

• Look at these images and see for yourself the continuation of the visual vocabulary from one time to another.

Ask yourself as an artist or viewer what change do you see. What do you believe what will you do to make that change a reality. Will you set aside your present lifestyle your present ideological beliefs and embrace the NEW.

• As history has unfolded the first two of these three artists witnessed great destruction as change occurred.

What will be the history of the last artist, Shepard Fairey when it is written in 100 years. What will he have been a part of today. It is easy to look back at Rodchenko and Heartfield, their time became part of our history. Shepard Fairey is still our present and hope is on the horizon. It is up to us, the artists the people to make our history of tomorrow what we want it to be.

• Make Your Voice Heard Never Be Silent.

Shepard Fairey 2008

To learn more about these artists follow the links

Hope Shows Up at the National Portrait Gallery

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/%e2%80%9chope%e2%80%9d-shows-up-at-the-national-portrait-gallery/

Rodchenko

http://www.newstatesman.com/arts-and-culture/2008/02/alexander-rodchenko-soviet

Heartfield

http://www.towson.edu/heartfield/2.html

Fairey

New Jan. 18, 2009 L A Times Video with Fairey on Obama Posters

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-shepard-fairey18-2009jan18,0,4824476.story

http://obeygiant.com/free/

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/the-art-of-politics/

Up Date

Shepard Fairey Admits he lied about Obama Poster

Fairey’s battle with the Associated Press took an unfortunate turn.

Read More

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/shepard-fairey-admits-%E2%80%9Che-lied%E2%80%9D-about-obama-poster-image

Filed under: Art, Art News, On Art, Politics, Uncategorized , Alexander Rodchenko, John Hearfield, Shepard Fairey

Kara Walker “The Transgression of Shame”

 

The Emancipation Approximation 2000 Kara Walker

Kara Walker is a contemporary African American Artist

Born November 26, 1969. As an Artist she explores race, sexuality, gender, identity and violence in her work. She has become perhaps best known for her room sized black paper cut silhouette installations.

She is in my opinion one of the most interesting artists of our time.

She is an Artist that has abandoned the fear of experimentation and expectation to overcome the shame of working outside the traditional modern established boundaries of what; is contemporary art and allowed her images to live in spite of their defiance to the safety of her deepest, most personal fears. Fears that we as viewers have difficulty in seeing and excepting.

Images that evoke shame in our selves, shame in our thoughts our actions our expectations.

Kara Walker is no easy Artist to understand, she hits you right between the eyes with subject matter that even her most enlightened peers have difficulty dealing with.

In an interview in BOMB Magazine by Matthea Harvey, Walker reveals some of her most personal thoughts about her work.

Shame she says is the most transgressive the most pervasive of personal emotions. Shame can overcome all other states of emotion, anger, rage, fear, happiness and all others. Walker says it is interesting to put that on the table, to elicit a feeling of shame from others and that is what Walkers work does. Her images reach into ourselves and stir up all of these emotions as she playfully uses sexuality, violence, race, gender and our own American history to stimulate those emotions.

I first remember seeing her work in Detroit.

I was visiting my daughter, I thought I had seen a print at the DIA. They have a promising African American collection. After searching their collection for a Kara Walker, she is surprisingly not there in the DIA collection.

Now I don’t really remember where I first encounter Walkers work?

But somehow that segregation, that African American collection category bothers me as much as the idea that Walker would be in a Detroit collection, although she should be.

That segregation of categories is us as Americans.

The category of which you belong is part of you and your identity. Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, African, Native and all Others. Americans are further categorized by ethnicity and religious belief. Categories are uniquely American identity’s. These categories exist on most job applications at any government employer as well as on most any form that seeks to gather information about you. Within these categories exist a lot of Shame, depending on your personal experience the shame is relative to you.

Kara Walker takes one step further and she opens up the dialog of gender, the final two categories male and female, the biological segregation of our species.

I questioned myself, who I am I to write about this artist. I am a white male of southern decent raised in a family punctuated with racism. That racism, that fear of race and gender is still an attribute enjoyed by my extended family. An attribute that I have struggled to remove myself from for most of my life.

It is an attribute of shame that tarnishes my deepest emotions and coexists with my own sense of self and is undeniably part of me.

It is a place I have ascended from, but will remain in me in spite of my efforts. It is this; that very point that Kara Walkers work speaks to me. In her interview with Matthea Harvey in BOMB Walker says

“Come and join me in my shame!”

which she says is a little peculiar. That statement no matter how peculiar it may seem, clarified repressed feelings for me, that I have struggled with all of my life to be quite honest. Feelings of going against ones own family belief system while trying to coexist in a world of differences of different histories and experiences. I have come to realize that this is the American Experience this is the American Experiment and Kara Walker sneaks up on you with her inviting and often humorous silhouettes that stand somewhere between art and American history, that she uses to create a truly American narrative. A narrative that almost requires you to be an American, to have lived the American experience, to truly and deeply appreciate the narrative of Walkers work. We as American’s share in these experiences at our own very personal levels and often very private histories.

 So by now you may be wondering why I have entered into this abyss of complexity and emotionally charge subject matter.

On September 22, 2008 I picked up a feed on my news browser from the Dallas News. PBS art documentary raises eyebrows, concerns in DISD, {Dallas Independent School District}.

The school district purchased the PBS art:21-Art of the Twenty First Century,

documentary that features the short biographies of more than forty artists and describes their techniques to supplement new lessons for middle school aged and up students. Teachers were advised to use their own desecration in using the material and instructed to preview the material before use. Teachers were also told it is their choice as to whether they want to use the documentary or not, it is their choice. Some teachers who found the work of some artists too difficult to use have raised the question of the appropriateness of the material for middle school students. Those teachers and some parents consider the work of two artists in the series too disturbing and sexual in nature to allow students to see the documentary.

Sally Mann and Kara Walker

are the artists. The article reports that Kara Walkers work depicting scenes of slavery is too difficult for middle school students to understand. Mann’s work is said to be, too sexual in nature, she photographs children it is claimed in a sexual nature. Some of Walkers images also have scenes of a sexual nature.

The fear it seems is that the students might want to know more about these artists and look them up on the Internet and get an eyeful.

So I went onto the Internet and I did get an eyeful, to my delight, but then again I am an adult, most of the time. As an adult I have also supervised an Arts Education Program, as a Museum Director and I have dealt with the issue of controversial artwork in that setting. I am going to disappoint some of you because I am not going to second guess those teachers or parents.

The idea of “Age Appropriate Artwork” is as complex

as any discussed here and should be left to the individuals involved. As a Curator, Director I gave the same advice to Parents and Teachers alike. Review the work and use your own judgment. That is a pretty safe place to go when the work is as complex as Kara Walkers.

One work sited in the article was that of a slave child carrying the limb of a man in one hand and a blade in the other. Strong imagery for sure.

Kara Walker mixes up her images with horrifying details and humor. Like the girl with the alligator tail. Hybrids by their very nature.

 Walker has described her work as “Fantasy Clothed in History.” She questions, whether or not there is such a thing as a past and a present, or if the past is just the present with new cloths on. Hidden in this metaphor is the truth of our shame our memory.

We dress up our deepest feelings and we cover them up with words and opinions especially when the subject gets difficult. We as parents and teachers project our discomfort with challenging subject matter, as age appropriate. We decide for the child what can be learned or experienced or not. We tend to try and shape the world, change history to protect the child or perhaps we attempt avoid our own confrontation with shame and those issues that reach deep into our personal feeling. Kara Walker’s work has this effect by design on the viewer and that makes her a Genius Artist in my book.

 Perhaps the difficulty with Kara Walkers work is more basic, biological, women vs men and the sexual complexity gender itself.

“Women always wind up being women” she wrote. “Silences: Rape, child death, illegitimate childbirth. Even today these the threads that seem to continually bind women together: some determined by the culture, some determined by biology. That’s where women always end up being women: you can do x,y and z to become a human being, but you’re suddenly confronted with being a woman again in a very limited sense: being a sexual object, and a sexual object who might also become a mother, willing or unwilling.” Kara Walker.

That statement is so very profound in itself that it crystallizes the shame and fear we are all so emotionally tied, both female and male we chose to silence our own personal histories.

This is perhaps what we seek to protect our children from learning. But the world is cruel and our children will soon learn these lessons and learn these lessons without our guidance if we hide in the shadows of shame of fear.

By the time a child is finished with middle school,

I have four who have, three girls and a boy, most children have encountered or have been witness to every issue and more written in this post. They have experienced in some fashion every violent act known, experienced in some way every personal shame imaginable and they have had little guidance from teachers and parents alike on how to cope in this insane society.

We seek to protect them, we seek to shelter and shape their image of the world and along comes a Kara Walker that says, yup here’s the truth, here’s a real story and we are frightened.

In fact most children have experienced more types of violent and racial behavior today sitting in front of mainstream TV than my generation even knew existed. 

We find entertainment in murder, rape, autopsy’s of murder rape victims and on and on it goes.

Even in this atmosphere Walker’s work is a threat to many.

Same history new clothes? Who is doing what to who? Down to gender.

So I ask shouldn’t we be teaching our children about these subjects in a positive atmosphere. I learned somewhere along the way but not at the family dinner table on Thanksgiving. Perhaps it is our our suffering that finally teaches us. Perhaps it is a wise and gifted mentor who understands the ways of the world and they guide us in a positive safe way to ease our shame, our pain.

 In Kara Walkers silkscreen print, The Emancipation Approximation, 2000.

A silhouette of a women leans over a tree stump with a ax standing beside it, scattered about the foreground are nine heads. The figure seems to be thinking with her chin resting on her hand, much like Rodin’s thinker. I have to wonder what she is thinking about. Is this a depiction of a real event.

Then just a few days ago two men were arrested for plotting to kill 88 Negro’s and presidential candidate Barrack Obama.

They planned to behead their victims. The two skin heads as they are said to be are merely children themselves, I believe eighteen and nineteen respectively. How could these two young men learn so much hatred in so little time, in America. It is in the shame of our history, it is the transgression of our shame.

Perhaps we should take another bit of advice from Kara Walker the mother.

When asked by Matthea Harvey about the attempts to mediate peoples reactions to her work by galleries, parents and so forth.

 Walker responded “I don’t know. Children are drawn to the overall clarity of the black figures on white. Then things get pretty murky, because parents come in and explain things and it becomes too much. Too much for the parent, like where do you begin, or do you just let things flow? That’s what I chose to do with my daughter. I had all kinds of anxieties. What negative impact will this have? I just thought I can’t predict anything, so she will just have to guide me through my work.” Kara Walker.

 

BOMB Magazine interview

http://www.bombsite.com/issues/100/articles/2904

 

 

 

PBS Art 21

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/walker/index.html

 

 

Dallas News article

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/092208dnmetdisdart.168eda8.html

 

Filed under: Art, Art News, On Art, Politics , Art 21, Kara Walker