Why Care About Art?

Two nights ago on my friend's roof the question came up: why care
about making art? And last night, sitting at a table in another
friend's backyard, the conversation picked up again.

My friend said that the best reason he's heard yet for making art, or
music, is that it's a messy, crowded world, and the only way to live
in it, to coexist, is to practice an understanding for what is foreign
and uncomfortable to you. Art asks for that understanding. I think
what he was saying is that to practice making art or to practice
looking at it is a kind of learning that asks you to exist in what is
uncomfortable, to be able to stand on ground that is unfamiliar, or to
be able to exist without any ground to stand on at all. This kind of
learning practices floating.

Or, learning at all practices floating. This makes sense to me as a
reason to learn, and as a reason to care about art in that it's one
way of learning. At some point in addressing the question of why I
should care about making art there has to be, it seems to me, a moment
where I ascribe a value to making art. That's a tricky moment, though,
and underlies the difficulty of the question. Each justification slips
away when I go to claim it, leaving me with the tautology, it's
important because it's important. My friend's reason to care about art
is nice in one way because it ascribes value not necessarily to art
but to learning, which by its definition is something that is moving,
growing, changing.

It's important because it's important betrays what I really want to
say, though, and what I feel, however much it seems to dodge the
question. It seems to me that I call art important and it has to be
important or else it is nothing. I've heard people say, "I think
making art is important," or "I think painting matters," as though
these were the reasons why it's important or why it matters. This
feels like a moral to me, and I've accepted it that way recently. It
matters and so it matters to do it well, to do it a lot, to practice
at it.

Henry

Drivel

This morning everybody's paintings were taken out of the racks for the End
of the Year Show. Luke Jansen submitted his entire senior show. Carlos's
big black and gold painting was surprisingly tacky on the sides; I had to
scrub really hard to get it off my left index finger and thumb. Some
little crappo abandoned paintings were stepped on and no-one cares. Is
Tom's long painting even finished? It is the longest painting. Some oil
paint bled through to the back; this once pleased me, to see a doomed
painting, but it seems a little sad now. Three typical crude paintings on
metal sheets with chicken wire were sharp and heavy. There were a few good
paintings that I liked, but they were by girls.

Mason

A Narrative Review of Sentimental Photographs of Canada

Thomas Gardiner's photographs of rural Canada were pleasant. As I
followed them around the room the theme of New replacing Old was gently
shown with dirty construction covering lush landscapes, fresh buildings
near worn ones. There was a subtle but perceptible preference for the
old, though the new wasn't too evil, and both were always well composed.
People appeared as I strolled, mostly inconsequential and fairly
typical. I settled in near the end of the line with an old man by his
ham radio. Obviously clinging to the past, with pictures of old jets and
Air Command memorabilia covering his walls – this was a melancholy
portrait of a generation nearly gone. There were two or three photos
after the old man, but I only remember the first, immediately following
him. A boy lying on some sort of couch outside, a girl sitting on him in
a bathing suit, another boy (young man?) standing, shirtless. Each
fellow grasped each of the girl's breasts with one hand, one per boy.
All were smiling ecstatic, drunken, exhibiting smiles. I hated these
kids. The old man and I hated these kids. We sat in his living room,
turned the radio dial, lamented the state of the world, and hated these
kids.

These photographs were sentimental, unexciting, and none too
spectacular. The portraits of the old man and the fondlers were, on
their own, compelling, but too standard in their method. Gardiner's
journalistic skill was revealed in the curation, the lead-up with
humdrum treetops and forlorn gazes; the sudden and singular shot of
those terrible children, the rapid denouement. In a very traditional way
the photographs were emotionally stirring, and I cannot denounce them
for that.

Will Schneider-White

A handful of thoughts from the studio: maxims, mess-ups

Something I didn't realize about Milo Carney until recently, even though it was right in front of my face, is that he collects and invents maxims all the time. I was eating a green curry lunch on the sixth floor near his studio a few weeks ago when he came up with, "It's still foam core to me." He wrote that line in sharpie on a nearby wall, underlined "me," then decided it was better without the underline and tried smudging it out. For Milo, anything is a potential proverb, even, or especially, seemingly inane sentences. 

My interest in maxims began to develop just before realizing what Milo's project is. One saying that can be read as a maxim is the sentence Herman Melville had pinned next to his desk, "Keep true to thy dreams of youth." Or what Will has written in his studio, "If not a thought does your mind elicit/ make not your speech too explicit." Which, as he pointed out to me, is a variation of Lincoln's, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."  Or the simple mantra I have nailed above my studio, "Be stronger! Be stronger! Be stronger!"

Maxims have to do with rules for how one should live. This is in part why I find Milo's sense of humor so sharp. It's funny to me to be constantly picking up little sentences and claiming them as rules for how one should live and it's funny exactly because it's simply a more exaggerated version of what I actually do in life, and what most people probably do too.

This idea of moral art making has been rolling around my head this year as I become more and more of a "moral" artist. This can go off now in a different direction, and maybe I'll take it there sometime soon, as this blog begins to transition into summer time. But I do want to talk about one other statement with a moral, which is the clichéd or platitudinous version of what Alexis was telling me the other day, which I collected, and which I'll pin up here. Failure is a good teacher. Alexis was telling me that it doesn't matter if my work is no good because I'm only a sophomore. And while I don't agree with the sentiment that it doesn't matter—it matters to me, of course— I think the meat of what she was saying is that if you aren't willing to make a lot of ultimately weak art, you're not getting a very good education. That's right, I think, but it doesn't stop at being a sophomore or a student in school. It seems to me that you always have to be willing to make bad work and that's just one of the potential obstacles when you make art for a living.

Henry

 

Paint Drips Pictures

Tuesday night on the seventh floor I flipped through a big binder of
funny pictures, many of them vintage advertisements. I don't really know
why they were all funny, but they sure were old! On one wall there was a
big collage of kitschy images like the binder but with paint drips all
over. It looked really cool! There were other paintings too, hung on top
of the collage, full of art-historical and pop-culture jokes. Stonehenge
stenciled teal on a maroon background, for instance. I thought it would
make a nice t-shirt. Featured as well were some appropriated snapshots
of art made into kitsch. A papier-mâché Campbell's soup can with
matching Jif jar (Warhol's lost masterpiece?), Matisse's La Danse
re-done with aliens. An admirable effort all around. There was also a
cute photo of kittens, but there were those paint drips in the way and I
couldn't see the fuzzy wuzzy kitten-coos. I like kittens and there were
many in this show. Near the binder was a computer playing a Youtube
video of a painting in the show. I mean it was just a movie of the
painting, like, just filming the painting. Get it? I've always had that
idea too, but I thought someone had done it already. I guess not! It was
about a minute long and nothing happened. After that I went and stared
at the real painting for about a minute. It wasn't the same. While
waiting for the elevator going to the second floor for those sweet
sandwiches I looked at the big collage. Everyone agreed it was awesome.
I saw some guy looking at it and frowning. I don't know what his problem
was.

In conclusion, I thought the show was super sarcastic and really funny.
It was just like I'm gonna drip paint all over famous art! Yeah! And
like, it really showed how funny anachronisms can be. Did you see that
picture of the old guy with the beard? It was so good. Some of the more
serious seeming paintings made me look harder, which I liked. They were
more like I'm gonna paint in these certain styles and mock them with
context! Like the shape ones. Altogether really good and I look forward
to seeing what this young artist produces in the future.

Oh yeah, and there was pizza!