He[art]

“For the poor, the arts are a path to opportunity.” Props to Americans for the Arts’ Robert L. Lynch and actor / director Robert Redford for writing this letter, which was in response to a recent study revealing that federally funded arts programs benefit people of all income levels. (And yesterday, in related news, President Obama finally named his pick for the head of the National Endowment for the Arts.) Art’s importance cannot be stressed enough.

So tell me. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day…

Penny Byrne's Love Is a Battlefield
at the inaugural Art Basel Hong Kong.

Why do you love art? And what do you love most about art?

(P.S. De La Soul is making their entire catalog available for free download today at 11am EST until tomorrow at noon. Edit: And Gargoyles, my second favorite animated TV show as a kid—after Batman: TAS—is streaming legally on YouTube. Happy Friday!)

Best in Show

I CAN DO THAT has been named the audience choice for “Best Art Exhibit” in the 20^th anniversary edition of NewCity’s Best of Chicago issue!

Thank you so much to everyone who voted for it!

It’s crazy to see ICDT on the same page as the Art Institute’s Roy Lichtenstein retrospective. Like… what?

You can view the issue online and / or pick it up at newsstands.

Also, there’s a great discussion going on in the last post about art and politics. Join in!

Discussion: Art Museums and Political Discourse // Elephants in well-lit rooms

A while back, I asked you, “Does the artist bear a certain social responsibility to challenge the status quo? Or is it enough for the artist to entertain? What, exactly, is the role of the artist?”

Now, with Election Day in the U.S. less than 24 hours away, I’d like to not only revisit this conversation but also expand it from the individual artist to the art museum. In “Voting Against Ruffled Feathers,” the New York Times addresses American museums’ tendency to tiptoe around politics, raising such questions as:

Should public museums be places where political argument happens? Why is this so rarely the case, especially when compared with politically engaged programming in museums in Europe, Mexico, South America and even parts of the Middle East?

Says New York artist Jonathan Horowitz, whose election-based “Your Land/My Land” installation is currently on view at the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, North Carolina:

“I wouldn’t say that museums have a moral obligation to engage in political discourse any more than artists have a moral obligation to make work that does. I will say, though, that hermetic art about art is generally not of that much interest to me, and this seems to be the direction that art is trending.”

How do you feel about art for art’s sake?

Shrinking the dialogue back to the individual artist:

It may, however, also speak more fundamentally to the role of the artist in American society in the 21st century, a role whose political authority has eroded along with that of novelists, poets and philosophers. “The figure of the artist can still be heroic, still an outsider and still transgressive in Europe and many other parts of the world, whereas that’s seems less and less the case here,” said Negar Azimi, a writer and editor at Bidoun. 

The article does consider certain factors that may have contributed to this difference, reasoning that “structure and history account for U.S. museum programs that, by and large, address a very large public,” which is “why they find explicit political pronouncements so difficult to make.” It’s also careful to end on a less cynical note, with Horowitz’ belief that “it is possible for the institutional art world to help people think more critically about the country’s political future.” That said…

What are your thoughts on the subject? What do you think the art museum’s role within society should be?

(Also, make sure you add your voice to last week’s discussion about how you view art!)

Discussion: How do you view art?

East Coasters, stay safe!

Everyone, take advantage of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal suspending their paywalls for Hurricane Sandy / Frankenstorm! (Articles! Free articles! Free articles for all!) No, really.

(Also, everyone, run to the Google search page right now. Right. Now. Happy little clouds.)

The NYT recently ran an article, “Heart-Pounding Art, Seen Solo,” on a study by German cultural scholar Martin Tröndle that researched how people view art, with such findings as:

[...] artists, critics and museum directors often walk into the middle of an exhibition space, scan it and then maybe look at one work before continuing on, while visitors with moderate curiosity and interest tend to move diligently from work to work and read text panels.

I definitely do the former when it comes to most gallery shows and some museum exhibitions (I tend to be more thorough in museums, but that just might be the history nerd / learning nerd in me). But is one way necessarily right or wrong or better than the other?

My last show, I CAN DO THAT, did explore this issue a bit. As I’ve mentioned before in various interviews, most people who attend gallery openings walk in, make a beeline for the free booze, find and chat with the people they know, and then leave, all without so much as even glancing at the art on the walls.

At I CAN DO THAT, not only were people staying and looking at the art, but the art was the focus. Guests were actively viewing, talking about, and interacting with the art (granted, that was the premise of the show, but still). And, most notably, people were staying.

Another finding from Tröndle’s research:

That visitors tended to feel more stimulated by sculptures and installations that impeded their progress through the galleries was also noteworthy.

Ah, yes, I am no stranger to sculptures and installations getting in people’s way. People tend to respond more to immersive environments, to art that engages as many senses as possible, to art that almost asks to be grabbed and touched or kicked over. And, interestingly, if you’ve been following my art travels and documentation of them, you might’ve noticed that I am indeed more drawn to and thus highlight the more sculptural works.

The article concludes:

[...] for an optimal art experience, museums have to be small, they have to be more empty, and they have to be, in the most positive sense, a place of contemplation.”

Of Mr. Tröndle’s suggestion that the more social one’s visit, the less one can remember of it, Mr. Wäspe said, “This means never go with your best friend through an exhibit, because you don’t do them any favors.” 

Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? Personally, I do prefer viewing art alone (which is how I prefer doing most things, as you can probably surmise by this whole I-want-to-produce-entire-exhibitions-by-myself venture). I’ve made exceptions, but, even then, that usually translates to my companion and me eventually splitting up and reconvening once we’ve both made the rounds.

What are your own art-viewing habits, tendencies, and preferences? Can the act of viewing art be social and have the same effect as when one is alone?

P.S. Don’t forget to vote for I CAN DO THAT as Best Art Exhibit! You have until Wednesday, October 31!

Also, if you haven’t done so, check out the official statement for the city-wide Dreams of a City project!

Winging It, in the Modern— / People’s Choice

Last month on a Thursday evening before the holidays, I stood in the middle of the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, straight-up looking like a high-schooler working on a class assignment (I should probably forgo my trademark neon dunks and $3 plastic red watch when interacting with strangers who aren’t given clues that suggest the contrary…), and asked museum visitors the following two questions:

“Who, in your opinion, is the most overrated contemporary artist?”

“On the flip side, what would you like to see in a major museum or gallery show consisting of contemporary art? What are the kinds of things you’d like to see in major institutions?”

Here’s what they had to say:

(Some survey-ees didn’t answer the first question. Hmmm.)

Would like to see: (R) Anything that is interactive and very real, something you can actually be involved with. It seems like so many things in museums are always “don’t touch” or “steer clear.” Something that you can actually interact with would be kind of cool.

Would like to see: (L) Ancient items. Modern art [tends to be] difficult to understand.

Would like to see: I’m very big on still lifes. A lot of shadows, not a lot of color. Just basic colored pencils or graphites to kind of depict the different values. Something simple that kind of shows the artist’s soul, something very descriptive that can just move a person. Very provocative, very thought-provoking. Not over-done.

(We then proceeded to fawn over literature and poetry.)

(The gentleman requested to have his and his wife’s photograph taken in front of the Thomas Schütte sculpture.)

Overrated: (R) Andy Warhol.

Would like to see: (R) Characteristic pieces right from the pre-historic on up to the 1950s, Rothko, maybe stopping there. A little bit into the early ‘60s, but Rothko was the last one that I really appreciate, although I do like some contemporary pieces.

Overrated: (R) Andy Warhol. He’s talented, but so many people want to read so much into it because it’s just so easy to digest and because it’s Pop Art, you know? So people want to be like, “Oh that guy’s unbelievable.” And he’s good. I mean, there are parts of it that I do like, but you’ve seen it so many times.

Would like to see: (R) I’m always a really big fan of photorealism. It’s not like it’s the most amazing form of art, but I don’t see a ton of it in art museums. And I do like abstraction—big Kandinsky fan.

(We all subsequently geeked out over the museum’s Arms & Armor section. They proposed a “modern update” to make it even better.)

Overrated: Those kinds of paintings that are just one color on a canvas. I don’t know the specific artist, but where it’s just two colors, and I’m like, “I could’ve done that.”

Would like to see: More textiles. Textiles are my favorite.

Overrated: (L) I would say Cy Twombly.

(R) Peter Max.

Would like to see: (R) Impressionism.

(L) I kind of like the modern art. I’m getting to appreciate it. It reflects this time that we’re living in right now. Just like with the Impressionists, I’m quite certain that, in their times, people didn’t accept what they were doing.

Overrated: I’m a little underwhelmed with a lot of the Walker in Minneapolis. Like the landlord collection, John [Waters] or something like that. I just didn’t understand it at all.

Would like to see: Photography.

A little more of a throwback to adding more styles of old, more Renaissance, mixed with new mediums. I just don’t see any of that. It’s strictly new and it’s so avant garde that I’d like a mix of media.

As a bonus, I also surveyed the buddy who got me into the museum for free… (Thanks, Kris!)

Overrated: Damien Hirst. That guy’s bullshit. I also think Banksy’s very overrated.

Would like to see: It’d be more interesting for the major museums and galleries to at least give some space and time to people who aren’t necessarily selling a lot of stuff. Don’t get me wrong; you’re going to get a lot of crap, but that’s always true. Everything’s mostly crap, but eventually you might find something good in the crap. These boards tend to be the same sort of people everywhere. They sell themselves on what’s good and what isn’t, so it’s an echo chamber, so you always get what somebody in that group says is cool, and then everybody wants to seem cool so they go along with it. Getting something outside of that would be nice, and that could be anything from… I don’t want to say “outsider art,” because I think that got really clichéd for a bit, but there’s stuff being done that isn’t being seen by people—not because they’re outsiders, but because it’s hard to get an audience. So I’d like to see some new stuff. I’ll fully admit most of it will probably be garbage, but every once in a while something will be cool.

Anyone you agree with? Anyone you’d like to vehemently debate? Any other artists you’d like to add to the list? Any other kinds of art you love and wish more people loved?

Also, because of all this shit-talking, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst are now turning up in my Gmail ads. Goddamnit, Google.

Art = Life

The last discussion presented art as a vehicle for revolution and change, as the channel through which the people make their voices heard. Rather than letting some bureaucracy-obeying art world sycophant churn out an offensively predictable Top 10 artists list that’s supposed to, somehow, tell you what he thinks you should like… Who and what do you want to see gain more exposure? What kind of art or which artists represent you? (To keep things organized, discuss over here.)

And now for this week’s discussion: I interviewed artist Martin Bernstein for Sixty Inches From Center, and here are some gems from our conversation (and good advice to boot):

Photo by Andrew Roddewig, 2011.

On art:

Art is a consciousness. [...] It’s a way of life. It’s a way of looking at every single nanosecond of every day.

On great art:

Great art isn’t something that gives you all the answers; it’s a starting point for you to then question. [...] You’re always learning. You always have to push towards something you don’t know.

On the value of traveling:

The road taught me: open your eyes right now, because what you are seeing or doing or thinking is gone, and now there’s a new “right now,” and that’s gone, and now there’s a new “right now,” and you keep moving through… Well that’s life. And it’s right now.

On not only knowing yourself, being yourself, and sticking to it…

Principle is all you’ve got in the end, and so you really have to find the basic code of how you want to live, and all your work and all the things you say and do should fit that perfectly. [...] Especially as an artist and they are constantly telling you no. [...] We look outside of ourselves to define ourselves when we [are young]. It’s kind of a parabolic curve of life to me, and somewhere in the middle when we get to our 30s, we start to go, “Wait a minute. It’s not them. It’s me.” You start to realize that you sort of colored in the all the surrounding areas, and now it’s time to fill in this figure that’s sort of the shadow. You start to fill it in.

…but also having faith in yourself:

 I just trust that I’m on the right path, that I’m doing the right thing at the right time, and if I don’t feel that, I’m willing to turn around on a dime.

More wisdom here.

For many of us, art was our first [and only—shhhh] love. To ask an artist if she could do without creating is like asking someone if she could do without breathing, or if she could log in to Facebook and log out within five minutes (it’s impossible). This question applies to everyone, artists and collectors and art appreciators alike: When did you first fall in love with art? When did you know you wanted it to be a part of—no—to be your life?

Viva la Revolución / Hey art’s pretty important, you guys

“This society—American society—does not value the arts.”

True words from Patric McCoy, President and Co-Founder of Diasporal Rhythms, as well as one of the panelists at “Creating Community through the Arts,” a discussion I attended a couple weeks ago. The conversation was a breath of fresh air. Saying the things we all want to say but are often hesitant to say out loud, the panelists pulled no punches, dispelling and deconstructing misconceptions and myths about art and artists, taking on America’s lack of funding for the arts and arts education; and, most importantly, offering grassroots level solutions to the problems addressed.

American society at large may not value the arts, but one cannot deny how indispensable the arts are to American society.

“Arts are essential for democracy. […] The arts teach people to think freely.” –Panelist Carlos Tortolero, Executive Director of the National Museum of Mexican Art.

Here’s an excerpt from my write-up of the panel discussion on Sixty Inches From Center:

Patric McCoy: I’m seeing that the energy is actually in the subcultures, and that it really is a bottom-up phenomenon. [...] What we have is a top-down process, is that the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the art critics, and so forth [...] tell you who is good, instead of you telling them who is good. All of our community should be working to promote… should be telling you, “This is who we think is good in this part of the city,” and it bubbles up. I think it’s most prevalent in visual arts. [...] In the musical arts, we don’t have a problem in America that it comes up from the bottom. [...] Hip hop can start in the Bronx, gospel in the South Side of Chicago… we don’t have a problem with that, that eventually, it gets up to the top and it becomes “America.”

Carlos Tortolero: It becomes “America” from the powers that be, and I think the real problem is that the power structure has created an “either/or” situation, and I want to create an “and” situation, where the mariachi music is good, classical music is good, hip hop… it’s all good. It should be an “and” situation where we embrace all forms of art, in which all forms of art are valued.

Luis DeLaTorre: [...] Do you think it’s because music is a very rich commodity, that people can trade easily, and make money off of, and art isn’t seen that way?

PM: That has to do with power, and that the visual arts are associated with power. Imagery is extremely powerful.

When it comes to working within one’s subculture(s) and inciting change from the bottom up, panelist Giselle Mercier, an installation artist from Panama and the Executive Director of Pros Arts Studio, pointed out that anyone can be a patron of the arts, that “it has to be a collective force and can’t be just from people who have means.” She explained that, instead of purchasing a $3 cup of coffee for one day every week, one can donate to a local museum (or, as I’ll interject, invest in a great piece of artwork).

Technology was another topic that was raised, framed initially as another problem (think bookstores-might-be-going-bankrupt-because-of-tablets problem) artists and arts professionals face. One audience member asked whether technological advances “undermine the ability of the people to decide which art is important.” On the contrary, technology makes the world smaller, makes art more accessible (shameless self-aggrandizing: hello, blog), allows for the democratization of art (why yes I will continuously recycle my own words). In the words of moderator and artist Luis DeLaTorre:

[With technology], we can have [art] at our fingertips To be able to experience it, visual art and music, you have it right there. I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, “Art is dead.” Her response was, “Art is never going to die, because it’s that human experience of creating that always propels us.” 

Essential for democracy? Never going to die? It’s what propels the human race? If that’s what art is and we’re not supporting it, it looks like our values are indeed skewed.

Read more highlights from the conversation here.

All of this brings me to the flip side of the discussion we had (and are still having) on this site concerning overrated artists. One of my main objectives is exposing and sharing the talents of artists—who might otherwise remain under the radar—with shows like Exquisite Corpse and via online galleries. Who do you want to see exalted in galleries and museums? What do you want to see? Who/what do you feel represents you? We need to take the microphone from the mainstream and major outlets and institutions and hand it back to the people, to you. The artist has the ability to condense an entire zeitgeist into a single image, to create something that someone else can look at and say, “This is who I am, and this is who we are.” Art encapsulates the voice of the people.

Related: I’m pleased to be a part of Lolk Collective, a new community-focused initiative I mentioned briefly in this interview. Launched by Zachary Johnson, who exhibited art in Exquisite Corpse, Lolk is looking for collaborators, so this is an artist call for those of you who are interested in street art, guerilla art, and other forms of happiness.

Everything is connected.

Except for the following fact.

My favorite “search keyword” (thank you, Blogger stats) that led someone to this site this week: “how old is jenny lam”

(Well, kind stranger, if you click around on enough links—hint! the sidebar! also! interviews on the press page!—you’ll figure out when I graduated college, and that should narrow things down. Although I’ll let you continue to believe I’m either a 14-year-old prodigy—the ages mentioned on the “About” page are fabulous red herrings—or a geezer with an aging portrait in an attic.)

Living for the City / “Mommy, where do [great artists] come from?”

Last week The Huffington Post ran an article that asked, “Where do important artists come from?” (My simple answer would be the following wise words from the masterwork that is Ratatouille: “Not everyone can become a great artist. But a great artist can come from anywhere.” Slow clap.) Here’s an excerpt:

For in a world celebrated for rapid shifts in technique and style, and for the iconoclasm of its young geniuses, the geography of artistic innovation is profoundly conservative.

Simply put, important new artists are most likely to emerge in the same cities where important artists have emerged in the recent past. And even more narrowly, in recent decades important new artists have been most likely to emerge from the same academic institutions that have produced important artists in the past.

But why those cities in particular? Is it the cities themselves or the academic institutions within those cities—or a combination of the two—that produce artists? Above all, forget the chicken and egg conundrum; do those cities cultivate artists, or do artists, regardless of their origins, gravitate towards those cities? (Speaking for myself and those I know, I would say the latter. And if it is the latter, what if great artists actually, you know, stayed in their hometowns rather than making the inevitable migration to places like New York?)

The piece also touches upon the subject of young / once-young (e.g. Hirst—speaking of whom, the overrated artists discussion is still going!) artists, artists steeped in self-awareness and reacting to their historical contexts, taking a rather calculated approach in steering their careers, so the rest is worth a read.

Only connect

Remember that Exquisite Corpse guest who “approached me and made my night by raving about the performance, telling me how much it moved him—that he had a moment in which he realized he got it—and showing me, literally, pages he’d written as a response to the piece”? Remember when I didn’t have to resort to quoting myself when I’m already linking to said quote? That guest is Danny Bravman, and he [finally!] emailed me a few days ago. Here’s his message in full:

Hi, I'm not sure if you remember me. I was at the closing night of
Exquisite Corpse, and had been so moved by Caitlin's performance
piece, that I wrote a few pages of reactions which you said you'd be
interested in reading. I had some computer issues and, honestly,
forgot about it, but if you're still interested, here they are.  Other
than blanking a few names, I've not edited it at all; sorry if it's
hard to follow in some places.  It's a little detached for me to read
back on this a month later, I'll admit.

---
One girl painted another girl in red. The second girl rolled onto
placed paper. Repeat. I was confused, because the second girl was
the performer, yet it appeared like the first was the artist: the
first painting, while the second the brush she used. And then I
realized it- the point of the piece, the point of the whole exhibit,
the emotion of tonight, the meaning of the past few months, the answer
we’ve been seeking- collaboration. They are not alone. They work
together. They complement. What they create is greater than the
individual.

Eventually they exhaust the red, and there is blue now, and the result
is purple, so perfect thematically. The first girl has paint on her;
the second has patches of skin still visible. They have been talking
occasionally to each other, inaudibly behind the music and the crowd,
who at one point break into to interact with, calling for the second,
who had adhered to the paper and plastic she was rolling across to
“leave it”. And she lets herself roll herself up, cocooning herself
within her own art, then emerges, and lets the next coat be applied.
She is near naked, but yet not erotically: her exposure is not of
shame, but of sharing; playful. At the end they both procure
scissors- I do not know why- and cut up their work into scraps, not
into clothing as I first hypothesized.

I text back the location I originally was going to spitefully not give
K____, having been upset at the insultingly little effort put into
this purported friendship, this constant standing up, so badly lied,
the sort which had me write off another ______ _U 20__ graduate, to
let be given what I ought show to such behavior, contrasting with the
appreciation I show, the appreciation shown to me by J__ mere minutes
before, who was so touched at my friendship in traveling to Wisconsin
for her birthday, for her show, for her, that I realized how
unnecessarily bitter I’d been, by being alone, wandering through this
exhibit, taking a “Fish of Destiny” while leaving a crumpled up
“LIES”, drawing a half-visible off-to-the-side mist-shrouded head for
a trifold self-portrait, sending an unacknowledged text instead of
congratulating in person the sole artist I knew beforehand, silently
composing hurtful hates. But I feel I understand. Now I know. I see
collaboration before me. The second girl writes, her performance
concluded, on the external easels two questions: how is the body best
used for art, and vice versa. I look around, finding these papers and
pen, to take outside to write down reactions.

I understand her art. I understand their art. I understand myself.
We are not alone. We express ourselves, together, creating and
observing, together interpreting. And I hope my crumpled up paper is
still there, so that I can straighten out the scrap, cross out the
black word and write under in purple: “I understand now”. Let’s see.

Thank you so much, Danny, for reminding us why we make art in the first place. (Well, why a lot of us do, anyway.)

If you haven’t already, make sure you take part in last week’s discussion post! I also posed the same questions in the Chicago art discussion-based #chiart group on Facebook. Screencap of group members’ answers after the jump. The names and profile pictures have been redacted because, well, what happens in #chiart stays in #chiart:

More like Damien Worst amirite amirite

Who, in your opinion, is the most overrated contemporary artist? Whom do you absolutely hate? Do any particular pieces from that artist come to mind?

I swear I’m going somewhere with this! (Hint: Two tags.)

The body as art / Art as the body // Photos galore

Photos of Caitlin Bergh’s Exquisite Corpse performance piece are now up on Flickr. (You can find more photo links in the previous post.)

Photo by Andrew Roddewig, 2011.

Here’s a short video clip of the performance, taken on an outdated point-and-shoot camera, and here are lengthier videos taken on Caitlin’s iPhone. (As you can probably tell by the quality and equipment used, documentation was merely and mostly for posterity’s sake. Indie indeed.) I like how you can hear me say, “Do one more roll,” at 2:33 in the last video. Because that one roll resulted in 2:42. Which was a perfectly unintentional and unintentionally perfect moment. [29 October edit: Caitlin accidentally deleted all of her YouTube videos. Stay tuned, as she’ll re-upload them soon!]

Those who watched the performance in person are right, however, when they tell me that the videos don’t do the experience justice; you really did have to be there. But, as has been mentioned, there will be more [and bigger! and better!] live collaborations between Caitlin and me in the future.

Not seen in the videos is the ending of the performance: We bowed. My obsession from the soundtrack blared. And the audience responded to Caitlin’s questions, “What is the best way to convey the body in art?” and “What is the best way to convey art on the body?”

Of course, the performance was only one small part of Exquisite Corpse. Photos of the exhibition are now up, arranged roughly in the order in which a guest to the gallery might view each collaboration. Keep checking the page for photos of the opening and closing receptions.

Unrelated to the show, the discussion is still going in the “Art as political weapon, artist as social instigator” post from June! If you’re new to the site or haven’t been checking back on the older discussion posts, join in on the conversation!

Discussion: Skill vs. concept // “But this is revolutionary!” “It looks like a 4-year-old made it and then sneezed on it.”

First, an Exquisite Corpse update: The artist application window is now officially closed. Thank you to all who applied! The portfolios I’ve looked through so far are fantastic. I’m impressed not only by the quality of the art, but also by the variety of media (my inbox is filled with everything from animatronic sculpture to performance to guerilla art), themes (race, gender, sexuality, and class! death, decay, and the grotesque! beauty! freedom! promise I’m not just throwing out buzzwords!), and applicants (artists range from emerging and still in school to established and with work that can be found in collections around the world, from the local to as far from Chicago as you can get—hello, Australian creatives!). Hmm, I believe I just drafted part of the exhibition’s press release with those juxtapositions. Artists, I will be contacting you within the next couple of days.

I also enjoyed being addressed as a “respected sir” in one of the cover letters.

Second, here’s my latest Sixty Inches From Center article, in which I interviewed the gallery director of Western Exhibitions, as well as a few artists, for insight into People Don’t Like to Read Art, a group show. (For the record, I love reading art. And reading. And art. Look at that!)

And now: We’ve examined conceptual art and its [monetary] value, as well as what we value in art and what draws us to particular works of art. (Those discussions are still active, by the way! Check out their comment sections to hobnob with your fellow collectors, artists, art professionals, and art lovers.) Let’s expand the conversation back to a more comprehensive level: concept vs. skill. Art Radar profiled a panel discussion on a very specific issue—the decline of contemporary ink painting—but one panelist’s observations resonate with the subject at hand:

All media, such as oil, are struggling with issues similar to those ink is facing. Today’s artists prefer to use multiple media rather than master a single medium. There is less need to grapple with challenging media because they are primarily interested in conceptual art; the medium of a work and its subject are mere tools for expressing an artist’s ideas.

I have my own opinions on the subject. As an artist myself, I try to strike a balance between technical skill (I can draw) and conceptual vision (for my thesis project at Columbia, I created hundreds of self-addressed and pre-stamped postcards, all blank save for the prompt, “Tell me one thing you dream of doing before you die—use this card as your canvas,” marked each with a code, and placed the cards in public spaces throughout Manhattan, using the codes to record where I left them; when the postcards returned to me, I was able to pinpoint the exact location of where each had been found, and thus created a map of the city from New Yorkers’ dreams—no technical skill needed), in addition to making needlessly verbose parenthetical statements. But I won’t trouble you with mine [yet].

What are your thoughts? The most common reaction to much contemporary art, I’ve found, is “I can do that.” I’ve also found that the proper response to such a grievance is “But you didn’t.” Many people may indeed be technically capable of executing what can be seen in galleries and museums, but they weren’t the ones who conceived the ideas behind those pieces in the first place, and that’s what counts. Or is it?

Can we excuse mediocre (or downright poor) craftsmanship if the artwork communicates a groundbreaking idea (perhaps the piece possesses great sociopolitical significance) or, more simply, a clever idea? If an idea is good enough, exactly how “good” must that idea be? Is it necessary for contemporary artists to master a medium? Which do you hold in higher esteem: technique or concept? Or do you regard both equally?

Excluded from this discussion, however, is James Franco trolling the art world. (And whatever you do, don’t read his prose. Ketchup randomness.)