Notes from [an] underground [art scene advocate / Miami Art Week virgin]

A drop of forty degrees. It hurts, man. It hurts. (In other words, I’m back from Miami, home in Chicago.)

Things I did a lot of this past week:

• Took photos. You can check them all out on Flickr or / and Facebook. (You can also watch the slideshow at the end of the post.)

• Tweeted. Tweets ranged from art-related to things like this.

Now, what was my take on Miami Art Week?

Inside Wynwood Walls.

Being me, the first thing I did in Miami was visit the gritty Wynwood neighborhood, ‘most every surface swathed in street art, dripping with pigment and passion. Away from the beach resorts and omnipresent pools, away from the Hummer limos pulling up to art deco hotels and nightclubs with flashing marquees, Wynwood is a wonderland of aerosol ecstasy, where you could walk down a side street and smell fresh spray paint, breathe it all in, let the dizzying barrage of color saturate your soul. I couldn’t help but think of the squatter communities off Moganshan Road in Shanghai or in Berlin, ostensibly bleak cityscapes where you could lose yourself and find yourself and find God in graffiti. This is how you make my heart go aflutter.

Of course, the main attraction was Art Basel Miami Beach. Sure, you had your Hirsts and your customized BMWs on display in the collectors’ lounge and your fairgoers in Louboutins and on-trend sheer dresses and there were $20-a-glass champagne carts rolling down the aisles. But there was good stuff too.

My favorite booths included Salon 94, featuring Jon Kessler’s kinetic sculptures, one of which controlled an iPad that took photos of the viewer (technology! topicality!); and mother’s tankstation, featuring Atsushi Kaga’s dark-humored cast of characters. The latter booth sold out during the daytime preview, so the artist himself, along with his mother, created more art on the spot. Among these creations were tote bags that were only 50 bucks each—mind-blowing at a fair where works of art can and did sell for millions.

Atsushi Kaga and his mom at mother's tankstation
at Art Basel Miami Beach 2012.

There was so much more to see other than Basel, however, with over a dozen parallel fairs, such as NADA Miami Beach (I’ll just say this: the entire time at Basel, I saw gallerists picking at nothing but salads and fruit platters; at NADA, within my first few minutes in one of the fair’s halls, I made eye contact with a girl devouring a pizza) and UNTITLED. Art Fair, which I thoroughly enjoyed (right on the beach, the fair was perfectly located, the sandy path from Ocean Drive to its entrance, I imagined, almost inherently a stiletto deterrent), but most of all…

PULSE Miami was, hands down, my favorite fair. For me, there are two factors by which to judge an art fair (or anything, really): how fun it is and how good it is. PULSE was great fun and it had high quality art—a combination that is unfortunately rare.

                                                                                     

(Painfully boring events with passable art are to be expected. The opposite is equally common but harder to identify because of certain… distractions: Let’s be real—we’ve all been to at least one event where it’s fun and hip and yeah there’s a gaggle of kids milling about secretly wanting to get snapped by a street style blogger and when that doesn’t happen they all Instagram each other and then exchange Tumblr URLs but when you get around to actually looking at the walls you realize the place is infested with that distinct hipster brand of half-assed juvenile Bad Art and you’re not sure whether it’s ironically bad like that ugly grandpa sweater that ironically mustachioed dude over there is sporting or if it’s just plain bad.)

From Jessica Drenk’s exquisitely crafted sculptures made out of such materials as cut books, carved pencils, and coffee filters at Adah Rose Gallery to Casey Neistat’s Watch Some Movies interactive installation where visitors could lounge on couches in a living room setting and, well, watch some movies, or help themselves to bowls of tampons and condoms, cans of cheap beer in a mock-locked fridge, and a grilled cheese sandwich-making station (operated by the artist himself)… PULSE delivered.

The art met the caliber set by Basel (in many ways I thought it was much better, even), but, more importantly, it was refreshing.

I also noticed (or perhaps just naturally always hone in on) many works that put an emphasis on people, on communities, like:

a participatory public art project that combined urban farming with housing and assistance for the homeless; a multimedia installation representing the residents of a neighborhood affected by gentrification; and Brooklyn-by-way-of-London artist Shantell Martin’s Continuous Line mural, into which she incorporated visitors’ names (you all know I’m all about blurring the line between artist and audience) and onto which she hung two signs of polished stainless steel, one asking “who are you,” which tapped into the viewer’s sense of self and identity, the other asking “you are who,” which, Shantell explained, alluded to art fairs’ preoccupation with being a somebody.

Shantell Martin next to my name in her "Continuous Line" mural
at PULSE Miami 2012.

For those who might feel discouraged by or think that the art world consists only of the superficial and posturing and celebrity-worshipping and big-name-and-big-money-driven commercial greed… don’t.

Even at the top, there is room for alternatives.

There is room to be subversive.

After all, this is art.

Lucky 13 and More Numbers

Two show-related matters:

One: Beginning in October, via social networking sites, in person, and here, I’ve been asking you who you think is the most overrated contemporary artist. I’ve received over 100 responses, not including the responses to those responses in what devolved into some very strange feuds (photography haters? who knew?). My main takeaway from sorting through all the answers? It’s amazing how many times people misspelled “Damien Hirst,” and it’s amazing how many ways in which that name can be misspelled. In honor of the Friday the 13th opening date for I CAN DO THAT, I present to you:

Your Top 13 Overrated Artists:

13 – (tie) Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Peyton, Jackson Pollock, Karen Kalimnik, Lady Gaga, Matthew Barney, Peter Max

6 – Cy Twombly

5 – Banksy

4 – Tracy Emin

2 – (tie) Damien Hirst, Thomas Kincaid

1 – Jeff Koons

Thoughts on the results?

Two: The artist application deadline for I CAN DO THAT is two weeks from yesterday! Submit!

And two not related to the show:

Ein: Does art school matter? Find out with the artists behind The Drop Out Kids in my latest piece for Sixty Inches From Center (Part II to this article).

Zwei: Flight tickets booked! This artist will be on the lam in: Beijing 5/4 – 5/9, Shanghai 5/9 – 5/15, and Hong Kong 5/15 – 5/22. I’ll be visiting artist studios, art galleries, art fairs, and more, and I’ll be sharing my shenanigans with you while I’m there in Hong Kong and back in the States (a plague o’ both your houses, Great Firewall! ETA after returning from the trip: there are ways around it!). …I’ll also be in the Ladies’ Market haggling for more of those $3 plastic red watches that stop working after several weeks and at this point are pretty much just chunky bracelets with numbers on them.

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.

Survey monkeys

If you’re here because I approached / grabbed / rudely interrupted you at the Art Institute Thursday evening… hello and welcome!

Your thoughts will be shared in the near future, but not until I disrupt the lives of more innocent strangers.

And for everyone else reading this: worry not, friend—it will all make sense in due time.

“Sense.”

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.)