Sol Lewitt at Mass MoCA!

Here is a link to a show at Mass MoCA. It is a wall drawing retrospective from Sol Lewitt, and it has a lot to do with my previous entry "Artists are not apes."
http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=27

Resources!

On conceptual art and Sol Lewitt:
"Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" by Sol Lewitt from Artforum magazine, June 1967: http://www.ddooss.org/articulos/idiomas/Sol_Lewitt.htm

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_LeWitt

and

www.artinfo.com/news/story/21215/the-writing-on-the-walls-sol-lewitt-at-diabeacon

On internet safety and digital citizenship:
http://nets-implementation.iste.wikispaces.net/Digital+Citizenship, http://tinyurl.com/ydh2yml, and http://livingstonweb20.wikispaces.com/bloggingguidelines

Yoko Ono’s twitter page:
http://twitter.com/yokoono

The website for the television series “Art 21” on PBS, a great source for information on contemporary artists:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/

Eva Hesse’s official site:
http://www.evahesse.com/

The Google Books search results for the book A Conversation with Cindy Nemser:
http://books.google.com/books?id=_8wK9C5g-2gC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=A+Conversation+with+Cindy+Nemser&source=bl&ots=3oXgeJpSlc&sig=sfpnVAfgyrEZ8RjTXttvqZU12FI&hl=en&ei=zqPXS97DE8OAlAeWydD7Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=A%20Conversation%20with%20Cindy%20Nemser&f=false

Steve Locke’s official site:
www.stevelocke.com

My statement, Steve Locke, and Titles

"Secret Meeting," artist Steve Locke. February 2008, Acrylic and oil on beveled birch panel. 36 inches square.

"'The more specific you are, the more general it’ll be,' said Diane Arbus, master photographer. This quote explains something vital about my art work: if I have strong and specific feelings about something and I make work about it, chances are my audience will have strong and specific feelings about it too. My feelings and ideas are expressed through a variety of different media. I have worked with photography, fibers, painting, drawing, and printmaking. Whatever material I try, I always bury myself deep in it and research the material just as I would research a concept. My main material is my idea; my work shows the overlap of my idea and myself."

This is an artist statement I wrote at the end of my time at MassArt. I first heard the Diane Arbus quote said by my favorite professor at school, Steve Locke. He is a fountain of knowledge of artists’ quotes and information about art in general. (Yes, I first heard of the work of Sol Lewitt, Yoko Ono, and Eva Hesse in his class.) Arbus, a master photographer, was saying that her artwork is relatable because it is authentic. I hope that if I make my work about something personal and individual to me, other people can associate their own experiences with mine. I believe I can connect with my audience through shared experience.

Another thing I really wanted to get across in my statement is that I do not specialize in a certain medium, and that my work is conceptual. I work with ideas and I use whatever material is most appropriate to conveying my ideas. Sometimes my work might take the form of a t-shirt or needlepoint. Other times my work comes across through digital photography or in print.

The final thing I want to mention is that I always use titles in my work. I never leave my work untitled, because I think that every decision an artist makes relating to his or her work is vital to the work as a whole. No decision pertaining to your work should be made lightly, and titling work is oftentimes taken for granted as so many artists just leave their work untitled.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with titling something “Untitled,” as long as that decision is made consciously. Titling a work can reveal or disguise meaning, and you need to carefully consider a title when you are trying to connect to your audience. Steve Locke, my professor from MassArt, is also a working artist based out of Boston, MA. One of his paintings, shown here, is titled “Secret Meeting.” This title is calculated and deliberate, and so is the painting. You can check out his website for more examples of his work and his thoughtful titles @ www.stevelocke.com.

One way to write about art:

“After the Diagnosis” Digital Photo Enlargement, Fall 2008.

One great technique that I learned from Professor Steve Locke in a portfolio class at MassArt is an activity where the artist starts writing by listing ten adjectives, ten verbs, and ten nouns about one of his or her pieces. The resulting words can be used to formulate sentences about the artwork. In describing the work above, I used the following adjectives, verbs, and nouns:

ADJECTIVES
colorful
yellow
pink
green
white
close
sick
before
after
blurry

VERBS
zoom
live
die
experience
describe
see
reveal
look
begin
end

NOUNS
photo
rectangle
landscape
series
pixel
picture
death
after life
Heaven
skin

Now, I can put together sentences. Like maybe this piece is about “experiencing a colorful life”. Or maybe I could say it is about “seeing a pink rectangle”. I think the best sentence I can make is the work is about “looking closely at a picture of blurry skin in order to reveal something about sickness, life, and death”.

This particular sentence is a pretty literal interpretation of what is going on in this work of art, but I can use it as a starting point. Now I have a list of vocabulary to begin writing my artist statement. This technique works particularly well when you are trying to write about a certain work or a group or of works that are closely related.

Eva Hesse Bio

Born in 1936, Eva Hesse escaped Nazi Germany and fled to the US two years later. At age 10, Eva Hesse's mother committed suicide. Her father remarried a woman named Eva, who became Eva Hesse. Her stepmother (the other Eva Hesse) was diagnosed with a brain tumor exactly two years to the day before our Eva was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 33. Eva Hesse (the stepmother) got out of the same hospital (they had the same doctor) two years to the day that our Eva was admitted. She died at age 34, a year after being diagnosed. It sounds incredible, unbelievable even. But her struggles through life are key to understanding her work. She explains this in her own words:

“There's not been one normal thing in my life- not one- not even my art... That's why I think I might be so good. I have no fear. I could take risks. I have the most openness about my art... I'm willing really to walk on the edge, and if I haven't achieved it, that's where I want to go. But in my life- maybe because my life has been so traumatic, so absurd- there hasn't been one normal, happy thing. I'm the easiest person to make happy and the easiest person to make sad because I've gone through so much. And it's never stopped.”

All quotes are from A Conversation with Cindy Nemser,
http://books.google.com/books?id=_8wK9C5g-2gC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=A+Conversation+with+Cindy+Nemser&source=bl&ots=3oXgeJpSlc&sig=sfpnVAfgyrEZ8RjTXttvqZU12FI&hl=en&ei=zqPXS97DE8OAlAeWydD7Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=A%20Conversation%20with%20Cindy%20Nemser&f=false

More information about Eva Hesse can be found at http://www.evahesse.com/

Eva Hesse

In a catalogue statement for Contingent (1969), Eva Hesse wrote:

“I remember I wanted to get to non art, non connotive,
non anthropomorphic, non geometric, non, nothing,
everything, but of another kind, vision, sort.
from a total other reference point. is it possible?
I have learned anything is possible. I know that.
that vision or concept will come through total risk,
freedom, discipline.
I will do it.”

Part of Eva Hesse’s quote says that she wanted to get to “non art”. She did not consider her art to fit into any one category. She used different media, (from pencil and paint to latex and fiberglass) to solve her artistic problems. As a side note, in this way, I think my work is similar to that of Eva Hesse. Throughout my artistic career, I have been asked what medium I work in, and most people expect an answer like “I’m a painter.” I usually respond with “I do a little bit of everything,” or I just say whatever medium I have been working on most recently. Getting to know an artist like Hesse was helpful and validating to me because she blurs the line between 2D and 3D and between painting and drawing. “Non art” means you can't really categorize or put limits on her work.

I now know what Eva means by “I remember I was trying to get to non-art…” I did not understand the concept of non-art when I first read the statement. I thought non-art might have meant meaningless art. On the contrary, I found that Hesse’s work does have meaning. She says, “I don't value the totality of the image on these abstract or aesthetic points. For me, it's a total image that has to do with me and life... This is where art and life come together."

The quote was about her piece, Contingent from 1969. This is an excellent example of what she means by “non-art”. (If it is not painting, and it is not sculpture, then what is it?) She says, “A lot of my sculpture could be called painting. That piece Contingent I did at Finch College could be called a painting or a sculpture. It is really hung painting in another material than painting.”

I still fully believe in Eva Hesse’s statement that “Anything is possible.” I have done some research regarding seemingly impossible events being possible. Like how you might think it is impossible to smoke one hundred and ten cigarettes at once. Or you might think it is impossible to buy your first new car one day and total it the next day. Or you might think it is impossible for your friend to be diagnosed with leukemia and have that friend pass away before his twenty second birthday. All these things are possible. See the next entry for more truly impossible-sounding-possible-events in Eva's life.

So why Eva? Not only did I want to show my readers a great example of writing about art, I also wanted to highlight the fact that sometimes artists write for press to promote a show they are in. Artists have shows every and again, and shows have literature to accompany the work in order to promote, clarify, or explain what is being shown. Sometimes the artist contributes this writing, like in Eva's case, and sometimes a curator, critic, or other art expert will do the writing. Either way, this is an important reason to write an artist statement.


All quotes are from A Conversation with Cindy Nemser, see:
http://books.google.com/books?id=_8wK9C5g-2gC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=A+Conversation+with+Cindy+Nemser&source=bl&ots=3oXgeJpSlc&sig=sfpnVAfgyrEZ8RjTXttvqZU12FI&hl=en&ei=zqPXS97DE8OAlAeWydD7Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=A%20Conversation%20with%20Cindy%20Nemser&f=false

More information about Eva Hesse can be found at http://www.evahesse.com/

More to come...

I have been meaning to post this for awhile, sorry for the delay between updates!

This is more or less just a teaser post to let you know what is to come as well as to act as a guide or map for my future entries. Before the semester is up, I hope to post at LEAST three more entries about writing about art!

The first thing you can look forward to (I hope) is one or two entries about the artist Eva Hesse. I will use her work to illustrate how an artist can write about one body of work to be published in a gallery guide or an advertisement for a show. This is just one reason why someone would write about their art, and I hope to show you an example of Hesse's work and writing. I'm choosing her because she has a really great statement for a show she had, and I also want to tell you about her artwork and her life, because she has an amazing and unbelievable story. Her artwork and statement has a lot to do with my own work and my artist statement, so I want to share her story with you.

Another entry I plan on writing has to do with my personal frustration with "untitled" in the art world and the importance of titling artwork. I believe that if you are to leave something untitled you should have a very good reason for doing so, and that in fact every decision you make about your artwork should be a conscious one: there should be no circumstance for you to say "Well, I never really thought of that..." when you are writing about your art work. Part of what makes us artists is our audiences, and we have to consider everything when it comes to making our work available to the public, even titling. I will introduce you to another artist to illustrate my point, Steve Locke, whose painting titles really make you think about the meaning of the work. His website also has some really great examples of artist statements, too!

Lastly, I plan on posting my own artist statement, tell you why I wrote it, and talk a little bit about what people might want to know if they are looking at my artwork. Both what I want to reveal to my audience and what I want to remain mysterious go into writing my statements. This reminds me of a piece by Bruce Nauman, called "The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths," which is shown in the picture in this post. I got the image from the website for the television series "Art 21", another great resource for learning about contemporary artists, their work, biographies, interviews, essays, and much more: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/nauman/card1.html

More on Conceptual Art

So just in case anyone is reading this blog who isn't in my Internet for Educators class, let me preface this next post by saying I had this really great assignment for the class to follow ten people on twitter who are related to my professional practice and then to profile one of them. I really liked the assignment and wanted to share part of my findings here as well as on our ning.

I chose Yoko Ono.

Yoko Ono is a household name (like Picasso, maybe), but she is often thought of not as an artist but as John Lennon's wife, the source of the Beatles' break up, or a political activist. I am ashamed to say that I too did not know she is an artist until I learned about her in art school myself. John Lennon described her as “the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.”

In art school, I learned that Ono's art is conceptual and based in performance. One of my teachers told me about a performance in which Ono took a family heirloom vase and smashed it, giving once piece of it to each member of her audience. She told the audience that they would meet back together in one year to put the vase back together. It was conceptual performances like this one that made Ono stand out in the art community. Her twitter account is full of similar instruction based performance ideas, like the kind she wrote about in her book Grapefruit. The book is made up of instructional poems like “hammer a nail into the center of a piece of glass”. Similar to Sol Lewitt's work, the instructions are the artwork, the performances are records of the work.

One example from her twitter account of these instructional expressions is from 2:00pm on March 8th: “Draw a window on the wall to remind you of the sun”. And again, at 1:01pm on March 18th: “Have as many wish trees as you want in the garden”.

Now I'm wondering if each of these statements (and Lewitt and Ono are not the only ones who do this) are like mini artist statements in and of themselves?

What more would the audience want to know about this work, and why would the artist share more information?

I'll explore these questions next time.

If you have questions, just comment and ask!

In an effort to try to constantly reflect on my writing, I have reflected on my second blog post and I've realized that an outsider looking in might have questions about it. The foremost question you might have reading this is "Who the heck is Sol Lewitt?"

I often take for granted my four and a half years of art school. I know that there are some household names (like Picasso or Van Gogh, for instance) that are known to most people, but most modern artists are unknown to the general public. Lewitt is pretty "famous" in my mind, but he might be on the outskirts of common knowledge. I'm going to link to the wikipedia page for Sol Lewitt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_LeWitt.

I'd say the really important point I wanted to highlight about Lewitt was that he took conceptual art to extremes. Wikipedia says "Sol LeWitt was one of the main figures of his time; he transformed the idea and practice of drawing and changed the relationship between an idea and the art it produces. LeWitt’s art is not about the singular hand of the artist; it is the ideas behind the works that surpass each work itself."

If you click on the third reference on the Wikipedia page it brings you to an artinfo.com page: www.artinfo.com/news/story/21215/the-writing-on-the-walls-sol-lewitt-at-diabeacon.

This page describes Lewitt's drawings as paint-by-numbers, and this is a good way to understand it. Lewitt wrote instructions for drawings, he didn't actually do the drawings himself. If you go see a drawing of Lewitt's in a museum, it wasn't him who actually drew it; he wrote the rules for the drawing. The page quotes a couple of Lewitt's drawing instructions (1,200 in total): "Wall Drawing #97... Ten thousand straight and ten thousand not straight lines" and "Wall Drawing #118... Fifty randomly placed points all connected by straight lines". These drawings are applied directly to the wall, eliminating the boundaries created by surface or frame.

It is crucial to understand that when Lewitt was writing about art, he was writing about conceptual art, specifically. Conceptual art is exactly what it sounds like: art that is based on a concept or idea. One could argue that all art is conceptual because all artists have an idea they are trying to portray. But what is important about Lewitt's conceptual art is that to him (and to conceptual artists) the idea is the most important element of a work of art, even more important than the form it takes.

Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship

Part of what it means to have "Digital Citizenship" is having a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration and learning. That's what I want to do with this blog: I want to teach and to learn. I hope that readers will comment on my posts so that learning will become a collaborative experience: you learn from what I write, I learn from your comments, I rewrite, you comment again, etc.

I decided to write this blog because I believe in writing artist statements, and I want to share what I believe with others. In the comments section of every post, I can receive feedback. Because my blog is open to the public, I feel a responsibility to provide valid information to my readers. I can't just say whatever I want, insult people, or behave in an inappropriate way, because then no one will want to know what I have to say.

Although I don't have students right now and don't have to worry about getting parental permission for the use of this blog, it is still smart to be smart. Therefore, I will not talk about my personal life on this blog. I'm not linking this blog to my twitter for that reason. I take this blog seriously, posting only things that I've thought a lot about and mean a lot to me. This isn't a diary. I take responsibility for this blog, and I will only post things that I'm comfortable sharing with everyone, even my future students and their parents.

Expressing my ideas is paramount, but I will not generalize or use disrespectful or negative language. I will support my ideas with evidence, and if I make mistakes, tell me and I will fix them.

I would expect my future students to act in a similar way. Therefore, the following is a sample contract I would have my students read, understand, and sign before using a blog for my class:

CONTRACT FOR FUTURE STUDENTS

I have a responsibility to be respectful to my readers: I won't be insulting or inappropriate.

I have a responsibility to my school: I won't talk about my personal life, and I won't link to my personal email or any other social networking sites.

This blog is serious: I will only post things that I've thought a lot about, mean a lot to me, and feel comfortable sharing with everyone.

I have a responsibility to tell the truth: I will support my ideas with reputable evidence, and I will fix the mistakes I make.

Signed: Lorraine's future student :)

(thanks to these sites for providing source information for this post: http://nets-implementation.iste.wikispaces.net/Digital+Citizenship, http://tinyurl.com/ydh2yml, and http://livingstonweb20.wikispaces.com/bloggingguidelines)

Artists are not apes.

Sol LeWitt provides some insight in writing about art in the article "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" (Artforum magazine, June 1967).

First of all, the article hopes to justify the dismissal of "the notion that the artist is a kind of ape that has to be explained by the civilized critic." I take this to mean that some people have the idea that artists are wild animals to be studied by the civilized person. Some people think that only "the civilized critic" can decipher art work and it is the job of the critic to explain the artist to the world. LeWitt argues that the artist is not a wild animal and not an enigma. I would say that artists have the ability to explain themselves and do not need critics to do it for them. As artists we have the inside knowledge of what our work means and what we are trying to say. It is up to us to divulge this information.

All art is subject to criticism. To the artist, the work might mean one thing, and to the critic it might mean another. Because art is an image, It is the nature of art to be up for interpretation. We all view images with personal biases and make associations with images that the artist may or may not have had in mind.

The artist statement is one tool artists have to clarify their work and to give the work some context, history, or meaning.

I think it is smart to write artist statements so that critics have a context in which to consider my work. Not only does the audience have the physical work, but they also have an artist statement to consider. The statement informs the work with informs the statement.

One last thought from LeWitt seems to apply to writing about art: "If the statements I make are unclear it may mean the thinking is unclear." It is up to the artist to write with clarity and fluency to convey the desired meaning or message to his or her audience.

Quoting Art

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? We'll find out. My goal for this blog is to provide resources for teachers and artists to write about art.