How Shit Can Inspire (In this time of artistic failure)
Posted by: admin in The Vicious Circle, Art and Happiness, Brennan Vance, The Thousandth Word, Making art for the sake of it, Art rants, art is crap, crap is art, Other authorsOn one of my other art-blogging projects yesterday, a guest poster published a fantastic piece, called “The Nester,” on the relationship between shitting and art-making, and how sometimes the most disgusting and deviant acts can inspire non-comformist, creative thinking. This is a particularly appropriate rallying-cry, I think, in this age of constantly diminishing returns in the culture. You’ve just gotta read this story; trust me, you won’t be disappointed (repulsed, maybe, or horrified–but not disappointed).
Here’s a sampling:
Artists have done themselves a great disservice in needlessly construing creative expression into the larger-than-life mythologies, brainwashing doctrines and pseudo-political advertisements that comprise the clusterfuck that art is today. We’ve created a framework for art that warps our hearts and minds into believing that art requires authority (galleries, museums, academia); precepts (formal aesthetics, airtight intellectualism); and high culture (icons, award ceremonies, magazines). We’ve convinced ourselves that art is an austere discipline and not the boundless, soul-searching siphon that can dredge out our deepest and most authentic creative desires. Unfortunately, art is just as much about popularity, ego, money, class, idolatry and condescending intellectualism as it is about using modes of creativity to purely and earnestly explore ourselves and our relationship to the universe….
Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that people go clog some toilets to proclaim their creativity. Rather, I am suggesting that we draw from the Nester’s example the conviction that we can and must treat our own creativity with the dignity it deserves. We need to stop making art that relies upon a toxic art world, to stop making art that tries to find a way into Artforum, and instead finds a way into the deeply transformative creative passion that burns in each of us.
Entries (RSS)
August 27th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I think I agree with what I think this guy has written. I’ve often thought to myself, as you write of failure after failure, that artists still get up every day and make stuff, and show it and sell some of it. And you see it occasionally hanging in a house somewhere, desired by the buyer simply because it caught their eye, they looked twice and the act of oft hated commodifacation has cemented it, at least in the mind of the owner, into the realm of art.
And all this happens outside the notice, promotion or blessings of any usual keepers of the gate. Under the radar of apparent cultural frenzy, in garages and basements, up in attics, across the country, humans can be found quietly confronting their id, their nemesis, can I paint?, am I an artist?, dare I continue? and, what the hell am I doing? This happens in spite of the greater world of art. Stealth art making.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Another thing that’s pops to mind is an old film with Burt Lancaster, The Train, wherein a common citizen with love of his country and culture defined in his mind as resisting evil, saves a treasure trove of masterpieces from possible annihilation with no regard for his own safety or life.
He becomes the quintessential art lover with no knowledge of the subject. I get the feeling that this kind of dedication to our (American) culture can never be recovered.
Labiche becomes the monastic scribe saving remnants of civilization in times filled with lunacy. Potty art comes to mind. And unknown art lovers, amateurs, dabble and dribble away and continue making things as art stars pilot yellow Cadilac convertibles across the country to their next smash hit opening. The amateurs may be Labiche.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Nice comments, Bob. Though I wonder if The Train was a tad bit too opimistic about human nature. What was one of the first thing the rabble ransacked when Bagdad fell? The National Museum. I wonder if we’ve moved past an age when humans truly appreciate the beautiful relics of their own hands. It almost seems like art and beauty make humans angry now, driving them to destroy what they themselves are incapable of creating…
As for potty art, you should check out the original Nester story on Rakemag.com, in particular the comments section where I and some others have been riffing about recent such art. Here’s a sample from me (sans links):
It’s not an original point, but shit has often been employed in postmodernist art, which would almost seem logical to expect from a “movement” that levels all traditions and referents. What’s interesting, though, is that shit has represented so many different things in art, depending on the particular artist. For instance, there’s the socio-economic investigations of Santiago Sierra, the social ciriticism and socio-ethnic references of Chris Ofili, and the cynical self-infatuation of Piero Manzoni…