The Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America

The fourth project by a student in Jeanne Finley’s class on failure is by Kamil Dawson. Here is the original project proposal.

Kamil Dawson’s Failure class statement:

When conceiving the project for our Failure class, I intentionally chose to avoid commonly prescribed ways for “successfully” displaying artwork. Instead of searching out a “professional” gallery or exhibition space to show my art, I conceived an art based project that would provide a creative invitation to engage those within the California Collage of the Arts graduate community to make art that is unrelated to their current practice. The project and invitation would provide artists an opportunity within a free-form space wherein they could create art, eat, relax, and be entertained and inspired by who or what they find around them. The platform I used was the theme of what daughters do when their mothers are away, or a back to high school extravaganza. The thought was to inspire our early incarnations of creative freedom, mainly through high school themed social engagement with our peers and friends.

I advertised the event through flyers and e-mail posts to the CCA community and focused the event around an already existing communal space and gallery called Fish Space. Located within the graduate studios, Fish Space boasts a large fish tank, table, comfy chairs and couches, and naturally attracts circles of students that want to relax, eat, talk or read. The event was advertised from 5:00-10:00 on a Saturday, and people were asked to bring items from their high school years as well as art making materials to add to the event. To encourage art making I also collected a large stack of magazines from friends, supplies for creating collages, pens, pencils and markers for drawing, and large quantities of food and beverages for snacks and dinner. I opened the space up my moving the furniture in a circle and placed blankets on the ground for people to sit. I also rented three films for background entertainment. These included, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same, and Snoop Dog’s Film Boss’n Up. A wall adjacent to the lounge area was also available for people to display the work they created.

I was very pleased by the initial setup of the space and the number of people that attended (around fifteen). To my surprise people were absolutely exhausted and wanted to mainly lie around and eat. I couldn’t blame them, as reviews were beginning the following week. Some people brought art pieces that they were currently working on, and by the end of the event, the actual work that was initiated and finished within the space and time of the event was done by a group of three four year-olds. Between watching the movies and running around, they finished a large painting- a feat that us adult artists were too tired, or too distracted to create.

Although the project failed in terms of creative expectations, (no art made it onto the final wall) people did have the chance to catch their breath and relax.

Samples of Kamil Dawson’s project:

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 at 11:32 am and is filed under Jeanne Finley's Class on Failure, Young artists today, Artistic failure on campus, Artistic failure in America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.