Thank you Steven...
This article is BRILLIANT!
A little longer than what I post here, but worth every word.
Part I: Nothing Is New, Get Over It.
By Steven GossSo you've decided to become an artist, now what? It sounds simple enough doesn't it? It's not as if you need much to be an artist. There's no test, and lucky for you, the idea of the talented artist went out the window several decades ago. Nowadays any Joe Palette can make a few bucks pedaling his artistic urges, no matter how lame they are. Don't believe me? Two words: Whitney Biennial.
First choose a material. You can't be an artist until you have one. It may also be beneficial to pick up a drinking habit, but it isn't required. Once you have a material, all you need is an idea. Now this is where it gets sticky. There are no new ideas in art. If you think you have a new idea, you don't. The only reason you think you have a new idea is because you're a new artist so you don't spend your time reading about art, you make it. As a result, most artists have a hard time accepting the fact that there are no new ideas. (Why else would there still be so many artists?)
At this point, you may be thinking, "Huh? But I just bought all of this Cadmium Yellow!" Now what? End it all in the name of art? Sorry Van Gogh, it's been done.
ARTIST KILLS HIMSELF/HERSELF AS ART:
While it is rumored that Rudolf Schwarzkogler bled to death during a performance where he sliced off strips of skin from his penis until there was nothing left, it's a rumor and nothing else. In actuality, he died when he either fell or jumped out of his bedroom window in 1969. But don't get too excited. Because on July 9, 1975, Jan Bas Ader began a performance piece entitled In Search of The Miraculous. The piece entailed Ader sailing across the Atlantic from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Cornwall, England in a 13-foot sailboat. Needless to say, he didn't make it. As Barbara McKenna explained, "[Ader had] every expectation of success, [he] had arranged for a show documenting the feat at the Groeninger Museum in Amsterdam, and planned to exploit the success of the 60-day crossing with further exhibitions of material -- diaries, film, photography -- generated by the piece. Ader never reached his destination; six months later his boat was found half-submerged off the coast of Ireland."
Oh well, Ader beat you to the punch. Maybe you think you could put a spin on the artist killing himself or herself tactic and have the artist kill the viewer. Would this be a new idea? Nope, it's been done too.
ARTIST KILLS THE VIEWER AS ART:
OK, so it wasn't in the name of art, but its happened. And if it's happened, then it's been done. In 1983, Susan Edmondson was killed when a 500-pound iron sculpture by Beverly Pepper fell on top of her. Ouch! However, not be outdone, environmental artist Christo killed two people on completely different days in separate time zones with a work of art. On October 26, 1991, Lori Rae Keevil-Matthews was visiting Christo's umbrella project in Tejon Pass, California. The piece was an environmental project consisting of 1,760, 485-pound yellow umbrellas planted throughout the pass. As part of the project, Christo had also installed 1,340, 485-pound blue umbrellas in Ibaraki, Japan. Keevil-Matthews was killed by the piece after a 40 M.P.H. wind pulled up an umbrella and smashed her against a boulder. "Out of respect to her memory" Christo had both pieces taken down. On October 31, during the de-installation of the project in Japan, Masaaki Nakamura was electrocuted to death when the crane he was operating, which was in the process of removing a sculpture, touched a 65,000 volt high-tension line.
ARTIST TAKES LIVE CHICKEN, CUTS ITS HEAD OFF, STUFFS HEAD DOWN PANTS AND THEN USES ITS CARCASS TO PLAY PIANO:
In 1968 during the "Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS)" at Judson Church, New York City, Ralph Ortiz performs The Life of Henny Penny. As Art in America described it, during this piece "Ortiz emerges [from a checkered blanket] with a live white chicken. The bird, tied by its feet to a rope suspended from the ceiling, is swung back and forth. After several swipes at it with a pair of hedge clippers, Ortiz snips off its head. Amid the spattering blood, the feathers and the whirring wings, Ortiz unzips his fly, placing the severed chicken head inside. Untying the carcass, he grabs its legs and, using it like a hammer, belabors the insides of a piano."
Isn't that a bummer? Well at least you won't try to repeat it now. "What does this mean?" you ask. Does it mean you'll stop trying to come up with original art ideas? I'm guessing no. In fact, I'm guessing you'll continue to believe that if you devote years to developing a personal art style, you will come up with a new art idea. Therefore, I will continue to present different already done ideas until the message is clear: "Nothing is new, get over it!"
Part II: Nothing Is New And No One Looks At It
As I claimed last time, being an artist is a simple job. If you can afford to buy materials or at least spend time digging through the garbage looking for them, then you're 90 percent there. The remaining 10 percent is spent on developing fresh ideas. However, as I explained last time, there are no new ideas in art. Henceforth, art is kaput and not worth the effort. But artists do not like to hear this sort of talk. One would think they would be relieved. It would allow them to go out and get that lucrative bartending job they dream about. But they don't. Instead they multiply and take up precious real estate in Manhattan.
So why do they do it? We could speculate that maybe art doesn't need new ideas. Like pancakes, there is no need for art to be continually changed and revamped. Pancakes were done the moment they were invented. Sure we may add things to them, but the essential concept is complete. Maybe the question should be "Why do people continue to make pancakes?" The answer to that question is simple. With their fluffy texture and their great taste, pancakes are loved by everyone. Consequently, if we assume that art is like a pancake, then maybe artists make art because, like pancakes, people don't care if the art is new, they just want more. It is true that even if you have a spectacular idea you still need an audience. Artists without audiences aren't artists, they're hobbyists.
But how true is the statement that people want art. The majority of people who look at art spend less then a minute actually looking at the artwork. The average person takes longer to eat a pancake than to look at art. The bottom line is that unless your art looks and tastes like a pancake people will take very little time to examine it. Therefore we can add to the original statement there are no new art ideas. Not only are there no new ideas in art, but no one cares anyway, except the artist, and even that's under question.
Don't believe me? Still thinking that with a truly innovative and masterly piece people will want to look at your work? You'll even argue that not only will they look but they'll also understand what you're trying to say. Think again art boy. Even the best artists with passionate avant-garde ideas can do little to hold the attention of the average or educated viewer. See for yourself.
UPSIDE DOWN PAINTING SYNDROME
The experts of a juried exhibition at the U.S. National Academy of Design awarded Edward Dickinson second place, only to discover that his work had been hung upside down. In 1936, Phantasy by Spencer Nichols hung upside down for 18 days at an exhibit in New Jersey. To cover the blunder, the New Jersey Museum Association responded that since the work was an abstraction it didn't matter which way it hung. They stated that they could only tell the work was upside down because his signature was "in the wrong corner." However, as Nichols pointed out, the work was not an abstraction but a seascape, which may have become abstract when it was turned upside down.
The work, Le Bateau by Matisse, hung upside down for 47 days in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Last Works of Henri Matisse. It was uprighted after Genevieve Habert, a Wall Street stockbroker, noticed the mistake. At first she notified a museum guard, who responded, "You don't know what's up and you don't know what's down and neither do we." After trying to get someone to listen, Habert gave up and called the New York Times about the mistake. The next day, after the director of exhibitions, Monroe Wheeler, was notified, the work was rehung properly. In response to questioning, the Times reported that Wheeler could only remember three other times when a similar event had occurred.
In 1963 art gallery officials in Manchester, England hung a work by Rauschenberg upside down. The error wasn't discovered until an artist visiting the gallery detected the mistake. It was then corrected only after officials looked at a catalogue of the show and noticed that alignment of the work in the catalogue was different from the way they had hung it. In 1965, the painting Grass and Butterflies by van Gogh was hung upside down by the National Gallery in London. From 1979 to 1989 the Wadsworth Anthneum in Hartford, Connecticut hung The Lawrence Tree by O'Keeffe upside down. In 1990 the piece joined a traveling O'Keeffe retrospective organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Exhibition officials researching the work discovered letters from O'Keeffe complaining that the work had been hung the wrong way in an exhibition in 1931. The manner she described matched the same manner that the Wadsworth used to hang the painting. After the exhibition completed, Wadsworth hung the painting the way O'Keeffe had intended. And it doesn't stop there. These are just the highlights of a larger epidemic, which makes one wonder, "Who exactly does care about art?" If these so-called purveyors of art don't look at it then why make it, let alone try to think of a new idea for it? Sorry, I forgot. There are no new ideas in art. Maybe that's why no one looks at art, because there is nothing new to look at. I mean how many paintings of nothing can one look at to begin with? I think I'd rather have a pancake.
Part III: Anyone Can Be An Artist
At one time it took some effort to be an artist. Initially art making was considered a trade consisting of an apprentice and a master. Under careful tutelage, the apprentice would survey the work of the master and develop a style. Students would stay apprentices until the master deemed them capable enough to work on their own. During their studies apprentices had little room to interject personal ideas because they weren't learning ideas, they were learning skills.
As times changed, skills were no longer needed to be an artist. Marcel Duchamp took care of that. Let's face it, anyone can be an artist. The only people who still believe that skills are needed to be an artist are college professors who teach art and the people stupid enough to believe they need college to be an artist. Here's some advice: "Save your money." It is a lot cheaper to buy a color wheel than to finance a college degree. Besides the only useful skills you might learn in art school are how to stretch a canvas or turn on an arc welder.
So if artists don't need skills, then what do they need? They need ideas. But the problem with that is there are no new ideas in art. Remember that? And the only people who think there are new ideas in art are art school graduates. Why? It's primarily due to art professors needing new students so they can keep their jobs. Students go to art school because their professors tell them they will come to have profound revelations, but instead they learn how to mix paint. This is what they don't want you to know. Because if you did, you would save your money and just go and make art without the hassle of some washed up Abstract Expressionist telling you what looks good and what doesn't.
If you still want to make a living as an artist then do this, forget trying to come up with an idea and just copy stuff people like to look at. If you think that's a bad idea then riddle me this Artman, why is it that Sylvester Stallone is not only considered an artist, but he is also respected as a connoisseur of art? Just by buying art and making paintings that look like other people's art, Stallone has received recognition as an artist. In fact Sylvester Stallone may be the only reason some people in this country actually see and hear about contemporary art. Can you take credit for that? No, I didn't think so college grad. However you may be skeptical, so let's take a look at some of Sly's shining achievements.
SYLVESTER STALLONE: RENAISSANCE MAN
During the art boom of the '80s, Stallone hired art consultant Barbara Guggenheim to help him acquire 19th century bronze work, contemporary and impressionist painting and the work of younger, unknown artists, or as he put it, "undiscovered New York artists - you know the things." When asked about his eye for art, Guggenheim gushed, "His taste is brilliant." Showing support for the arts, Stallone modeled for figure drawing classes at the New York Academy of Art. Later the Academy exhibited a large sculpture of Stallone created by artist Martine Vaugel, whom Stallone modeled for at the academy.
The piece was originally supposed to be two life-size sculptures of him and ex-wife Brigitte Nielsen. But once their divorce took place, Stallone decided to have the extra clay used to make a bigger sculpture of him. Vaugel entitled the piece, Age of Steel. In 1988 Stallone bought a work from artist Mark Kostabi entitled Lovers, which featured two women entangled together on a bed. When Kostabi was asked why he thought Stallone bought the piece, he replied Stallone likes, "T&A." In response Stallone destroyed the work, along with another Kostabi piece. Kostabi retaliated and made a painting of Stallone with the body of a woman.
When they next met in public, Stallone and Kostabi exchanged words and slight punches. After the fight settled, Kostabi printed a public apology to Stallone, to which, as the consummate gentleman, he accepted. Stallone's credibility as a collector rises. In 1989 Stallone sued Barbara Guggenheim for alleged fraud and breach of contract. He pointed out that Guggenheim influenced his decision to buy a work of art by Adolphe William Bouguereau for $1.7 million, which he later discovered was worth much less because it had been restored. Other mistakes he blamed on his adviser included the purchase of a work by Anselm Kiefer for $1.75 million. At the time none of his works had sold for more than a million. Later when the work began to fall apart Stallone put it back on the market; but there were no buyers. When he complained to Kiefer the artist explained, "The work is still evolving." After the suit is dropped, Guggenheim says of Stallone, "That was an unfortunate situation… but I have the highest regard for [Stallone]." While Stallone was working on Rocky III, he donated the bronze Rockyvictory statue, sculpted by A. Tom Schomberg, to the Philadelphia Art Museum.
The statue sat atop the museum's steps in the Rocky films, which are the same steps the boxer triumphantly runs to the top of. After the film completed the museum returned the statue to Stallone. However the citizens of Philadelphia petitioned to have the work returned. The situation was resolved by letting the statue stand outside of the museum for the opening of the movie and then moving it to the Philadelphia arena, the Spectrum, after the premier. The statue stayed there until the filming of Rocky V, where once again the statue was placed atop the steps. Again when it came time to move the statue, the citizens of Philadelphia once fought for it to stay put.
This time Stallone hired a lawyer to fight for the statue, but to no avail, the statue was removed and placed back at the Spectrum. By the mid '90s Stallone, who always dabbled in painting, began to become less of a collector and more of an artist. Understanding what people want Stallone makes abstract canvases and sculptures using various themes from his movies . An example of his work includes a piece entitled, Rocky I, which is a mixed media piece constructed in the shape of man. The work is made of pages from the Rocky script. Stallone says of his work, "It's one thing when someone lays down six or seven dollars for a movie ticket. When they lay $30,000 to $40,000 [for a Stallone painting], it's an amazing validation… It's better than any feeling I've had in performance." In 1998, after several bad purchases and a declining market for art, Stallone begins to sell off his contemporary collection.
