Infinite Crisis in Finite Worlds

I always like to think there is a point to what we do. Sometimes it's hard to see it, or even talk about it, because we all have so many ideas about how we should even talk about it, that just having a conversation about how awesome you think an artist is or how great you think an artwork looks, is difficult to manage. At least in graduate school, the least creative of environments I have ever been in, that kind of talk was considered a little inappropriate, the same way eating your boogers or urinating in public is inappropriate. 

It seemed everyone despised a lot of things, but not everyone really liked something, which was a shame, because there was a lot to like. Even other students' work was interesting (!), but a lot of people, and who could blame them, just stayed away, dropped out, or merely furnished a thesis show with the requirements. It was not that hard. Not easy, certainly, but not that hard. 

There were some people that forgot what they liked in terms of art, so much so, that I remember going to art shows with fellow students, and for the most part we didn't agree, which should have made for great conversation, but it only generated silence. Why was that? It seems nobody was allowed to say "Say what you will, but Gerhardt Richter is the shit". That was kind of socially reprehensible. You had to stick more with the sort of company Donald Judd, Charles Ray, or Dan Graham made; neutral, solid, male. I was in the sculpture program myself but I could not really understand those dudes. I still don't. I saw Dan Graham talk once and he just seemed like he needed to be in a nursing home, that was about it.

Oh and what the hell is so good about Richard Serra? I don't understand it. Don't even star with the Matthew Barney business. I was obsessed with his stuff, it seemed so...expensive.

For me, sculpture was at its best when it was either telling a story or making fun of itself. Otherwise it is just a marble bust. Which, great, but really? Juan Muñoz I think tells great stories. David Shrigley is funny. Both were totally frowned upon in art school.  Whatever happened to Mike Nelson, I wonder? He is fabulous.

Nobody could decide who was right. The things we read, mainly french post structuralists, seemed very far removed from what art really is or talks about, but there it was; to be 'unpacked'. But nobody had a requisite reading list, like Kant or Plato or Hegel or Aristotle, guys who wrote about aesthetics, and nobody had ever read them. For some reason, Derrida was more important. Every now and then you heard about Wittgenstein and we can definitely see that relation but, who the hell really knows about Wittgenstein? It just seemed so random, yet so exclusive. 

It was like the being in Iraq's green zone. No one really knew what the hell was going on. But they put you in your place if you asked too many questions or if you seemed to be doing too many 'experimental' or unfinished things and no finished product. People wanted finished ideas, objects they could see and touch, and move on. That was that. Yet there is no barometer or anything by which to measure if something works or doesn't, it just sort of was liked or disliked. There was no way to gauge effectively, like a plumb and level sort of theory. Were they trying to tell us something? Probably "I am as confused as you are, son".

The works themselves seemed so small. Even the tutors work was terrible when placed in this grueling, emotionless context. Nothing could be seen for the awesome or even yes, inspiring and creative artwork it was or could be, that didn't exist, that was vulgar, crass, it was always a faraway object that didn't have any real value and had no chance of acquiring it. Then why make it? You could ask. There would probably not be an answer...
Make objects, and if they find a reason to be in the world, soon enough some asshole will write complex, unreadable things about it. That sounds somewhat medieval-religious doesn't it?

And how they bitched about spray paint. Oh the fumes! Those were certainly unhealthy. A fellow classmate bitched about the fumes for like an hour to me and how I should be more considerate to other artists. What can one say to that?

-F