Narratives of success and failure
Edward Winkleman has published a series of very interesting interviews between himself and other actors in the New York Art World about life narratives. One of these is about the artist's narrative, which is about how an artist would prefer his/her career to take shape. William Prowhida gives a thought-provoking interview about the place of an artist in the art market:
So this morning, I thought I would do "blind item" vignettes of sorts and write about different artist career narratives.
1. As a young artist, she found herself dissatisfied with the macho brouhaha of abstract expressionism, then in its 3rd or 4th generation. There was no place for her in a world that celebrated the ultimate ACT, the testosterone-laden GESTURE that would define existence and alienation. In her mind, art needed to rid itself of all these inanities and silliness, rid itself of all its romantic notions of artistic genius. The artist does research, is inspired by ideas and thoughts, and the best work reflects this eternal inquiry and tradition. Early representation by an aging art dealer provided her with a certain platform and with the early successes, showing work so anachronistic and in opposition to the currents of her time, she gained a certain amount of notoriety. With that, she was able to secure a tenured professorship in one of the better known and respected university art programs, far away from the city. When her dealer passed away, she found herself stranded, not having spent time in cultivating other relationships and exchanges, her career as an exhibiting artist in the city slowly waned and disappeared.
2. An immigrant to a foreign land, she was by no means poor by any standards, as her family had resources that most "immigrants" do not necessarily have. She, with ambition and grand and singular self-possession, was able to convince the admissions committee in THE art school, to give her a spot. While her classmates were busy searching for the next "idea" to get the attention of the art world, provincial as she was, she was obsessed with learning technique and skills as a way to prove to herself, and perhaps to others, that she had "talent" and even "genius." Figuration was her interest and she spent so much time acquiring skill that she forgot all about the quintessential definition of contemporary art -- the idea. Graduating from art school, she was able to mount a number of exhibitions with friends and had a show at a non-profit art space. Noticed by a young art dealer, her first solo show at a commercial art gallery gained some press but provided no meaningful sales. The positive reviews provided her with enough energy to sustain her practice, but the studio visits with her art dealer became more and more a source of frustration as she was constantly being told that this or that just wouldn't sell. In conflict with the definition of "good" art being art that could be sold to seasoned collectors, she had an adolescent moment of rebellion, and began to produce work that directly would displease her art dealer. She became an artist with representation by name only as a second solo show did not seem forthcoming and her art dealer appeared to have moved on to a represent the "idea" artists that she ignored in art school. With falling sales and rising rents, all in an economic downturn, her art dealer ultimately "moved" without re-opening at a new address.
3. He was provincial by all means, grew-up in corn country but liked to tell people that he lived just outside of the city ("just outside" here meant two hours on the interstate). He came to art late, in his late 30s. He had learned to carve wood as a boy scout and for a while now, he has been carving and then painting urban street scenes -- alley ways, graffiti, pipes. He had not had any formal art training, so early on, when he attempted to represent the human figure in his carved relief paintings, they were truly naive and globular forms, "cartoony" would be the term. His luck was running into the art professor at the local university, who gave him advice on how to improve his work. Unfortunately for him, this new acquaintance had absolutely no interest outside of finding the gimmick that would get noticed by an art gallery in the city. Having too much respect for someone who had already had a number of solo shows in well-known galleries in the city, and whose sales were booming at the time, he acquiesced to everything that was suggested to him by the art professor. Sure enough, with that advice, he found representation in the city, and soon had a solo show. It did fairly well, but the "gimmicky" side of his work remained problematic and his work garnered absolutely no notice from the art press. He found lots of energy with the initial splash he was making in the art world. His work became more and more ambitious and elaborate. Then, there came an economic down turn, the ones that come every ten years or so. He lost gallery representation, not because he failed to sell, but because his art-dealer just simply could no longer keep his ship afloat. He became stranded, two hours outside the city, and disillusioned.
4. He had drive, but he was unfocused. A visiting artist in art school had asked him what it was that he wanted to do anyway with his career? He never really understood exactly why that was so important, figuring out one's trajectory. His childhood was perhaps much too turbulent to allow him to have any sense of direction. So he took things a step at a time, followed the general path that everyone else took, and found himself, somehow, with an MFA that he cared little about. Disdain perhaps was what he felt, but he couldn't be sure. If he was unfocused, he did not lack insight. He asked himself if really there was anything, any idea, that he could say, that was at least meaningful to him. Did he have anything worthwhile to contribute outside of a desire for fame and recognition? These were vague notions for him really as he did not care much for the concrete day to day work that is necessary to build fame and recognition. So, he traveled, continued to draw and paint, but he traveled, in search for an idea, the focus, the things that he lacked. Some of his voyages took him to remote places, where there was a lot of human misery and death. In fact, it was nearly a mundane matter, this terrible thing called death. He traveled and saw and thought about the cycles of life and death that yielded the fruit of cultures and civilizations. When he finally settled into the city, youth was already fleeting, but he had the sense that perhaps he had seen enough to have something to say, to find focus in his work and perhaps finally be noticed. Little did he understand that in the meantime, the concerns of the art world had moved on and he was too old to be noticed, and perhaps, too strange a creature to be taken seriously. Nonconformist as he was, he could not expect others to conform to his priorities. So he had to find solace in the memories of his travels to push on with his work. Perhaps it is true that art needs to come from the individual, and he definitely had achieved that individuality, perhaps at the price of his "career." All the same, he was able to have enough occasions to exhibit his work to find meaning in his practice.
5. He became an artist by default maybe. He didn't have good looks nor enough spine really to believe he could be a famous actor, and did not have any musical abilities though he pretended to be able to rap. A white suburban rapper -- this lacked credibility. He was not able to imagine past the mundane and thus aware that he was incapable of being the writer that he thought writers should be. It seemed that artists had more luck with the ladies anyway. So he went through all the motions as thoroughly as he could -- art school, the requisite summer artist residencies needed to meet those in power, the art gallery openings, the parties, ad nauseum, to meet those who could further his career. As in the case of those who are more tortoise than hare, he did things thoroughly; he never had much flare, but he had persistence. So it came as no surprise to him that he would find gallery representation -- he had gone to so many art world functions after all and had made so many contacts. By that time, he had already learned to embellish his work with the necessary artspeak to make it sound interesting. And really, it isn't so hard to come up with reasons to justify an art practice as planar, and, one may even say, as repetitive as his. But in his case, his persistence meant profundity and the repetition spoke of obsession, positive qualities. Myopic perhaps to his shortcomings, the slow rolling persistence of his practice paid off, and perhaps, if one believes in such things, he had good karma, he made it when everyone else who had come with him to the city after art school had left or stayed and failed. He was no art star by any means, but he was well-liked, and even respected in some quarters, and truthfully, compared to his peers, he was definitely doing well.
6. He was a proud young man and his art school classmates would even call him obnoxious. He was very sure of himself, and for good reason, having been awarded even before the end of his undergraduate studies prestigious artist residencies. When he finished art school, he moved to the city, as many young artists do, to cultivate his CAREER. Of course, he believed he would make it, he was the star of his graduating class and the professors all waxed eloquent during his final critique of his talent and skill. Two years later, still without gallery representation, and newly-wed, he decided to accept an adjunct teaching position outside of the city. This meant giving-up a part of his dream of being a famous artist, or at least, revising his artist's narrative, but ultimately, one needs to keep bread on the table. Many years later, while on a school trip with his students at The museum of the city, he ran into an old classmate of his; this particular classmate was the social-climbing kind, a schmoozer, but innocent enough to not realize it, nor be ashamed of it. If one can define an artist by the tricks in the proverbial magic bag, then he would be the one called the one-trick pony. Worst of all, everyone in art school knew how intellectually incapable the guy was. Not having kept up with the comings and goings of the art world, the young-ish art professor now finds out that his former one-trick pony classmate is now with gallery representation, and a relatively prestigious one at that, and his last show was positively reviewed by The art critic herself.
For many artists there simply is no splash, ever, just a kind of long, slow march of making art in relative anonymity with enough opportunities to show work publicly that artists keep their studios open and practice going.I personally think that the obsession with a CAREER in the contemporary art narrative is probably just part and parcel of our contemporary ultra-capitalistic definition of life. Of course, that an art dealer would define success by "career" is not surprising. But that is besides the point, as things like recognition, compensation, respect, etc. are all tied into life narratives anyway, and I wonder whether one can really escape from these notions honestly and without ulterior hidden agendas. Probably not.
So this morning, I thought I would do "blind item" vignettes of sorts and write about different artist career narratives.
1. As a young artist, she found herself dissatisfied with the macho brouhaha of abstract expressionism, then in its 3rd or 4th generation. There was no place for her in a world that celebrated the ultimate ACT, the testosterone-laden GESTURE that would define existence and alienation. In her mind, art needed to rid itself of all these inanities and silliness, rid itself of all its romantic notions of artistic genius. The artist does research, is inspired by ideas and thoughts, and the best work reflects this eternal inquiry and tradition. Early representation by an aging art dealer provided her with a certain platform and with the early successes, showing work so anachronistic and in opposition to the currents of her time, she gained a certain amount of notoriety. With that, she was able to secure a tenured professorship in one of the better known and respected university art programs, far away from the city. When her dealer passed away, she found herself stranded, not having spent time in cultivating other relationships and exchanges, her career as an exhibiting artist in the city slowly waned and disappeared.
2. An immigrant to a foreign land, she was by no means poor by any standards, as her family had resources that most "immigrants" do not necessarily have. She, with ambition and grand and singular self-possession, was able to convince the admissions committee in THE art school, to give her a spot. While her classmates were busy searching for the next "idea" to get the attention of the art world, provincial as she was, she was obsessed with learning technique and skills as a way to prove to herself, and perhaps to others, that she had "talent" and even "genius." Figuration was her interest and she spent so much time acquiring skill that she forgot all about the quintessential definition of contemporary art -- the idea. Graduating from art school, she was able to mount a number of exhibitions with friends and had a show at a non-profit art space. Noticed by a young art dealer, her first solo show at a commercial art gallery gained some press but provided no meaningful sales. The positive reviews provided her with enough energy to sustain her practice, but the studio visits with her art dealer became more and more a source of frustration as she was constantly being told that this or that just wouldn't sell. In conflict with the definition of "good" art being art that could be sold to seasoned collectors, she had an adolescent moment of rebellion, and began to produce work that directly would displease her art dealer. She became an artist with representation by name only as a second solo show did not seem forthcoming and her art dealer appeared to have moved on to a represent the "idea" artists that she ignored in art school. With falling sales and rising rents, all in an economic downturn, her art dealer ultimately "moved" without re-opening at a new address.
3. He was provincial by all means, grew-up in corn country but liked to tell people that he lived just outside of the city ("just outside" here meant two hours on the interstate). He came to art late, in his late 30s. He had learned to carve wood as a boy scout and for a while now, he has been carving and then painting urban street scenes -- alley ways, graffiti, pipes. He had not had any formal art training, so early on, when he attempted to represent the human figure in his carved relief paintings, they were truly naive and globular forms, "cartoony" would be the term. His luck was running into the art professor at the local university, who gave him advice on how to improve his work. Unfortunately for him, this new acquaintance had absolutely no interest outside of finding the gimmick that would get noticed by an art gallery in the city. Having too much respect for someone who had already had a number of solo shows in well-known galleries in the city, and whose sales were booming at the time, he acquiesced to everything that was suggested to him by the art professor. Sure enough, with that advice, he found representation in the city, and soon had a solo show. It did fairly well, but the "gimmicky" side of his work remained problematic and his work garnered absolutely no notice from the art press. He found lots of energy with the initial splash he was making in the art world. His work became more and more ambitious and elaborate. Then, there came an economic down turn, the ones that come every ten years or so. He lost gallery representation, not because he failed to sell, but because his art-dealer just simply could no longer keep his ship afloat. He became stranded, two hours outside the city, and disillusioned.
4. He had drive, but he was unfocused. A visiting artist in art school had asked him what it was that he wanted to do anyway with his career? He never really understood exactly why that was so important, figuring out one's trajectory. His childhood was perhaps much too turbulent to allow him to have any sense of direction. So he took things a step at a time, followed the general path that everyone else took, and found himself, somehow, with an MFA that he cared little about. Disdain perhaps was what he felt, but he couldn't be sure. If he was unfocused, he did not lack insight. He asked himself if really there was anything, any idea, that he could say, that was at least meaningful to him. Did he have anything worthwhile to contribute outside of a desire for fame and recognition? These were vague notions for him really as he did not care much for the concrete day to day work that is necessary to build fame and recognition. So, he traveled, continued to draw and paint, but he traveled, in search for an idea, the focus, the things that he lacked. Some of his voyages took him to remote places, where there was a lot of human misery and death. In fact, it was nearly a mundane matter, this terrible thing called death. He traveled and saw and thought about the cycles of life and death that yielded the fruit of cultures and civilizations. When he finally settled into the city, youth was already fleeting, but he had the sense that perhaps he had seen enough to have something to say, to find focus in his work and perhaps finally be noticed. Little did he understand that in the meantime, the concerns of the art world had moved on and he was too old to be noticed, and perhaps, too strange a creature to be taken seriously. Nonconformist as he was, he could not expect others to conform to his priorities. So he had to find solace in the memories of his travels to push on with his work. Perhaps it is true that art needs to come from the individual, and he definitely had achieved that individuality, perhaps at the price of his "career." All the same, he was able to have enough occasions to exhibit his work to find meaning in his practice.
5. He became an artist by default maybe. He didn't have good looks nor enough spine really to believe he could be a famous actor, and did not have any musical abilities though he pretended to be able to rap. A white suburban rapper -- this lacked credibility. He was not able to imagine past the mundane and thus aware that he was incapable of being the writer that he thought writers should be. It seemed that artists had more luck with the ladies anyway. So he went through all the motions as thoroughly as he could -- art school, the requisite summer artist residencies needed to meet those in power, the art gallery openings, the parties, ad nauseum, to meet those who could further his career. As in the case of those who are more tortoise than hare, he did things thoroughly; he never had much flare, but he had persistence. So it came as no surprise to him that he would find gallery representation -- he had gone to so many art world functions after all and had made so many contacts. By that time, he had already learned to embellish his work with the necessary artspeak to make it sound interesting. And really, it isn't so hard to come up with reasons to justify an art practice as planar, and, one may even say, as repetitive as his. But in his case, his persistence meant profundity and the repetition spoke of obsession, positive qualities. Myopic perhaps to his shortcomings, the slow rolling persistence of his practice paid off, and perhaps, if one believes in such things, he had good karma, he made it when everyone else who had come with him to the city after art school had left or stayed and failed. He was no art star by any means, but he was well-liked, and even respected in some quarters, and truthfully, compared to his peers, he was definitely doing well.
6. He was a proud young man and his art school classmates would even call him obnoxious. He was very sure of himself, and for good reason, having been awarded even before the end of his undergraduate studies prestigious artist residencies. When he finished art school, he moved to the city, as many young artists do, to cultivate his CAREER. Of course, he believed he would make it, he was the star of his graduating class and the professors all waxed eloquent during his final critique of his talent and skill. Two years later, still without gallery representation, and newly-wed, he decided to accept an adjunct teaching position outside of the city. This meant giving-up a part of his dream of being a famous artist, or at least, revising his artist's narrative, but ultimately, one needs to keep bread on the table. Many years later, while on a school trip with his students at The museum of the city, he ran into an old classmate of his; this particular classmate was the social-climbing kind, a schmoozer, but innocent enough to not realize it, nor be ashamed of it. If one can define an artist by the tricks in the proverbial magic bag, then he would be the one called the one-trick pony. Worst of all, everyone in art school knew how intellectually incapable the guy was. Not having kept up with the comings and goings of the art world, the young-ish art professor now finds out that his former one-trick pony classmate is now with gallery representation, and a relatively prestigious one at that, and his last show was positively reviewed by The art critic herself.
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