Steina really sounds like an artist who has a lot of fun doing the kind of work she does, and that's something to be commended. The way she writes about her fascination with her various shooting subjects is pretty admirable. She makes a few points I agree with in terms of the display of art and how it can greatly impact one's perception of it. It seems in gallery spaces many museum heads can unintentionally pigeonhole a certain piece in a certain place that can detriment or even lose the meaning of it all together. Like this instance where Steina was told she would have the lobby, this magnificent wonderful place right front and center where it can be seen by everybody. Well that's all well and good, but sometimes a piece demands a more subtle and less frequented space, somewhere more quiet and intimate. I get the feeling that a lot of curators aren't sure what to make of video art; Steina talks about how there are many assumptions that some believe that the medium is always loud and outlandish. That doesn't seem fair, as every piece is different. I can relate this to my frustration over animation being constantly referred to as a genre rather than a medium; cartoons can run the gambit in terms of emotions, tone and genre, but are usually not appreciated as such. Same here with video art.
I also like her point about creating art for the masses and how that isn't always ideal. She connects this to our super interconnected world we live in, where now a lot of times we find ourselves communicating a lot with people we don't even know, and sometimes putting a lot of vested thought into such discussions. We really feel like we want to make connections with everybody, rather than make smaller, more meaningful connections with a few people. Look at sites like Facebook, people can pride themselves over how many thousand friends they have, but how many of those people do you really consider a close personal friend? Probably not many. Steina talks about how artists that communicate to a wide scale are somehow looked upon as better than those who don't aim so high, but I don't feel that to be the case. I feel the best work is the one that aims more specific; when you put out a work that is deeply personal and to your own sensibilities, isn't it really strange and rewarding when you find a person who really connects with it and shares and appreciates your ideas, rather than doing something pretty standard and typical that anyone can get something out of? It's more a phenomenon that way around, really.
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I agree with your point; it is more rewarding when you are able to attract a smaller audience that actually gets the message you are shooting for in a piece rather than a large group that can read anything out of it. I think the trouble with aiming for a large audience also leaves you at risk of making work too on the surface or even the complete opposite, so obscure that it could mean anything.
ReplyDeleteI would also agree that it is rewarding to appeal to a more narrow audience and have a select few who can relate...
ReplyDeleteBUT. That also risks alienating people. If you have a message you want to get across sometimes you gotta appeal to more people. I think it's important to make works that do both.
I think Steina's whole point was to make things YOU want to make, for whatever reasons, not just making things that will appeal to everyone. Of course, the world is sadly non-ideal and filled with sharks called critics... while I love the idea of Steina's belief system, there is a point where some people would take that idea to such extremes that nobody will understand their work. So, just like Brian said about alienating people and Adam said about the work becoming on the surface, there needs to be some sort of balance.
ReplyDeleteI find very personal work to be tired, annoying, and pretentious, I have no real interest in what other people worry about in there personal lives...its rather arrogant to blabber about yourself to other people through your work, and i dont enjoy it when people blabber to me...I do think it is important to add a personal touch to your work, and make yourself visible in your work, but to make youself the focus of your own work just feels too self-generous to me...
ReplyDeleteI think that the personal is rarely shown outside of an art context, and that elevating the personal to the level of art can bring a voice to media (your own) which may not be a dominant voice. In this way, elevating the personal to "art" becomes a strategy to allow others to map their ideas on your own (be it positive or negative), and make connections to their own lives or ideas. Sometimes, expressing things that are the most personal can make them the most general, and this allows people to relate. It is when we dilute the personal that we risk losing the essense of the expression in the piece. Of course, this is only one of many ways of working.
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