Thursday, June 14, 2012

"Don't Try to Understand an Artist" Sarasota Visual Art June 2012


Don’t Try to Understand an Artist by Pamela Beck


by Pamela Beck
I went with a friend to a local gallery where one of the featured artists was present. My friend liked a drawing and asked the artist: “What was your inspiration while you drew this?”
“I was in the zone,” the artist replied. “But I think a lot about John Coltrane and Jean-Michel Basquiat.”
My friend felt confused. Unfortunately, he wanted the artist to make sense; Do you, too, labor under the illusion that artists can explain the precise source of their “inspiration?” Then you also must think people know what you’re talking about when you describe your nighttime dreams.
We often hear artists discuss their work. But the reasons for the compulsion to make it, where that comes from and what will result, are as mysterious to artists, as the origins of our dreams are to ourselves (although both come from the same fertile place.)
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat, In Italian, 1983. Acrylic, oil paintstick, and marker on canvas mounted on wood supports, two panels. The Stephanie and Peter Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut
Here’s what some artists have to say on the subject:
Jean-Michel Basquiat: I start a picture and I finish it. I don’t think about art while I work. I try to think about life.

Helen Frankenthaler: There is “no formula. There are no rules. Let the picture lead you where it must go.”

Henri Matisse: I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.

John Chamberlain (from an interview with Joan Altabe): All who don’t do something peculiar to their own insanity fall on their face. I feel I have an attitude and it’s being explored. The more places I can put that attitude, the more places it comes out. It’s my insanity that I’m letting out.
I dare you to describe that “insanity.” Then I double dare you to stop trying. After all, there’s a simpler way to understand artists, their work and “the zone.” Consider Jackson Pollock’s approach to defining artists and their art: “Every good painter paints what he is.”

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"A Contemporary Art Story: Artists and Collectors" For Sarasota Visual Art June 13, 2012




A Contemporary Art Story: Artists and Collectors by Pamela Beck




by Pamela Beck
I’ve known of friendships between collectors and the artists they collect, where everything is simpatico. There’s a meeting of the minds whenever they talk and the collectors get first dibs on the artists’ new work.
But that’s not the tale of this reporter, no. More often what I’ve seen resembles the ongoing turf war between mothers and teenage daughters. Here’s a peek into these rich and often adversarial-by-nature territories.
It starts out:
“I’m interested in your new work and can’t wait to see it, “ says the collector to the artist. (”I’m excited that you found a college you like and hope you get accepted,” says the mother to the daughter.)
That turns into: “When are you finally going to finish that new work?” (“When did you say that admission application deadline is?”)
And ends up: “I can’t believe it’s taking you so long; how hard can it be to complete? (“I can’t believe it’s taking you so long; how hard can it be to complete?”)
In any relationship where somebody wants something from you, you’re probably going to resent being told how quickly to do it. And whether it’s an artist or teenager pressed into service, the response is likely to be a major eye roll coupled with colorful unprintable responses that signal “don’t push me.”
Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell, "The Connoisseur", 1962 The Saturday Evening Post, January 13, 1962 (cover) Oil on canvas mounted on board 37 3/4 x 31 1/2 in. Private collection
In the case of an artwork, a personal, complicated act of unique invention has occurred that can’t be punched out on a time sheet for an impatient collector. (The teenager parallel stops here, however. If you’re reading this high school seniors, punch the damn timesheet; the admissions office could care less about your aversion to deadlines.)
When the artwork is finally done, the artist and collector meet again. They exchange pleasantries, but their true heated feelings float above their heads like visible thought bubbles. The collector expects the artist to miraculously distill the abstract process of creation into explanations that will enlighten the collector and rationalize the purchase of this long awaited work of art.
But by this time, the artist, protective of the art and irritated by the collector, would rather donate the work to an overseas children’s orphanage or at least, find a more sophisticated collector. The collector, at this point, often feels the artist is acting entitled or suffers from delusions of grandeur. And what’s more, the collector thinks, the artist should take less money. After all, the artist gets to paint all day, and in comfortable clothes too. What’s to complain about?
But then, they both eye the artwork. The artist sees that the collector really does like it and can buy it on the spot. The collector sees the artist may have a Napoleon complex but the work is really good, so who cares? The artwork wins. It gets sold and all is good until the next round begins again.
Mothers and teens, artists and collectors, this is their story: inextricably connected, eternally annoyed.

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