Not Random Art | Page 38

Hello Jacob and welcome to NotRandomArt. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of art? And moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

Very glad to be here and thank you for inviting me to interview. As I see it, artworks are defined by them being called “art” by someone — anyone — or being placed in a context in which it will be viewed by a human as a work of art. These things are essentially the same. I think Duchamp showed this many years ago with his famous piece, The Fountain, and Andy Warhol made even more clear in the 1960’s. Technically, Duchamp did virtually nothing except invert a urinal and place it in a gallery; he even used a pseudonym. In that case it was the context specifically (in terms of both the physical location as well as the temporal location) that made it a work of art and the point he was making about these contexts in which art appears. It’s all about perception: place an object in a gallery and it becomes art. Play a piece is a music hall, it becomes art. Whether it is good or bad, interesting or boring, or beautiful or ugly is up for debate (and ultimately fluid in many respects) but I find that judging a work in those senses is irrelevant to defining something as a work of art. Something is art because someone says it is. There is nothing more.

Of course, this point is certainly debatable and many people feel a need to preserve what they see as the sanctity of art. That it exists apart from other objects. It’s something I often go back and forth on myself. On the one hand, my approach is quite inclusive: literally anything can be artwork. But is everything really artwork? Must it be done, performed, or created with the mindset that art is being formed? To say yes feels good and right, but often times in museums of art we find artifacts from cultures past being presented as art: pottery, linen, and many other ‘daily items’. Were these made with the idea ‘art’ in mind? If so, what did these people mean by ‘art’? Does it matter? Aristotle would argue that these items are not art and I would agree with him (though for different reasons) to an extent: I would say that they are indeed art but not art in the same sense as other, ‘fine’ art is. This is something I have yet to fully develop as an idea and I do not think I will ever completely come to grips with it. Not figuring it out leaves some mystery, which is a wonderful thing.

But again, does it matter what we call art? Not really, unless you are applying for a grant or trying to get into school. Beautiful objects are just that and they do not need anything more. They don’t need additional labels or categorization by man; labels and categories do not change the fundamental material being of the object. Any object can speak to one just as legitimately as any work of ‘verified’ fine art, or as deeply as a wonderful array of child’s toys strewn about the ground. We, the individual viewers, the individual perceivers, attach meaning to these things and, I believe, do not need other humans to prescribe something as ‘art’ before these experiences can be had.

With regard to the contemporariness of an artwork, the only criteria I subscribe to is experimentation, venturing into the unknown, in some way, shape, or form. Often this takes place superficially or with technique alone, but can take many forms. The only thing I require as a mark of contemporariness is something new. Not even genuine, but new. This may seem an equally inclusive mindset as to what makes art but indeed, it is far more closed. Realistic landscape paintings, while pretty, usually do not qualify as contemporary art. Pop music that uses the same tried-and-true methods of appealing to the most listeners is not contemporary art (or music, as the case may be).

These things do not push the bounds of what it means to make art, what it means for something to be art, or the process with which artwork is created. They do not question anything, they do not take on new territory. There is no discovery, no exploration, nothing that would add anything to the conversation. This, however, produces a problem: a work may even seem contemporary but yet be not. That is, it has all the other hallmarks of contemporary art but does not experiment. This is often the case with music (with which I am most familiar, being a trained musician): new, ‘experimental’ work is often touted at concerts as being at the cutting edge of music composition. Yet the methods are old, the sounds have grown stale, and the result is more of the same. It is not enough to merely sound contemporary, one must be contemporary. This is often the case with visual art as well. Just because something sounds or looks ‘experimental’ or ‘contemporary’ doesn’t make it so.

Is there any particular way you would describe your identity as an artist but also as a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does your cultural substratum/identity form your aesthetics?

I believe that for as long as humans have been on Earth, we have always seen ourselves in ‘dynamically changing, unstable times’. Every time is dynamic and unstable; this is why there is art from every time. We like to see ourselves as living in especially difficult changing times but reading basic history it seems clear that every people thought that the world was coming to an end in their time, and that the shit was really hitting the fan. It’s the same old story, so I don’t particularly take notice. That is not to say, though, that I disregard what is happening now. In fact, that’s what so important and makes our time different from other times. I’m merely suggesting that our time is not especially unstable or dynamic in the scope of history.

It interesting you ask this second question. It is something I have discussed at length with my partner, Polish composer Ania Stachurska as well as other friends, many of whom are European. I have found that there is a distinct difference in the way we perceive history and the role of history in our artwork. Europe is steeped in tradition; this is natural for a culture that has been continually developed since before the time of Christ. The western United States, on the other hand, is very young. This, I think, influences the way history permeates each of our work such that it plays are far less prominent role in both the end product and it’s conception/working process.

To give a concrete example, Ania is from Bytom, a town in the Silesian region of southern Poland, established in the 12th century A.D. I, on the other hand, am from San Diego, California, a city established some 600 years later in the 18th century. What I consider ‘old’ pales in comparison to what Ania considers old; our scope of history is vastly different and I think this often influences our art and our attitudes toward the world in general. Perhaps it does have it’s origins in geography: Central Europe has been inhabited by the West since it’s inception over a millennia ago. It wasn’t long ago, though, that the southwestern United States saw packs of bandits rolling through a lawless land and men in large hats patrolled unpaved thoroughfares, revolvers on their hips.

American composer Morton Feldman also noticed this: the fact that Stockhausen could reference three historical pieces simultaneously in a single note was not terribly impressive. According to Feldman, history is a burden that must be gotten off our backs as a safe refuge. History gives something for one to hold onto but it is much more interesting to be cast off without so much as navigational tools to find our own way.

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