Regarding the fairly long established, paid-listing chiefly American sculptor directory that is sculptor.org. I only perused the right-hand column of the thousands of sculptors who have joined. As I have certain criteria of sympathy, or comprehension, I listed very few names as favourites or somehow note-worthy, and in fact note the complete distance between american sculpture, and, say, french sculpture as listed on their similar sites.
I was much impressed by west-coast feline sculptor Gwynn Murrill, for the monumentality, that is, the calm and timelssness. The cubist stonecarver Michael Ernst I consider of extreme 3D integrity, though he is still young, and his series of 'hands' are most impressive. The perhaps buddhist artist calling himself Dogen, and thereby as this is a Zen term, making himself rather invisible, caught my attention as much by his verbal honesty as his ambitious life-sized glass figurative works. Others who began to persuade me were Terry S Mollo, Patrick McCartney, Sharon Lopez, Patrick Johnson and Evert Fornas. These sculptors exhibited figuration tending towards placid and thus monumental observation.
Other figurative artists so often seem to repent of being figurative and wish to inject their work into the air, and some flight, or, they tend to excessive movement that weakens by that over-ambition. They are not content with form and either reach for rhetoric, by implying some intent, or simply desire their forms to impress through movement alone.
Robert Holmes reflects Moore/McWilliam and Butler-isms, Lopez seems to know of Giacommetti, but of those others who tend to this my dislike against excess of movement, come Liu Jilin, Kolozsy, Jitkoff and William Duffy. In all it is remarkable that figuration is generally subordinate to a 'polemical' tendency, either as pseudo mytholical or barely self-conscious component for agglomeration within a greater concept, as with the totemism or fetish makers. It is noticeable that, given such as the indigenous Hopi sculptural tradition, that no indigenous artist appears, amongst many I perused, nor even with this last tendency were any creations evidently more benefiting from that tradition than, say, the african or polynesian. And, perhpas a sign of american cultural life, or not, the absence of any african-american artists is remarkable.
The thousands of others serve to give a real view of the state of modern sculpture in america, though one has to imagine that very many artists did not pin their works to this particular internet board. The styles visible are extremely various yet evidently spring from american sculptural education, and, in informal terms, include the following un-ordered compendium of modern american sculptural practise:
Assemblists
Constructivists
Figurative 'exceeders'
Stone discoverers, virginals for their excitement in the material satisfies them
Conceptualists, some of colorist bent, some more Minimalist
Modelling abandoners, who expressly halt before form assumes recognisability
Post- surrealist Doll fetishist totem -ists
Fret -ists, of 2D bent
Slug / Snake admirers, whose love for the activity of carving exceeds their taste
Mobile -ists
Pop art -ists , bordering on puzzle deconstructivists
Megalith Spire Column -ists
Portcullis- ists
Wire- ists
Panel -ists
Found rock -ists
Hindu- ists
Cubist precolumbian -ists
Srapyard -ists
Boiler pipe -ists
Fossile -ists
Tent ists
Globe -ists
Vegas tongue in cheek -ists
Wicker -ists
Falling dice -ists
Curve -ists
Fence -ists
Wheel -ists
Grid -ists
Hive -ists
Machine -ists
Suspended tank -ists
Box with contents -ists
Architecture -ists
Un-coiled Spring -ists
Vorticists
Mosaic -ists
Chain -ists
Organic -ists
Shell -ists
Fabric -ists
Americana -ists
The Curator, Globalisation and Politics
A recently noted Curator has, naturally enough, sought to position his chosen artists towards the issue of economic globalisation, that is for them to address the economic imbalances making of China the present worksop of consumerism. Laudable as is the attention we should give to the fact of this new situation, that it be addressed through creative visualisation, rather than documentary photography, is perhaps grist to this page's milling of Curatorial practise. Modern art's abandonment into what was initially called the 'perimee' or 'out of date' syndrome, making of all art but a progression rather than a constancy, supposedly based even in its origin as far back as the Renaissance, took full hold only in modern times, roughly speaking after WWI. Therefrom the intitial criticism of this syndrome equally qualified its practise as that of 'postage-stamp' museum collections, based exclusively on time-stamp and novelty rather than any spiritual evaluation. The informality of the words belies the important effect.
Now we see quite rampant desire to initiate the novelty from without, driving artists, who, as ever, include many who are sensible of the forces of fashion, towards commissioned novelty. The Curator's pre-defined analyses lead the actual manufacture of artist response, and the Curator becomes 'super-artist' in a marvellous manner, directing a symphony of creators who are eager to dance to the tune. In the following words can be seen the ad-lib description of the Curator's position. The informality of the words belies the important effect:
"I have never worked in an institution in the past. I have been collaborating with, working with different institutions. It is the first time I have had a regular job, in one place. And that actually gives me an opportunity to do different things, to construct an ongoing program in one place, over time. It gives me an opportunity to fill a real intellectual need. To develop a long-term project. It is something very different than what I’ve done. What I did before was a kind of punctual kind of response to an urgent situation. And now, I have to think about more like a prediction of what’s going on, what’s to come.
"Like projecting certain perspectives.
"An exhibition is a kind of articulate moment of an ongoing creation, of the artist, of the different people. And it’s also a place that can allow different individual creators to come together, to come up with a moment of sharing, dialogue, looking, and creating something together.
"in a lot of cases artists have specific works, or projects, that you bring to a specific exhibition
"you borrow the exhibition, actually the works from the exhibition, if you get it from somewhere else, and you re-contextualize it.
"allows the work to obtain new senses, new meanings, and new significance
"we need exhibitions in society. Right? Because, that is a moment you create, a platform for a dialogue. It’s not only just to show the achievement of the artist.
"to re-articulate through the exhibition.
"He came here to visit, we had a dialogue, after a few days, he came up with an idea, and that remains.
"it’s not only the artwork in it, it’s the space itself. How I use the architecture itself.
"We agreed on this grey paint, which is like a dialogue with the original building — and a new intervention — and that goes on. And we add on different colors
"it’s really about articulating the uniqueness of each locality, as a part of participating in the global movement.
"this [art object] tells one story — only. I think they are together. Every world in itself has little worlds, each with its own complexity, its own history. And they can also get into a dialogue; they can merge with other worlds, generating a totally different geo-political situation. And since we are all living in this geo-political world at large, naturally they [these worlds] can be in contact.
"Even when you are working with very, very, individual, very eccentric artists who are completely isolated from the world, — some of them right? — You have to look at their rejection. As a position taken.
"I hope the exhibitions I have done can provide people the opportunity to question what “art” practice is, and to challenge themselves, and challenge the notion of art.
"I hope an exhibition can allow us to deny certain things usually considered established. Including the notion of art itself, the concept of art itself.
"I think it is very important that we constantly try to put things upside down, and see how it happens.
"In fact when you look at the art, how every major abstract movement happened, in the context, they are totally related to the political and social history. And it’s highly ideological. Like the Greenberg discourses, they are totally a product of the Cold War.
"What’s interesting to me is that historically there was a lot of hostility to abstraction, from both the right and the left, and it was basically Meyer Shapiro who came out in support of abstraction, based on an argument for pleasure.
"But I don’t think you get an argument of pleasure with Greenberg, it’s actually the opposite. It’s like a Protestant rigor, self- censorship.
Now we see quite rampant desire to initiate the novelty from without, driving artists, who, as ever, include many who are sensible of the forces of fashion, towards commissioned novelty. The Curator's pre-defined analyses lead the actual manufacture of artist response, and the Curator becomes 'super-artist' in a marvellous manner, directing a symphony of creators who are eager to dance to the tune. In the following words can be seen the ad-lib description of the Curator's position. The informality of the words belies the important effect:
"I have never worked in an institution in the past. I have been collaborating with, working with different institutions. It is the first time I have had a regular job, in one place. And that actually gives me an opportunity to do different things, to construct an ongoing program in one place, over time. It gives me an opportunity to fill a real intellectual need. To develop a long-term project. It is something very different than what I’ve done. What I did before was a kind of punctual kind of response to an urgent situation. And now, I have to think about more like a prediction of what’s going on, what’s to come.
"Like projecting certain perspectives.
"An exhibition is a kind of articulate moment of an ongoing creation, of the artist, of the different people. And it’s also a place that can allow different individual creators to come together, to come up with a moment of sharing, dialogue, looking, and creating something together.
"in a lot of cases artists have specific works, or projects, that you bring to a specific exhibition
"you borrow the exhibition, actually the works from the exhibition, if you get it from somewhere else, and you re-contextualize it.
"allows the work to obtain new senses, new meanings, and new significance
"we need exhibitions in society. Right? Because, that is a moment you create, a platform for a dialogue. It’s not only just to show the achievement of the artist.
"to re-articulate through the exhibition.
"He came here to visit, we had a dialogue, after a few days, he came up with an idea, and that remains.
"it’s not only the artwork in it, it’s the space itself. How I use the architecture itself.
"We agreed on this grey paint, which is like a dialogue with the original building — and a new intervention — and that goes on. And we add on different colors
"it’s really about articulating the uniqueness of each locality, as a part of participating in the global movement.
"this [art object] tells one story — only. I think they are together. Every world in itself has little worlds, each with its own complexity, its own history. And they can also get into a dialogue; they can merge with other worlds, generating a totally different geo-political situation. And since we are all living in this geo-political world at large, naturally they [these worlds] can be in contact.
"Even when you are working with very, very, individual, very eccentric artists who are completely isolated from the world, — some of them right? — You have to look at their rejection. As a position taken.
"I hope the exhibitions I have done can provide people the opportunity to question what “art” practice is, and to challenge themselves, and challenge the notion of art.
"I hope an exhibition can allow us to deny certain things usually considered established. Including the notion of art itself, the concept of art itself.
"I think it is very important that we constantly try to put things upside down, and see how it happens.
"In fact when you look at the art, how every major abstract movement happened, in the context, they are totally related to the political and social history. And it’s highly ideological. Like the Greenberg discourses, they are totally a product of the Cold War.
"What’s interesting to me is that historically there was a lot of hostility to abstraction, from both the right and the left, and it was basically Meyer Shapiro who came out in support of abstraction, based on an argument for pleasure.
"But I don’t think you get an argument of pleasure with Greenberg, it’s actually the opposite. It’s like a Protestant rigor, self- censorship.
A Renewed Imposition of 'Freedom':The Curator as 'Bulletproof''
From one European country come revealing words which express the embattled position Curators can find themselves in. One of the post-'communist' but in effect monarchical societies newly adjoined to Europe, wishing for the full benefits of freedom, yet reveals to us a stark example of a Curator openly seeking to be bulletproof. This Country x is decided upon moving its national Museum of Modern Art , and rooting it within the broad context of 'international art'. Departing from a previously super-controlled artistic milieu, we find a curious re-imposition of yet another super-control which appears, by submission to a close coterie of multinational Curators, to echo a very similar super-control.
Drawing upon support garnered by personal contacts, as within a professionally fraternal milieu, the aim would appear to be the imposition of freedom under an imposition of practise defined via this close if international group. Just as the original Communist origins previously affecting this country could be seen to have originated within beneficial idealism, so the international Curatorial nexus, as close and controlled as any Communist Party structure, appears to believe itself equally beneficent.
The words of the leader-Curator reveal a sense of being as embattled as the original Communist Party internationalists, and the jargon is but little changed between the present representative of 'freedom' and the old original Soviet ideologues. A curious support within the international Curatorial 'scene' is visible, indeed claimed, as prop against reactionary elements and negative forces. The selected few, representatives of the ultimate in revolutionary thinking, determined upon freedom, bring to the nationally local the firepower to withstand internal reactionaries. The chief Curator shows, by the claim to thereby have become 'bulletproof', an exact picture of the present trans-national Curators as Comintern-like members.
The analogy exists within reality to such extent that once again it is advisable to limit the links normally so desired in publishing, though the 'leadership' referred to will of course recognise themselves in what are selected quotes from an interview of the national Curator:-
"It is actually very difficult to convince the press to get their attention towards something else beside killings, dirt and scams. Generally, we do not have time to sing praises to ourselves (not forgetting that about 90% of what [country x] mass-media hails as a cultural phenomenon is obsolete, made by epigones and with no value abroad - and it is extremely difficult for us to convince them to do otherwise. Falsehood is overwhelming us: false values, false modesty, a culture of mediocrity, when we have all the possibilities not to be like this; and the absence of money…"---------------
"I have very little time to write. I am taking care of =m presentation texts to the international partners and press and travel to conferences abroad to inform about the "emerging" [country x] art. I write almost exclusively in the foreign press. The public there is prepared for the type of discourse that I maintain and this is the case for my colleagues."-----------------------
"[Director], you are the [country x] curator with the most extensive international CV"--------
"a few young specialists would give you two answers to the question about their profession: curators, what are they really, and 'museographers', what are they"-----------
"We are an extremely united team.... Thus we are here about 4-5 "curatorial brains", each with a remarkable CV....the coordinator of New Media Department will work as transferred specialist......was.. the assistant curators at the Venice Biennale(the ignorant malevolent spoke badly)...& ,artist and curator, earned a lot of international prizes of digital art"-------------------
"The museum director, xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx, is undoubtedly the charismatic personality able to realize this project in [Country x]"--------------
"visits - lately more frequent then ever, of international contemporary art personalities who arrive here at our invitation or because they have heard about the major project of a contemporary art museum"----------------
"the most prestigious theorists of contemporary Art"----------------
"This is also how we co-opted the members in the international board, achieved on the basis of personal friendships, as well as on the very firm commitment of [country x's modern art museum]'s new location"---------------------
"The board is a reference to obtain international legitimacy and to get access in networks of significant cultural cooperation. The board members, outstanding personalities on the international scene, will be supportive (in fact, they already are) and I hope that they will succeed to offer a "passage-way" for [Country] artists to the international contemporary phenomena."-----------------
"The members are:"
="almost mythical international curatorial figure, the gallery owner who launched =b"
="ex-Director =n Institute for Contemporary Art, now free-lance"
="director =a magazine, Paris"
="art theoretician, curator and Director of =p Paris"
=" video artist and media theoretician"---------------------------------
....."The =r public it is not very familiarized with what is going in the visual field world-wide"-------------------------
--------********:::::::"At the international level we are, as it seems, "bulletproof" "::::::::********--------------
"it is said to be for the first time when something like this takes place, and the successful outcome belongs to a large degree to me....and =y .. who succeeded in overcoming the suspicions and endemic 'bad-faith' that naturally appears when something 'constructive' is undertaken"-----------
"because there were enough exclamation marks in the press, of a more or less negative connotation... inauguration will take place around two-three international exhibits, coming from Musée d'Art xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Paris, Palais de xxxxxxx and probably xxxxxx xxxxxx from Madrid, a series of site-specific interventions, which are addressing directly to the complicated history of the place, and an exhibit which I am responsible together with M, provisionally entitled =xxxxxxx[country] artist"-------
" A poor artist in the computer era doesn't work anymore, the romantic cliché is worn out."-------------------
"the emergence of a dynamic public, adaptable to changes, capable of a constructive dialogue with the artistic phenomena"-----------------
"public (in its majority retrograde in the visual area, less so the young generation), and on the other, a handful of specialists and artists internationally renown[ed], less so here (they don't have a dialogue with the press, not to mention with television), who continue to "fight the wind-mills" "-------------------
"We hope to do our work at international parameters, not local..."------------
Drawing upon support garnered by personal contacts, as within a professionally fraternal milieu, the aim would appear to be the imposition of freedom under an imposition of practise defined via this close if international group. Just as the original Communist origins previously affecting this country could be seen to have originated within beneficial idealism, so the international Curatorial nexus, as close and controlled as any Communist Party structure, appears to believe itself equally beneficent.
The words of the leader-Curator reveal a sense of being as embattled as the original Communist Party internationalists, and the jargon is but little changed between the present representative of 'freedom' and the old original Soviet ideologues. A curious support within the international Curatorial 'scene' is visible, indeed claimed, as prop against reactionary elements and negative forces. The selected few, representatives of the ultimate in revolutionary thinking, determined upon freedom, bring to the nationally local the firepower to withstand internal reactionaries. The chief Curator shows, by the claim to thereby have become 'bulletproof', an exact picture of the present trans-national Curators as Comintern-like members.
The analogy exists within reality to such extent that once again it is advisable to limit the links normally so desired in publishing, though the 'leadership' referred to will of course recognise themselves in what are selected quotes from an interview of the national Curator:-
"It is actually very difficult to convince the press to get their attention towards something else beside killings, dirt and scams. Generally, we do not have time to sing praises to ourselves (not forgetting that about 90% of what [country x] mass-media hails as a cultural phenomenon is obsolete, made by epigones and with no value abroad - and it is extremely difficult for us to convince them to do otherwise. Falsehood is overwhelming us: false values, false modesty, a culture of mediocrity, when we have all the possibilities not to be like this; and the absence of money…"---------------
"I have very little time to write. I am taking care of =m presentation texts to the international partners and press and travel to conferences abroad to inform about the "emerging" [country x] art. I write almost exclusively in the foreign press. The public there is prepared for the type of discourse that I maintain and this is the case for my colleagues."-----------------------
"[Director], you are the [country x] curator with the most extensive international CV"--------
"a few young specialists would give you two answers to the question about their profession: curators, what are they really, and 'museographers', what are they"-----------
"We are an extremely united team.... Thus we are here about 4-5 "curatorial brains", each with a remarkable CV....the coordinator of New Media Department will work as transferred specialist......was.. the assistant curators at the Venice Biennale(the ignorant malevolent spoke badly)...& ,artist and curator, earned a lot of international prizes of digital art"-------------------
"The museum director, xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx, is undoubtedly the charismatic personality able to realize this project in [Country x]"--------------
"visits - lately more frequent then ever, of international contemporary art personalities who arrive here at our invitation or because they have heard about the major project of a contemporary art museum"----------------
"the most prestigious theorists of contemporary Art"----------------
"This is also how we co-opted the members in the international board, achieved on the basis of personal friendships, as well as on the very firm commitment of [country x's modern art museum]'s new location"---------------------
"The board is a reference to obtain international legitimacy and to get access in networks of significant cultural cooperation. The board members, outstanding personalities on the international scene, will be supportive (in fact, they already are) and I hope that they will succeed to offer a "passage-way" for [Country] artists to the international contemporary phenomena."-----------------
"The members are:"
="almost mythical international curatorial figure, the gallery owner who launched =b"
="ex-Director =n Institute for Contemporary Art, now free-lance"
="director =a magazine, Paris"
="art theoretician, curator and Director of =p Paris"
=" video artist and media theoretician"---------------------------------
....."The =r public it is not very familiarized with what is going in the visual field world-wide"-------------------------
--------********:::::::"At the international level we are, as it seems, "bulletproof" "::::::::********--------------
"it is said to be for the first time when something like this takes place, and the successful outcome belongs to a large degree to me....and =y .. who succeeded in overcoming the suspicions and endemic 'bad-faith' that naturally appears when something 'constructive' is undertaken"-----------
"because there were enough exclamation marks in the press, of a more or less negative connotation... inauguration will take place around two-three international exhibits, coming from Musée d'Art xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Paris, Palais de xxxxxxx and probably xxxxxx xxxxxx from Madrid, a series of site-specific interventions, which are addressing directly to the complicated history of the place, and an exhibit which I am responsible together with M, provisionally entitled =xxxxxxx[country] artist"-------
" A poor artist in the computer era doesn't work anymore, the romantic cliché is worn out."-------------------
"the emergence of a dynamic public, adaptable to changes, capable of a constructive dialogue with the artistic phenomena"-----------------
"public (in its majority retrograde in the visual area, less so the young generation), and on the other, a handful of specialists and artists internationally renown[ed], less so here (they don't have a dialogue with the press, not to mention with television), who continue to "fight the wind-mills" "-------------------
"We hope to do our work at international parameters, not local..."------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)