Your counselor, hard at work.

How important is it to consider the intent of an artist when viewing his or her work?

Your position on this matter depends on how you feel about the artist’s desire for a particular expression versus your own powers of interpretation. On one hand, we might wish to honor—or at least consider—the stated intentions of the artist when viewing the work, even if only to see how it matches up against our own perception. On the other hand, “Works of the imagination are sites of interpretation,” claims artist David Robbins in his book Concrete Comedy. “Indeed they are made in order to be interpreted; art is not simply a matter of ‘appreciation,’ of ‘understanding the artist’s intentions.’ If we accept that the spectator completes the work, then it follows that the audience for imaginative works may interpret them with the same freedom and intensity that informed their creation. Nothing can and should prevent us from offering imaginative interpretations of works of the imagination, since every individual’s relation to their own imagination is sacred—more sacred, even, then is respecting an artist’s intentions. The idea that certain interpretations must be cordoned off and others reinforced without challenge…is a position finally impossible to defend. To do so is to violate an essential principle of human history.”

Sometimes I think a former professor had the last word on pointing out the limits of artistic intent when he asked, “Given how very little most people really know about themselves, why should we trust their stated intentions?”

Chris Burden, Shoot, 1971. Documentation of performance.

Do you think that tattooing/tattoo derived imagery (drawings, flash, etc) is a valid form of contemporary art? Would you view it as a fine art, an occupation, or a mixture of both? Do you think a hierarchy of importance should be in place when talking about contemporary art and its applications?

This is not exactly my area of expertise, but thankfully I found just the person to answer your query: Dan Gilsdorf, who has been tattooing professionally for 20 years, agreed to guest-write the opinions below. He also has a professional career in the fine arts, and so was uniquely qualified to opine on both tattooing and contemporary art.

I ought to make a couple of clarifications before diving into an answer. I’m going to assume that by “tattooing” you mean as it’s practiced conventionally in the U.S. and other developed countries—that is to say a professionalized activity that takes place in a business context and provides, to a greater or lesser extent, a living in the economic sense. Let me also state that art is a term that gets thrown around pretty loosely and is often misapplied to anything that is done in a highly skilled manner, such as graphic design, furniture making, plumbing, etc. For our purposes here, let’s agree not to use the term ‘art’ as a value judgment (either positive or negative) and let’s concede that a great plumber is best and most suitably appreciated for his or her greatness as a plumber, not as a plumbing artist. After all, who of us would really want our toilet to subvert the dominant conceptual paradigm?

Chris Burden, L.A.P.D. Uniform, 1994. Fabric, leather, wood, metal & plastic, 88 x 72 x 6 inches (223.5 x 182.9 x 15.2 cm) Ed. of 30

So, on to your first question about the validity of tattooing as a form of contemporary art. One of the great features of postmodernity is that there are no invalid forms of contemporary art. An artist’s work can take on any form whatsoever, and that form can change at any time and to any extent. Indeed, artwork need not take a “form” at all, as seen in the examples of conceptualism and social practice. The flip side of this principle is that there are no forms whose validity as contemporary art is a given. Painting a wall and doing a painting on a wall are essentially the same thing, yet we categorize them differently based on subtle distinctions such as context, intent, etc.

Chris Burden, Relic from Jaizu, 1972. Glasses in acrylic box, 7-3/8 x 10-1/4 x 8-1/4 inches (18.7 x 26 x 21 cm)

The same holds true for tattooing. Many artists have utilized tattooing and tattoo imagery with the intent to create contemporary art and have presented their work within a fine arts context. (Santiago Sierra, Spider Webb, Tony Fitzpatrick, Shelley Jackson, Dr. Lakra and Don Ed Hardy are examples) However, this does not mean that all tattooing qualifies as contemporary art. Likewise, a lot of this kind of work, great art though it may be, doesn’t really make good tattoos.

Unlike the examples above, the vast majority of tattoos in the world are made according to the specifications of the people wearing them, that is, the customers. In this way, most tattooing has more in common with a design service than with contemporary art. Of course, as with any design service there are considerations of style, and customers will choose tattooists based on the style of their work, but stylistic input doesn’t make it art, at least as far as the tattooist is concerned. Therefore, if you’re considering taking up tattooing as means to express yourself artistically, I’d suggest finding another medium; one that doesn’t bleed, squirm, or make off-the-wall design requests that you find to be in horrible taste.

Chris Burden, Three Ghost Ships, 1991. Sailboats, one with solar panel and electronic components; 3 boats: 6-1/2 x 6-1/2 x 15-1/2 feet each sailboat hull. Installation at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills.

As for tattoo imagery, the flash designs drawn or painted by tattooists are typically intended to be sold individually as tattoos and are akin to a catalogue of available motifs. Many tattooists make and sell paintings, drawings, prints, and the like without necessarily intending that they end up on someone’s skin, but these tend to be shown and marketed to a tattoo audience rather than a fine arts audience. Granted there is significant potential overlap in these two audiences but, generally speaking, they are quite dissimilar in their tastes and expectations.

Which brings us to hierarchies. Hierarchies abound in the arts, for better or worse. Most of us would agree that work of higher quality should be regarded above work of lower quality, but what constitutes a quality work of art turns out to be remarkably subjective. In tattooing, the standards of quality are much simpler; if the customer likes his or her tattoo, and is happy with it, then mission accomplished. It doesn’t really matter what the tattooist, the tattoo community, or anybody else thinks about it, and that’s pretty much the end of the story in my opinion. But then there is the question of hierarchy in a more general sense; is tattooing “lower” than contemporary art? Not surprisingly, it depends on whom you ask and how they valuate such things. It’s a little like comparing ice hockey to basketball. They’re not without their similarities but they are different games. The good news is that you can appreciate both for what they are. It’s perfectly acceptable to love art and to love tattoos equally and simultaneously.

Phyllida Barlow, untitled: 21 arches, 2012, Polystyrene, cement, scrim, paint & varnish, variable dimensions, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

The majority of her sculptures are towering structures that dwarf the spectator as if one were standing in a forest. Barlow dilutes the nature of her mundane media by her exquisite use of color, whether included by virtue of fabric, electrical tape or spray paint. For siege, Barlow exhibits her characteristically massive structures as similar to pieces I have seen previously, such as untitled: 21 arches (2012) and untitled: crushed boxes (2012). In pieces such as untitled: balcony (2012) and untitled: broken stage (2012) however, she adds more of a tangible architectural thread that differ slightly from her conceptual-based sculptures. Her work mimics the urban environment in both materiality and the nature of the imposing structures that swallow – or impede upon – the viewer.

Phyllida Barlow, untitled: crushed boxes, 2012, Polystyrene, cement, scrim, paint & varnish, variable dimensions, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

With pieces such as untitled: crushed boxes (2012) Barlow depicts weight through the manner in which her boxes pile upon a fabric cushion, thin or bulging in parts, depicting the sensation of being crushed. Her work maneuvers within a certain corporeal consciousness similar to the work of Eva Hesse or Robert Morris in which the weight – or the interior – of the body is made manifest through the use of material. With aspects of both Arte Povera and Minimalism, Barlow’s work is sensational in its rawness, and though I rather missed the space at Hauser & Wirth London that added an irreplaceable dimension to her work, Barlow’s structures are not to be missed in the immense setting of the New Museum’s spaces.

On the third floor, Tacita Dean’s (b. 1965, England) exhibition entitled Five Americans explores the theme of preservation and memoriam through filmmaking as it intersects with various artistic mediums such as painting, writing and dance. By way of 16mm films, Dean features five influential American artists spanning several generations: Julie Mehretu, Cy Twombly, Leo Steinberg, Claes Oldenburg and Merce Cunningham. Works such as Edwin Parker (2011) and Manhattan Mouse Museum (2011) follow artists Cy Twombly and Claes Oldenburg respectively in their studios, spaces that despite the aura attached to these renowned artists by name are places of quotidian banality of comings and goings.

Tacita Dean, Manhattan Mouse Museum, 2011, 16mm film, color, optical sound, 16 min, Courtesy of the artist, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris and Frith Street Gallery, London

There is an aspect of prescience in Dean’s works, as each are bound by a common thematic thread that deals with the notion of expiration. For instance in The Line of Fate (2011), Dean sits with art historian Leo Steinberg as he finishes his last book about Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo before his death months later, a fact unknown at the time when making the film. This is a similar case with Edwin Parker in which Dean films Cy Twombly in his studio amongst what would be his final artworks during his last months alive. Even in her other works albeit more subtle, the theme of preservation becomes contingent upon the cognitive artistic process that she poignantly captures.

The Parade presented by Nathalie Djurberg (b. 1978, Sweden) with music by Hans Berg (b. 1978, Sweden) is found in the museum’s next-door space ‘Studio 231’. In an eccentric field of dazzling puppetry, a parade it is. A snaking trail made up of hundreds of exotic and fictitious birds scatter the floor under spotlights, frozen in mid-preen and warble. Each bird installation – whether sparrow or human-sized – has the craftsmanship of a Julie Taymor theater prop, with each muslin feather painted in an ombré of fanciful hues. Alongside her puppets, five animations are projected on the walls playing to the discordant melodies of Hans Berg’s compositions.

The Parade: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg, 2012, exhibition view: New Museum

Immediately upon entering the space, the menagerie comes alive with the eerie tinkering of chimes, a soundtrack that gives life to the nightmarish aspect of Djurberg’s mad animals and sinister animations. Her animation videos typically depict women as the central character in an anti-heroic role, often times as victims of absurd cruelty flecked with sexual overtones. Her videos feature handmade puppets both animals and humans, crudely rendered from clay, fabric, string and dolls hair, with lumps, bumps, spidery limbs and clownish faces. The Parade as a body of work exists in a similar abject vein as her various other works, yet in this exhibition she focuses on the avian rituals of flocking, mating and pageantry. Her videos portray explicit aspects of cruelty, betrayal and greed, in which her characters – both animal and human – play out instances of physical and psychological savagery.

The Parade: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg, 2012, exhibition view: New Museum

Djurberg’s work is brilliant in its manner of transparency. I am taken with the way in which she casts a light on the undesirable or abject aspects of human and animal behavior as the cynosure of her métier. And as usual, Berg’s musical compositions coupled with Djurberg’s claymation videos and theatrical installations presents a captivating mastery that dutifully emanates from their projects time and time again.

Phyllida Barlow’s siege runs through June 24^th, Tacita Dean’s Five Americans runs through July 1^st and The Parade by Nathalie Djurberg with Hans Berg runs through August 26^th. For more information visit the New Museum’s site.

Please be aware that this article contains graphic representations of violence.  The author and the editors of the site would like to make clear that we are not interested in exploiting the sensational qualities of these images, but rather in their complex social roles.

"Two Flayed Men Appear in Tepic," a screen shot from Blog del Narco, 2011. Website and Digital Video. Image Slightly Blurred by Author.

As Mexican-American, I am awed by Mexico’s cartel warfare, and by the seeming American ambivalence towards it.  My first experience with Narco-violence started where you are now: at the computer, as I read through online articles about drug trafficking. Eventually, I came to El Blog del Narco. Hosted by an anonymous college student, El Blog del Narco claims to democratically post videos, pictures, and stories from anyone with information on the drug war. The moment remains vivid to me—it was a Tuesday afternoon, and the San Francisco fog was just beginning to roll across the sky. I clicked upon an article.  At first, I didn’t quite understand what I was seeing. It looked like two bodies piled on top of each other, except the skulls were the color of pus. I scrolled down, and saw what looked like a flattened mask of a face. I realized the image was of two flayed men, one with his heart removed. I felt sick. This was real. There were no movie crews creating this image—no costume designers, no makeup. It was achingly raw.  And yet in the same moment, I realized that I had seen this before, not in life, but in images of sixteenth-century Aztec ritual sacrifice.

"Sacrifice by Heart Excision" from the Codex Magliabechiano, c. 1540. Ink on parchment. Collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.

In pre-Columbian Aztec society, ritual human sacrifice saturated all social functions. Five hundred years later, Mexico is in the midst of yet another wave of theatrical human violence. Digitally propagated Narco-execution videos have become a tool for warfare, assuming the role of systematic violence once reserved for elaborate rituals and architecture. New media facilitates a new experience of the spectacle of torture, and Mexico’s drug cartels are developing a theater for their executions comprised of computer-interfaced viewers and digital cameras.  In doing so, they have also shifted traditional power relationships between image, warfare, and violence.

“Narco” is an abbreviated term that describes anything associated with Mexican drug cartels, including Narco-torture, Narco-santos [saints], and Narco-corridos [ballads]. There are even several Narco-novelas, or Narco-“soap operas,” primarily focused upon female cartel leaders, who glamorize, dramatize, and sexualize the consumption of Narco-culture. Are drug cartels, or Narcos, in Mexico researching Aztec violence for cues on how to conduct their own?

A more compelling question is how the spectacle of torture functions in both societies, and how its mediation transforms it into a weapon for social control. In The Origins of Violence in Mexican Society, historical sociologist Christina Johns argues that the development of Aztec human sacrifice was a form of state terror. The tzompantli was not simply a religious fetish, but a spectacle integral to the maintenance of power relationships between the ruling Aztec empire and its tributary subjects.  The empire literally elevated the theater of violence to the sky, using large pyramids and elaborate ceremonies, and physical presence was of the utmost importance. Images of this violence were casual afterthoughts compared to such visceral, physical experiences.

Francisco Bernardino de Sahagún, "Aztec Tzompantli or Skull Rack of Spaniards and Horses," c. 1545-1590. From the Book of the Conquest of The Florentine Codex. Ink on parchment.

The image above, Aztec Tzompantli, c.1545–1590, is from the Florentine Codex, a historical document made for the king of Spain forty years after the conquest of the Aztec empire. Very few people have ever seen the actual document—the image we see here just happened to be on a single piece of parchment, and was reproduced in modern times.  To be subject to the Aztec system of torture, you had to be present at the altar where the subjects, stretched over large stones, had their still-pumping hearts removed by priests.  Presence was power.

Both Aztec and Narco-warfare capitalize on the spectacle of expressive violence, or lethal violence whose primary utilitarian end is the expression of power itself. For the Narcos, however, the image has assumed the role once reserved for elaborate rituals and pyramids. We no longer have to be present to have a visceral, physical reaction to violence. We can feel sick at our desks, in front of our computers. Cartels are creating images and live action videos of heart removal, decapitation, and dismemberment to be disseminated over the Internet, and these images are vastly superior to images of Aztec violence in terms of immediacy, accessibility, and rendering. Perhaps ten people and the cameraperson witness a Narco-execution in real life, but hundreds of thousands have since witnessed it in digital space. I do not mean to say that the Internet creates this violence. Narcos will continue to dehumanize bodies with or without it, as has long been done in human conflict.  My interest is simply in how Narco-execution videos have become weapons of Narco-warfare.

"Members of Cartel del Golfo Dismember a Member of los Zetas and Claim Justice for the Masacre in San Fernando, Tamaulipas" from Cartel del Golfo via Blog del Narco, 2011. Screenshot of a website and digital video.

The twenty or so execution videos I have personally seen all share a common theater and script. Several masked and uniformed interrogators stand around the captive. They all wear black baklavas in the style of Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos. Their leader interrogates the victim. The victim answers all questions, and at the end, the leader executes him. It is shocking how physically difficult the work of cutting someone to pieces is.

"Decapitation of Manuel Mendez Leyva: Worker for los Zetas," 2010. Screenshot of website and digital video.

The first execution I witnessed was that of Manuel Méndez Leyva. I say witnessed, but I was not physically present.  The audio-visual, time-based format of the online video, however, made me feel that I was. It happened in a small, white room. There were four uniformed men, dressed like commandos, standing around a bald man. All four men had AK-47s in front of them. Manuel had duct tape wrapped around his head, covering his eyes. His hands were also duct-taped together, and his shirt was off. He had a large belly and a mustache. He and the leader played question-and-answer for seven minutes. His answers were smooth, the questions were regular. I remember asking myself, was this scripted? Did they rehearse these questions? At the end of the seven minutes, the leader tells him, “Thank you. Now, you are going to leave here.”

Manuel: “What?”

The leader: “Now it is time for you to leave.”

It seems like Manuel did not know what was going to happen, because as they pulled his head back, he calmly put his forearms in front of him, covering his face.  His throat made a sucking sound as the broad knife hacked at his neck.

Narco-execution videos are directed towards opposing cartels. They name their opponents directly. Manuel Méndez Leyva supposedly worked for Los Zetas.  Sometimes, cartels direct their interrogations to the public. San Juana Gabriela Enriquez Galvan was executed for being an extortionist, and her interrogators spoke generally to the people of Juárez. The video of her execution was placed on YouTube and through repeated postings received more than 500,000 hits.

Screenshot of "Video of Executed Woman," taken from YouTube on March 30, 2011.

The cartels compete with their videos, attempting to best each other. This competition in digital space accelerates dehumanization in physical space. The executions are not traditional warfare, and do not serve to gain territory or material. In the same way that the Aztecs went through the extra effort of capturing—not killing—their enemies, so too must any cartel that wants to produce an execution video. Aztecs mediated their violence through systematized rituals and elevated platforms; Narcos mediate their violence through digital recordings and digital platforms.

Donaldson, Nancy, Catrin Einhorn, and Zach Wise, “Mexican Drug Trafficking." Screenshot taken from The New York Times, February 1, 2011, accessed February 18, 2011.

Why should Mexico’s economy of violence matter to us sitting in front of our computer screens in the United States?  To begin with, the vast majority of drugs trafficked in Mexico are consumed in the U.S. In the past three years, there have been more than 40,000 violent deaths attributed to drug trafficking. Ninety percent of all weapons confiscated from cartel members come from a small number of registered shops in states with minimal gun-control, like Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.  Hitmen for the Linea cartel in Juárez, Mexico, are paid 300 dollars a month, no matter how many people they kill. They are not paid in Mexican pesos.

If we can return to the comparison of Aztec Mexico to Narco-Mexico, in the Aztec empire, thousands were sacrificed to ensure the rising of the sun each day. A pantheon of gods justified the integration of violence into society. What can we distill this ritualized belief system into? Power. The Aztecs were an empire that subsisted on tribute and subjugation, and the spectacle of violence justified that power. What can we translate as power today in Narco-Mexico? Dollars, drugs, weapons, and Narco-culture. Today, Mexican cartels sacrifice dozens daily, but to what end?

This week’s column is accompanied by images from Wynne Greenwood‘s recent show “Peace In” at Lawrimore Project in Seattle.

Your counselor, hard at work.

Do you think that learning the technique of mediums before using them (instead of just doing something arbitrary with the medium) is stifling to creativity?

No, I don’t. Creativity isn’t arbitrary, it is direct imaginative action oriented toward a medium. The more you know, the more calculating and precise you can be (all while making it seem effortless). What is stifling to creativity is when the urge to create is stymied by a lack of knowledge. Stop complaining about your color theory homework—I promise it will stand you in good stead some day.

Wynne Greenwood, "Peace In" installation view

I have Asperger’s Syndrome. I’ve known this since I was very young, and was fortunate enough to have parents who helped me sort through it in the right way. It is very mild, and I don’t even really think much of it, however I’ve noticed that my behavior tends to color people’s opinion of my artwork. Sometimes I get the impression that they think I am some narrowly-focused-boy-wonder-type. I can’t say that this impression has hurt me – in fact, I believe it amplifies any interest in my work – however I’m not sure how I feel about being contextualized this way. Should I fight against this reputation I seem to be inadvertently building?

I wonder what you could possibly do to combat the impression you believe you are making. After all, you don’t know what conclusions people are actually coming to when you interact with them. You’re just guessing. But if you want to try to fight this assumption (yours and, potentially, your studio visitor’s) you’ll have to beat them to the punch. Maybe you could make a t-shirt that says, “I think that you think that I’m some kind of boy wonder, but I want to preemptively let you know that I’m not.” For brevity’s sake, on the back it could just say ASPERGER’S–you know, like a team jersey.

Wynne Greenwood, Head #2 with Pillar, 2012. Painted ceramic, dyed fabric, thread and foam, 48 x 24 x 24 inches

However, fashion’s not really my thing (see column lead picture, above) so in place of sartorial advice let’s get to the heart of this matter: the problem of how an artist controls her public image. Obviously, it’s necessary for the professional artist to have some information about herself out in the world (name, birthplace, education, and exhibitions are all basic resume items and statements often mention inspirations, etc.), but it’s funny how quickly this can get distorted or mischaracterized. Sometimes it seems that fact checking is passé: if someone gets a notion about who you are, and especially if it enlivens a story, there’s not much you can do. It’s no easy task to fight the rising tide of misinformation that gets circulated, especially when we live in a culture that fetishizes artists even as it undervalues them.

Let me give you an extreme example of how biographical information gets twisted: one young artist I know was born in Africa but raised in the US. She has an American accent. Upon meeting her, one patron said enthusiastically, “Oh, you’re African!” “No,” corrected my pal, “I was born in Africa, but I was raised in the US, in the South.” The patron immediately switched to expressing her sympathy, appearing to believe that the artist grew up in poverty-stricken circumstances. In reality, the artist had a comfortable middle-class suburban childhood, but this woman clearly wanted to put her into a particular category: either the “foreign/exotic” box or, when that didn’t work, in the “black ghetto” box. She wanted the artist’s life experience to be one that neatly dovetailed with her own assumptions.

Wynne Greenwood, Head #1 with Pillar, 2012. Painted ceramic, dyed fabric, thread and foam, 48 x 24 x 24 inches

Even at its most benign, the art world (indeed, the entire world) loves a good narrative. Many artists have cannily crafted a detailed back-story for themselves that enhances the reception of their work. Others (like collectives) eschew authorship and, in the process, reject the idea of creating a personal history that supports their oeuvre. But in contemporary art—which, let’s face it, is often confusing or opaque—there’s a lust for biography and a desire to make direct connections between the life of the artist and her work. No matter what you do, if critics, gallerists and curators are paying attention to your practice they are going to construct a narrative that links their perception of your personal tale with your artmaking. It’s just one way that humans attempt to explain the circumstances of imagination and creativity.

It seems that there is little you can do about it—at least preemptively—without falling victim to your own conjectures about what other people might think of you and your work. Consider the possibility that your work is simply good enough to merit attention. If your natural behavioral eccentricities make you an even more charming or romantic figure, so be it. As long as you are not being disingenuous then there’s nothing wrong with allowing people to cultivate whatever notions they want about you—and remember that they’re going to do it anyway. If you feel that it’s important to correct any possible misunderstanding of your work or your studio practice, you’re free to mention Asperger’s in your artist statement or in studio visits. But be warned that this information will create another dialog around the work that will only play into another set of assumptions, ones that you may not want to deal with.

This week’s column is illustrated with collages by Irina and Silviu Szekely.

Your financial counselor, hard at work.

My question is: how does an artist decide how much a certain piece is worth, monetarily?

One of the most difficult things to do is put a dollar value on your work. In the absence of a gallerist’s guiding hand and prior knowledge, you have to ask yourself all kinds of ancillary questions: where am I at in my career, is this object well-made, is it unique, what have I sold in the past? etc. Pricing your work means it’s time to be brutally honest about where you stand in your career vis à vis what the market will bear. It can be a tough call. Who—at least of the unrepresented among us—hasn’t sold a piece and then wished they had asked for more? Or wondered if unsold work might have had a buyer if it was offered for less?

This is just one more situation in which artists need to do their research. Start with the local galleries and art fairs and look at the prices of work that is similar to yours to get a range of values. This will help you create a basic list of prices, but don’t stop there because numbers aren’t the only part of the equation. Take a look at the resumes of the artists, too, as accomplishments make a difference in setting a price. If the paintings of an established mid-career artist with work in private and public collections sell for $30,000, and you’re fresh out of a BFA program, then your work is not going to sell for the same amount even if the size, medium, and style are comparable.

Irina and Silviu Szekely, ( framing, deframing and reframing of semi-accidental linkages ), 18 x 22. Image courtesy of the artists.

You’ll also need to consider what it takes to make your work and what kind of work you’re making. For example, take the economics of production into account. What do you spend on your materials? Likewise, if you’re selling framed work you need to account for the costs of matting and framing. The type of work you’re making also has a particular value. If the work is part of an edition, it’s valued less than an original. A print from an edition of three hundred is less expensive than one from an edition of five.

When you’ve accounted for as many variables as possible, give yourself a small range of prices that you think are acceptable and run them by an artist friend who understands the art market. If you have access to a sympathetic teacher or dealer, you could ask those folks, too. I find that bouncing a number off a neutral party can help me make a final decision. I also take into account the words of a former professor, who told me that his sales strategy was to price things on the lower end of the scale. “I’d rather have a slightly smaller check than store [my paintings] indefinitely,” he said, and this is yet another thing to consider when you’re trying to put a dollar value on your work.

Irina and Silviu Szekely, ( the amputated experience of Sir Coincidence Sobject ), 27 x 23 cm. Image courtesy of the artists.

I am a performance artist. I have had many invitations lately to show my work, but I am worried I won’t have enough money to pay for all of the travel and materials. Is there a way to get an ‘art loan’? What would you do? I’m right on the cusp of something. It is so much about freeness, but also, it’s crazy to be running on hot air.

The first thing I want to say is that if you’re receiving invitations to perform, you should be getting at least some financial support from the institutions and venues themselves. Have you written any emails along the lines of, “Thank you for your interest in my work. Here are the costs associated with my performance, including airfare to your city. Please let me know how you are going to fund this performance.”? Though I suspect that this is not a magical solution to your problem, I would love for your work to be supported by the venues that ask you to perform for them. That’s not going to happen if you don’t ask directly, and at least it gives you a place to start.

As always, there are some larger issues at work here. We all know of some great institutions that operate on a shoestring budget. What happens when one of those worthy venues sends you an invitation? Do you turn them down if they can’t fully fund your work, thereby maintaining your financial integrity but losing an opportunity? Or do you suck it up, go into debt, and hope that this performance leads to one that will be fully financed? In a broader sense, how much do we artists have to give away before our work has (real cash) value? Can any of us afford to turn down an opportunity on principle? It’s frustrating to feel manipulated by a system that asks the very producers of culture to give it away for free. Considered on a global scale, someone somewhere is making money on our collective work, and it’s no good if you’re contributing meaningful effort and not getting your slice.

Irina and Silviu Szekely, ( unrefined manners of repossessing devaluated objects ), 18 x 18 cm. Image courtesy of the artists.

Would I get an art loan? Only if absolutely necessary and with a clear and realistic repayment strategy in place. Debt has a way of spiraling out of control, and it might be a while before you can get out from under the lead thumb of interest rates and minimum monthly payments. After all, this isn’t just about cold hard cash; it’s about your mental and emotional health, too. If the debt from today’s performance crushes your soul, how in the world are you going to get out of bed to make tomorrow’s? You need to consider the long-term implications of debt so that you can have a satisfying career instead of money-related burnout.

After you try to get some funding directly from your venues, the next step is to look into grants and awards. Grant Space at the Foundation Center has a comprehensive list of grant-making institutions. The online guide is by subscription (about $19/mo), but you can search their site for a bricks-and-mortar location near you where you can look through the guide for free. Grants are great. Not only do you get some money toward a project, you also get a line-item on your resume; even if the grant is small it has more than a financial benefit. One of the related perks of getting a grant is that it provides you with a grant history, which makes it easier to receive grants in the future (in general, granting institutions want to give their money to artists who have a proven record of being able to manage their funding properly). Start small and work your way up—a $200 grant today might not cover many of your expenses but it boosts your chance of getting a $2000 grant next year.

Irina and Silviu Szekely, ( temps de rêver au temps de vie, s’écrire et s’en douter ), 30 x 41 cm. Image courtesy of the artists.

Local funding can be crucial. Is there an institution in your area that provides small grants and awards? Try googling the name of your city and “art grant” to see what comes up. The great thing about funding on a local level is that is gives you the chance to form relationships beyond mere dollars. One artist I know received two grants from this regional institution and then was asked to sit on a grant-judging panel a few years later. The money came at the right time, to be sure; but additionally he got a wonderful “grant education” from being a judge and helping evaluate the applications. That’s the kind of knowledge that will help him get larger grants in the future.

Some of my friends have had substantial success with Kickstarter and similar crowd-sourced funding. One friend raised enough money to go off to a two-month residency across the country, and another’s campaign was so effective that he raised almost $4000 more than he requested. However, a good Kickstarter campaign takes time and energy to put together. If you’re going to try it, I suggest you spend a lot of time researching the site’s prior funded projects to determine what elements contributed to their success.

Irina and Silviu Szekely, ( simulacrum of an aesthetic mistrust prepared on the back of a postcard after periods of ontological fissures ), 56 x 82 cm. Image courtesy of the artists.

One thing to note about all of these sources is that they don’t provide money overnight, so it’s a good idea to think as far ahead as possible. Kickstarter may be among the fastest to pay out, but for any of these options it can take weeks to put together a strong application, and the checks from granting institutions come months after the application process ends. Where will you be in a year, and what will you be making? If you can start planning well in advance of production you’ll have a better chance of finding financial help. Art is so much about freeness: to experiment, create and perform. The trick is to find financial backing so that you can continue to develop your work without the weight of pecuniary shackles.

Depiction of the Haymarket Riot, 1886. Chicago Historical Society.

International Workers’ Day, as you may or may not know, commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Riot in Chicago, which began with a peaceful protest for the right to an 8-hour workday. At some point during the protest, someone threw dynamite at the police, who then began to fire indiscriminately into the crowd. In the end, over ten protestors and police officers were dead. A few years later, the first congress of France’s Second International, an organization of socialist and labor parties, called for international demonstrations to celebrate the riot’s anniversary, and the modern incarnation of International Workers’ Day (May Day) was born—i.e., celebrated as a holiday by nearly 80 countries outside the United States, but not the U.S. itself.

Occupy Banner, May Day 2012, Vancouver, Canada.

Will May 1st, 2012, be any different? The Occupy movement has called for a general strike in cities across the U.S., including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York. Actions were originally planned to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge in support of the Golden Gate Bridge Labor Coalition’s plan to strike; the GGBLC has gone on record to ask their supporters to keep the bridge open. Late last night, protesters gathered in Dolores Park, San Francisco (the heart of the Mission district) and marched down the streets, breaking car and shop windows along the way.

"May Day in Los Angeles, 1980," Mark Vallen, 1980. Print from 35mm Diapositive. 6.5 x 9.75 inches. This photograph was taken in L.A.'s MacArthur Park just moments before the Los Angeles Police Department attacked a large crowd celebrating International Workers' Day. The rally had been the first significant May Day demonstration to take place in L.A. since the 1960s. Recently on view at the Morono Kiang Gallery's "Faraway, So Close" exhibit, Los Angeles.

In honor of International Worker’s Day, a holiday meant to champion not just the achievements of workers but the potential of mass protest to transcend vandalism, especially against unfair and inhumane treatment by employers, #hashtags is asking you to submit your favorite piece of labor-related art to hashtags@dailyserving.com. We’ll add as many images as we can throughout the day (permissions willing).

Happy May Day, everyone.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, "Washing/Tracks/Maintenance," 1973. Mierle's 1969 "Manifesto for Maintenance Art" decried what she called the "death instinct" of the avant-garde, and focused instead on the "life instinct." Her projects were mostly performative in nature, including "Washing/Tracks/Maintenance," in which she cleaned the public steps of a museum.

Fred Wilson, "Guarded View," 1991. Four mannequins with museum guard uniforms; mannequins 75 x 48 x 166 in.; collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; photo: Dan Meyers.

Okay Mountain, "Torture Gym," 2011. Mixed media.

Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," 1971.

Gordon Parks, "American Gothic, Washington D. C.", 1942.

This week’s column is illustrated with collages by Eva Lake, whose solo show “Judd Women Targets” is currently on view at Frosch & Portmann in New York, through June 3, 2012.

Your counselor, hard at work.

If an artist is attempting to call attention to a particular issue that in some way either oppresses a group of people or includes imagery of unethical actions, is their artwork also unethical if they intentionally include or use oppressive tactics or graphic images to do so?

There is no permanent, fixed equation that we can apply to art—especially art that intends to become activism—and I’m not amenable to making an ultimate pronouncement on work that exists as a hypothetical. It’s better to be aware of the concerns surrounding art and activism in general and proffer judgments on a case-by-case basis. An artist who wishes to take an activist stance in regard to an issue must think very carefully through the problem at hand.

Eva Lake, Target No. 32 (Wayne Thiebaud Painting), 2008. Photomontage, 11 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches

I contacted a few artists that are currently making work that intends to be activist, but for the first time in the brief history of this column, not one of them responded. Perhaps they were afraid to go on record regarding the conflicts and contradictions their work presents? In any case, Anuradha Vikram, Curator of the Worth Ryder Art Gallery at UC Berkeley, kindly shed some light on this matter. She asks would-be activist-artists to ponder some art-world assumptions: “When seeking to call attention to any troubling issue, one key maxim to consider is that of the physician: ‘first, do no harm.’ Too often, artists seem to mistake demonstrating a set of conditions for critiquing them. If the work is replicating unethical behaviors, what is the artist doing besides perpetuating those behaviors? Perhaps, if one assumes that the context for art is a neutral one (the proverbial ‘white cube’) then it could be argued that by isolating and framing such actions, the artist makes the critique implicitly. However, if the last 40 years of art-world controversy have taught us anything, it is that ‘neutrality’ is often interchangeable with ‘privilege.’ Recreating oppression within a space of privilege is simply oppressive. A critique needs to go farther than that, and a sophisticated critique does not need to replicate such dynamics in order to unpack them.”

I agree, and can’t emphasize that last sentence enough: a sophisticated critique is what any artist-activist should be working toward. I also think the issue of commodification is important here. Can art truly make a change if it doesn’t materially aid the victims whose cause it purports to advance? If it only “raises awareness” of an issue by replicating abuse, it’s possible that its main consequence is simply to turn the expression of subjugation into an exchangeable commodity (for money, status, notoriety, etc.) which primarily benefits the artist or the art establishment. And on a personal level, if your activism turns you into a celebrity but does nothing to change the brutality you supposedly decry, your innocent intentions become worse than worldly cynicism. Emancipation cannot be achieved by oppressive means.

Related reading: groundswellcollective.com and the books Art & Agenda and Wild Fire: Art as Activism.

Eva Lake, Judd Montage No. 6, 2007. Photomontage, 8 ½ x 7 ¾

I am in my junior year of a BFA program at a university that I love. My grades have always been stellar, and I feel empowered to make work that extends far beyond the minimal requirements of assignments – work that I would be proud to exhibit; however, my work has been rejected from several local juried shows recently (in the past, I have been accepted to shows and even sold work). In addition, one of my main professors has been giving me lower grades than I am used to. I’m open to criticism, and I know I have a lot to learn, but the direction seems to be simply that I’m not making the work that they expect. 

There is a small part of me that wants to conform and get good grades so I can move on to an MFA program elsewhere. The louder, bossier side of me believes that my Postmodern ideas are valid, but happen to be inconsistent with the traditional Modernist teaching methods of the faculty at my university. Can you give me some ideas about how to make the most of my education without burning bridges or officially ruining my transcript?

There are really three parts to your query: how to make the most of your time in school now, the correlation between grades and MFA programs, and the larger idea of the feedback you’ve been getting. I think they’re all related in the end, but let’s deal with the MFA part first because it might be the easiest.

Eva Lake, Judd Montage No. 1, 2007. Photomontage, 7 ¾ x 8 ¼

My understanding of the MFA admissions process (which I went through in 2009) is that it is heavily weighted toward the quality of the applicant’s work, her CV, her recommendations and how she performs in the interview, more or less in that order. Unlike medical school, undergraduate grades don’t really count for much when applying for the MFA. I confirmed this with one department chair at a well-known art school in a Midwestern city (all my experts requested anonymity).

Another department head, this one from an art school on the east coast, said, “First and foremost is the portfolio! This seems a rule and something that can be applied across the board. If the work is strong, other things become secondary.” My third expert, a painting chair from a well-regarded school in California, said, “Strong, well-documented work and a well-written statement are 90% of the battle.” Some MFA programs do have a minimum GPA requirement, but it doesn’t sound as though you’re in danger of getting an F. So on one hand, it seems that you don’t have to worry about your grades if you only consider them in aid of going for the MFA later.

Eva Lake, Judd Montage No. 17, 2011. Photomontage, 6 ¼ x 9 ½

However, your question touches on larger issues. It seems like your prior work was more successful in the past, earning you good grades and exhibitions alike. Your newer work isn’t being met with the same regard. There could be some good reasons for that: it might be that the work still needs to be developed (it’s new, after all), or that it doesn’t fit in with the status quo of your Modernist milieu, or any number of other possibilities. There’s only one way to find out for sure, and that’s to get people into your studio to see the work and talk with you about it. Here’s where we come to the subject of how to make the most of your time now.

If you’re a regular reader, you may have noticed that I’m an ardent advocate for following your own course. I think that if you want to make this work, you should. I’ll always stand by your right to define yourself and your work on your own terms. However, passion alone doesn’t necessarily make good art and it’s your charge to determine if your new direction shows promise or not. How can you do that? By making a concerted effort to have as many conversations about the work as possible over the next year. Begin this process with your own professors, including the one who has been giving you lesser grades. Have you asked this person directly what drives his decisions regarding your lower marks? Asking someone to explain their grading process is not the same as whining for an A; just be blunt: “I noticed that my grades are lower than before, and I’m not sure I understand why. Can you please walk me through your decision?” If nothing else, you’ll clear the air with this person and figure out if you want to work with him during your final year of school.

Eva Lake, Judd Montage No. 13, 2007. Photomontage, 5 ¾ x 8

While this is a good place to start, I suggest you expand the field. If your suspicion is that the new work simply goes against the grain of the academic atmosphere, then you must investigate this hypothesis by requesting studio visits with artists who are not part of your university’s faculty. Are there visiting artists or lecturers you can contact? Are there local people (artists working in your medium, gallerists, or independent curators) that you can approach? Write them all an email asking for a visit and explain your situation: you’re not looking for a show, you’re trying to get some non-academic feedback on new work. These visits should be absolutely candid. Say what you’ve told me about your prior work versus your new work and its reception at school. Ask these people to be honest and direct. It sounds to me like you can take it, and you don’t want to waste your time.

Before I wrap up, I want to say something about the MFA and graduate school in general. Don’t go straight from the BFA to the MFA. Unlike undergraduate studies, graduate programs are entirely self-directed, and two years goes by very quickly. The only way to make the most of a graduate program is to go in knowing what you don’t know so that you can ask the right questions while you are there. This requires a level of maturity and self-knowledge that can only be gained through living in the real world and negotiating a life as an artist outside the support system of school. Get your BFA, make a studio life for yourself, work on your oeuvre and your CV, and then apply for the MFA when your portfolio is so dazzling that it could blind an admissions panel to a string of Cs on your transcript.

David Shrigley, How are you feeling today? (2012), billboard, 25 x 75 feet, courtesy of Anton Kern Gallery

Running alongside Tenth Avenue for approximately twenty blocks in Chelsea, The High Line has become a household term amongst Manhattanites since 2009 when it first became accessible as a public park. Since then – and especially within the last year – The High Line has ignited widespread murmur relating to its breathtaking architecture, imaginative urban integration and more recently its emergence as the local gallery district’s – if not New York’s – most imaginative sites for exhibiting contemporary art.  Opening April 19^th was The High Line’s first ever group exhibition entitled Lilliput which included the works of Oliver Laric, Alessandro Pessoli, Tomoaki Suzuki, Francis Upritchard, Erika Verzutti and Allyson Vieira. Alongside this exhibition, Uri Aran’s sound installation opened on the same day only then to be followed by Alison Knowles’ public performance Make a Salad on the 22^nd. David Shrigley’s How are you feeling? (2012), presented as a giant billboard over West 18^th Street, and Sturtevant’s Warhol Empire State (2012), a video projection that starts at dusk of Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964) video, debuted earlier in the month to launch the Friends of the High Line’s 2012 Spring Art Program and High Line Commissions program for public art. The openings this month, surpassing the previous years in numbers of art pieces alone, has proven that this year’s arts program is making a vigorous effort to present art to the public with a bang.

Sturtevant, Warhol Empire State (2012), video projection, image courtesy of the artist

The High Line as we know it today exists upon the skeleton of a freight line that once was the manifestation of a public-private project called the West Side Improvement during the 1930s. However, that was the date that the freight lines were lofted 30 feet above street level after having existed as street-level railroad tracks some odd eighty years prior. During this time, The City and State of New York agreed to take on this massive industrial project due to the fact that Tenth Avenue became known as Death Avenue, a nickname indicative of the innumerable deaths caused between street traffic and the railroad. This was no small project, not least of all financially as it was quoted to be a $150 million dollar expenditure then, and that’s more than $2 billion dollars today.

Building the high line, November 20th 1932. Image courtesy of www.thehighline.org

Trains of food freight and both manufactured and raw goods ran until 1980 at which point the ensuing minimization of the railroad became obsolete due to redundancy and the upsurge of trucking transport. In the face of threatening demolition, Friends of the High Line was established in 1999 as a non-profit by Joshua David and Robert Hammond to preserve the historical lineage and neighborhood aura that the High Line had solidified. An all-star architectural and landscape design team made up of James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro (along with a large selection of horticulturists, gardeners, etc) was chosen in 2004 and by June 9^th 2009 the first section (Gansevoort Street to West 20^th Street) of The High Line as a public park opens, with the second section (West 20^th Street to West 30^th Street) to follow in 2011.

Allyson Vieira, Construction (Rampart) (2010), Bronze, 14 x 14 x 18.5 inches, courtesy of Laurel Gitlen Gallery, New York

Since 2009, The High Line has become known as a trendy jaunt-spot in Chelsea where the ultimate people-watching activities and pleasure strolling can be had. This year the public will see the launch of a program called High Line Commissions with the opening of the first ever group exhibition Lilliput to be held on The High Line. This exhibition will present the works of six artists working internationally with, as the title would suggest, small sculptures placed along The High Line’s pathway. This title is taken from Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels in which the imaginary country of Lilliput is home to gnome-sized people no bigger than six inches. The various diminutive sculptures are set within the various niches of landscape along the park walk and offer a sort of Easter-egg hunt of sorts, inviting the public to uncover the various works of art.

Pieces such as Allyson Vieira’s Construction (Rampart) (2012) respond to the local vegetation and ecology of the area with her pyramid of bronze cast paper cups that fill with rain or fallen leaves from the garden bed above. Other works such as The Seduction (2012) by Francis Upritchard are less so adapted for the localized flora but speak to the Lilliputian theme of fairyland idols with two miniature-sized apes frozen in an explorative embrace. Also apart of this spring’s High Line Commissions is Uri Aran’s sound installation Untitled (Good & Bad) (2012) provides a spoken list of arbitrarily categorized animals into “good” or “bad” that billows from gardens below. Coming in May, a much anticipated installation of Thomas Houseago’s sculpture Lying Figure will be on view under The Standard.

Francis Upritchard, The Seduction (2012), Bronze, 18 x 9 x 8 inches, Courtesy of Kate MacGarry, London

Friends of the High Line have initiated other programs such as the High Line Performances, High Line Billboard and High Line Channel that serve as varying avenues whereby art mediums can be exhibited. Opening on April 5^th, David Shrigley’s 25-by-75 foot billboard How are you feeling? presents a short dialogue in black and white speech bubbles, hovering over a parking lot at West 18^th Street. Shrigley’s dry and melancholy humor severs the socially fabricated fluff in monotonous conversation and pinpoints exactly what we all may be feeling but are too nervous to say: “I’m feeling very unstable and insecure […] I am in a bit of a rut creatively as well”.

This year’s itinerary for the High Line Performances will include performances by three female artists (Alison Knowles, Channa Horwitz and Simone Forti) on and around the High Line, the first of which was preformed last Sunday April 22^nd by Alison Knowles’ Fluxus score Make a Salad. Originally performed in Baltimore, Maryland in 1962 has been performed several times around the world and includes the preparation of a salad for a large group of people. Launching the High Line Performances program, Knowles’ piece included the preparation of locally sourced salad ingredients tossed from the upper level to the lower level of the walkway and then served to the public. Though it was a rather cold and rainy day, otherwise unpleasant to be frolicking out of doors to eat a salad, the performance was lively and ignited a grouping of people of all ages in an appropriately themed Earth Day get-together.

Alison Knowles, Make a Salad (1962–present), Image: Tate Modern, London (2008)

I have to applaud the work and organizational efforts of the Friends of the High Line for their inception of the public art programs, and not to mention their unmentioned but as equally remarkable endeavors in the realms of music and food. The High Line as a public park has provided the support for not only a exceptional pleasure destination, but also a cutting-edge platform for contemporary art. I am always fascinated with the seemingly pervasive dialogue relating to the inaccessibility of contemporary art and thus I have always been an advocate for the commissioning of public art. Public art, as inconspicuous or ostentatious it may be, has the power to engage a public (a cross section in a vast demographic) who may not otherwise seek out an interactive relationship with art. Pieces such as the ones mentioned above all own that quality of engagement: the characteristic of calling forth a questioning, a reflection or even a happenstance double take, and sometimes that’s all an art piece needs to fulfill its role in the social sphere.

Please visit  www.thehighline.org/art for a schedule of past, current and upcoming exhibitions and performances on The High Line and additional information on artists. Please visit the site for further information regarding The High Line’s events, public programs, memberships and history.

Your counselor, hard at work.

I have created a book about mail art, done over a 30-year span, which served as a communication between another artist and myself. Besides containing a lot of artwork, it is also a semi-autobiographical portrait of a modern artist’s life. I’d like to find a smart way to market it, but know nothing about publishing such a highly unique product. I’ve done some research online, but much of it is still confusing. Do I need an agent? Should I try to market it myself? It’s packaged, sealed and ready to go.

You have quite a few options for this project. The obvious one is to find an established publisher. Generally speaking, they’ll have the means to reproduce your images nicely and will provide for the marketing and distribution of your book. Not a bad way to go if you can find the right fit.

If this is what you desire, you’ll want to start the process by finding a good match for your creation. This part is just like looking for a gallery: you must do your research and look for someone who is already publishing books that are similar (or as similar as possible) to yours. Take some time to dig through the pertinent sections of your local bookstores and public library–is there anything there that strikes the same note? Jot down those publishers. This website had some other good information about finding a publisher.

Two pages from Lynda Barry's "What It Is" (Drawn and Quarterly Press)

Pretty much everyone says that you do need an agent if you want your book to be published by a large house. How do you find an agent? Try putting a list of search terms related to your book into google with the word “agent” and see what you get. For example, here is a list of agents I found using the terms “memoir agent.” You can also look on the Poets & Writers website under the tab Agents. I found the agent who represents Lynda Barry there. Lynda Barry wrote What It Is, a book that sounds like it might be more similar to your project than not, so even though most of the agents listed at P&W work with fiction, you might find a few who are a good match.

How committed to this project are you? A large publishing house isn’t the only way to go–just ask Edward Tufte, who specializes in visual information. When he couldn’t find a publisher willing to create The Visual Display of Quantitative Information to his specifications, he formed his own publishing imprint and has gone on to publish four other books (all lovely, by the way–I own the set). Of course, doing it yourself requires not just time but also a potentially sizable investment of money as well. And after you publish the book, you’ll also have to market it. I found some ideas on marketing here.

Edward Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" (Graphics Press is Tufte's own imprint) (image: Iwan Gabovitch's flickr photostream)

Self-publishing is a grand undertaking, and you’ll want to visit with printers and binders in your area to talk with them about materials, costs, file sizes, and production time. If you’re not familiar with publishing software, you may also need to hire a graphic designer to help you scan and lay out the images and text of the book using a program like InDesign.

If you hand your manuscript over to a publisher, you lose some creative control but will be more or less free to move on to the next project. If you publish it yourself, you will live and breathe this book for quite some time, but you can make exactly what you want. Good luck! In my opinion, the world needs more books about what it means to be an artist.

Nate Lowman, Loser, 2009. Alkyd on canvas, 101.6 x 76.2 cm.

I recently discovered an artist’s work that is a little too similar to mine for comfort. This artist is more established than I am and has probably been making this kind of work longer than I have, but I am committed to the work and don’t really want to change. To complicate matters I have an exhibition coming up and all the work for the show is finished. I don’t want to be accused of plagiarism or written off as an imitator, especially because I made the work in complete ignorance of this other artist. What should I do?

First things first: I believe you. It’s depressing to find out that you’re not a lone genius producing quality original artwork, but it does happen. Even with a high level of education in art history and a commitment to following the contemporary art scene, one can’t be aware of every individual artist’s work. Well, not, that is, until a well-meaning friend forwards an email with a link, saying “I saw this work and thought of yours!” Hey, thanks.

You say that having work finished for an upcoming show complicates the matter. Is that really true? If you hadn’t completed this body of work, or if the opening was a year from now, would you have thrown your ideas away and changed your work? The implication is that you would have taken another direction, but I’m not convinced that this would be a beneficial course of action. Why? Because there are a lot of factors that must have influenced your decisions as you were making this work, and I believe in following your lights to their logical and emotional conclusions.

You’re also discounting the shared forum of culture and the uncontrollable effects of zeitgeist. I’m not really sure what the specific factors are that compel everyone to have the same impulse at the same time, but it happens. Art communities are relatively small (even the global contemporary art community) and we’re all reacting to the circumstances of our shared epoch. Isn’t it natural that there is at least some degree of material or conceptual overlap if we are facing some of the same pressures and inspirations?

L-R: William Shakespeare, John Keats, Alfred Tennyson

Your question also calls up the ghosts of antiquated arguments about art, authorship and originality. It’s likely that you and this other artist are both reacting to artwork that preceded your own. The Anxiety of Influence by Harold Bloom discusses this subject in relation to poetry. “’Influence’ is a metaphor, one that implicates a matrix of relationships–imagistic, temporal, spiritual, psychological–all of them ultimately defensive in their nature,” writes Bloom. “Without Keats’s reading of Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, we could not have Keats’s odes and sonnets and his two Hyperions. Without Tennyson’s reading of Keats, we would have almost no Tennyson.” So while you may not have known about this other artist’s work, you both are probably acquainted with a common ancestral body of work that inspired your own. That’s how artistic lineage is created: we react to what came before.

You’ve finished the work and it’s time to hang it, evaluate it, and move on. If you get it up on the gallery walls and you’re pleased, continue pushing your ideas; if you’re not, take some time to assess your goals for the work and determine what’s successful and what’s not. And if anyone accuses you of plagiarism or imitation, just smile and say, “Yes, I just found out about Artist X. A friend sent me a link to her work.”

Places layer upon each other when moving through an unknown city. I think of Brooklyn one evening, looking for a friend’s house, walking on an empty shuttered street, but here it is mid-afternoon in the neighborhood of Gràcia and the shops are closed. As it was, I became enamored with murals and I had George Orwell‘s Homage to Catalonia in my hands.

“More shots rang out. The bullets from the tower were flying across the street and a crowd of panic-stricken people were rushing down the Ramblas, away from the firing; up and down the street you could hear snap – snap – snap as the shop-keepers slammed the steel shutters over their windows.”

A need to protect property has endowed Barcelona with a kind of blank canvas, the shutters that guard the glass windows of shops. Doors roll down over the whole storefront, blocking the ability to window-shop while the store is closed. Then, there is art that comes to fill the void.

Diverse and striking murals line the streets of Gràcia. With tight streets that give the feeling the old village it once was, Gràcia is located inland from the touristic Ramblas promenade and nightclubs, and outside of wide, octagonal grid of Eixample. The feeling is that graffiti is allowed here; it is tolerated and it is loved.

Within the graffiti world, the opponents of the status quo are often in dialogue and in opposition with each other–murals are painted over, tags are obliterated, layers of messages cake the neighborhood walls.

“For under the surface-aspect of the town, under the luxury and growing poverty, under the seeming gaiety of the streets, with their flower-stalls, their many-colored flags, their propaganda-posters, and thronging crowds, there was an unmistakable and horrible feeling of political rivalry and hartred.”

Graffiti, viewed as vandalism shows a deteriorated neighborhood, but the same image viewed as art endows the neighborhood with a sense of place and identity. Being there is a more valuable experience for some.

The Guardian reported in their December 2010 article “Barcelona shopkeepers face fines over graffiti decoration” that city officials having been cracking down the street art, from graffiti tags to commissioned works, calling it “antisocial behavior” that “degrades urban fabric.” Sometimes the murals are decorative or creative works but often the paintings seems associated with the stores themselves, working as signs. The quality of the murals varies from door to door and even if not great art, they add to the city’s character.

“They had hauled down their red flag and hoisted the Catalan national flag. On the Telephone Exchange, the starting-point of all the trouble, the Catalan national flag and the Anarchist flag were flying side by side.”

In the most revolutionary of times that Orwell witnessed, the anarchist and the Catalan flag were flying together; a duality was persevered. When the anarchists were quelled, their flag came down. In Orwell’s time, the city was thriving with propaganda posters and messages carved in walls. Spain was being torn apart into conflicting groups struggling for control. Civilians were thrust into the midst, and on the anti-Franco side, opposition groups splintered apart.

“Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers’ shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes.”

Graffiti shows current situations and trends. It responds first, and because its creation happens in public, it is seen immediately. Its goal is often to ignite social change. In the mural above, it is the message to preserve the neighborhood-community-vila, though the idea of finding a Catalan identity in art began around the turn of the century. The mural speaks of a dichotomy, resist and create popular culture, with references to “Block bloc” and fiery collapsing cityscape. Outsiders should not dictate identity it seems to say.

Seeing the flames, the Eurozone firewall comes to mind, recently raised again to protect Europe from Spain’s economic problems. High rates of unemployment plague the country and its youth. Vibrancy is on the streets but shops and restaurants are dull and expensive. Predominant culture feels worn out.

Imitations of traditional culture are propagated for the sake of tourism. On a windy late winter day, I walk through the village of Barceloneta where seafood restaurants serving paella all along its oceanfront have mostly empty expansive seating, but a few blocks into the interior and there is a crowded bar serving hot battered seafood and beer. The tourists are not here to fill up the tourist joints.

The spirit of revolution persists in home-made posters instructing social action. A stenciled sign tells me that I am welcome here but that the rental of a holiday apartment is destroying the local socio-culutral fabric.

“I turned around and saw some youths, with rifles in their hands and the red and black handkerchiefs of the Anarchists round their throats, edging up a side-street…”

Remnants of revolution are all over the city. Orwell characterizes Barcelona as “a town with a long history of street fighting.” His book gives a cross section of the Spanish Civil War, but even before that, Barcelona’s streets saw many sieges on the city through the Catalonian Civil War, Nine Years’ War, War of the Spanish Succession, and the Peninsular War, as well as the infamous Tragic Week (1909) which pitted the national army against the working class, probably still in the minds of Barcelonans during the Spanish Civil War. With the Republican government overthrown, Franco’s dictatorship ruled Spain until his death in 1978.

An election last November in the midst of economic troubles brought a change from the socialist policy of Zapatero to the conservative Popular Party headed by Rajoy. Depictions of the hammer and sickle can be found all over the city. Imposed on Spain’s flag, the symbol seem to be leftist or anti-fascist, though not clearly socialist, communist, or anarchist. Some have been defaced with spray paint, showing political factions among those paint the streets.

“…every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties…”

Barcelona stores were used as prisons during the Spanish Civil War. Today, scenes behind those walls often remain a mystery and shop hours are often sporadic. When a location that I’ve walked by several times is suddenly awake, an open shutter radiantly changes the general street scene.

On a narrow Gràcia sidewalk, I see the depiction of human lethargy and weakness on the door of an evangelical church that holds its services behind there. I’ve seen other murals by this artist around town that show creatures vomiting in this same black and white linear style that looks like hair or scales. A different painter has picked up on this same idea of ornamental overlay on the figure-it seems right out of Barcelona and its sea of tiny detail, but lacks the grandiose design. Instead, the ornamental detail in the figures below seems to be weighed down by their repetitious form.

“…its huddle of human bodies, its lack of furniture – just the bare stone floor, one bench and a few ragged blankets – and its murky light, for the corrugated steel shutter had been drawn over the windows. On the grimy walls revolutionary slogans – ‘Visca POUM!’ ‘Viva la Revolución!’ and so forth – had been scrawled. The place had been used as a dump for political prisoners for the months past.”

Andrea Michaelsson’s Amy Winehouse appeared on the BTOY Flickr photostream on August 11, 2011 for the first time, over a month before the singer’s death. Known for her depictions of women, her paintings of Winehouse show her cultural intuition. Winehouse’s death makes her stenciled image ghost-like. Another woman I find in her stencil style is actress Ginger Rogers.

Andrea’s focus on celebrity as power embraces popular thought and shows powerful women within the existing structure. Her icons are gorgeous, but work to transform their world through their creative endeavors. She looks outside her culture for many of her inspiring figures that she displays on her hometown streets.

“The safest thing at present was to look as bourgeois as possible. We frequented the fashionable residential quarter of the town, where our faces were not known, went to expensive restaurants and were very English with the waiters. For the first time in my life I took to writing things on walls. The passageways of several smart restaurants had ‘Visca POUM!’ scrawled on them as large as I could write it.”

The problems that Spain faces are hunched on the back of its citizens. The individual, however, can do very little it seems. We are told to be confident and continue spending so that the economy can bounce back. Graffiti often evades consumer culture and their use of the rolling door might be in protest, though their art is essential decoration and contributes to the sense of place that is Barcelona.

The “aftermath of the financial crisis” according to the nytimes.com is “grim”: “about half the age group under 25 out of work; €600 billion, or $820 billion, in mortgages outstanding after the end of a construction boom two years ago; and an exchange rate overvalued by 10 percent according to the European Commission. Productivity and competitiveness are low.” So many of us today are young artists in a challenged economy. The young artist in a challenged economy is an archetype of our current world, and it is not just the young people of Spain that face such a fate. Concepts drive us all forward. The young struggling artist is not unique to Spain, though they certainly face a challenge in a unique heritage.

Looking outlined in chalk, on an old wooden door, a crab holds a camera whose lens is labeled luna, illustrating the meaning of the phrase “shoot the moon”.

“In such places things happen quickly, the factions are ready-made, everyone knows the local geography, and when the guns begin to shoot people take their places almost as in a fire drill.”

That impression of preparedness to fight led Orwell to remark on Barcelona’s history of street fighting. Today, graffiti artists struggle to define and speak to their own culture. Messages scrawled on the wall are not a new form of expression, but one of the most basic means of public communication, and graffiti is international in scope. Theirs is an artform that is expressive, decorative and essential to street life in Barcelona and elsewhere. They desire to contribute to a Spanish identity that is not sculpted by financial gain. It is landscape rich with ideas and idealism needed to move culture out of the old world. Graffiti is the voice of a highly fractured group, but there is a unifying message about the power of art.

All photographs by Celie Dailey.

Your counselor, hard at work.

What are your thoughts on Thomas Kinkade?

Since this question was written to me before the maestro died, I’m going to answer it aside from the issues that have been raised since his untimely demise. My thoughts on Kinkade are quite simple: I feel that in many ways he is no different from Damien Hirst and that it’s a useful exercise to see exactly where the two artists overlap. The main similarity, of course, is that they both make market-driven work that simultaneously panders and condescends to their respective audiences, but I think they also have a whiff of the totalitarian to them.

The Painter of Light (tm) and the Painter of Dots. Are they really so different?

Of course, I’m not the only one who finds either artist’s output objectionable. On the face of it, Kinkade’s main sin was peddling pablum: hyper-sentimental paintings of garden cottages executed by assistants in saleable colors and hangable dimensions that never challenged the ability of their owners to display above the front hall console or the living room couch. We could argue that Hirst does more or less the same thing from the other end of the professional artist spectrum, provided that the loft walls of his über-rich collectors are large enough. His incredibly un-provocative dot canvases are painted by a squadron of rent-hungry MFAs and are designed to be, if not beautiful or thought-provoking, at least reassuringly easy to identify in terms of market value. The two artists concentrated on creating a trafficable commercial product, though one is placed in the galleria and the other you can find at Sotheby’s. Aside from the base distinctions of high and low, if Kinkade’s paintings insist on a revisionist bucolic America that—for his spiritually-certain followers—reinforce a sense of nostalgia for a time that never existed, then Hirst’s “spin paintings” must bring a similar peace of mind to their investment-savvy owners.

On the left, Kinkade's "Cobblestone Bridge" (n.d.) and on the right, Hirst's "Methoxyverapamil" (1991). Actually, I think they look kind of good together! (images: artbythomaskinkade.com and guardian.co.uk, respectively)

In terms of oeuvre, both Kinkade’s and Hirst’s formulaic work evokes the monolithic and oppressive. Even though stylistically they are worlds apart, they are steadfast in the assertion of their belief systems. Kinkade’s ideologically-loaded work creates an unyielding, emotionally sanitized vision of the home territory, while Hirst’s aesthetics are simplistic to the point of vapidity. Both bodies of work are so defined by sheer economics that they surpass any concern for the defining principles of art and satisfy only the cynical dictatorial control exercised by the free market.

Mildly related anecdote: http://wonkette.com/469282/the-time-worlds-most-collected-painter-thomas-kinkade-who-is-dead-now-lied-to-us-about-the-nea

The cast of the first season of "Work of Art" (image: www.sundancechannel.com)

How do you become a famous artist? I am an artist and make lots of art (performance, paintings, drawings, etc.) but I never went to art school. What should I do to slowly but surely become better known in the art world?

Fame, huh? Without a doubt, you must already know that there is no way to “surely” become “better known in the art world,” especially if you are going to do it slowly. Fame strikes like lightening, white hot and irrefutably blinding those in its immediate path. If fame is your goal, why bother trying to climb the ladder rung by greasy rung? Why not charter a helicopter and get airlifted to the top? Since my job as an advice columnist is to answer the queries set before me, here is a short list of actions that others have tried in pursuit of fame:

-Kiss (with lipstick on) the museum-hung artwork of an already-renowned artist. When you are arrested, explain to the press and the jury that it was a form of homage and that you were simply overcome by the power of the art. Alternately, if you are the fighter-not-a-lover type, you could punch, kick, stab, or otherwise wound an artwork you find objectionable or offensive.
-Sleep with someone powerful. It’s pretty well tested as a means to gain recognition, so why not give your favorite rock star/politician/A-list dealer a bounce? And then he or she can give your career a boost in return.
-Make a complete spectacle of yourself: do buckets of drugs while making art, have sex in the gallery, don’t bathe, etc. Be the wild and crazy guy who publicly justifies all the stereotypes of the tortured artist. Bonus points if you are a.) attractive and b.) from an old-money family.
-Two words: reality show.

Not pretty, is it? Okay, now that I’ve rinsed the snark from my bloodstream—sorry, the Kinkade thing always riles me up—it’s on to the real advice, and here it is: if you want to become better known in the art world, make great work. Yes, it’s really that simple, and yes, it’s really really hard. It might take you a lifetime. It might happen tomorrow, or never.

From the tone of your question, I’m concerned that you would put something as fleeting as fame ahead of your integrity (see photo, above). Like all but the most saintly among us, I’d be lying if I said that some of the same thoughts never once occurred to me. Nevertheless, your question makes me wince. Wouldn’t it be better to make solid work that no one ever sees than to put renown above all? What do you think might happen to your sense of self-worth if you favor the path to notoriety over building a career by making great work—especially if you fail? The truth is, there are no steps that guarantee success. And since that is certainly true, why not focus on the one thing that you can control: your work.

Maybe I’m naïve, or a dinosaur, but I believe that artmaking should be its own reward (that’s not to say you shouldn’t be compensated fairly for your work, but that’s a topic for another day). Don’t let your quest for public prominence take away your dignity or interfere with the enjoyment of making your work. Let’s put the gratification and pleasure back into hard work and creativity, because to focus only on fame is to miss the point. To quote Erma Bombeck, “Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.”

Kim Dingle, This is not ever going to end is it (2011), oil on linen, 72 x 84 inches (183 x 213,4 cm), Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York

Dingle’s naughty dollies sit at long kitchen tables, subjects who emerge from her prototypical characters named “Fatty” and “Fudge”, or “Priss Girls”, whom she has depicted in earlier works, both in paintings and sculpture. Each child dons a pristine frock yet they are pictured drinking beverages out of wine glasses (some unidentified liquids, and some explicitly merlot-toned), toting bottles and kitchen utensils, draping themselves over (or through) chairs unabashedly displaying their child knickers, while some even lie forlornly passed out in their porridge. One cannot help but giggle at the site of such absurdity, yet the works emit an undertone of poignancy, the kind of disappointed sadness that I imagine would be provoked by a coming-of-age wrongdoing by your child, for instance stealing or drinking. This is precisely the crux in which Dingle puts her audience: straddling the emotional line of child/adult transformation and the sometimes seemingly absurd fluidity of progression and regression in relation to childhood and adulthood.

Kim Dingle, What do you think? (2012), oil on linen, 84 x 72 inches (213,4 x 183 cm), Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York

Dingle’s doll characters comment on the state of mindless behavior that human beings, perhaps (this being the operative word in this case, depending on your view of nature vs. nurture) learn as we grow into adulthood. Dingle’s characters are girls and this is comprehended by virtue of deliberate gender specific cues. Having been categorized as a feminist artist, her work is also taken as a survey of female childhood (see bio in Brooklyn Museum) and the representation of violence in relation to frivolity and the legacies thereof. In the negative space where the lack of politesse is depicted, Dingle’s works provoke the question of being raised within societal bounds and the weight it carries in social situations as a projection of self and discipline.

Kim Dingle, Untitled (Birthday) (2007), oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches (152,4 x 121,9 cm), Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York

With the exception of Untitled (Birthday) (2007) in which a figure wearing a party hat drowns her face in a cake of comparable proportion to herself, the compositions are devoid of any sort of food things despite the table settings filled with bowls and plates. With the symbolic dominance of food deleted from these works, which is dissimilar to Dingle’s past works which feature food stuffs, the characters seem to act out a pantomime of consumption (minus the moments of splashing wine glasses). In several works, likewise with her older paintings, she pictures many of her dollies wearing chef hats, which further solidify the palpable sentiment of frivolity and clamor because they underline the notion of utter incompetency.

Kim Dingle, Still life (2012), oil on linen, 84 x 144 inches (213,4 x 365,8 cm), Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York

Dingle’s still lives aims to make her audience laugh (refer to press release) and that it does. Her paintings conjure the childhood wonder of what your dolls (or stuffed animals) do when you are gone. It also astutely reflects those certain moments within adulthood where we may all act like naughty little children (I know that a snap shot taken at one of my dinner parties wouldn’t be a dissimilar image), which makes her works successful in pinpointing a grain of psychology that is as omnipresent as it is supressed. Kim Dingle’s still lives will run through April 28^th at Sperone Westwater in the Lower East Side.

David Hockney, "A Bigger Splash," 1967. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of the Tate Museum, London.

The New York City Department of Education drew all kinds of mockery last week after someone leaked a list of 50-plus banned words off of one of its Request for Proposals (RFP).[1] In this case, the RFP had been sent to a variety of publishers the city hoped might revamp its standardized English and math tests.

The banned words were meant to spare New York students from topics “controversial among the adult population, [...] overused in standardized tests or textbooks, [or...] biased against (or toward) some group of people,” but the NYC D o’ E found itself widely criticized for being overly ‘politically correct.’[2] Perhaps the most damning accusations were those that insisted that such tests would remove a child’s ability to think critically when pushed outside his or her comfort zone. The Department of Education’s statement indicated that it feared these words might “distract” students.

List of subjects to be banned on standardized tests in the city of New York, issued by the New York City Department of Education, March 31, 2012.

We here at #hashtags whole-heartedly agree. Who needs the distraction of a phrase like “homes with swimming pools” when you’ve been raised without one? One need only look at the work of David Hockney for an example of the dangers of this kind of confrontation. After over twenty years in England, Hockney visited California in the mid-‘60s and was so struck by the plethora of pools that the object became a regular feature in his work, from its first appearance in the corner of California Art Collector, 1964 to its presence in composite Polaroids like Brian Los Angeles Sunday 21st March 1982, 1982.

And the story deteriorates from there – instead of sticking to images of unattainable, unpopulated swimming pools amidst modern architectural surroundings, Hockney also found himself “distracted” by the eroticism of the bodies that moved in and out of the water – in his case, male bodies.

David Hockney, "Brian Los Angeles Sunday 21st March 1982," 1982. Composite Polaroid.

Yes, when it comes to depicting the limpid and chlorinated pools of the Southern Californian upper-crust, Hockney’s body of work remains proof that still waters run deep. God forbid that any child with a New York public-school education be forced to meditate on the socio-economic differences between homes with private swimming pools and homes without, the relationship between the swimming pool and the history of integration and race relations, or the swimming pool as a site of sexuality and eroticism. You never know when that child might end up embracing his or her new relationship to such an object and re-shaping its cultural narrative. [3]

Your counselor, hard at work.

I’ve noticed a trend of not putting any information about the artist, including labels, on the wall. I get that the idea is to make the viewer just look at the artwork. However, I find it rather alienating, as often, particularly in contemporary art galleries, it is hard to be engaged without some kind of information about the work or the artist’s motive. I suppose that the idea is to get the information from the gallery worker, but I have found them to be unavailable, either on the phone or engaged with another customer. Do you think it is a mistake to do this or is there a higher purpose of which I am not aware? 

Standing before an unfamiliar thing set atop a plinth and with no cues on how to proceed can be unnerving. You might feel overwhelmed by questions: What is it? Who made it? When? And why does the artist want to show this to me?

The way out of this terrifying situation is to approach the desk and pick up one of those nice information sheets in the stack right next to the guest book, near the vase of wilting flowers. If there isn’t one, ask for it. If the gallerist is on the phone, just look perplexedly up and down the length of the counter, then up again at the gallerist, and mouth the word “information” while air-drawing an 8.5 x 11 inch rectangle in front of your face with your index fingers. This is the international sign for I am interested in learning more about the artwork.

Check out this review of labels on Art Fag City, one of my favorite art sites.

In the past, I too have been mildly annoyed at the lack of easy-to-access wall information. Yet I must say that given the choice between remembering to grab the info sheet from the counter and having to read an exhaustive catalog of information on the wall, I’ll take the gallery’s walk-though paper any day, even when it means I have to backtrack once I’ve figured out that I don’t have what I need to get the full picture (if you’ll excuse the pun).

It is not a mistake to reserve the walls of a gallery for the artwork. Many artworks cannot easily coexist with wall tags. And there is a higher purpose: with an information sheet, you are more likely to be engaged with the work before becoming distracted by its price. Indeed, it can be very pleasant to look at artwork in the gallery setting and pretend for a moment that it exists outside of the crass vagaries of capitalism.

Photo courtesy of the artist. Surely someone somewhere has thought of this before?

Is consistency important for an artist? I am interested in all sorts of media and different styles, but when I go through my portfolio, there’s no telling that every piece I have made is done by me. Is it important to stick to a medium rather than dabble? And is it important to have a recognizable look like all of the prominent artists?

Your query has a few layers to it, and I’m going to try to tease them apart. First is the question of whether consistency or visual recognizability is important for an artist. Next is the idea of “dabbling” vs. sticking to a medium. Finally, there’s the notion that prominent artists are all working undeviatingly within a particular set of constraints.

Visual “consistency” or recognizability can be important for an art career—note the emphasis, please—but that’s a separate issue from being important to an artist. One can recognize a John Currin painting because of his repeated combination of medium, subject matter and style. The same applies equally to a Giacometti sculpture or a John Hughes film or a Louis Vuitton logo purse. One reason that this kind of consistency is popular is that it is highly marketable. The perceived value of a status object can often be correlated to the ease of the identification of its maker or origin. That’s why everyone concerned with status wants a LV handbag and a Lexus. These objects transmit their value on sight, and so does a John Currin painting.

Sigmar Polke, Kölner Bettler III, 1972. Offset lithograph, 16 7/8 x 23 3/4 inches (image: www.rfc.museum)

The second part of your question is easily answered. Dabbling is often necessary if you want to suit your medium to your subject, and every master began as an amateur. Just be sure that you’re not just tinkering with something new every other week in order to avoid the real work of digging into a technique or material. Avoid being superficial, and don’t be afraid to work (and think) all the way through what you’re doing.

Let’s tackle the last question: do all the famous artists really conform to some kind of stylistic homogeneity? Yes and no. Sigmar Polke, for example, produced paintings, photographs, and sculptures over the course of his life. Though Polke’s style is visually recognizable within bodies of work, overall he used a wide range of styles, media and techniques. The consistency in his work comes from his preoccupation with alchemy and transformation. Likewise, John Baldessari is another artist who creates an incredible amount of work, but any two of his works selected at random and placed side by side might not be easily perceived as having the same maker. However, nearly all his works have the same ironic attitude.

Sigmar Polke, Untitled, 1973. Gouache on paper, 69.5 x 99.5 cm (image: www.likeyou.com) Note that this work and the one above were made within a year of each other.

But these are examples of work by über-famous artists. Why not consider the oeuvres of somewhat lesser-known lights like Paul Chan and Michael Huey? These artists are following paths that have few obvious markers for the casual viewer, but their work is strong and intriguing. I recommend that you spend more time studying artist monographs and catalogs of retrospectives. I think you’ll find that visual uniformity is sometimes tightly controlled through medium or style, and sometimes ignored altogether.

The real question is not whether it is important to be consistent, but what kind of artist you want to be. Is your goal to be good? To be free? To be a household name? I feel that we can’t talk about consistency—visual or otherwise–without shivering under the looming shadow of capitalism and branding, nor can we really divorce it from the myth of the mad-genius artist, obsessed and compulsive, driven to repetition. Are these narratives important to you? In the end, my advice is to make what you want to make. If it’s good, and if there’s enough of it, it will be easy for dealers, critics, and your future biographers to follow the threads of your concerns throughout the work.