Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Screen capture using Google Earth.

When I was a child, I spent countless hours poring over a Cold War–era National Geographic photo atlas. I traced every road and river, in every country, some which no longer existed or were currently in the process of brutal disintegration (à la balkanization). Sometimes, when I was really lucky, a country would be represented by two or three photographs. Some countries earned no photographic representation. Nonetheless, these photographs helped me learn that Thai women had really long fingernails, Brazilian men wrestled anacondas naked, and Africa was an untamed land bereft civilization and modernity. This photo atlas provided a seven-year-old me with irrefutable evidence about my world, but it also left so many questions. Malawi and Kyrgyzstan had no photos; what were they like? As I grew older these questions became more nuanced: Are all Algerians really Tuaregs? Might South Americans actually wear clothes? Are Western Europe and the United States as idyllic and perfect as the amber waves of grain imply? As much of a colonial travesty as that book was, it sparked an intense interest in the world and provided me with enough information to later deconstruct its own narrative.

Jump forward a few decades. Croatia is firmly established as a tourist hotspot, Dubai is megalopolis, and Burma is now Myanmar. So much has changed. We also now have a qualitatively different kind of atlas: Google Earth. This new atlas—a seven-year-old technology that allows me access to every nook and cranny of the planet’s surface—ostensibly offers a potential antidote to the inaccuracies of older atlases. This computer software exposes the mysteries of the world; every single village, building, and street on the planet is immediately viewable to me, save those hidden beneath thick canopies.

Prior to photography, atlases were geometric abstractions, lines representing places that were theoretically real, but unconfirmed to those people who had never been to them. The dragons and mythical creatures that sometimes populated these maps speak to their susceptibility to distortion and myth making. But with the advent of photography, people believed they could see the unmediated reality of these places. Photography offered a form of documentation that then (and now) carried more authority than technical illustrations. A “higher” form of knowledge was now available. But as my childhood photo atlas shows in hindsight, nominal and highly selective representation does little to demystify those places we’ve never been, and this epistemic pitfall can be found in Google Earth as well.

On the surface, Google Earth is far from a medieval abstraction aided by a few self-fulfilling photographs. When I look at the Congo, I see it exactly as it was at a distance of 2,300 feet on Tuesday June 29, 2010. Google Earth also contains millions of geotagged photos. Provided primarily by tourists and amateur photographers, these images offer much more than a bird’s eye view of a particular locale. In many parts of the world, Street View offers an even more in-depth view. While planning a potentially hypothetical trip to Monaco, I traveled around the streets of Monte Carlo noting where restaurants and adequate parking are (note: there is a lot of one, and very little of the other). By having an on the ground look, I will know that town inside out before I even land in Nice.

Does this deluge of specific, visual information foster only an armchair interest in the world? Why even go to Monaco? I’ve seen it. So what is left of the experience? I can visit San Diego if I want warmth, visit Vegas if I want wealth, and visit Napa if I want wine. Does our easy access to so much information about the places viewed render them “known” and negate our search for a deeper understanding of a place or a visit to it?  However, my desire to visit Monaco—or Saint Helena, or Iceland, or the Mongolian steppes—is not diminished one bit. That intense yearning to learn more about these places and really see them (whatever that means) still persists. This suggests two things: that there is something more to the places we visit than what we see, and that there is something lacking in the apparent omniscience of the digital atlas.

Boulevard Princesse Charlotte, Monte Carlo, Monaco. Screen capture using Google Earth.

There is really no easy way for someone in Monte Carlo to document her experiences of taste, touch, and smell. Sight and hearing, on the other hand, are easier senses to capture; images and sounds less complicated to disseminate. It is easy then to equate places with their sights, those buildings, monuments, and natural wonders that are named for the sense that we most associate with them. And until virtual reality and holograms are perfected, the first-hand experience of a distant place is absolutely unattainable. So while I am zipping down the rues and avenues with Street View, I am missing out on the sounds of the horns and seagulls, the mild Mediterranean breeze, the coconut scent of the artificially buxom and bronzed starlets, and the taste of the latte that tops it all off. More importantly, I am missing out on the first-hand experience of all it all. I engage in no conversations with locals, no arguments with merchants, and no drinks with fellow tourists. That is, all that I enjoy about visiting a place is completely missing. Even sightseeing, the most Flickrable activity imaginable, is nothing without the phenomenological experience of feeling the mass or the emptiness of a building in the pit of your stomach.

Yet we use Google Earth as much more than a surrogate for tourism. It is a compendium of knowledge about the world—knowledge that may provide the basis of how we think about the world. Popular, specious knowledge says that to see is to believe and that a picture is worth a thousand words. By my count then, Google Earth is worth untold billions of words, constituting many, many beliefs. Given the scientific satellite imagery and seemingly exhaustive photo documentation provided, viewers may erroneous take these “beliefs” to be objective approximations of the world when sometimes they are incredible aberrations.

For example, North Korea is a starving nation. It has been reported that in 2011, authorities reduced the daily caloric intake for each individual to 700, or one Venti Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino from Starbucks. The average official salary for workers is $2 per month. The country is wracked by poverty and oppression, but Google Earth provides scant acknowledgement of this. To the uninformed, the geotagged photos of Pyongyang provide evidence of a wealthy nation. Magnificent architectural achievements abound, great stadiums suggest that the city may have once been host to the Olympics, and nary a starving child is to be found. Ever the skilled curators, the North Korean government finely crafts how the rest of the world sees it. They disseminate few images from their country and those few outsiders who are allowed in are taken on highly orchestrated and monitored tours that show them only what the officials want to be seen. In turn, these visitors can only rarely (and very illegally) document those starving and dying in the streets.

Disneyland, Anaheim, California. Screen capture using Google Earth.

But even outside dystopian societies, Google Earth remains a world of selective documentation. Take, for example, the city I was born in. It has a population of over 300,000. It has shopping malls and theaters, rich and poor neighborhoods, hospitals and offices. Some of this is made visible by Google Earth, but very little. The reality of this city is almost entirely obfuscated by an eighty-five acre lysergic Zion: Disneyland. To Google Earth, outside of Disneyland, Anaheim and its hundreds of thousands of residents do not even exist. This phenomenon can be found, to varying degrees, in every city in the world.

The fact is, most of us simply do not photograph liquor stores and gas stations. We photograph that which we find interesting and that which we think others will find interesting. This leaves us with a digital photo atlas of the world that is entirely unreal. The slums of Anaheim are not photo worthy, nor are the well-kept buildings of Freetown, Sierra Leone. All regions of the world are affixed with preexisting narratives, and tourists, journalists, and Google users often reinforce these narratives through the photographs they shoot and share.

But let us not forget the lesson of my childhood atlas. While it promoted a racist and NATO-centric view of the world, it nonetheless gave me knowledge for critiquing that very viewpoint. I must first know that Freetown exists before I can even imagine challenging how it is represented to the world. After witnessing countless photos of shanties and dilapidated buildings in Freetown on Google Earth, I eventually came across a photo of a sleek, Mies van der Rohe–inspired bank building—a stark contrast to the narrative of a rural and bush sub-Saharan Africa. But then again, thank God for the photos of the shanties; it would be a tragedy to forget them.

Zenith Bank, Freetown, Sierra Leone. Screen capture using Google Earth.

Email helpdesk@dailyserving.com with your questions (you can use a free anonymizer like Anonymouse.org if you want) and save the comments section for continuing the conversation on the topic at hand. All submissions will be treated as anonymous and become the property of Daily Serving.

Your counselor, hard at work.

I have about completed my BA in Studio Art with a concentration in photography, but at my school there is really only one digital photo class so I feel ill prepared both for grad school and the “real world”. Ultimately I prefer working in film but I am wrestling with myself over the eternal dilemma of being true to your work vs. selling out. I am definitely interested in going to grad school and earning an MFA in photography but I am afraid I will be “behind” the other students who went to schools with more developed programs. What are your thoughts?

Let’s break your question into its constituent parts: first, you feel ill prepared for grad school (I’m not sure I know which “real” world you’re talking about, so we’ll set that part aside). Second, you feel that working with digital (since you prefer film) is selling out. Third, you’re worried that your skill set will leave you at a disadvantage in regards to your classmates in the hypothetical grad school in your mind.

I’m going to begin by answering your digital dilemma. Here it is: if you feel you need to build skills in digital photography, you can easily find classes (usually cheap ones) at the local community college, photo center, or camera store. You may not love digital, but if your aim is to support yourself as a photojournalist/sports or wedding photographer then you’ll have little choice but to get on board with the prevailing technology. Really, it’s that simple.

As for your art practice, if it is truly the case that your work must be in film to be fully realized then go ahead and shoot it with film. You should use whatever medium best suits the work and your practice—to quote McLuhan, the medium is the message and the fact that your work is in film will actually be part of the content. However, in terms of grad school (and hopefully the long life you lead afterward), your work is going to change; knowing as much as possible about the various tools available will allow you to experiment with clarity and confidence.

It’s true that most grad programs don’t teach technical skills. The MFA is more about your willingness to engage fully with your work on an intellectual level. However, that doesn’t mean that technical knowledge can’t be gained as part of your studio practice if you are diligent and motivated. Graduate school in the arts is largely self-directed, and it’s up to you to pursue your interests and be guided mainly by your own lights. This also applies for any “real world” you might encounter after you leave grad school. The learning cannot stop when you toss your mortarboard up in the air.

Acquiring a new skill set is not “selling out.” In an MFA program you’ll be too busy figuring who the hell you are and what the hell that person makes. You can worry about selling out when you have a buyer, but until that moment comes I wouldn’t give it a second thought.

Bruce High Quality Foundation wants you to skip school and hang out with Chris Burden instead.

I am considering getting a MFA in sculpture/new media, but it is very difficult for me to get a complete sense of the different MFA programs both in the U.S. and abroad. Unfortunately my best resources have been asking friends and old teachers. From them I get a mix of old information, rumors and myth. Can you tell me the top three MFA sculpture programs in the U.S. and the top three abroad? If not, can you tell me about some resources that can help me learn about these schools beyond their, nearly useless, websites?

To begin, let me tell you how glad I am that you’ve already figured out how useless a school’s website can be. From the un-navigable layouts to the endless paragraphs of self-aggrandizing prose, a school’s website can be really ineffective if you’re looking to understand the culture of the institution or the kinds of students who attend. I have first-hand experience with this dilemma myself: when I was applying to grad school, I did a lot of preliminary online research; but when I visited the schools in person, my experience on campus often contradicted my initial impressions. One website made me fall deeply in love, until I interviewed the school’s students and they all were so sad and burned out and disinterested. Another institution seemed very scholarly—important to me because I like art theory—but the second-year students who toured me around were dippy and uninformed. You’re right to be suspicious of websites, and also prudent to ask your colleagues and old professors.  But mostly I’m glad you wrote in, because I’m going to share some hard-earned wisdom with you. Come lean a little closer to the screen because I’m going to tell you a secret about the top three art schools:

They don’t exist.

The good old days: an easel, a model, some charcoal and a tightly-laced corset.

Oh, yes, websites can extol the virtues of the mega-famous faculty and the students who win awards, or the number of curators who troll the MFA show every year, and you can try to impress me with studio size, or student-to-teacher ratios, or just plain old Ivy-League-ness, but I insist—“best” is a racket.

Now before everybody tries to shout me down about how important it is to make “contacts” at Yarvard University/StanArts/School of the Art School of L.A., I want you to consider this: the Best School Ever is the school that is best for you, which is to say that it matters much less how supposedly awesome the school is by some supposedly objective measure, and much more how it fits you and your goals and your learning style. Is it of great consequence to have art-star faculty if they are crappy teachers, or always flying off to biennials and don’t have time for you? Do you need a first-class media lab if you’re a studio potter? Does it matter that representatives of commercial galleries roam the halls if you’re a performance artist? If you don’t care about research, do you want to go to a school that requires a lengthy written thesis? Probably not.

See? Any asshole can go to Andover and Yale. It's not the school, it's what you make of your time in academia—and beyond.

So the Top School is the school that will best suit your needs, and I’m going to help you find it. Start by making a list of your goals. What do you expect to accomplish in an MFA program? What would the most awesome dream program have? Be honest, and write it all down because it’s going to help you find the right place. Now, based on that list, check out the websites. Are there faculty who are doing what you want to do? Does a school have the right kind of facilities to produce your work? Is it in area you want to live? Take a look at the courses they offer. Which are required? Do any sound interesting? Most schools also post photos of student work. Is any of it good or does it suck? You can do this basic research online without too much trouble, and you should be able to come up with a list of about five or ten schools that interest you.

Now contact the schools. Email admissions and tell them you want to come for a visit. Ask them if you can meet with some faculty members, the ones you dug up online. Make appointments with two or three instructors, the dean or director if possible, and at least two students. Meeting students is important because you want to know what kind of student goes to that school. This goes double for small programs! If there are only six artists admitted every year, you should find out if the year ahead of yours is a bunch of pretentious dickheads, because you will have to see these people every day. Check out the studios, too. Yes, it’s nice to go and admire the facilities, but what you want to discern here is whether or not the students are encouraged to be active. Are the studios empty? Or is the hive buzzing? What are they working on? Is it any good?

The right school can be magic. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)

I promise that meeting people face to face will help you find the best school. It also signals to the school that you are an enthusiastic student, and as an added bonus, faculty and administration will remember you when they see your application. Yes, it’s expensive to fly around and do this kind of research, but look at it this way: you can pay $1000 to find the right fit, or you can waste $60,000 on two years of being completely miserable. If you really can’t afford to travel extensively, at least make it to one of the three national Graduate Portfolio Days, where many schools have representatives to meet with you and answer your questions.

And as a final word of advice, I’d like to add that after you’ve been out of school for two or three years, no one but your mother cares where you went anyway. It’s more about what you make and where you’ve shown it that counts. So grad school should be a time to focus on making your work better, and there’s a great institution out there that will meet you where you’re at and then help you advance. Good luck!

I was immediately taken with Irina Rozovsky’s current body of work, In Plain Air, a series of photographs taken in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. There is something quietly transcendent about these vignettes – a tranquility rarely evident in public space. I was so pleased to have the chance to ask Rozovsky about these recent photographs and how they relate to her consideration of place.

Irina Rozovsky. From "In Plain Air." Courtesy of the Artist.

How do you feel In Plain Air relates to your previous bodies of work? Does it represent a continuation of certain concerns that are central to your practice?

It’s a new way of working for me—I am slowing down, returning again and again to the same location, balancing the vague images I have in mind and the elements of chance encounters.  Previously, I was a shoot-on-the-go photographer, akin to a version of Eggleston’s democratic camera.  But while what I am looking at and the way I go about it has changed, there is a continuation of interests here.  When I was photographing in Israel, I started to think about history and the essence of time that’s encoded in a landscape and permeates the people of the day.  I think land has age-long, entrenched rules and its contemporary inhabitants subconsciously follow these rules, entering a cannon of history.  In a way, nothing in Israel has changed since it’s beginning. And the park, constructed in the 1860s during the artistic movements of Realism and the visions of democracy, is still running on the same agenda.  It’s simple but profound stuff.  I think it was Gerry Badger that stated by clearly photographing the present, you can access a larger human realm of time.

Irina Rozovsky. From "In Plain Air." Courtesy of the Artist.

I was hoping you could speak a bit about your relationship to your subjects in these photographs.  Are these candid moments or are people aware of your presence?

The subjects in my series In Plain Air are strangers I encounter visiting the park.  We have not met before and typically do not see each other again, but the photograph coalesces in a kind of shared moment—for a split instant, I am let in on a private reverie.  I am drawn to situations where people have carved out a solitary spot in the park to be alone or alone with someone, so very often there is an awkwardness in approaching this intimate space, like coming up to knock on someone’s front door. The pictures are usually made quietly. I don’t tend to say a lot and people seem to accept implicity. It is, after all, a public space, so the rules seem to be the same as on the street. They are not staged, but there is a type of posing that’s going on, since people kind of open themselves for the camera, without breaking from their flow.I usually don’t linger after the photo is made, so as not to impose on or puncture the daydream.

What is the importance of place in your work?

A few years ago, my photography was placeless or worked to undo a solid connection to any specific place. I was traveling a lot and shooting endlessly, but the images never revealed their locations. Instead, they acted as a group alluding to a general pilgrimage, a movement rather than a destination.  With One to Nothing and In Plain Air, the photographs are really playing with a sense of place, but still the connection is amorphous.  For instance, it’s very important that the pictures are made in this particular park and that viewers understand it is a real park and I would not include photos made elsewhere.  Nevertheless, the pictures are not exactly about the park; it’s used as a stage, as a backdrop, as a stand in for a larger human space—the Garden of Eden, America, a mini world.  And many times, it looks to me like the photographs were taken in different places—the south, the bayou, a fictional place.  So it’s interesting to stretch this idea of place.  The photos from Israel work the same way—I’d like the experience of looking at One to Nothing to feel closer to what you already know and feel even if you have never been to Israel.  I hope the places in my pictures have this shifting, virtual nature.

Irina Rozovksy. From "In Plain Air." Courtesy of the Artist.

In discussing In Plain Air, you have asserted, “the park is seen as a kind of gritty paradise that wraps its everyday patrons in a sublime, redeeming, equalizing light.” How do you feel the quality of this place serves as an equalizing force?  Is that part of what drew you to this location?

Yes! I was drawn to this place because it felt like a gritty, imperfect paradise outside of time where most traces of modernity are erased and people are returned to themselves.  In the summer, when I started this project, there was bliss in the air, it felt like a sacred place, almost a virtual release from an oppressive life beyond the gates.  Outside on the streets, these same people would have seemed intimidating or unapproachable, but within the park, guards are down and everyone seems to be at their very purest and best. A strange perception of reality sets in and it hardly seems credible that so many different races and backgrounds are all in the same place, all around the same lake, lounging on the same grass.  Fredrick Olmstead designed this park to be shared by all, as a democratic, common land. To see that goal materialized, and hold true today, in some form, a realized vision, it’s uncanny.  Of course, this is idealistic, and ideals are unattainable, but that’s the power of this place; its illusion is that at moments, it seems to come close.

———————-

In November 2011, Kehrer Verlag published Rozovsky’s One to Nothing, which was included on Alec Soth’s Top 20 Photobooks of 2011. Selections from In Plain Air will be in the group exhibition “Everything That Rises Must Converge” from March 2 through March 18 at The Current Space in Baltimore, Maryland.

This week, let’s email helpdesk@dailyserving.com with your questions (you can use a free anonymizer like Anonymouse.org if you want) and save the comments section for continuing the conversation on the topic at hand.  All submissions will be treated as anonymous and become the property of Daily Serving.

Your counselor, hard at work.

I am a curator and was recently contacted by an artist whom I have never met, who was recommended to me by a mutual acquaintance (another artist). The artist is inviting me to do a studio visit, but after looking at the artist’s website, I know that I am completely uninterested in seeing the work in person. I would like to decline the request in a way that is honest but kind, without necessarily making an explicit value judgment about the work. (I realize that expressing an opinion from my position holds a specific kind of weight.) I want to avoid wasting anyone’s time by doing a studio visit that will not yield anything for either of us. From an artist’s perspective, how can a curator best handle this situation?

This is a great question, one that many of us on the receiving end have thought about long and hard. Personally, I take my rejections straight up (with an escapist murder-mystery chaser), because the perennially used and ever-ambiguous “I’m very busy right now,” leaves me wondering, Do I ask again later? How much later? Or should I understand somehow that “busy” actually means “go away forever”? One might spend days second-guessing the intention of such messages and ultimately end up more depressed than if there had simply been a polite “No, thank you.”

As always, I thought I’d better ask around in case my preferences aren’t the norm. Surprisingly, everyone I asked said you should be candid, but in varying degrees. The artists I queried are all in various stages of their careers, from fresh out of school to seasoned professionals with gallery representation and long CVs. Despite the differences in experience, the sentiment was the same: don’t beat around the bush. Some had great suggestions for how they’d like their “no” served: hot, room-temperature, and/or with a side of kindness.

One artist told me, “I’d say give it to them straight. It was the artist that did the contacting and so they should be ready to be rejected, it’s already happened to them many times if they’ve been an artist for long. Maybe something along the lines of, ‘Thanks for your kind invitation. I enjoyed looking at the work on your website but it is not a great match for my curatorial direction. I don’t believe that a studio visit from me would prove to be of any benefit to you or your work so in order not to waste any of your time I must decline. I wish you the best and thank you again for the offer.’”

Yes, it's a negative.

Another suggested, “I think if the curator wrote the artist an email saying, ‘I looked at your work on the website and while it is interesting (add whatever adjective to soften the blow), I’m not sure that its a great fit for the work that I generally show,’ I think the artist would find a way to understand.’”

If you’d prefer to keep your rejection more open-ended, you could try, “Thank you for contacting me regarding a potential studio visit. At this time, I am not involved in any projects that would be suitable for your work and I prefer to make studio visits with a specific goal/endpoint/situation/exhibition in mind. I do encourage you to keep me updated on new bodies of work.”

An additional idea that almost everyone mentioned was your ability as a curator to point the artist in the right direction by supplying the names of other curators who might be interested. Obviously this is not always possible (for example, if the work is of a quality that you would be embarrassed to recommend); but barring the truly awful, if you can help the artist create a relationship that would be mutually beneficial, then you will have done two people (the artist and the other curator) a great service. One respondent to my query suggested, “I’m not the best person to review your work but perhaps ping these people [insert name here].”

Another artist would like to remind you that looking at work on a website isn’t the same as seeing it in person, and that sometimes there is more to a studio visit than finding a perfect aesthetic match. This person commented, “Above all, I would like for someone to come do a quick visit. You could say, ‘I have about 15 minutes to stop by,’ if the concern is wasting time. Talking with someone is never a waste of time in my opinion no matter how busy you are, and who knows what kind of relationship will develop—even if you still don’t like the work. There may be something about the work that is never seen in image form or that person may be able to contribute in some other way beyond the typical curator-artist relationship.”  Another artist, thinking about this issue more long-term, added, “I would always consider if there is anything I could stand to benefit from a studio visit or meeting. If time is really of the essence, I would tell them that I have limited time for studio visits, but I would be interested in seeing what the work looks like in, say, a year, if time permits. If the artist is dedicated enough to follow up in a year, I would genuinely reevaluate the offer and take a look at the work again.”

To steal a line from one response, “Artists know that rejection is part and parcel of the field we have chosen.” It’s better for everyone involved in the arts—artists and curators alike—if we spend our time and energy with people who can support our endeavors.

How would you advise a young artist to stay mentally healthy in his/her studio? Dealing with extended solitary time and rejection can be tough. Tips?

I gave some ideas about creating a peer group in this column a few weeks ago, to which I would add that you should be getting regular feedback on your work if you want to avoid that “toiling in Siberia” feeling. One way to get feedback is to contact local curators in your area and ask them for studio visits that focus on a “cold read” of your work. You might want to hunt down some similarly-young curators for this, so that you can all essentially practice on each other. They’ll be flattered to be asked and you might make some new friends.

Dealing with rejection is going to depend a bit on your personality and circumstances, but the one thing that you must learn to do is not internalize the negativity such that it affects your practice. Historically (and in Hollywood films), our models of oft-rejected artists have been bitter egotists, weepy depressives, and the drug-addicted. May I suggest that you sidestep these choices?  Aside from being unhealthy and hard on your immediate circle of friends, they’re all quite clichéd and boring.

Jasper Johns, Target with Plaster Casts, 1955. Encaustic and collage on canvas with objects, 51 x 44 in

But how to avoid getting to that dark place? Life as an artist is full of rejection, so it’s best to learn how to bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune early on. One method that seems to work quite well is to apply for everything. It is time consuming, but can be quite effective. Using this strategy, when you get the next letter that begins with “Dear Artist” and ends with “…but we wish you good luck in the future” you can safely move your thoughts to the next possibility and not dwell on that particular unfavorable answer. Move forward, and concentrate on opportunities.

A little commiseration can help you lick your wounds, too. If you’ve got a peer network that you trust, have a rejection dinner party where everyone brings their form letters and reads aloud (I’m certain there’s a drinking game to be invented from this). It helps so much to know that you’re not alone, and this applies to everyone from a freshman performance artist to the wretched three people who did not win the Turner Prize last year. Their work hangs in the Tate and I’m still pretty sure that they all went home on award night and got out the gin and the telephone.

I think it was the writer Natalie Goldberg who suggested that all rejections should be countenanced with the mantra, “So what, so what, so what?” but if this seems too insouciant for the novice, I suggest the more earnest, “Next time, next time, next time.” Don’t let a negative reply take the joie from your vivre. And if nothing else works, try to remember that “no” is an extremely small word: only two letters, a single syllable, and utterly forgettable.

Anthony Discenza, The Way It Is, 2009. Digital print, 24 x 18 inches

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“Cameras are the antidote and the disease, a means of appropriating reality and of making it obsolete.” – Susan Sontag

In her 1977 essay, “The Image-World,” Susan Sontag wrote that the practice of photography – and the overabundance of images that come along with it – leave us desensitized to the “real” world. Despite the fact that photographs are considered traces of their subject, we typically see photographs as independent, material objects – separate from their original subjects and somehow more palatable. They even occupy a specific moment of time, different from our own, turning the present into the past and the past into the present.

But Sontag was writing about the role of the photograph as she knew it, which never included sculpture, or photographs functioning not just as traces of objects but as actual simulations, or three-dimensional copies.  The last year has seen a rise in artists working with photography in sculpture, with more than a few of these artists choosing to juxtapose “real” objects with their 2- or 3-dimensional, photographic copies. Is there a difference between images functioning like this in the world and “the image-world” that Sontag describes? Or are they one and the same?

Jerry McMillan, "Wrinkle Bag," 1965. Black and white photographic bag construction with shelf and Plexiglas cover. 12.75 x 11.75 x 7 inches.

Ironically, even as Sontag was puzzling over “The Image-World” and the rest of the essays that would become On Photography, searching to delineate a niche in the fine art world for photography, curator Peter Bunnell took an even larger step. In 1970, Bunnell launched “Photography into Sculpture” at the Museum of Modern Art, “the first comprehensive survey of photographically formed images used in a sculptural or fully dimensional manner.”

The show included a work by Jerry McMillan called “Wrinkle Bag” (1965) – perhaps one of the first of its kind. “Wrinkle Bag” was not merely a photograph, but a high-quality, black-and-white reproduction of the texture of crumpled paper, cut into the shape of a brown paper lunch sack. In its recent re-manifestation at Los Angeles’ Cherry and Martin Gallery, “Wrinkle Bag” looked eerily contemporary, perhaps because this type of photographic reproduction has resurfaced recently in the works of contemporary artists, like Urs Fischer, amongst others.

Installation view of "Who's Afraid of Jasper Jonnson," Tony Shafrazi Gallery, 2008.

In 2008, Fischer collaborated with Gavin Brown on the exhibition “Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?”, at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. Fischer and Brown hired a photographer to document the gallery’s previous show – “Four Friends”, which included work by Donald Baechler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf – and then wallpapered the gallery with the images, printed in a 1:1 scale.  The results were chaotic, with the photographed work punctuating, even interrupting, the current exhibit.  There were even moments where a photographed object was juxtaposed against the original, as in the case of the security guard.

Fischer repeated this technique last year for his solo exhibition at the New Museum, taking photographs of the entire third floor, including the ceiling, and then re-papering those same walls at a 1:1 ratio. 2-d images of the side of the exit sign line up with the exit sign itself; the ceiling is covered with a huge photograph that includes two-dimensional images of flickering flourescent lights, right next to the lights themselves.

Urs Fischer, "Marguerite de Ponty," 2010. Installation view. Mixed Media.

By all reports, this was a challenging room to walk through, although reactions varied – many went through to quickly and missed the minor details. Conversely, the reward for those who took their time was an unsettled feeling brought on by the proximity of “real” and “unreal” copies of the same object. There is a visceral difference between experiencing a photographic image on its own and as an image returned to its original context, or placed back in the image world as an object.

Perhaps the most intriguing of these artists is Miriam Bohm, who has completed multiple series – Inventory and Areal, for example – in which she photographs objects such as packages, arranges those photographs in ways that echo the original arrangement, and then rephotographs them. The result is a complex layer of images, leaving you, as the viewer, with nothing concrete save the object of the photograph itself. In the words of Brendan Fay, writing for Artforum, “In Bohm’s hands, it is the photograph’s presence as an object that provides the most immediate basis for apprehending the image it contains.”

Miriam Böhm, "Inventory XII," 2010. Chromogenic color print. 23.6 x 17.7 inches. Edition of 2 with 2 APs.

“Our unlimited use of photographic images not only reflects but gives shape to this society, one unified by the denial of conflict.”

Sontag was curious about the image-world she described, including whether it was the only variety possible. She even proposed an ecology of images, or a mitigating of sorts. In reality, we’ve gone the opposite direction – more images surround us than ever – but when artists insist on re-inserting an image back into its original context, or even threaten to use it to replace an object, it’s hard not to believe there’s a shift afoot.

Your counselor, hard at work.

Some galleries provide artists with information on who is purchasing their artwork…others do not. What’s up with that? I feel like smaller galleries are super paranoid of artists selling out from under them while bigger more stable galleries offer full contact information to artists.

I’m not a gallerist, so I asked around to see if anyone could help me shed a little light on this subject. Catharine Clark, of Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, generously provided this information for me to share:

“We disclose the name of a collector to an artist when a sale is made. Often collectors and artists enjoy meeting one another, and we help to facilitate that when it’s possible. We disclose additional contact information when artists are in the process of determining what work can be available for a museum exhibit, for example, or if they ask for it because they want to write a thank you note or correspond in some way with the collector. Some collectors are very private, and the information about them is proprietary, so we evaluate each request as it is made and determine whether the use of the information will be respectful. We have had the unfortunate experience of the information being inappropriately shared and the collectors have then felt betrayed. Since we work on loan agreements with the museum registrars, collectors, and artists, usually it is at that point that all contact information becomes most transparent. We also maintain relationships with the collectors so that we are able to follow the whereabouts of work as people move or re-sell their collections.”

Nathan Lynch, Alternative Therapies, 2010. Found object, reclaimed fir

Of course, Catharine Clark Gallery is an established and highly professional operation. You might find a different set of standards at work with another, smaller or newer gallery. While I can’t speak to the “paranoia” of a gallery, I can offer some advice to artists just starting out: ask for a contract that specifically states that you need to be given collector information when a sale is made. I do believe that you have a right to know where your work is going.

I also want to stress that you don’t want to use collector information in an improper way. It would be indecorous and short-sighted to pester your collector, or to try to make a direct-from-studio sale next time and skip the gallery’s commission. If you’re represented, don’t ever ever do this; and if you’re not represented and the buyer connected with you through a gallery, then you owe the gallery a percentage of the sale anyway—unless you like bad blood and never want to show there again. But it’s not a bad idea to have at least basic collector information so that you can keep a spreadsheet on the whereabouts of your work. That way when PS1 offers you a retrospective and then makes you track down and then pick up all your own work—like they did to a certain unnamed young female artist recently—you can find it all. I also refer readers to Chapter 13, “Gallery Representation” of the excellent Art/Work by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber, which goes into more detail about the ins and outs of working with galleries.

Kenneth Noland, Untitled (Target), 1963. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

I have large breasts. I recognize that this affords me some extra opportunities, considering most of the dealers I have worked with are straight men. I should add that I think my work is strong. Should I feel guilty about the advantages my sex appeal might grant me?

At first glance, your question seems rather straightforward: Can I use my boobs to get ahead? And the answer, of course, is yes, you can. But I worry about you, buxom lass, because I wonder what “extra opportunities” you’re talking about. Is this a euphemism for being shtupped on the casting couch or just an invitation to show at an art fair? If it’s the former, please do be careful, I’d hate to read a follow-up letter about a chesty misunderstanding. If it’s the latter, I’m not entirely convinced. Your assumption that large tatas give you an edge is a smidge dubious; how do you know it’s not just the power of your “strong” work? Because believe it or not, there are a lot of men out there for whom a pair of big knockers is a non-issue. It’s been forty years since Dow Corning first introduced breast implants to the market, so it’s not as if large breasts are hard to find these days, even in the art world.

Marina Abramovic, Balkan Erotic Epic, 2005. Still from video

Remember that a condition that is emphasized in the mind may not be such a big deal in reality. Consider this: you probably use your smile often. Your happy grin might possibly contribute to your sex appeal. When you smile at your dealers, do you consider the advantages of your teeth, which I’m guessing are clean(ish) and all still in your mouth? Do you feel guilty about using your lips and teeth? Probably not, but you have to admit that they are a physical advantage that others may not have. As ridiculous as that sounds, I want you to consider your breasts as just one more attribute, like shiny white teeth or your height or red hair, that may or may not have a bearing on your relative position in the world. Otherwise, I fear you run the risk of overestimating the advantage of your chest and underestimating the energy of your work.

Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield

My final answer is this: you’re not going to feel guilty, Miss Balcony, because you’re going to continue to make good art and get it in front of the people who need to see it. If your breasts provide a pleasing place for a dealer’s eye to occasionally rest when taking a breather from goggling at your incredible work, so be it, as long as you’re comfortable with that. You may use this if you like, but I beg you not to believe, not for one minute, that this is the source of your power. You are an artist, not a stripper, and may you never mistake one profession for the other.

HELP DESK is sponsored in part by the generosity of KQED arts in San Francisco.

Your counselor, hard at work.

What advice would you have for artists who are separated from the university realm to keep themselves sharp (in terms of criticism and general growth)? Have you found specific groups or events that have helped keep you on track beyond academic circles?

Good for you for wanting to stay sharp! The instantaneous peer network and programming that a school provides helps to keep you on your toes, and once school is over it’s hard to maintain that momentum outside of an institutional setting. Groups and events do different things, so you’ll definitely want both in your life: a group will keep you connected and supported, and events will keep you informed and thinking. For groups, the network you’ve already established is a good start: with any luck, you still have the contact information for some of your old classmates. Why not email them to suggest a get-together? I recommend keeping it short and informal at first if you haven’t seen them in a while—maybe just a one-beer meetup at a bar or even an email list—because too much pressure to commit will drive shyer folks away. When you settle in with some like-minded people you could start a crit group or a reading club, go to openings together, or even just host a few fun, gossipy dinner parties.

First, find a group of people who share your interests.

If that’s no good (you hated everyone, you moved to another state, etc.) and you don’t already have a circle of art friends, you can make one by going to the events in your area and meeting other artists and curators. It will take time and effort, but it can be done. Start by listing the institutional networks that are available to you. If there’s an art school or a university art program in your area, they probably have a lecture series. Ditto for the local art museum and the galleries. Don’t forget to do an internet search for medium-specific groups like Dorkbot, and if you don’t know the name of a particular group try googling search terms in your field (I tried “painters art group Seattle” and got a great list of links to follow). Go to their websites and put yourself on their mailing lists, and then go to every lecture and opening you can possibly muster the energy for, where you will simultaneously look at a lot of art and see the same people over and over again. Put some energy into it, and within three months you’ll be a familiar face to a lot of people and have a good handle on your local art scene. If you feel extra stuck right now, consider taking a class. Most institutions offer noncredit classes where you can get in some studio time and meet other artists. And good luck! Build yourself a network of thoughtful, hard-working people and make sure to get out of the studio regularly to look at art, and you’ll never have to worry about staying on track.

Go to museums, galleries, lectures, and medium-specific group meetings.

I have a strange question involving an incident I witnessed two years ago when I moved to a new city. Some friends set up a welcome dinner for me at a trendy restaurant. Upon entering the bathroom I came upon a woman in her late-30s, sobbing hysterically. She begged me to help her and revealed that her husband was cheating on her and she was absolutely going to do something desperate if I didn’t help her at that moment. I called a cab and helped her outside and waited until she was picked up. I never knew her name, but I do have a remarkable memory for faces. Fast forward, two years: I am a recent grad of an MFA program and I’ve had a close relationship with my adviser all along. I knew he was married and had children, but it wasn’t until our MFA show that I met his family. Imagine my shock when I saw that his wife was that drunk lady I had helped. My real issue lies in my relationship with my adviser. He has helped me greatly and until this revelation, I would have continued our communications, which are still frequent. This information has severely altered my impression of him, and I’m just not sure how to proceed. Any advice?

Can you trust this man, or not? I’ll accept your avowal that the weeping restaurant inebriate and the advisor’s wife are truly the same woman, but before you un-friend this man on Facebook and delete his name from your phone, let’s look at another possibility. How do you know she was telling the truth? She may be bipolar, delusional, or simply mistaken. She may be a pathological liar, desperately needy for attention from strangers. Let’s remember that the world is full of broken people who say and do aberrant things—just look at reality TV.  Perhaps the only way to know the veracity of this story would be to ask him, which you are not going to do. My rule is that you can only inquire about a person’s sex life if you are currently sleeping with him or her; and if you are now sleeping with your ex-advisor, you’ve asked me the wrong question. But I digress.

If you haven't seen Hitchcock's masterpiece about an affair, revenge, and redemption, you really should. Also, it was his only film made for 3D! Keep an eye out for staging that specifically creates depth.

Even if you do have all your facts straight (same woman, definitely an affair), the matter of another person’s extracurricular nookie is really none of your business. I understand why you’re in a muddle and why your view of this man is shaken. Of necessity, when you are in school you must put your faith in your relationship with your advisors. After all, these men and women are charged with nothing less than overseeing the personal, intellectual and artistic growth of the students that they work with. You probably looked up to this man for some good reasons: he is wise and has been generous with his time and energy. He helped you focus on your work to make it better, and if you’re still in touch it means that you had a good personality match. While you may not have articulated it to yourself, you probably assumed that because his professional behavior was congenial, all his actions were above reproach. And now you’re also in the unsteady transition period from graduate school to real life, one in which very good mentors slowly develop into friends. Your trust in this person has been altered by the revelation that he is, or at least was, weak and unreliable to an important person in his family. The higher your former regard for this man, the more profound your disappointment is now.

Yet his marital iniquity doesn’t have anything to do with his ability to act as a friend and mentor. Yes, the moral transgression of adultery is ugly and wounding, but it doesn’t mean that he is completely evil. If you have other, undivulged, reasons for cutting this person out of your life, then do so. But consider that a person who has been kind to you but who has issues in other parts of his life may need a little compassion. A marriage is a complicated and private alliance and this incident with his wife occurred two years ago. If they are still together, then perhaps she has forgiven him and he has become a better husband. Why should you condemn what his own wife would absolve? An advisor-advisee relationship that evolves into a true friendship is a rare thing. If he hasn’t done anything vexatious to you personally, then don’t throw your advisor out with his dirty bathwater.

HELP DESK is sponsored in part by the generosity of KQED arts in San Francisco.

Maurizio Cattelan. "All." Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. November 4, 2011 - January 22, 2012.

People seem to either love or despise Cattelan’s retrospective All, on view through January 22^nd at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Roberta Smith of The New York Times suggests, “[w]hatever their strengths, the individual works are radically decontextualized and diminished in this arrangement.” The arrangement to which Smith refers is the suspension of 128 works – the entirety of Cattelan’s artistic production (apart from two works owners refused to loan) – within Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic open rotunda. Works ranged from giant slabs of carved granite and models of dinosaur skeletons to photographs, canvases and the smallest of sculptures, subtly and unexpectedly placed throughout. Anyone looking at this exhibition cannot deny that – at the very least – it is a feat of engineering genius.

Maurizio Cattelan. "All," 2007. Marble. As installed at the New Museum, New York.

I had previously seen several of the works displayed at the Guggenheim under more “conventional” circumstances. A series of nine Carrara marble sculptures resembling bodies under sheets, All (2007) was displayed almost alone in a gallery at the New Museum for the 2010 exhibition, Skin Fruit. In this context, the work was arresting, a disquieting reflection on the history of needless and anonymous death. A similarly serious tenor surrounds the installation of Ave Maria (2007), a series of three highly realistic saluting arms projecting from the wall, at Tate Modern. Presented amidst a gallery of stunning post-Impressionist paintings and classical marble sculpture, the work functions ambiguously, disrupting our reception of the neighboring works with questions of political violence and hierarchy. Untitled (2009), a taxidermied horse on its side with a wooden sign reading “INRI” protruding from its abdomen, was included in Tate Modern’s Pop Life. In the gallery preceding Cattelan’s piece was Andrea Fraser’s controversial work in which the artist videotapes herself having sex with a collector. To immediately follow this emotionally charged experience with a giant taxidermied horse felt like a delightful respite. I was struck by the work’s humor and absurdity, an ironic play on the illustrious history of the equine in art.

Maurizio Cattelan, Errotin, le vrai lapin (a), 1995. Cibachrome, photograph by Lionel Foumeaux, plexiglass. 33.5 x 23.5 inches. Courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

The unorthodox installation at the Guggenheim affords an entirely unique and site-specific experience of Cattelan’s work, making incredible use of the museum’s architecture. For an artist who touts himself a practitioner of relational aesthetics, the exhibition approach was particularly fitting. One experiences every vantage point of a given work, a perspective untenable with traditional methods of display. I found myself ascending the ramp more slowly than the way I walked through the galleries of the deKooning retrospective the day before at MoMA, intrigued by the unusual juxtapositions that revealed themselves with each step; works that may otherwise have been separated by several rooms could be seen simultaneously across the atrium, allowing the viewer to dictate what comparisons or relationships were most relevant to him or her. The physical distance this installation creates between viewer and work encouraged me to look more closely, perhaps less so at individual works, but again, more at how they related to one another. I was especially pleased by the tongue-in-cheek positioning of small-scale pieces like the tiny bug (Untitled (1995)), which was placed on the head of the elephant in Not Afraid of Love (2000). This is certainly not what people anticipate when they hear “retrospective.” Then again, expecting the norm from an artist known for his humor, irreverence and subversion seems a bit foolish.

This retrospective marks the end of Cattelan’s career as an artist. But who knows? If Barbra Streisand’s two farewell tours is any indication, we may see this artist again sooner than we think.

#Hashtags provides a platform for longer reconsiderations of artworks and art practices outside of the review format and in new contexts. Please send queries and/or ideas for future to hashtags@dailyserving.com.

A corner of a long-ago building, the wall borders the edge of the Ecotrust Building parking lot, located in one of the most renovated and redeveloped commercial sections of Portland, OR.  It should do what all walls do:  create a boundary, or support a series of hidden, internal structures of unknown weight and gravity.  Perhaps, and I know I’m getting radical here, perhaps keep some things out and let others in?

Yet everything this wall has to offer flies in the face of such simple aspirations, and for that reason alone, I love it.  Structurally, the wall is useless.  It supports nothing, contains nothing. It simply stands, a ruined fragment with several sets of windows, all empty of glass, their rusted-red shutters thrown open.  The door to an old loading bay gapes like an open mouth. Aesthetically and metaphorically, however, the wall transcends its structural ineffectiveness, making it—to my mind—a metaphor for the best of all art.

The wall of the Ecotrust Building in Portland OR. Photograph by Rosa Say, courtesy of Flickr.

When you stand outside a building and peek in the window, you expect an inside view, a chance to be a voyeur to something at once internal and intimate.  Instead, the architects responsible for letting this ruined wall stand (Holst Architecture PC) create an entirely different kind of experience.  The interior has gone missing, replaced by a row of cherry trees planted on the other side. The psychological experience vacillates between feeling like you’re looking into the eyes of a soul mate and a pair of mirrored sunglasses that reflect only yourself back.

I was reminded of this wall a few days ago, when a friend sent me a link to an article by Randy Kennedy in the New York Times—“Serendipity as Urban Curator”—in which Mr. Kennedy narrates his decision to look at New York as a readymade, ready to be selected and framed, starting with the view out the window of the N train into Manhattan as the train ascends the Brooklyn Bridge.

Subway window, New York City. Photograph by Mindsay Mohan, courtesy of Flickr.

As a writer immersed in the art industry, I understand the tendency to start to see one’s surroundings as one evolving and connected art piece, or to literally have doubts about whether what one experiences is “art” or “life.” A few years ago, on the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, a man matched my stride for a block or two and I could not help but feel like I was being engaged in a private performance piece.

The part of Mr. Kennedy’s article I found most compelling, however, was the implicit suggestion that art does not just happen, but is made—by the window frame of the subway train, the hands shaping it, the mind of the person experiencing it, or the culture surrounding it. For the first time in a long while, I thought of the Ecotrust wall—a favorite Portland landmark of mine—and all the characteristics it seems to share with capital-A “Art”: the combination of purposelessness and craft, accident and design, self-absorption and curiosity.

Ryan McGinley, "Tom (Golden Tunnel)," 2010, C-Print, 72 x 110 inches. Courtesy Team Gallery.

I believe that the best art writing should bring one’s awareness to the frame—to the walls, or the subway windows—without forgetting to bring the reader into the experience. I also believe in laying bare the fact that writing itself is a frame, and using this function of language to bring together aspects of visual culture that otherwise might go unmentioned.  Last year #Hashtags brought you articles on graffiti in relation to the Arab Spring and narcotrafficking websites in relation to Aztec ritual, plus artists working with Occupy and meditations on art after 9/11. Looking towards 2012, we promise it will only get better.

Your friendly counselor, hard at work.

Question: Both my girlfriend and I are artists. Neither of us are particularly successful with our art careers (yet!). In the past, we’ve worked separately in our studios, but we are thinking that we may be stronger working together. I’m a little nervous to start this process. Do you think it is a good idea to mix art and love?

Two creative minds are often better than one, and the examples of Jeanne Claude and Christo and Ed and Nancy Keinholz tell us that art and love can surely be mixed. But before you run out to buy matching smocks and berets, consider the reality of working on tasks that you already do together. When you cook, does one of you tend to take the lead, dictating the selection of dishes and the proper ways to prep, add, and stir? Or are you happily slicing and dicing like synchronized surgeons? When you’re running errands in the car, do you argue about routes and where to park? Or does one drive and the other assume co-pilot duties with nary a cross word between you? Your everyday activities will tell you a lot about how a collaborative relationship might proceed.

Oh yeah? Well I have 20/20 vision, so I get to choose all the paint colors!

And that’s not to say that a bickering duo should never work together; friction is productive both in and out of the studio. But in the interest of household harmony, you might want to start small with one piece or a limited-run project. Lay out the terms in advance: how much time and money you’re going to spend, who decides on which aspect, how you’re going to negotiate a disagreement. Talking about the issues will prepare you for what’s ahead and alert you to any sticking points in advance. If you can agree to the basics at the verbal level, then you’ll know that working together is worth a try. And if your short-term project doesn’t pan out as well as you’d like, you’ll have an easy out that’s not as damaging to true love in the same way as saying, “You’re a pain in the ass and I don’t think we should work together anymore.”

You mention that you’re “not particularly successful” and while I don’t think that has any direct bearing on your question, it does give you the advantage of being able to experiment and iron out all the kinks in your collaborative process before you’re in the public eye.

From left to right, Whitney Biennial curatorial teams Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders, Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari, Henriette Huldisch and Shamim M. Momin, Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne

Currently, the lines between curator, artist, and gallerist are relatively flexible. A person could consider themselves all of the above, switching hats regularly to occupy different art world roles. My question stems from frequently noticing that the person responsible for curating a group show has also included his or her work into the group show. How appropriate is this? When is it being proactive about creating opportunities for oneself and when is it opportunistic?

Let me start by saying that I’m all for the wearing of different hats. However, in art as in sartorial matters, it is strange to wear two hats at the same time. They clash, and they also make your head look big.

As far as I have been able to determine, there are two good reasons to put your own work into a show for which you are also administratively responsible, but for neither are you actually truly a curator. The first is if you want to organize a show around a particular theme for which none of the participants will exhibit preexisting work; that is to say, all work will be created specifically for the show. In this way, everyone is experimenting around a concept, and the hierarchy is fairly level: you are merely one of the exhibitors, albeit one with more tasks. You are not actually a curator. The other situation is an exhibition juried by an artist. In viewing the work of the juror, the audience gets a glimpse into the tastes (and perhaps methodologies) of the person selecting the pieces for the show. Often the artist-juror works in the same medium or in a similar conceptual framework, so looking at his/her art in the context of the exhibition can be enlightening. Again, this person is not a curator. So go ahead and be proactive, just don’t use the wrong terminology.

Still the right way to wear a hat.

The role of a curator is not to just select work for an exhibition, but to shape the relationships between the work, the space, and the audience. Curating involves research, studio visits, knowledge of art history and theory, and an understanding of current artistic practices, as well as a host of (probably boring) administrative tasks. Since I’m not a practitioner myself, I asked a few curators what they thought about the idea of “curating” your own work into a show. Jens Hoffmann, curator of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art said, “It is great that someone who is an artist is organizing an exhibition without waiting for a gallery or curator to come along…If the work however is not of a certainly quality and the idea of organizing the show is just created so the organizer/artist can have his work be seen with the work of other (better) artists, it just becomes a farce.” Most other curators I asked simply said, “Don’t.”

To the aspiring artist/curators out there, I ask: if you are truly curating a show, what reason do you have to include your own work? Is it because you want to to pad your resume? Or do you want to get your work out into the world? If it’s the latter (let’s not even discuss the former), it would be more productive in the long run to find a space for your own artwork. Put your energy toward making contacts, writing proposals, or renting one of the ubiquitous vacant storefronts in your area for a solo show. Clarify and concentrate your goals…if for no other reason than because working with other artists can be a complete nightmare (see question #1).

HELP DESK is sponsored in part by the generosity of KQED arts in San Francisco.

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

Comprising only a large installation at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Gabríela Friðriksdóttir’s Crepusculum – Latin for “twilight” or “dusk” – is a mixed-media, polyphonic, physical exploration of metaphysical structures that govern the human psyche, and speculates that an enigmatic and irrational system of signs, meanings and forms counterbalances the deceptively ordered exteriors of our existence.

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

Above all, it is an experiential and tactile show that prioritises evoking a multitude of emotions over engaging the intellect. A large, white spherical entity around which alchemic instruments are scattered sits on a pile of sand; music seems to leak out from all sides of the wall, surrounded by glass-protected ancient Icelandic calfskin parchments that record supernatural accounts of a medieval Scandinavian world inhabited by witches, trolls and dragons. The installation is populated with elemental components of the earth such as dust, dough, fire, blood, burlap and fur, but also overlaid with textures that are fur- or hair-roughened. An accompanying video bolsters the already-surreal installation as a narrator weaves a showy mythological universe with his droning words: a man guts slimy fish, a figure lithely unfolds itself out of clay “legs” and “helmet”, a figure wrapped in tattered cloths hikes laboriously across a sandy wasteland with another strapped to his back towards the self-same spherical entity.

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

Crepusculum’s allusive and mystical atmosphere appears to be as much a personal aesthetic journey as it is a collective memory of Iceland’s histories. Materially, the exhibition is about Friðriksdóttir’s continued creative experimentation with diverse materials and media that has been in part influenced by the breadth of Swiss/German Dieter Roth’s artistic processes and vocabulary. Friðriksdóttir’s starting point for Crepusculum is rooted in her own dreams – intangible tendrils of thoughts that bleed into each other are first allowed to drift unassisted into esoteric realms and subsequently thematically developed through a combination of simple sketches, sculpture and film. The overall effect is an imagistic universe comprising a choir of overlapping voices, an aggregate of signs and diverse earthy components, but it is hard to see beyond Crepusculum as an oracular endeavour to present nebulous connections to sexual psychology and pop culture while casting light on deconstructing traditional patterns of narratives located within Norse mythology .

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

But Crepusculum is also Friðriksdóttir’s personal re-imagination of a time in Iceland when folklore, gods and magic were fundamental tenets of existence, and where elaborate stories of creation were punctuated by moments of horror, melancholy and unquestioning didacticism. Augmenting her exhibition are twelfth century manuscripts and almanacs loaned from the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík for the first time; such is the reinforcement of the historical investment in Iceland’s national cultural heritage and the revelation of the intense grip that these traditions and mythology still have on twenty-first century Icelandic culture. Perhaps then, for Friðriksdóttir, this is simultaneously a profound ambassadorial undertaking on behalf of the Icelandic people, a cultural burden so complex that it could only be presented in ambivalent spaces as metaphysical considerations.

***

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir: Crepusculum will be on show at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt until January 8, 2012.

For the last few months, #Hashtags has had one thing on its mind — #occupy.  We, too, are part of the 99%. Today, we’re happy to feature Artist Bloc No. 1, a zine devoted to discussing the role of art workers and the Occupy movement.  Organized by a group of Bay Area artists, scholars and writers, including Christian L. Frock, Julia Bryan Wilson, and Adrienne Skye Roberts, Artist Bloc No. 1 asks “what are the stakes [of artists and art workers] in the discourse around economics, labor, and access to cultural resources?”  We’ve got the first ten pages posted, download the rest at occupationzine, or at Visible Alternative.com.

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Eleanor Antin, “100 Boots,” 1971-73.

Alright, I’ll say it. A show that features conceptual art circa 1970 threatens to be dry. At the outset, you know you’ll be getting mostly documentation: photographic, video, film, and paper. Beyond the ordinary wall text, there will probably be artists’ statements explaining what was done while you weren’t looking. The typewriter, the mimeograph, and the camera will act as not-so-silent partners to the artists’ projects. “State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970” at the Orange County Museum of Art doesn’t escape these confines, but ends up offering you just a little bit more.

Bruce Nauman, “Studies for Holograms (Pinched Lips; Pulled Lower Lip; Pulled Neck; Pulled Cheeks; and Squeezed Lips),” 1970.

The show is divided into categories like “Mapping the Land,” “Politics,” “Public and Private Space,” and “Language and Wordplay.” As with previous shows I’ve seen at OCMA, these divisions hinder the overall experience. I found myself wishing that the curators had stuck to working chronologically or geographically, simply because most of the works are more interesting when viewed across categories, instead of in isolation. Bruce Nauman and Bonnie Sherk, for instance, would have made interesting counterpoints to each other; “State of Mind” includes Nauman’s Thighing (1967), Studies for Holograms (Pinched Lips; Pulled Lower Lip; Pulled Neck; Pulled Cheeks; and Squeezed Lips) (1970), and Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square (1967-68), to name a few, which pair nicely with Sherk’s Sitting Still series, where the artist photographs herself sitting in public locations usually used for passing through, like the Golden Gate Bridge or the corner of Mission and 20^th in San Francisco.

Bonnie Sherk, “Sitting Still II, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco,” from the “Sitting Still Series,” 1971.

“State of Mind” will appeal to those in the know before it appeals to the general public—Tom Marioni’s Process Print (1969) failed to capture the attention of the dozens of school kids running around the day I visited, as did Chris Burden’s video piece, Documentation of Selected Works (1971-74), in which Burden talks about most of his iconic performance pieces (Bed, Shoot).  It’s one of the gems of the show, as are most of John Baldessari’s pieces, which show themselves to be not just humorous and playful, but—by the time you get to Voluble Luminist Painting for Max Kozloff (1966-68)—downright contrarian.

John Baldessari, “Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-six Attempts),” 1973.

There is something for everyone, however; these same kids took delight in the hippie-looking, cut-out dudes featured in Allen Ruppersberg’s Al’s Grand Hotel (1971) and the animal intestines in Suzanne Lacy’s pieces. Also popular amongst the ten-year old crowd: sculptural works like Nauman’s Yellow Room (Triangular) (1973), Stephen Kalthenbach’s Raised Floor (1967/2011) and Robert Kinmont’s 8 Handstands (1969/2009)—one of which he performs at the edge of a cliff.

Robert Kinmont, “8 Natural Handstands,” 1969.

Kinmont’s piece touched me, too. The legacy left by conceptualism, California-based or otherwise, is pervasive, demanding and often unpleasurable.  Despite this, contemporary work that picks up conceptualism’s language is usually diluted and easy to overlook.  Concepts and actions that were once novel—if not out of bounds—are now familiar and trite. Walking into the main room of “State of Mind”—full of back-to-back projections, televisions, photographs, prints and paintings—after looking at Kinmont balancing at the edge of a cliff, offers just the faintest whiff of the energy of the moment.

“State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970” is on view at the Orange County Museum of Art through January 22, 2012 as part of Pacific Standard Time.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art defies the normal boundary between landing and gallery at the entrance to the fourth floor space that houses Sharon Lockhart’s "Lunch Break," 2008. Photo: Saul Rosenfield, ©2011, with permission of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The stairway to the fourth floor of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art leads me directly toward a long, narrow, darkened space, at the end of which is the image of another, much longer, passageway. In that image, a concrete floor below and light fixtures above trace a trajectory toward infinity punctuated by pipes, wires, hoses, storage boxes, tools, and lockers. The scene is not monochrome—red, blue, yellow, orange, and green are common—nor is it dark, but the fluorescent lights, the faded floor, the absent windows, and the constrained path—no more than five feet wide—suggest that this as a place to travel through, not a place in which to settle.

This sensation is amplified by the fact that the image, I slowly realize, is moving. Inch-by-inch down the corridor, the slow-motion journey of what turns out to be Sharon Lockhart’s film, Lunch Break (2008), might be confused with a series of stills.

Still image from Sharon Lockhart, “Lunch Break (Assembly Hall, Bath Iron Works, November 5, 2007, Bath, Maine),” 2008; 35mm film transferred to HD, 80 min.; courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; © Sharon Lockhart.

Lockhart, who says she is interested in “duration,” describes her method of filmmaking as “photographic.”[1] Despite appearances, the film is not typical slow-motion; Lockhart has digitally inserted eight repetitions of each frame, ballooning a 10-minute, 1,200-foot traverse into an 80-minute encounter. It is a film engaged in repeating moments, in suspending, not slowing, time. It asks me, in effect, to witness the moment once, and then again, and then again. It proposes that I might answer the question “What do you see?” only by pondering yet another, “Do you see what you see?”

All of a sudden, a person moves, and I recognize the objects dangling off a storage bin down the corridor as human legs. In this otherworldly place, everything that seems obvious at conventional speed becomes a mystery, a puzzle to be solved only by the closest attention. A young man with short blond hair in a white jumpsuit raises his hand to his forehead, or more precisely, raises———–his———-hand———-to———-his———–forehead, where the hand rests for two minutes of my time, or only about 10 seconds of his time. His hand settles back in his lap, and he looks down. Is this a moment of despair? As the blond man turns toward me, I recognize a gently waving hand below him. The hand is speaking, and it is attached to the green hoodie of another man. I assume the co-workers are friends; I want them to be friends. There is something emphatic in the gesture of the green-shirted man, something that could be advice or reprimand. The blond man’s lips part briefly. Then he turns away and looks down for what seems to be an eternity. Is he pensive or despondent? His hand returns to his forehead. The camera inches onward, never turning. There in front of me, two distinctive characters in a distinct place have enacted a story with no ending, one of some two dozen the procession reveals. Were the men talking about a spouse, a boss, a co-worker, a sports team, or the union? Were they complaining or sharing a story? Was the hand to the head about despair, exhaustion, a thought, or an itch?

Installation View of Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, October 15,2011—January 16, 2012, showing entrance to the film screening gallery (left), the neighboring gallery with a series of lunch-related photographs, and a pile of Lunch Break Times—Bay Area Edition, the 24-page tabloid newspaper Lockhart produced in San Francisco for this show. Photo: Johnna Arnold Photography.

It turns out that although this place looks like a passageway, it functions as a destination, a place for moving in rather than moving through. The film documents shipbuilders at the Bath Iron Works in Maine during the moments when they are not building ships. The procession down the hallway reveals one “all of a sudden” after another, its repeating moments of apparent stillness both facilitating contemplation and kindling suspense. I cannot make out the messages of these subdued bodies: body language needs the fluidity of its natural pace to achieve clarity. Further, the slow-motion procession foils the normal capacity to anticipate a movement the moment before it happens. I cannot join the rhythm of life in the corridor, and everything—a woman biting a sandwich, a man microwaving popcorn, a hand brushing a knee—becomes a riddle. While ordinarily I might compensate for these limitations through closer inspection, I cannot manage this: the procession, while inching, is inexorable, and the camera’s wide-angle frontward gaze, while inclusive, is unyielding.

The beauty of Lunch Break is that its attenuated moments make it difficult to lock onto a single interpretation: the slow shifting disturbs the storyline, twists it into another shape. I cannot resolve what has happened between the two men, but the film incubates a dozen possible answers, confounding the normal snap of my judgments. I have witnessed not simply the recorded event, but also the event of my own wondering, the activity of my imagination, which is often unconscious, extending over time. Lockhart has found a way to viscerally demonstrate the elasticity of the temporal-spatial experience. The event of the two men has taken only five minutes of my time, the camera traversing only 50 feet of corridor. Yet, within these repeated moments and movements, Lockhart has packed the narrative of a short story, one of many in the bursting anthology that comprises Lunch Break.

Still image from Sharon Lockhart, “Lunch Break (Assembly Hall, Bath Iron Works, November 5, 2007, Bath, Maine),” 2008; 35mm film transferred to HD, 80 min.; courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; © Sharon Lockhart.

The word “duration” refers to the period of time it takes for an event to occur, but I cannot sever its kinship to “endurance.” Both words stem from durus, Latin for “hard.” As I sat down to watch Lunch Break, I intended to stay, to endure, but I anticipated that the 80-minute experience would demand a sacrifice that would exceed my capacities. SFMoMA Curator of Media Arts, Rudolf Frieling, says of the experience, “The viewer’s attention and perception are constantly at work,”[1] meaning that Lockhart’s film forces the viewer not only to attend to things that he or she might normally overlook, but also to attend to attention, to perceive perception happening. There were moments when this was exhausting. In fact, the film asks me to perform the very labor the workers will soon resume: a repetitive effort. It was, however, never boring.

Lockhart gets to the crux of the activity common to both workers and viewers: the skill, ingenuity, and variation at the core of undertakings usually dismissed as trivial or onerous simply because they are repetitive. I cannot claim that my attention never wavered, only that Lunch Break inevitably rewarded the patient process of discovery. If speed seems to be the bugaboo of our age, critiqued for its narcotic-like capacity to gratify a sensation-seeking society’s desire for stimulation, then slowness, particularly as it unfolds here, offers another avenue toward the great rumbling revelation of experience: an opening—one story after another—into the expansive world of the imagination.

Sharon Lockhart, “Dirty Don’s Delicious Dogs,” 2008; chromogenic print; 41 1/16 x 51 1/16 in. (left), and “Gary Gilpatrick, Insulator,” 2008; chromogenic print; 24 3/4 x 30 3/4 in. (right), both courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, Gladstone Gallery, New York, and neugerriemschneider, Berlin; © Sharon Lockhart

It seems accurate to say, as one description does, that “Lunch Break’s gradual passage through the aged factory offers a meditative and melancholic reflection on the architectural, social and phenomenological space of a notably anachronistic mode of industrialized labor.”[2] And I might easily reflect—as Lockhart did during her gallery talk—upon the bookends that coincidentally bracket Lunch Break’s making and showing: the real estate bubble’s pop in 2007, and the union rupture in Wisconsin and the Occupy movement, both in 2011. But what is it about the film itself—rather than my projections about its subject—that evokes melancholy? It is true that the corridor is filled neither with laughter nor even many smiles. One man stretches, perhaps relieving an ache; a woman stares, perhaps fatigued; many read silently, as unanimated as the figures in the Duane Hanson sculpture that initially inspired Lockhart.[3] It may well be that melancholy unavoidably surfaces in this claustrophobic underground world, but it may also be that the restraint and deliberation of Lockhart’s procession forces me to consider not only the practices of perception and attention, but also those of reflection and judgment. Although the film inevitably raises associations to the conditions of factory labor, I found myself suspending—far more often than reaching—easy conclusions.[4]

Lunch break, indeed.

[2]Harvard Film Archive “Timestage. The Cinema of Sharon Lockhart,” 2009 [accessed October 19, 2011]. ”Anachronistic” may reflect both an actual trend toward automation and, particularly in industries like shipbuilding, a fantasy of completely automated processes that discounts the persistence of human labor.

[3]Lockhart’s triptych, Lunch Break Installation, “Duane Hanson: Sculptures of Life,” 14, December – 23 February 2003, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (2003), documented the installation of Hanson’s Lunch Break (Three Workers with Scaffold) (1989). Lockhart’s photographs of live workers installing fiberglass ones marked the beginning of the project that resulted in Lunch Break, the film.

[4]Among these associations are: contemporary globalization and the offshoring of manufacturing jobs; 19^th-century industrialization, the conditions of factory work, and, ironically, the increasing automation of manufacturing; and the work ethic itself.