This interview with Meg Cranston is taken from a book published by ARTSPACE and the New Zealand publishing company Clouds when ARTSPACE hosted a survey exhibition of her work entitled Meg Cranston: The Pleasure of Obvious Problems (4 August – 15 September 2007). The show was curated by Brian Butler and included works from various stages of Cranstons art career between 1987 and 2007. I unfortunately missed this show at Artspace but heard a lot about it from friends and have looked into Meg Cranstons work since.
In this interview Cranston mentions a group of LA artists who she admires, or feels a connection with, the are “Mike Kelley, Raymond Pettibon, Jim Shaw, and Liz Larner.” I too have had a long standing admiration and a strong sense of connection with the first three of these artists (I had never heard of Liz Larner). I saw Jim Shaw speak at the Sydney Bienalle, I have long been a fan of Raymond Pettibon’s illustrations starting with his illustrations for punk record covers for bands like Black Flag and Sonic Youth, and I was exposed to Mike Kelley’s band Destroy All Monsters through our tutor Simon Cummings in 2007. I enjoy the way that these people have managed to have active careers as artists by working through a range of cultural fields and by mixing up distinctions between high and low culture (a distinction which my time studying anthropology led me to be extremely cynical towards, especially after being raised in a semi-rural environment which seemed to me to be a complete vacuum of first hand encounters with 'high' culture). She says of the appeal that these artists have for her (pp.15), “I don’t think they’re anti-intellectual or against formal approaches, but they’re against a certain received notion of criticality.” This quote particularly resonated with me and my own approach to making work. Particularly interesting is what she calls “a certain received notion of criticality”. I think what she is talking about is gestures/tropes/aesthetics which become recognizable signs of critical/intellectual/high art thinking. Writing on the difficulty defining what makes Conceptual Art conceptual Seth Price says “Let’s put aside the question of what makes a work Conceptual, recognizing, with some resignation, that the term can only gesture toward a thirty year-old historical movement”(.1). The ‘received notion of criticality’ which Cranston mentions refers to attempts artists and critics make to link work to this historical movement through recognizable gestures. Raymond Pettibon paints with India ink on paper and Jim Shaw uses found paintings from thrift stores. The resulting works have various connotations such as; traditional, unskilled, bad, low (comic book/amateur). I think what Craston finds appealing about these artists is that they do not present a recognizable aesthetic of ‘conceptual art’ but at the same time we can not help but recognize that they are not anti-intellectual or against formal approaches. Their work is not necessarily less conceptual than Conceptual Art but they perhaps they do not feel the need to spell out their criticality in a simple way using obvious tropes.
An interesting comment on the way that people recognize the conceptual nature of work can be found in an interview with Jim Shaw on artist Tony Ourslers website;
TO: A few years ago you developed a major exhibition of hundreds of art works by artists outside the main stream who produced what you call ‘thrift store paintings’. This amazing exhibition toured the US and Europe and was accompanied by a lavish book. Conceptually the project had a great impact on the art public and the high/low dialogue. The issues surrounding this exhibition are important to our generation politically and artistically, and seem to echo around studios today.
JS: Well it wasn’t exactly conceptual, it was taken as conceptual because I went to Cal Arts...(.2)
What this amusing comment brings to attention is the way that a conceptual analysis can be brought by the viewer to any artwork, or cultural activity whether a conceptual critical analysis was intented by the maker or not. This is perhaps why many artists who want to position themselves as conceptual employ and play into ‘received notions of criticality’ which encourage the viewer to bring the kinds of readings associated with the Conceptual Art movement to the work.
(.1) Seth Price, "Dispersion" (2001-2002) a catalogue of the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Art 2003. available from http://distributedhistory.com
(.2) Jim Shaw interviewed by Tony Oursler (Not dated, accessed from www.tonyoursler.com)
http://www.tonyoursler.com/tonyourslerv2/words/interviewsTO/jimshaw.pdf
When you speak of 'a certain received notion of criticality' you attribute this to mean perhaps the appearance of clear tropes/aesthetics within contemporary art trends. Sure, I agree, work within a particular medium, in a certain format and as long as it is in the current 'in' set of aesthetic fads, you are bound to be lent a certain level of assumed criticality.. though perhaps I speak as a cynic on this.
ReplyDeleteYou then however, justify the work of these three artist you admire, as shirking that model. What happens then Dane when 'bad' illustration, low, traditional, or amatuer, are the buzz words of the time? Surely they get lent the 'certain received notion of criticality' too?
And lastly Shaw's quote... really pisses me off. If he went to Cal Arts, he cannot possibly have conceived the notion of a major exhibition of thrift store painters with high art style book, without considering the conceptual implications of it - his social, academic and cultural education simply don't allow for that. i don't mean in an art historical sense in reference to the conceptualists, but simply in that it is just acting 'coy' to insinuate that the further meaning of his actions wasn't considered.
That's a good call about Shaw. I totally see what you're saying. Artists employ those kinds of tactics all the time.
ReplyDelete