I watched Exit Through The Gift Shop the other week. The main subject of the documentary is a French guy living in America called Thierry Guetta who upon discovering street art, starts following its main proponents before he himself decides to become a star in the street art world. Somehow he succeeds, through sheer brute force. (Guetta is himself interesting as most of the footage that compromises the film was taken from footage filmed by him obsessively almost every hour of the day for about 10 years using a camcorder... but anyway) In a later part of the film (or possibly a separate YouTube interview with him, I can't remember), he's talking about his artworks and mentions the word "reputation"; due to his strong accent it comes off sounding like "repetition". This eggcorn, a linguistic term that describes two phonetically similar but grammatically different words or terms that have interchangeable meanings, got me thinking lately about the very same things Sam wrote about for this post.
Some other questions I've been asking myself for years - if you explore the very things you have obsessed about since you can first remember, those very things that have defined you no matter how personal or uncomfortable they are to others (and even yourself), and you make work out of it, is it still art or just masturbation? Is the true artist the one who only produces work for himself, who is dedicated to the exploration of his imagination, motives and perversions, even if means an almost complete disregard for everyone else? Even then, are your obsessions great/original enough to be art?
A lot of my interests deal in extremes. Many of my favourite artists either strip their work down to its barest essence, to a pure vision of minimalism - or inversely take things to a maximalist, utter bombastic and over the top level. I'm drawn to obsessive figures who work on something over years and years without help from others; artists that would otherwise be locked up perverts or deviants if they didn't have art educations or connections; artists with problems or delusions brought on by psychological, physical or sexual traumas. Whilst I don't share the same traits as many of these artists, I find them truly inspiring and believe what they do is absolute art. I often think the artist, or at least what they represent, is just as important as the work they make.
Where once an audience would have asked themselves upon seeing a modern/contemporary artwork, "I/my child/my dog could have done that", now they ask "Why didn't I think of that first?". For my favourite artists, a lot of them "got there first" - their niche made them what they are. But they also, for whatever reason, dedicated themselves completely to these niches because that's all they could do. Their niches weren't even consciously thought of as artistic business strategies.
So far the sort of work I've made has been explored by other artists a thousand times over, either through subject or medium. I don't think too highly of what I've made so far - most of it's unfinished, unfocused and just plain unoriginal. I'm okay with admitting that - why do you think they call it an art practice? I do find myself wondering sometimes, is there a new subject I could be exploring? But then before I know it, I'm returning to old habits that I've explored again and again. Maybe I'm focusing my artistic attention on the wrong obsessions.
I guess like you say, I think it's all down to whether what you are obsessed with is original. It would be wonderful to make art using a subject or a personal obsession that hasn't been explored (or rather exhausted) by others, but it isn't likely to happen. But you can still do it regardless.
Art has to be experienced by someone other than its creator to gain a value, whether it's intellectual, emotional or economical. It's usually the curator who gets there first acting as a middle man, before it reaches the public. In our early years of being artists, we have to take on the role of a curator for ourselves to decide what we make, and so we end up asking rather horrible questions like these. Artists really shouldn't have to take such responsibilities.
Long short/rant short - do whatever makes you happy even if it sends you mad, and let someone else worry over whether it fits in with the public's interests. You don't always have to explain your work - leave that to curators, critics, galleries, students, psychologists and historians to do now and in years to come. They'll get it wrong too, just like you would trying to explain the unexplainable (that's what makes truly great art!).
In the meantime, just pull your finger out, stop slacking and get on with making some fucking work.
John
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| Whitehouse - Cruise (2001) Cover text by Peter Sotos |
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