rit had the best fine art program in rochester and the best lithography program in the country. then a new president stormed in with a stated policy of "ridding the campus of all the long hairs and hippies" pretty radical for the nineties. ...so one year they sold their downtown art building where undergraduates had private studios and graduates had really large private studios, sold all their lithography presses(save 2) and cramed their painting program into the lithography lab and crammed the printmaking program into the acid room.
so i took a bunch of my pastel drawings and crucified them to the ground with large black plastic spikes of unknown origin. it was kind of sullen, but the general idea was to suggest that art is unappreciated by forcing people to consider it in a defiled state that they usually aren't accostumed to. this was also the first time i encouraged people to walk on them, which was very difficult with these in that there were so many options of places to walk that didn't involve walking on them. the few people who did venture out onto the drawings found the experience somewhat relevatory.
i have since had occasion to think about my treatment of art extensively, and it occurs to me that in considering a variety of issues that extend outside of what is traditionally considered the making of art, like substrate, making paint, a bunch of other things i haven't quite figured out yet i take a lot of emphasis off the actual object. this has a lot to do with the dematerialization strategies of conceptual art, but also a fair amount of investigation into the permenance of objects. working with a theory that they cannot really be destroyed but only changed(which i sometimes relate to the tough love strategies of the father) many of my paintings have been displayed outdoors year round to get a patina of mildew.
in the end i haven't decided what to do with my work. like many decisions that have obvious answers (hang it in a gallery and sell it you schmuck) i'm still mulling over other possibilities.
so i took a bunch of my pastel drawings and crucified them to the ground with large black plastic spikes of unknown origin. it was kind of sullen, but the general idea was to suggest that art is unappreciated by forcing people to consider it in a defiled state that they usually aren't accostumed to. this was also the first time i encouraged people to walk on them, which was very difficult with these in that there were so many options of places to walk that didn't involve walking on them. the few people who did venture out onto the drawings found the experience somewhat relevatory.
i have since had occasion to think about my treatment of art extensively, and it occurs to me that in considering a variety of issues that extend outside of what is traditionally considered the making of art, like substrate, making paint, a bunch of other things i haven't quite figured out yet i take a lot of emphasis off the actual object. this has a lot to do with the dematerialization strategies of conceptual art, but also a fair amount of investigation into the permenance of objects. working with a theory that they cannot really be destroyed but only changed(which i sometimes relate to the tough love strategies of the father) many of my paintings have been displayed outdoors year round to get a patina of mildew.
in the end i haven't decided what to do with my work. like many decisions that have obvious answers (hang it in a gallery and sell it you schmuck) i'm still mulling over other possibilities.
