THE GREY PLANE

There seems to be a formula for writing contemporary art criticism. First, you start with a personal story that relates to your own experience with a work of art. This segues easily into the analysis of the work. Your personal story, with the analysis, draws an accessibly reduced conclusion that ends nicely with a clever twist. It’s a beautiful program. It almost never fails. It gives me the strength to tell you about how I made a fool of myself the other night over a joke. The joke went like this:

Q. How do you know if you just passed an elephant?

A. Because the toilet won’t flush!

At this point you are supposed to sigh and laugh in disappointment. At first, I had started my response correctly, as did everyone else in the room (spare my good friend Andy, who also happens to be an artist), but then I thought about it. I had realized that in common terminology you “pass” a kidney stone and I had never heard someone say that they “passed” something in reference to their bowels (the term was before my time). So maybe this wasn’t a poop joke at all. Stupidly, I did not keep this thought to myself. As expected, laughter directed at me (not “with” me as my friends suggested because I was not laughing) followed my question. Such hysteria at my expense, in fact, that no one was able to answer me. I had to sit in my shame and beg for someone to help me out. So the joke was ruined (at no great loss) but the story will live within my friends forever. There is no avoiding it. Everything changes for me in a post-“pass” joke world. I now have no choice but to fail every test. I will always be stuck behind the slow car in traffic. I can only write in the active voice. And playing Frisbee? Forget about it. I had asked the wrong question, was left out of the following discourse, and I will have to pay the price for it for the rest of my life.

I had noticed a similar tough lesson in reading responses to Aliza Shvarts’ proposed senior project at Yale University. Her piece worked like this:

-Shvarts gets herself pregnant via artificial insemination.

–She then takes a surplus of herbal supplements and forces herself to have a miscarriage.

–She records these miscarriages.

–She then suspends a giant cube in the middle of the show space and projects her miscarriages on its sides.

–The cube is covered with her blood mixed with Vaseline.

When asked about the conceptual intentions of her work (in a certain “What the fuck is wrong with you!?” sense) Shvarts fell back on the common reasoning of inspiring “some sort of discourse” about the human body. And like most artists in pursuit of inspiring “some sort of discourse” Shvarts had seemed to feel attacked by the public’s response to her unfinished piece. Perhaps unknowingly, Shvarts did achieve her goal, though I would argue that a discourse was never her purpose. A discourse involves the views of two parties and may include strong (and sometimes threatening) disagreements, no matter how tortuous those vies may be for the artist. In that regard, there was definitely a discourse between the artist who felt personally attacked and the public whom also felt personally attacked, so with those feelings made mutual it had arguably been a successful work of art, though it may have been poorly conceived, executed, and defended.

Sure, Shvarts wanted a response to her work but it soon became clear that she had no intention of taking responsibility for that response. By simply stating that “it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone,” Shvarts prepared her audience for her one final insult. The entire “discourse” was completely unnecessary. The piece was admitted to be “creative fiction,” leaving me wondering why it needed a gallery in the first place.

In those regards, Yazmany Arboleda also did not need a gallery to inspire discourse. Though the response was similar to Shvarts’ media passings-storm, it oddly enough happend after his show The Assassination of Barack Obama/The Assassination of Hillary Clinton. Police shut down the show before he even managed to open his makeshift gallery’s doors. In a somewhat ironic twist of fate the show was left for the media and the web, the two resources that could market his show far more effectively than a single gallery space. Regardless of whether the response was negative or positive, now the show, more importantly, had no conclusion and was left as a legend for media response and critique.

In my research of Arboleda’s TAOBO/TAOHC I could not find a single critique in regards to the quality of the work itself. As intended, once again, a dialogue was raised but remained indifferent to artistic execution. Stating that he “…inspir[ed] a dialogue,” and feeling that “when it stems from art, [the dialogue] is the most effective means of questioning the truths we have come to take for granted,” his intentions once again became unclear and removed from responsibility, which had now passed to the viewer. Yes, a dialogue probably would have been very helpful in understanding the work but as Yazmany said himself, “…the messages I present in the work are not my own.”

It almost feels like a prank. How are we supposed to respond to someone putting words in our mouths and then telling us to explain ourselves? This misdirection soon fell in the media’s hands which raised Yazmany to minor celebrity and removed the controversial show from the spotlight. Questions and ideas in regards to the work itself were no longer relevant and once again all that was left was a misguided monologue, but in this case it was left to everyone but the artist.

It doesn’t seem like there should be a line to draw in interpretation. Is it part of the artist’s PR to play innocent when the public turns against them? Was it their intention to incite rather than be insightful?

Last march Adel Abdessemed installed a video installation series at the Walter and McBean Galleries of the San Francisco Art Institute titled “Don’t Trust Me”. The videos consisted of a handful of animals being hit by a sledge hammer by someone off screen. The gallery left no explanation of how the piece was made. It wasn’t surprising that this left the San Francisco audience shocked and offended. After some serious threats toward the SFAI staff the show was shut down and the discussion seminar was cancelled. The official press release for the show remarked that “The tacit claims for ‘autonomy’ made by such visual language—staccato forms, lights, movements, and immediate experiences—imbue the work with an instantaneous efficiency that circumvents categorization, making typical moral and cultural constraints seem beside the point.” This seems odd. The show could very easily be categorized as “shocking” and it seems to only be a statement about “moral and cultural constraints.” Everyone wanted to hold Abdessemed responsible over the morals concerning the slaying of the animals yet there didn’t seem to be any direct consideration or concern toward the fact that the show’s very press release announced that moral and cultural constraints seemed “beside the point”. In the context of a strong art exhibit it doesn’t matter why the animals were killed but, more importantly, why weren’t the artist and curators living up to their own responsibility toward the imagery?

The truth is that they thought they were. The San Francisco Art Institute’s president Chris Bratton stated, “SFAI stands behind the exhibition as an instance of a long-standing and serious commitment, on SFAI’s part, to reflection on, and free and open discussion of, contemporary global art and culture. As an institution, we take seriously our responsibility to encourage and promote such dialogue.” There certainly was a dialogue. He explained how the animals were part of an already existing circuit of food production in rural Mexico. Citing the cause of the controversy as being that Abdessemed “entered this exchange, filmed it, and exhibited it.”

No. What caused the controversy was the fact that he presented the imagery of necessity as a frivolous art show. The public felt that the work glorified the killing of animals which, if you read between the lines, means that they believed that the slaughtering is below the value of art. Killing animals for food is necessity. Filming animals being killed for food is documentation. Projecting the film in a gallery is art. Yes, it is an art show. And just as rightful as the artist is to present their work, so is the public to decide that it should be taken down.

Obviously, it is disheartening to have an exhibit shut down. Though I may be criticizing contemporary artists’ and curators’ certain means to defending their work I have no intention to underestimate their dedication. This is why I argue that their shows are in fact larger than “dialogue,” especially if one is under the belief that a great piece of art is supposed to leave a person speechless. So, naturally, I find it concerning to see lavish displays that have a weak conceptual backing. Whether it be Dasha Zhukova’s current multi-million dollar investment to “start a dialogue with a Russian audience” or the countless independent dialogue builders across the world, artists and curators are leaving themselves prone to ridicule. Had anyone wanted to skirt responsibility they could have admitted to not understanding why they created any given piece in the first place. It doesn’t matter whether they claim divine intervention or a powerful but subtle drive from the subconscious, admitting innocence to their own influences can be perfectly valid.

Admittedly, I do not understand the boundaries of censorship, but I do know that if an artist comes stock with a loaded “dialogue” proposal, it better have a sound response prepared for criticism because it rarely bodes well to have a critic judge ethics and morals. And as for the terminology, I have no idea where it came from but I do know that “inspiring a dialogue” is neither an answer nor a defense against criticism. It’s not even terminology from the right field of work. It is all very confusing and if this is all one big joke then I am definitely not in on it. So laugh it up because I have no choice but to let it pass.