I am a bad artist.

I am a bad artist.  This is not the colloquial use of the term either. I mean bad as in terrible, of base quality, not appealing.  This is certainly a hard pill to swallow especially since I fancy myself a creative genius. Perhaps you think that these ideals are mutually exclusive.  They are not. In fact, if you truly think you are a good artist then the possibility of genius will forever elude you. 

Most of the stuff I make and do repels, at least on the surface. I've put white tempura paint on my hands and arms, clapping furiously under the 'glow' of a black light- serving a kind of new fangled minstrelsy.  I’ve performed coitus with a plunger and a roll of toilet paper in front of over 155 people (twice).  I've morphed blonde starlets into alien creatures of skin and hair printing these images large scale, engaging a bewildered viewer at best, and, at worst an indifferent one.  I even have the nerve to utilize elements of the southern black vernacular tradition and re-present it as fine art, so I’m a copycat too.  And a thief.  Another thing I’m bad at, since according to the folks that know, I recycle the same victims (i.e. Kara Walker, Ellen Gallagher and Lorraine O’Grady).  This list is especially frustrating since my intention was to rip off Marcel Broodthaers, Simone Leigh and John Baldassari.  Oh well.

In either case, my plan is to continue growing as a bad artist, one who questions the validity of all physical commentary I create.  Who, when standing with the inevitability of my failure(s), willingly places it under the beam of track lighting or the scrutiny of non-profit programing.  And so my genius is secure.  Watch out for my name in the history books.  There will be a party and you are invited. <3

THE SEMIOTIC SQUARE

I appreciate  Ben Davis' explanation of the Semiotic Square on ArtNet.  I am collaborating with William Stovall on a project that draws significantly from this concept and am hoping to understand it better through the writings of others...

 

"Invented by French semiotician A.J. Greimas, the Semiotic Square is one of the favorite intellectual toys of theory-minded art critics. In a legendary essay, "Sculpture in the Expanded Field," Rosalind Krauss used it to chart the different manifestations of postmodern sculpture as reactions to the opposition "landscape" and "architecture," though she uses a quirky version of the device; a much more satisfying and orthodox example is the way Hal Foster used the Square to illustrate the different positions within Russian Constructivism, as outgrowths of the opposition between "Art" and "Production." Basically, the Semiotic Square is a way of visually representing a matrix of possible relationships generated by a given opposition. The idea is relatively simple: Any principal opposition between contrary terms -- between "a" and "b" -- can be expanded to include a secondary pair of "contradictory" terms, "non-a" and "non-b." These contradictory terms have a natural relation of affinity with the respective contrary terms of the original binary, thus allowing you to form a kind of map of potential relationships within a given presupposed opposition. (You get, in Krauss words, "a quaternary field which both mirrors the original opposition and at the same time opens it.").  A useful example for me is the opposition between "law" and "crime." It’s not too difficult to see how this simple binary implies two additional terms that relate to the original terms, but are actually their internal negations. What you might call "non-law" -- people who act in the name of the law, but act unjustly (your corrupt cops, your dictators, and so on) -- is both a negation of what "law" stands for, but also has a clear relationship with the concept of "crime." And similarly, "non-crime" -- those who break the law in order to act in the name of justice (your Robin Hoods, your Rosa Parks) -- both contradicts the normal idea of criminality, and has an affinity with the sense of "law," as justice." MORE

Brain Crush #4: Evelyn Cunningham

"Evelyn Cunningham was among the few women who covered the hot spots of the Civil Rights Movement. She begged for such assignments and came to be known as the “lynching editor.” Rather than take her notepad and pen to teas, fashion shows, debutante balls, and club meetings, she preferred not only to go where the male reporters went, but also in their stead since black men faced a greater risk of being lynched. She was in the thick of protests, lynchings and bombings, including the blast that struck the Alabama home of a young Martin Luther King Jr. Cunningham chronicled King’s emergence as a leader in a multi-part series and other articles. They developed a mutual respect, she said, and would often joke around. “When he had to introduce me to somebody, he would always say, ‘This is Sister Cunningham, and she’s from the Pittsburgh Courier—but she’s a New Yorker and she is not nonviolent.” Cunningham documented an important chapter in U.S. history, not only as a correspondent for the black press but also as a stringer for the New York Times, the New York Daily News and the New York Post. She shrugged off the lack of credit or compensation for the stories and tips she provided. And the dailies wouldn’t have been able to lure her from the black press even if they had really tried."  MORE

 

Special Thanks to Gilbert King for introducing me to this fascinating history maker.