response to Feb 10 Tutorial
Meeting with SE and SG on the subject of strategic documentation and conceptual representation of my career to date in the interest of sharpening message, boradening appeal and obtaining public exhibitions in museums internationally.
How does one pursuasively represent the career of someone whose art is so varied and oftentimes arcane that it defies definition as a work of art? Not a new question of course, but like the question "which museums do you see yourself exhibiting in...." it IS new for me to think about it in these terms and to realize again that the how and where questions are connected.
The purpose of the meeting was to get started on a brainstorm session on how to upgrade my exibition prospects, and create a conceptual construct that provides relevant tools to help this process. We began the discussion looking at the portfolio I used to gain entry to SFAI and discussion about a redefinition of my practice as it is presently. and on the way establishing rational for why my research is revelant to a museum format (if it is at all).
Throughout the discussio SG and SE acted as sounding board and identified key words like honor, shamam, invoke, conjour, polymath and charlatan which are ironically mutually exclusive.
While I am attracted to some of the more antiestablishment aesthetics of "the charlatan" architype, I don't think it is a perfect fit because the negarive connotations are too offputting. However romantic the notion of the 18th century snake oil salesman might be, it's hard trust the rogue.
Do I appear this way to people? If so, I am WAY off message. (there's always the pulpit I suppose, or Maoist revolutiona...)
Thomas Paine was a great promoter, and critical to the American revolution, but was never to earn the respect and benefits in the new government he helped realize. Was this because he, himself was limited in potential, or was it simply his aspirations that were limited?
While discussing terms like honor, we might have easily substituted the word ethical most of the time. Charlatan doesn't jibe with ethical, which is certaily an overiding requirement for a useful construct.
Synonyms for charlatin include crank, quack, grifter, confidence man, swindler...certainly not the best of light to cast onself in which leads me to the other (and opposite) word:
Polymath. Here is a word that fits better (and feels better) but is of course forbidden to be used as a self description....While it is a compliment to be called a polymath, it is a little odd to call yourself one. " A person of great or varied learning"
Polymath suggests a prodigious ability, but doesn't necessarily infer great insight, and wisdom. Knowing things, understanding things, and being conversant with them conceptually are all different levels of awareness. Lots of people have knowledge, fewer still possess comprehension, and even fewer have the perspective to actively participate in their own story. Polyartist is better, but stale, and also rings a little vain as a self description.
I can appreciate the "subversion of language" strategy of "charlatan" and the pretense of "polymath" but a viable construct might have more than two causal influences and I think the construct (in terms of a strategic definition) needs elements of charlatan, polymath complimented by an affirming humanity, intellectual generosity, ethical courage, cleverness and ingenuity. Folly is ok too because it relates to the folly in us all.
I like (and have been employing) the humorous irony of Don Quixote as a metaphor for the human condition, and a rich symbolic cosmology that allows for human imperfection. Was Don Quixote aware of his own folly? I certainly am... but I suppose I don't need to emphasize this to my audience.
Nobody trusts a charalatan.
In context of the art spectacle it is a good idea to use drama and surprise as a technique, however a charlatan goes further and deliberately misleads for selfish profit, even condescension. A dark showman indeed, a character bound by the shackles of a petty profit and prurient gratification. Way too cynical a construct ...
1=1
Dystopia is not a foregone conclusion in my cosmology.
The western cannon is packed to the rafters with dystopian narratives about the gritty side of being human. Writer and reader in a psychotic feedback loop of prurient indulgence, the sociological eqivalent of rubberneckinig a hideous accident on the freeway. As a creative person I feel an obligation to do my small part to reverse the trend of dystopic overemphasis on the desperation of the human condition in the art works I produce and I always aim to be aware of, and responsible for their effect on the viewer.
The sky is not falling.
---------
Note to SG and SE: Please feel free to make use of the comment function on this blog if it suits you.
How does one pursuasively represent the career of someone whose art is so varied and oftentimes arcane that it defies definition as a work of art? Not a new question of course, but like the question "which museums do you see yourself exhibiting in...." it IS new for me to think about it in these terms and to realize again that the how and where questions are connected.
The purpose of the meeting was to get started on a brainstorm session on how to upgrade my exibition prospects, and create a conceptual construct that provides relevant tools to help this process. We began the discussion looking at the portfolio I used to gain entry to SFAI and discussion about a redefinition of my practice as it is presently. and on the way establishing rational for why my research is revelant to a museum format (if it is at all).
Throughout the discussio SG and SE acted as sounding board and identified key words like honor, shamam, invoke, conjour, polymath and charlatan which are ironically mutually exclusive.
While I am attracted to some of the more antiestablishment aesthetics of "the charlatan" architype, I don't think it is a perfect fit because the negarive connotations are too offputting. However romantic the notion of the 18th century snake oil salesman might be, it's hard trust the rogue.
Do I appear this way to people? If so, I am WAY off message. (there's always the pulpit I suppose, or Maoist revolutiona...)
Thomas Paine was a great promoter, and critical to the American revolution, but was never to earn the respect and benefits in the new government he helped realize. Was this because he, himself was limited in potential, or was it simply his aspirations that were limited?
While discussing terms like honor, we might have easily substituted the word ethical most of the time. Charlatan doesn't jibe with ethical, which is certaily an overiding requirement for a useful construct.
Synonyms for charlatin include crank, quack, grifter, confidence man, swindler...certainly not the best of light to cast onself in which leads me to the other (and opposite) word:
Polymath. Here is a word that fits better (and feels better) but is of course forbidden to be used as a self description....While it is a compliment to be called a polymath, it is a little odd to call yourself one. " A person of great or varied learning"
Polymath suggests a prodigious ability, but doesn't necessarily infer great insight, and wisdom. Knowing things, understanding things, and being conversant with them conceptually are all different levels of awareness. Lots of people have knowledge, fewer still possess comprehension, and even fewer have the perspective to actively participate in their own story. Polyartist is better, but stale, and also rings a little vain as a self description.
I can appreciate the "subversion of language" strategy of "charlatan" and the pretense of "polymath" but a viable construct might have more than two causal influences and I think the construct (in terms of a strategic definition) needs elements of charlatan, polymath complimented by an affirming humanity, intellectual generosity, ethical courage, cleverness and ingenuity. Folly is ok too because it relates to the folly in us all.
I like (and have been employing) the humorous irony of Don Quixote as a metaphor for the human condition, and a rich symbolic cosmology that allows for human imperfection. Was Don Quixote aware of his own folly? I certainly am... but I suppose I don't need to emphasize this to my audience.
Nobody trusts a charalatan.
In context of the art spectacle it is a good idea to use drama and surprise as a technique, however a charlatan goes further and deliberately misleads for selfish profit, even condescension. A dark showman indeed, a character bound by the shackles of a petty profit and prurient gratification. Way too cynical a construct ...
1=1
Dystopia is not a foregone conclusion in my cosmology.
The western cannon is packed to the rafters with dystopian narratives about the gritty side of being human. Writer and reader in a psychotic feedback loop of prurient indulgence, the sociological eqivalent of rubberneckinig a hideous accident on the freeway. As a creative person I feel an obligation to do my small part to reverse the trend of dystopic overemphasis on the desperation of the human condition in the art works I produce and I always aim to be aware of, and responsible for their effect on the viewer.
The sky is not falling.
---------
Note to SG and SE: Please feel free to make use of the comment function on this blog if it suits you.
posted by DanCoyote at 2:02 PM
1 Comments:
I am laughing right now! Not at your suggestion, which I think is more on the mark, but at the sheer brevity and utility of your post compared to my lenghthy and vainglorious post!
However, it is my blog, and it is my career on the table at the moment.
One question about "Philosopher":
Isn't that already taken? I mean, Philosophy is an old white guys bastion of conformity now is it not? Reports from UC Berkeley via critical theorists would assert that Philosophy like some major religions, has metamorphosized into a rigid orthodoxy that is unfriendly to new ideas and obsessed with tenure and petty quarrels about funding and minutia.
While I am sure this is somewhat of a onesided perspective, based on my limited fluency in the language of philosophy, I personally would side with critical theorists because of their alleged penchent for practical change, again echoing the sentiments of Marx in is indightment of Hegelians as all talk and no action.
The proof of a theory is how it plays out on the world stage in practical terms. Marx, while a brilliant thinker didn't fare so well as executed by flawed people for flawed people. I suppose it is hard to design an ideology that takes into account the least common denominator of human behavior without being cynical. This is definitely a chore.
However there is always Kallipolis.
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