Art on the Go

". . . because biennial curating , trust me, is not a big deal.  It's a skill set.  Like art criticism, it's a support system in the service of contemporary art, which is not that big a deal, either.  Contemporary art is a goody bag of  what's fashionable tonight, local 'cultural production' auditioning to become history.  You can argue for it but you cannot argue from it, since contemporary art lacks the sustained track record that invests art with historical authority." - Dave Hickey from July/August's Art in America

I read this article today, early, and it reconfirmed some things for me.  However, I think so many things that today's belief that is reconfirmed will be tomorrow debunked.  Doesn't matter though, today I will live by this principle and it will guide my actions, and today looks like an art making day, so the quote will serve me well.

I am an art teacher, and as of next semester, a philosophy teacher as well.  I am taking the summer not to make extra money, but to think and relax and paint and study and get a little preparation work done for next semester.  I go into my art classroom two or three times a week to get a handle on the printmaking materials.  I studied printmaking at a local small museum last week and let my normal themes of light and smoke and clouds to guide my imagery for the experimental print.  Today I will go in and print it.  Since we have textile ink I thought I would pick up a cheap t shirt and have a go at printing my image on a t shirt as well.  It is part experiment but given the above quote and my belief that contemporary post modern art should transcend boundaries of the painting plane and gallery, printing on a t shirt is also a way of forcing contemporary art to exist in the real world.  Jenny Holzer did this with her t shirt that I reproduced above.  I have a good friend who is a tattoo artist and he makes a similar comment about tattoos.  They are personal art, art for the person who has them and no one else.  A tattoo cannot be bought or sold, it is forever with the wearer as a decoration for others to enjoy and as a piece of art the wearer can enjoy whenever the mood strikes him or her.  A tattoo is a work of art that cannot possible be present in the gallery (well it can and I had an idea for this once), a tattoo embodies a principle of post modern art.  I noticed that even tattoo magazines are calling people who are series about having tattoos collectors.

Since contemporary art is striving to become history, but it cannot because history is long and the contemporary period is short, let us not worry about the art we make.  Just make it and put it in as many places as you can, let history decide if its worth remembering.  It won't really matter to us by the time history has decided, at the very least we'll be too old to care.