SubscribeBlog – Thinking as art

“On one level, the Hirst à Gogo is a blatant promotion of both the Hirst and Gagosian brands, and a sitting-duck symbol of the end-time, we’re-doing-this-because-we-can decadence that has subsumed so much of the art world — yet another instance of money celebrating itself.”
Excerpted from Roberta Smith’s review, “Hirst, Globally dotting his “I”, New York Times.

So states Roberta Smith, the long-time New York Times art critic, who, over the years has been lauded and reviled for her opinions, of the Damien Hirst extravaganza at the Gagosian Galleries worldwide. By the way, she goes on to say some good things about some of his work as well, but I’m convinced it’s because she ‘has’ to. I mean, she writes for the NY Times. They don’t like people trashing their advertisers too much, sadly.

This art review is the second recent review where I’ve seen a well known critic openly deride the state of the art world in a meaningful and considered discussion of someone’s work. In December in the NY Times, Holland Cotter wrote an amazing article, “Complacency Butts Up Against Game Changers“, that states, “The physical distance between Lower Manhattan and the Chelsea art zone is short, but the mental and moral gap felt immeasurable. The park was about light-on-its-feet, change-the-game politics. Chelsea — leaden and inbred — was about cash and caution.” THANK YOU!!! It’s about time. I guess because I don’t make my living from that decaying disaster of an industry – and make no mistakes, an industry it is – what she and others are finally saying has been apparent for quite some time. Whatever one thinks of the artworld or of the art that’s been and being created, it has seriously lost its way.

The physical distance between Lower Manhattan and the Chelsea art zone is short, but the mental and moral gap felt immeasurable. Chelsea — leaden and inbred — was about cash and caution.

— Holland Cotter

In the quest for cultural, or at least artistic, dominance, the entire process has become a sham of lackluster or worse creativity supported by millionaires with limited or no taste and mega mansions to fill. And there are so many so-called artists waiting in line to fill that need. It’s almost impossible to find artists, these days, whose work is speaking about something more significant or pertinent than how to make as many highly polished objet d’art as possible.

The one thing that everyone has learned, with the help of the housing industry of the 21st century and shows on HG tv is that the finishes are all important. Who gives a damn what it’s about just as long as it ‘looks’ expensive. The materials and scale are far more important than the content. In fact, what content? Narrative? Intent? Anything other than as Ms. Smith states of Mr. Hirst, “He’s so unimaginative, so crassly commercial, not a real artist and so forth. Mr. Hirst is the post-Warhol, post-Barnum epitome of the artist as impresario, public relations strategist, graphic designer and art director. ”

What she says here of Mr. Hirst is true of almost every graduate art history student these days. The reason for choosing a school to go to for fine art has become the same as for getting an MBA – who you can meet and whether their personal connections can get you ‘in’ with the right people. For a real treat, you must go to see this video, “Hennesy Youngman on Damien Hirst“. It’s a rap and a rant but the best of it is at the end, and says it all directly from the mouth of Mr. Hirst himself. Worth the view.

How very sad, but completely in keeping with the end of empire state that the US finds itself in. We all running for the last life boats as the ship of state is sinking. No better way to ensure safety than surround yourself with and ultimately grab hold of oodles of cash so as to board the first plane to safety as this island finally succumbs.

It’s a pathetic and debilitating vision of our state of affairs but there is an honesty in it. It is certainly more honest than the views being promulgated by the Republican candidates for president – current and recently removed. The dishonesty and complete disregard for the rest of the population in an effort to gain notoriety, and possibly fame and fortune, prove the extent to which we, as a country, are fading. No person running for president of a country that is still at its apex needs to resort to the level of pandering and abject lying that is happening.

The same is true for an artworld that is desperate to keep the party going while the Titanic sinks. We can all pretend that what’s being offered has any real value over and above its sale price but it is certainly a case of “emperor’s new clothes” and we know it.

So, let’s raise a glass to the end of empire! Let’s toast out loud the last big parties before the doors are bolted shut! Like the final days of the great nightclubs, the Saint and Roxy, those last parties were in some ways the best because everyone was living on piped in oxygen hoping the tank wouldn’t run out.

The big question, of course, is where does it go from here? What’s next? In a world that is screeching toward the clash of extremes, it’s anyone’s guess. My approach is to work from a place of honesty. As much as possible, I want my work to be representative of real truth and ideal concepts. These two seemingly divergent points on the spectrum are, in fact, the two things that offer the greatest options – the quest for what is real and true in and amongst all the temporal and reactionary balanced by an understanding that ideals are there for a reason – they inspire us to be more than we would otherwise. Cynicism in the name of ‘newness’ is only driving the wedge between us and what makes us great deeper and deeper.

As we think about how to manage ourselves in this new (art) world that is bubbling up from underneath, it is important to point out that there are others from within the ‘system’ who have a vision and are working to make it a better place. A few of these are:

•  The Crystal Bridges Museum (founded on Wal-Mart money)
• Elsworth Kelly, whose work continues to be an inspiration
• Alexander McQueen, that he was a ‘fashion’ designer is less important than that he was one of the most original artists out there for 2 decades
• Ai Wei Wei, who shows how important it is to stand up for what you believe

There are lots of us out there. Go seek them out and herald them for the world to see!

In pondering the burgeoning consequences of man-made combustion on the climate, it’s become increasingly apparent to me that we do really need to start taking into account everything we do and how it influences our air, land and water quality. The naysayers may want to convince us, like the cigarette manufacturers did in the past, that it’s not our fault but all you have to do is look around, and not very deeply either, to see they’re just trowing up smoke screens.

I so clearly remember a time as a boy living in already intensely urbanized New Jersey that on clear nights I could see the most amazing stars. And if we traveled all of 20 or 30 miles away, the vastness of the sky at night grew incredibly. Now with combined air and light pollution, the magic of that experience is obliterated from view. And the problem is, people grow up now thinking, or believing, that maybe no stars, nor galaxy, nor universes exist – certainly none they are enticed to want to touch.

All this has me questioning the effects of the hoards of artists on the environment. Frankly it feels like there’s not a lot great out there to applaud about. There certainly are some people who have made it part of their production to lower their carbon footprint, or whatever one chooses to call it, by working with recycled materials, etc. A good example of this approach is an artist from Australia named John Dahlsen or Canadian artist living in Los Angeles named Clare Graham.

In general, however, as artists we allow ourselves incredible leeway in terms of the use and abuse of any material, any means of production necessary. Because we have a message or a product or an idea to get out there, and we’re artists, we feel we’re immune from the deleterious effects of our working techniques. And damnit! no one’s going to tell us we can’t do that. We’re ARTISTS after all, the world’s most underpaid  and overly self-absorbed specialists.

Either out of belief that we are special to compensate for some troubled childhood or the belief that we are special because we really are, the net result is that we as artists and the art world culture around us like to believe that we are inspired outsiders who have special dispensation to do, say and produce anything we want.

The most profound early awareness of this need was in the 70s and 80s with the Earth Art (Land Art now) movement, artists such as Robert Smithson and Richard Long. Not only because of their respect for the natural world around them but also because they were pushing back against the sense of all things in art being commodities, they worked with found objects and in out of the way places that challenged people to see what they were doing as art, and then even more so, challenged them to figure out how to make it a ‘product’ for consumption. On some level the art institutions succeeded and sadly, the trend towards commodifying all things artistic simply continues at an alarming pace.

Don’t you ever wonder what happens to all that artwork being produced around the world? I mean the stuff that is not hanging on some wall or standing in some gallery? What of all that material of production that is used in a vain glorious attempt at satisfying vain glory, or just to find an income? With so much being produced in the oeuvre of every artist who has or continues to live and work in the 20th and 21st century, where does it all end up? My guess is that the great bulk of it ends up where all our ‘stuff’ does – in a land fill. If we land ourselves back at the door steps of almost any gallery in Chelsea, London, Hong Kong, what you will find inside is a smorgasbord of objects, made from materials much (or most in some cases) of which will contribute to the mountains of decaying, putrifying trash around the world.

Like the many characters on the shows, “Hoarders” and “Hoarders, buried alive”, each artist believes that what we produce is vastly more important, or pleasing, or valuable than each other artists work – save a few. We start out young making things to satisfy cravings and curiosity, or because we see an opportunity, and then we turn it into a career of sorts that at best motivates our belief in the cultural value of what we produce. So we keep on producing, the results of which often end up in filling store houses, basements and attics the world over. In the wealthy ‘first world’, arguably something that the USA is slowly leaving behind, artist of reputation have studios all over the place to produce an unending array of objects for sale. It is consumption of art objects on a scale never before seen.

How do artists of few means in poverty stricken areas or countries handle art production, environment and material accumulation? I’m going to assume that, as I did as a young man with no cash of any consequence, they beg, borrow and steal to get what they need and then, if they’re enterprising enough, do their best to sell it for whatever money they can get. I’m fairly convinced that hoarding, whether it be store bought objects or handmade artwork is something that requires a certain level of income not typical in many places in the world.

So what am I saying here? That artists are hoarders of self-satisfying trash made from materials that contribute to global climate change? Well, yes, in a sense. But not any more so that your typical homeowner who tears out a perfectly fine bathroom so they can replace it with something who’s style will be undesirable within 5 years.

What I’m saying is that we are NOT different, no matter how much we, and the art culture market we help create and that supports us propel us to believe it. It used to be that when a person had a tattoo it was mildly titillating. They had some sort of ‘outsider’ status. Now, people have to cover themselves in tattoos to get attention and instead of the attention they want, mostly they get seen as just another, “I’m so special” egotist. A good example of this is Rick Genest, a Canadian artist who is famous for being tatooed like a corpse.

Our current pop culture has gone to great lengths to foster a market for the ‘outsider’ who is so far out

that he or she is ‘in’ on the other side. Whether it be artists, or fashion designers, or current day bikers or snow boarders, the entirety of the culture of youth strives toward being seen as different. And the prize you get for that difference? You’re more ‘in’ than the ‘in’ crowd. How silly and yet how telling of who we are.

So now we have a climate reality that won’t let us ignore it. (See the Climate Reality Project ). And where for a long time the global warmers tried to be cooler than everyone else by making it hip to be aware, now the most ‘in’ thing anyone can do is to be outside of the outsider experience enough to realize that we have to start doing something ourselves. Each and every one of us, as artists, as citizens, as family members, needs to consider what we can do to help generate a world with the best possible living experience for all, not just for some of us.

Growing up feeling outside the mainstream of society seems to come with the territory for certain individuals. Is it hormonal? Maybe. Is it family-related? Likely. But whatever it is, the general result has been for the outsider to isolate themselves and look for a way to get recognition for their difference.

What if we stopped putting art and the production of self-aggrandizing objects as the primary manifestation of this need and instead encouraged all outsiders to focus on the ‘we’ that is the entirety of our human (and animal) population. The unique and charismatic things that would be produced in this effort would be, chaotic, I’m sure but have the potential to change our view of the world resulting in changing the world itself.

In other words, let’s replace making self-conscious objects of ego, aka consumer-based built-in obsolesced objects, with an energy and result that generates human and planetary benefit. The end result of this is much farther reaching and much more satisfying.

And, since relatively few artists make much of any money now, it’s a no brainer as far as compensation goes.

…no more bullshit. That’s the simple truth.

And whether it’s in architecture, politics or art, it’s about time that everyone start calling a spade, a spade.

There’s a great blog article I was reading that brought this concept and it’s encumbant realities to the fore – http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/on-design-bullshit/3347/. It’s by Michael Bierut and discusses the concept of (Design) Bullshit. In it, he discusses a situation that occurred between the architect RIchard Meier and the garden designer, Robert Irwin, whom Meier felt was not appropriate for this task.

Robert Irwin's Garden at the Getty Center, LA

The artist’s (Irwin’s) bias for whimsical organic forms, his disregard for the architecture’s rigorous orthonography, and perhaps even his Detroit Tigers baseball hat all rub Richard Meier the wrong way, and he and his team of architects begin a reasoned, strongly-felt critique of the proposed plan. Irwin, sensing (correctly, as it turns out) that he has the client in his pocket, listens patiently and then says, “You want my response?”

His [Irwin's] response is the worst accusation you can lodge against a designer: “Bullshit.”

The author, referring to Harry G. Frankfurt’s On Bullshit, goes on to say, “The design process always combines the pursuit of functional goals with countless intuitive, even irrational decisions.” And then, “So into this vacuum rushes the bullshit: theories about the symbolic qualities of colors or typefaces; unprovable claims about the historical inevitability of certain shapes, fanciful forced marriages of arbitrary design elements to hard-headed business goals.

Frankfurt, in his book, defines the difference between bullshit and lies as this. “…bullshit is “not designed primarily to give its audience a false belief about whatever state of affairs may be the topic, but that its primary intention is rather to give its audience a false impression concerning what is going on in the mind of the speaker.”

I find this to be so spot on a description of the state of art in the high art world (and politics, and business and so many other areas today) as to be incredible; that anyone could have stated it with such razor-like clarity truly amazes me. Is this not the feeling that so many of us have each time we are asked to ‘believe’ or ‘accept’ another line from some institution of high pursuit?

Olatz, Julian Schnabel

To ground this statement in something very real, isn’t this just want many of us want to say when we walk through so many museums today? Or listen to so many politicians espousing their bullshit views?The level of bullshit that is pushed out from the art institutions – schools, museums, curators, etc. – is beyond credulity.

And yet, each time we find ourselves feeling like they can’t take it any further, some set of artists, dealers, collectors and museums finds a way to pile up another ‘ism’ that is immediately imbued with the imprimartur of ‘excellence’ and relevance.The bullshit meter goes way up immediately because we all know, as is so evident in the world of high finances today, that all of this is simply a ruse to create another commodity that can be exchanged and revalued like stock.

Ironically, even the bullshitters know the genuine article, sometimes, when they see it. As an example, look at the rush that to buy contemporary Chinese art when China entered the market world. And even with that, it is already compromised by the very bullshit it tried to get away from.

It is not at all exceptional that the art world and so many of its artists should be contributors to this charade. The one thing any aspiring artist knows is that fame or infamy (even better) are the solid gold currency of today’s market place. Of course it has to be combined with clever art world afficiandos and, hopefully, with the backing of some ‘investor’ who sees the potential for this artists value to soar.

All told, there is no doubt that bullshit is a part of creating art of any kind. You have to, at some point or other, believe in things you produce even if you aren’t sure they are good. So, to sure things up, each of us creates a line of bs that we hang onto when we aren’t really convinced of what we have done.The problem comes in when we believe our own bullshit.

And THAT is where we’re at now as a culture and an economy. We have for some time believed all the crap we have written and stated about ourselves, so much so that many of us wouldn’t know and a few only barely recognize a truly genunine person or object when we saw it.It used to be, not all that long ago, that those artists who weren’t able to communicate genuinely through their work but whose work was well executed, would be understood as such and seen by themselves and others as talented and valuable but not genius.

True genius, in the sense of something truly genuine (From Latin genius, meaning “the guardian spirit of a person, spirit, inclination, wit, genius, literally ‘inborn nature’”) , must communicate something true about the artist and/or the subject, even if the artist doesn’t realize it. Sadly, this has been completely lost in the commodification of all things and people. We have bought into the bullshit so much that we no longer see it for what it is. If you have any doubt, turn on almost any major TV show, or pick up so many publications, regardless of subject matter.

Michele Bachman

As a young man, I thought myself to be the most vulnerable of people, waiting at every moment to be attacked. Yet, through that experience, I saw that my problem was I had no idea how to be anything other than who I was – open and sincere (and waiting to be victimized.) I even understood, for a while, that maybe that was the role of the artist, to show how it’s possible, or even beneficial, to leave yourself open in spite of the abuse. Time, economy and the cultural hegemony of the warthogs have changed all that.

Now, when I look back on that time, I see that THIS is the thing I miss the most in almost every aspect of american life today – open, honest sincerity that expresses the genuine good nature that underlies all things. People disagreed, sometimes violently, but there was to some greater extent, a belief in basic human goodness.

As we head further and deeper into the abyss of racist, sexist, greed-driven, faith-based self-absorption that defines today’s culture, I try each day to find one thing that reminds me of the people I knew when I was young and the incredible genuine innocence they imbued my life with. I miss them, and that feeling, terribly.

Paul X. O. Pinkman, around age 17

This coming Sunday, June 5, from 1 to 4 pm, Philip F. Clark and I are having a reception for the artists for our most recent curatorial effort. The show, TEXT ME!, provides a dialog between artworks by artists whose work includes text and words in some form.

The artists cover a broad geographical area – from New York to New Jersey and Ohio. In addition the works range from photography to collage, digital assemblage and hand cut wood and encaustic.

We look forward to you coming to the opening, and if not that, to see the show during it’s run til June 25. The exhibit is at the Watchung Arts Center (www.watchungarts.org), 18 Stirling Rd. on the Watchung Circle, Watchung, NJ. 908 753-0190.

I have spent a great deal of my life trying to figure out how my work ‘fits in’ to the contemporary  art world. To be clear, I’ve struggled with what ‘ism’ or trend or group might my work belong to so that I might explain my peculiar approach to art making.

In this quest for clarity, I have observed what seem to be two very distinct approaches that artists take toward making and marketing their work. With each comes certain criteria for achieving success, at least in terms of financial success.

The first approach, and I would venture to say, the one consisting of the largest number of participants, is the one where artists paint, draw, execute, build, etc. because they are compelled to do so. They may or may not go to some level of college for art and they may or may not get any instruction in the current or recent stylistic innovations and inventions being poured over. Regardless, they do what they do out of a stubborn belief that making art is the thing they want to do. As a result they become part of the ‘art world’, de facto members because of their chosen profession.  I know many artists of this type who would say just the opposite – that they’re not now and never want to be part of the art world. Nonetheless, they are. Each one produces what someone would characterize as art and as such they are the soldiers that make up the phalanx of ‘art producers’ that populate the art world.

Self-portrait with bandage, Vincent Van Gogh

The challenge for this group comes in when they are trying to figure out how to get paid for what they do. I mean, with so many individuals expressing their feelings and thoughts in a market place that tries to normalize everything, there is no clear path from making something because you’re compelled to and finding someone interested in buying it. This is compounded, of course, by a broad base of art producers that cuts across all kinds of socio-economic levels. Yet there is a limited number of art collectors outside of the upper and upper-middle classes. Nonetheless, these artists have, want, plan, hope or otherwise try to get their work out there. The great 20th century demigod of this approach was Vincent Van Gogh. (I know, he’s from the 19th century but the romanticizing of his life didn’t happen until the 20th.) He is the poster child for the ‘starving, misunderstood’ artist.

Some (small percentage) succeed. The vast majority of this army of proletariat artists doesn’t. They produce and don’t sell or they sell something once in a while. Even in the recent boom markets for art, this remains true. They produce vastly more than will ever end up in the hands of others for any price, like mom-and-pop factories producing clothes that no one wants nor often understands.

Then, of course, you have the other group. The ones, like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, and of course Tadashi Murakami, who went to school, taught, got the requisite MFA and PhD, studied the market and realized through analysis where the market was.

Andy Warhol

Then, he made his work to fit it. He latched onto a group in Japan, otaku culture, and  used it as the jumping off point for creating his own ‘technique’ called Superflat (aka – animation like) and he combined it with the creation of a series of characters in a sort of combined pop- art meets anime approach.

He’s not the first to follow this approach to marketing oneself in the art world. In fact, it’s been argued effectively that this was certainly Andy Warhol’s approach to making art and the market, along with many others before. The result here is that Murakami’s market analysis was successful and the thorough marketing of his ‘style’ has helped launch him to the heights of the market. As Murakami explained in a 2001 essay, quoted in Wired magazine:

“I set out to investigate the secret of market survivability—the universality of characters such as Mickey Mouse, Sonic the Hedgehog, Doraemon, Miffy, [and] Hello Kitty.”

Takashi Murakami

I believe that the majority of artists who follow this approach, at whatever level they set for themselves, achieve success to a much higher degree than the previous approach. And it’s for good reason. They recognize what the other group struggles with, that in the end it’s all about commodity and as Murakami succinctly states ‘market survivability’. The art world where the money is isn’t a think tank really or a Victorian romance novel, though there are some few places where that exists. It is a retail establishment controlled by the vicissitudes of people, corporations and institutions of wealth, each of whom has some motivator or objective to satisfy. An especially good book that I was encouraged to read, “Seven Days in the Art World” by Sarah Thornton, helped me to see this very clearly. Whatever those of us growing up in the 60′s and 70′s thought the art world was, it is not that anymore.

So, we have these two groups of artists, the ‘compelled to create’ group who may both lack a certain market understanding and yet continue to produce art for its and their own sake and the artist as marketer and object producer – Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, etc.

Well, into this neatly organized marketing structure comes  one of the newly coined ‘isms’ termed Relational Art or Relational Aesthetics.  It was coined in 1996 by French theorist Nicolas Bourriaud. The essence of the idea is neatly captured by him here:

Relational Art…”main feature is to consider interhuman exchange aesthetic object in and of itself.” -Bourriaud.

Nicolas Bourriaud

From the website of Anthony Carriere,  ”According to Bourriaud, relational art encompasses “a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.” (Bourriaud 2002:113) A relational artist might, for example, convert a gallery space into a temporary stand for serving coffee, with the addition of background music, suitable lighting, books to read, and comfortable chairs. The artwork here consists of creating a social environment in which people come together to participate in a shared activity. Bourriaud claims “the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist.” (Bourriaud 2002:13). In relational art, the audience is envisaged as a community. Rather than the artwork being an encounter between a viewer and an object, relational art produces intersubjective encounters. Through these encounters, meaning is elaborated collectively (Bourriaud 2002:17). Bourriaud believes this collective encounter can be both democratic and microtopian.”

It seems to me that rather than Bourriaud ‘discovering’ something here, rather he’s found a way to encapsulate what many artists of the first group, myself included, have been doing for a long time. The idea as I perceive it is that relational art takes into account the role of the social interaction the artist creates, enhances, produces or just generally effects. The art is something that interacts with the participant, rather than is ‘seen’ by a ‘viewer’. It seems to indicate that the artwork itself IS the interaction, not something that has been produced as a ‘thing’.

I find this concept intriguing because it’s something that’s been going on through a variety of artforms for a long time. The ‘happenings’ that were so engaging and consuming of the event space were at their best this kind of thing. In fact, this is also true to some degree of performing arts. The best performed art experiences are sublime and engaging in a way that transcends the specifics of the moment.

So, now, we have this somewhat loosely defined yet compelling argument for a form of art characterized as ‘new’  - an art of the experience. The event is the thing. Like many an art opening where more than a few of the people at the opening would have had a hard time telling anyone whose work was on the walls but they could tell you what the ‘party’ was like.

I have felt for some time that my work is like that. Though the production of my work has been objects such as photographs, drawings or paintings, these works have never been about some kind of private interaction. Instead, they are illustrations of the experience of what has happened. Yes, the works are records or documents of a process and yes, they are seen after the event or process is over, but the final product isn’t a product set outside of what took place to create it. In fact, with some exceptions regarding the stated parameters of relational art as suggesting that it be made of the space between the artist and the participant, my art and art making process are precisely what it purports to declare:

• Relational Aesthetics is a way of considering the productive existence of the viewer of art, the space of participation that art can offer.” -Bourriaud.
• In Relational Art, the artist is no longer at the center. They are no longer the soul creator, the master or even the celebrity.
• The artist instead, is the catalyst.
• They kick-start a question, frame a point of consideration, or highlight an everyday moment. And then, they wait. They wait for a response from the random stranger, the passer-by, the usual suspect – you and I.

So, with all this in mind – the two-fold approach to art making (art ‘inspired by the muses’ and art produced for the market), I wonder how this new relational approach to art gets com-modified by a system that assigns great value to objects based on a presumed or invented cultural significance? Just as is the case with objects, we have the ability to produce an endless flow of concepts and interactions that form the basis of the examination of human endeavor, aka art, but still have limited ways how to incorporate these things effectively into a system where the producers are able to survive financially off their work or the pseudo-historical institutions are able to effectively promote this work. There are examples of relational art that are included in major collections but how far it has succeeded in being incorporated into anything but a small slice of comprehensive art market remains unclear. Nonetheless, it is interesting once again to see that one of the presumed roles of art, certainly since Duchamp, has been to create art that ‘can’t be’ processed and turned into a commodity knowing all along that this is the goal – to turn exactly the most difficult production or process into something that can be sold.

A few artists whose work is considered relational are Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jens Haaning, Angela Bulloch, Liam Gillick, Andrea Zittel, Philippe Parreno and Gillian Wearing.

Had you ever heard of this word? I certainly hadn’t until recently when I read it in a blog interview with Claude Emile Furones on the website The Art Point. It’s an amazing interview with the most articulate of artists. Unfortunately, the interview is no longer available on the site, however, that word has stayed with me. It’s an odd sounding word to have such a profound meaning. Accoring to Wikipedia, “it generally refers not to the usual sudden originality, but to the staggering and stunning blow of a new idea, an idea that the recipient may be unable to explain.” How amazing that we have a word for this and how much stranger when one is a ‘victim’ of afflatus. Like a strong wind on a calm day, it can almost knock you down. Real inspiration is like that and yet for so many of us, it happens so seldom. Or rather that kind of inspiration, the sudden, intense kind comes so infrequently that like a guest who visits from far away only once every several many years, you forget how they look, how they feel.

Inspiration in the everyday sense is much more like the perspiration in the phrase, “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. Throughout the experienced perspiration we have lots of little inspirations, like petit mal seizures, momentary absences that when you come back to focus, you have a new thought or idea. But the ‘affaltic’ kind, well, they don’t happen often. And yet, like really hot sex with someone you just met, this is the kind of inspiration we wait for, even as we forget it’s a possibility. It’s like winning the lottery, a combination of complete incredulity and total personal satisfaction.

I, for one, pray often to the god(s) of afflatus for some sign, some sign that I’m on the right track and the light I see in the tunnel is such an inspiration rather than a train coming straight at me.

There is a wonderful series on Public Television called “ART:21” that I recently started watching (ah, the wonders of Hulu!). This particular series seeks an in-depth investigation into the why and wherefores of contemporary art of all kinds. A portion of a recent episode profiles the working on the famous and infamous Jeff Koons. I mean, if you’re a visual artist who doesn’t live in a cave somewhere, you know who he is.

The piece starts out in and develops a full dialog with the myriad assistants in Koons’ studio, and let me say he has a studio. When I used to hear about artists’ studios, I imagined there were a couple assistants who worked on the ancillary components, such as stretching canvas, mixing paint, etc. The master artist would be the primary ‘creator’ of the work. Andy Warhol’s Factory is one famous example. There were lots of people hanging around and a group of key people working with Andy to help produce his mass produced looking pieces. Yet this is nothing compared to what Koons has and clearly from how he speaks, he embraces this fully.

The assistants in his studio do everything. They are the fabricators. They are the painters. They are the producers of each and every piece. Koons is the master project manager and, as I am, the computer geek who designs his work for mass production by his team.

It’s an interesting thing to watch and a compelling argument, up to a point, for what I wrote in an earlier blog article about Duchamp and the artist’s idea. Koons has taken this concept of Duchamp’s that, “whether (the artist) with his own hands made the (art) or not is of no importance. He CHOSE it.”, run it through the Warhol factory filter and amped it up to the highest volume. His factory is a real factory. It is on a scale that many, if not most, small to medium size factories owners would love to have. He is an entrepeneur in the truest sense, replete with a personal staff and employees up the ying yang. He makes certain, like in a good advertising agency, that all the t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted. The net result is the most elaborate structure possible to produce the most complex, pristine and grandiose tchotchke’s know in recent history. And yet, there is a model for him, Peter Paul Rubens.

In so very many ways (though not some of the most important ones in my opinion) he is for our time what Peter Paul Rubens was to the high Baroque. For starters, Rubens had an enormous production studio. Through I haven’t found specifics, it seems likely to have been the equivalent of Koons’ only for the 17th century. And Koons is the 21st century’s example of neo-baroque or baroque-co-co. I had missed this aspect of his work all along and yet when seen through that lens, it becomes crystal clear.

From his earliest works which one might say are sublime but certainly understated, such as the hoovers in vitrines and the basketballs in fish tanks, to today’s “Puppy”, he has increasingly channeled Rubens’ baroque approach and the collectors and audience can’t get enough of it. Like so much of Ruben’s output, the grandiosity of it is mind-numbing, and incredibly pointless much of the time. The ‘trick’ of Koons, taking toys or quotidian objects of play, blowing them up, casting them in some antithetical material (plastic balloons become stainless steel) is mostly a one note song. Yet like so much ‘monumental’ work of his, it plays to our fears and inadequacies by out-scaling us and thus impresses. And like Rubens, who himself took scale to new heights, the technical aspects of the work are accomplished to say the least, thanks to the raft of ‘assistants’.

But what of the ‘assistants’? I’m sure they’re all very happy to have their salaried positions, assuming that the Great Recession hasn’t robbed them of that, like so many ordinary factory workers. If we remove the incredible talent of the assistants and we look at these works as visual art ideas in and of themselves, what’s there? Not a whole lot. The sublime cultural commentaries that were possibly in evidence early on have long ago disappeared.

Koons is mightily clever and clever is the key to success in the artworld today . Yet it doesn’t hold much water when you consider it. The one time I spent more than a few moments in front of the Marie DeMedici cycle of Rubens in the Louvre I was both blown away and disgusted. They are gigantic wedding cakes of paint and color and movement without much to really relate to. And so it is with Koons. A ‘wow’ effect, followed by a, ‘well, now what?’ I deeply admire his entrepreneurial skills and they are evident in his spot on ART:21. I wish I had half that much hutzpah and self-confidence. I also owe him a debt of gratitude because his lead allows me to do things that I would have had a hard time justifying previously.

So, all hail the neo-baroque and it’s over the top scale though frankly I’m looking forward to the follow up. If it’s anything like what happened after Rubens, which was Rembrandt, whoever it is will be a revelation.