Graffiti, Art or Vandalism?

I admit it: I am in a conundrum about graffiti. The show at Rochester Contemporary Art Center includes real-life graffiti painted directly on the walls by one of Rochester's noted tag teams. The art reviewer in City Newspaper writes blisteringly about those who don't understand how inspired this work is (that would be me) and how narrow the perspective of all who don't embrace the legitimacy of this work (me again).

Please don't misunderstand. I've seen some enchanting paintings on the most unlikely surfaces and in fact, I'm fully aware that when some of these pieces are translated onto canvas, their creators have become A-one, big-time, money-making art superstars. And you can ask an obvious question: if the Berlin Wall had NOT been covered by layers of scrawling spray paint - if instead it had remained pristinely clean gray concrete - would chunks now be ensconced in galleries, museums and Bausch & Lombs lobby?

However, I spent years studying urban sociology and repeatedly, scientists found that the harbinger of urban neighborhood decay came with small visual clues - among them, "tags." (I can find sources and quotes upon request.) And caring neighbors were NOT excited to see spray painted art springing up on decaying walls. (You may rightly ask which comes first: decaying or spray painted walls? I would answer they are interlocked - a bit like poverty and poor schools.)

So what separates spray paint art from mere property defacement? Perhaps it's size. Someone said that one pink flamingo on a lawn is tacky but 100 is an art installation. Is it the same with graffiti? If an entire building - or wall - or train - is covered, does that transcend anti-social behavior and become "art"? Or does intent of the creator make the difference? In other words, are you a kid running around spraying "fuck you" on every bridge in town or are you attempting to comment on social class, injustice or the state of contemporary art itself? Is the painter a folk artist or a delinquent?

These are questions that get answered too suavely by art insiders and that may be a big reason why so many "regular people" have no use for us/them.

Outdoor Art Shows

I walked through the outdoor art sale at Sonnenberg Gardens in Canandaiqua this morning. This must be year #5 for that show? It's gotten a little bigger but I'm not so sure the quality has kept up. Several decent crafters were there. About seventy percent of the show was photography (now that everybody has a color computer, images can be made quick, cheap and with as many copies as anybody could want. One result: photographers have become big-time greeting card makers.) But very few painters rose to take the bait. I guess it's hard to compete with the photographer/greeting card czars.

When I first started as a crafter doing outdoor art shows, most of us loaded our wares inside the family station wagon, tied some wonky make-shift shelving on top, pushed the kids into the back seat with lunch and off we went. I didn't see any little kids tied to "Mom, the artist" this morning. Come to think of it, most of the exhibitors were "mature." Nor did I see a single station wagon! The exhibitor's parking spaces were filled with vans or variations and every "set up" seemed ordered from the same catalog - pristine white complete with water proof roofs and roll-down side shields.

It would be easy to romanticize those early days and certainly I met some interesting people - some that remain friends nearly thirty years later. But it was hard work. Never mind making the stuff to show and sell. Packing it up was a nightmare, setting it all up in some farmer's field, nightmare, second act. Then there was weather. Cold or hot could be dealt with but rain and wind was something else again. The sound of crashing glass or pottery sent us all to the church altar: "Please God, don't let that happen to me!"

Then came the hours of sitting (or standing) and meeting the public, smiling, chatting - tap dancing to make the sale. Shoppers seemed to fit in one of three clumps. Members in one club wanted to be your very best friend. They talked about seeing you "when..." , loved, loved, loved all the new work, and needed you the artist to recognize their status in the public forum among all who were around to witness.

Then there always were a parade of people just walking through - rarely looking right or left nor slowing down to actually see any of the art work. Couldn't you and I think of a million other ways to spend Saturday afternoon? Maybe they just liked the smell of the hot dogs.

The group I personally disliked most were those that always knew how to do what you did - only better. And they never missed the opportunity to stop and explain to anybody around them why your work just wasn't any good. You,the artist, might just as well be invisible and you knew these people made every shop keeper crazy. They were the kind that probably bought the shoes, wore them three times and returned them for full refund.

I suspect nothing has changed drastically. Those artists this morning still tried to smile, be cheerful, start small talk even though I barely slowed down to see their artwork. And even with a fancy booth, I suspect they are all home tonight, tired as dirt and talking about the day's shoppers.

Finger Lakes Exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, 2009

If ever an art show was bone crushingly boring, it is this year's Finger Lakes Exhibition at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY, my home town, and I fear I am partly to blame. I have nothing whatsoever to do with the current art scene - here, there or anywhere! But I DID and during the 1980s when I ran an art gallery and the 1990s when I wrote art criticism, I fought the battle for ART - capital letters. It looks to me a little like those aesthetes - me among them - won the war but lost the spirit along the way.

I remember one of the first Finger Lakes exhibits I ever saw in the early 1970s. The gallery bulged with the most remarkable collection of - EVERYTHING! Amazingly quilted and hand dyed jackets hung next to water color flowers that nearly knocked you off your feet, so real and detailed that they emitted flower smell. Furniture like I'd never seen before (nor had anybody else! Wendell Castle was still mostly unknown.) elbowed it's way into space between metal sculpture and lord almighty! the ceramics!
About a million prizes were awarded, a special one for ceramics, I think another for wood working, another for photography. Go down the media list then throw in some all-purpose, non-gender awards and you get the idea. It was a visual free-for-all and what fun it was. I was overwhelmed and in love and that experience helped shape how I would spend my adult life.

Then "we" started defining "art vs. craft" and "real art vs. hobbies" and so it went until we honed and polished our way to the level of sophistication I see now, a tiny collection of mediocre stuff that would never inspire anybody to do anything! I've written before that any judged show is merely a mirror of the taste of the judging team, yadda, yadda,yadda. And certainly, it would do none of us any good to see the gallery packed with junk - painted ducks et.al. But really folks, when you have somewhere over 500 artists entering the exhibit and only about 3 dozen accepted, exactly what are we out to prove?

An entire Year (Almost) later

I haven't felt like writing about the Rochester art scene this year. Instead, I've been licking my wounds, feeling old and forgotten and ....all those feelings that get exactly no sympathy and no attention and therefore, I guess it's time to abandon that direction and look for some new strategy to (1) use my brain (2) use my experience and (3) use my time - but leave my $$$ out of it!

First, dear readers, as for one of my last blogs, I was dis-invited to participate at MAG on the Women's Council panel discussing art in the 21st century. Unfortunately, nobody remembered to tell me about the change of plans until the week before when I telephoned the program chairwoman to ask what time to show up and ... well, you can guess the embarrassing conversation from there. The panel, instead, was Ron Netsky (from Nazareth), Rebecca Rafferty (grad. of Nazareth and current art critic for City Newspaper. I wonder how that happened?) and Bleu Cease, director of RoCo. What goes on here? I feel a bit like a leper but I do remember getting Bleu Cease thoroughly angry about a slap-in-the-face review I wrote for City (before I was invited to leave there too!) And I did continue to tweek the nose of MAG (out of love! I keep wanting more, better, the best and keep getting mediocre, convenient, easy listening art.). Perhaps I went about it the wrong way and should not have done my criticism in a public forum. Oh well...water over the bridge (along with my news career!)

So where are we now? It seems to me that RoCo made some good decisions this year (the 6 X 6 show became not only a hugely successful fund raiser but equally good community builder. So why is this - the 2nd year - the last for this event ? Ask Bleu.)

MAG has a glass show up that needs some seriously thoughtful analysis but I'm not doing that now. Time is getting short and I need to take my puppies to puppy school. Instead, I'll send out this question: What's going on with this flap about ArtWalk? I need to be brought up to speed from people who know. Will you help? Can I? Shirley

Sol LeWitt at MassMoCA

MassMoCA, the huge converted mill in North Adams, Mass., is preparing a retrospective exhibit of wall paintings by Sol LeWitt. An entire 27,000 square foot building will be dedicated to the show that opens November 16, 2008, and will be on view for the next 25 years. The exhibit is being installed with the blessing and co-sponsorship of the LeWitt Foundation and Yale University.

For any reader who doesn’t know, Sol LeWitt’s abstract wall drawings and paintings are applied directly to a pre-primed, specially prepared wall. And they are BIG! Dia Beacon, the factory-turned-gallery in Beacon, New York, designed to showcase works of art so big that other museums can’t accommodate them, has a wing full of LeWitt’s.

Also useful information: Sol LeWitt died last year at the age of 79.

So how is it that previously un-painted paintings are being installed at MassMoCA?

LeWitt “designed and graphed” these drawings/paintings on paper. When an art piece was purchased – or in the case of a museum or gallery show, put on exhibit – trained assistants with the help of apprentices transferred the graphed information (including explicit instructions for preparations) to the wall surfaces. Buyers were given a certificate to verify that the work was an “original” along with a copy of the certified graph to forward to any future buyer (in case they wanted to either sell the work or simply move it to another location.) LeWitt died leaving closets full of never installed works, among them the supersized pieces going up at MassMoCA.

One Rochester art collector owns a LeWitt wall pencil drawing. It is applied to a bedroom wall. Local artists supervised by a LeWitt foreman did the work. The final step – spraying a fixative so that the graphite drawing would be sealed against dirt and dust – was skipped at the request of the owner who preferred the very matt finish, pre-spray.

All went well and the finished piece is exquisite. Then the electrician and his helper came to install special lighting to enhance the piece. The helper inadvertently brushed up against the wall drawing and smudged the graphite in one spot. Rather than remove and redraw the entire piece, the owner decided to let well enough alone and add the smudge to the lore of the installed work.

The Japanese have a term – wabisabi – that means there is beauty in the imperfect. They would understand the owner’s decision.

MAG Biennial

I visited Memorial Art Gallery today to take in the 3rd Rochester Invitational Biennial and here is my assessment: it’s a 50/50 success.

I love Juan Perdiguero’s “dog paintings.” These things are huge – approx. 4 ft. by 6 ft. or bigger – painted in shades of black and brown against mostly stark white backgrounds. The dogs are super-realistic, nearly photographically real. But Mr. Perdiguero places his dogs in poses that turn them into abstract silhouettes. You can’t help seeing the volumes of field as part of the whole, a lot like Rothko’s black and white abstract paintings.

Sue Huggins Leopard’s printed books are truly works of poetry as well as art. Leopard has worked quietly in Rochester for years and the level of her printmaking skills and integrity of her art has matured steadily. It is entirely appropriate that her work is finally getting serious recognition by serious art curators. I would snatch up an edition of her illustrated Emily Dickenson poems in a New York minute if I had adequate room to display them. They are charming.

I am a push over for “trash art” – those objects created from the throwaway junk that we all contribute to landfills – and Ronald Gonzalez uses these materials in clever and refreshingly original sculpture. Each sculpture sports a “junk” head perched on skinny wire legs. They form an army standing on a narrow shelf that circles a room in the exhibit, one more unlikely and funnier than the last. As someone who recently came from the latest Pixar cartoon featuring a charismatic little robot named Wall-E, I would believe that his band of characters were all movie extras.

Melissa Sarat’s paintings are complex and exuberantly colorful and that is probably the most understated sentence I have ever written about anyone’s art. Each canvas is so covered in imagery, so intensely packed with color that I just can’t concentrate on them for more than a few seconds. My brain goes into over-load. I guess her paintings are good but this time, dear friends, you’ll need to have someone else to analyze them. I found myself closing my eyes to rest.

The bad news: since the beginning of photography, picture takers have been fascinated by reflected images - mountains reflected in a lake or airplanes mirrored against glass covered buildings (and isn’t that a scarily prescient image?). And of course people reflected in everything from car windows, mirrors of every dimension and yes, even television sets. The narrative is just too easy. Susan Lakin’s photographs of people reflected on television screens are – let’s face it – old news.

Todd McGrain’s bird prints and sculpture have been done too but it took me a while to figure out why I was vaguely bothered by this artwork when by every measure I thought I should really like it. After all, I like nature art and stark images and who besides my friend Boo doesn’t like birds? Then it came to me: I own a small soapstone carving that is nearly exactly like Mr. McGrain’s birds except mine was carved by an Inuit carver nearly 50 years ago. And come to think of it, the birds prints look a lot like Eskimo art too – nearly always drawn in pairs – and I can’t help wondering if this is premeditated by the artist or an unconscious borrowing.
Now for the big question about these invitationals: it’s great seeing work by unknowns but what about the old timers in our community? Are they excluded from consideration because they have familiar names? Or because the museum selection committee sees their work as “less fresh?” Why don’t we ask those questions?

Gardens, another art form

I’ve known Linda (not her real name) for nearly thirty years. In all that time, she’s gained approximately four ounces while I have added another entire person where my waist once was. Nothing on her body sags and her dimples are still cute. She has maybe a half dozen gray hairs that form a chic swoosh at her temple while I am speeding past the “salt and pepper” stage straight into a blue tint job.

Did I mention that Linda is a talented artist with exquisite tastes and an adoring husband only too happy to bankroll her every whim? When I leave her house and come home to mine, I’m not sure whether to reach for a paint roller, a vacuum cleaner or a match. I begin by pushing a chair from one side of the room to another. My husband asks what’s gotten into me today and when will dinner be ready.

I am a college-educated woman. I ran a successful business and helped guide two children to adulthood. My husband of 45 years still loves me and I have the most adorable dog in the world (everybody says so). But there are some triggers – and people - that set off a seismic quake of inadequacy. It’s totally irrational but there it is.

Now that I’m retired, I’ve decided to become a respectable gardener. I buy a lot of books. Recently, I decided to join the National Garden Conservatory as well as my regional Civic Garden Club and tour everybody else’s gardens to (1) steal ideas and (2) steal more ideas. This was a major decision. I knew I was risking another “Linda” situation and my ego simply cannot handle more abuse.

In the past month, I’ve toured fifteen gardens reflecting an astoundingly diverse scope. One was no bigger than a small patio holding about a zillion planted pots while another covered fifty acres. Most were comfortably somewhere in between these extremes spreading over backyards that once sported only mown grass. One or two provided textural carpeting among mature trees, my favorite since that mimics my own growing universe. A few included vegetables among the flowers and shrubs and one was planted with hundreds of blooming tulips that visitors were invited to pick and take home as bouquets. And while I have ideas to steal, here are a few other pointers and impressions from my visits.

First, somebody has really sold the “backyard pond” idea in a big way and the design errors can fill a book. While I’m sure that the sound of trickling water is mesmerizing, rarely does a human construction match the real deal and certainly not in a bathtub sized pool surrounded by a necklace of matched rocks the size of my head.

Hostas win the prize as the hardest working plant oxen among gardeners everywhere regardless of growing conditions.

As a group, gardeners are the most generous souls alive. They will share every secret they’ve spent years cultivating and condensing - everything from plant and tool resources to growing information that only they and their grandmother previously knew. And after all the wealth of knowledge is passed along, they bend over with a trowel and dig out a small sample of the plant for you to try at home. I’ve just returned home from a tour of the Hudson Valley gardens with a bagful of geranium roots and a tub of euphorbia. I also learned that the beautiful cordovan colored plant that mysteriously came to my garden is perilla and that it’s edible. I have enough to feed citizens of a small country.

I’ve yet to meet a gardener who has a finished garden. The eighty-something year old man now confined to a wheelchair that we spent time with at his sprawling estate on Saturday was explaining his next major planting project. His helper was at his side but there was no question about who was the brain behind this nature extravaganza.

I’m home again and you know what? My garden looks pretty good!

I’m calling Linda to come on over for tea.