I’m going to start off by generalizing the idea of the artist. An artist wants to be special. Wants to be something more than “the man about town.” What’s the fun in being ordinary anyway? But as I recently graduated from an artistic graduate program I have to say that emerging artists think and behave pretty much the same. Make a list of artistic goals and it becomes scarily obvious that everyone from a specific region is hoping to take the same steps in reaching an artistic career.
This insight became uncomfortable exposed as I visited Yokonori Stone’s solo exhibition “Welcome to the Tenderloin” at Ever Gold Gallery in San Francisco. One of the first paintings I encountered was titled “a plan for success in San Francisco (with updates).” It shows a painted sheet of lined paper containing a handwritten list of artistic goals for the upcoming five year:
get and m.f.a. from sfai cca
do a residency at the Headlands
get a show at Adobe Books or the Luggage Store
be included in Bay Area Now
sign on with Jack Hanley Ratio 3
get a S.E.C.A award
etc.
At first the painting made me happy. My former classmates and I immediately began to talk about that list and how we all could relate to it. We started to think about how many checks we ourselves could make on that list – or a very similar list. That’s when a growing sense of unease began to surface. Why would we all have lists with so many reoccurring names? We weren’t even artists working within similar fields. And that same art piece went from making me happy to making me immensely sad. I didn’t want to be that artist who so easily could be put into a post-graduate system of artistic goals.
* most of that so called conversation between me an my former classmates only occurred in my own head …
jävligt tankvärd, skört och roligt koncept att ställa ut listan som verk.
ReplyDeletevi hade en idé om att kanske ha en klubb som hette "de blev fel" där filmare kunde träffas och liksom få ha varsin temakväll där man berättade ur perspektivet det här blev fel, inte bra etc.just de här, här ville jag för mycket i fel riktning är fan ofta väldigt skoj men plågsamt att tänka på....
FIN text att läsa i morse!tack för den!
Oj, den klubben tycker jag absolut borde startas upp! Det kan behövas reflekteras över ibland. Själv blev jag dock lite deprimerad då jag insåg att jag på något vis skolats in i ett tänkande som tycks vara genomgående för många konstnärer som befinner sig där jag är (i karriär och i geografi). Trodde på nå't sätt att jag var bättre än så ... men där trodde jag fel.
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