Re: [-empyre-] nice and not nice...

Picnic <picnic@design.otago.ac.nz> · Wed, 19 Jan 2005 11:15:59 +1300

hi,

i am one of those nzers just back from sharing beaches with wildlife 
and catching up on interesting and reflective conversations...great! 
thanks
paul's email started my fingers itching

while i agree with you paul with the under-represented first category I 
do think that your second category distinction is somewhat 
unnecessarily romantic.

It is relevant that we are reading and writing on a list, and the 
selection of artists selected were not exhibitors in the digital maori 
exhibition. (Are some of these artists reading but not writing? it 
would be great to hear from you) List speak is a particular kind of 
writing and not one that nzers on this list are usually very 
comfortable with participating among. This is a rare discussion for me 
at least, it is a beginning, in a process of connecting and reflecting 
upon our conversations and ability to participate. In terms of 
communication NZ is a fractured country. We need networks to 
communicate, (...or discount national travel options) and this 
communication we need to reflect upon how we might relate to each 
other...how our practice tells us anything about our identity outside 
of our own town

and the artists nominated for discussion-building on this list have 
travelled overseas to find the sort of successful operating network 
that builds/affirms identity, so have a particular voice/perspective
your second category of what it might be to be a practising artist is 
full of crap assumptions about day jobs, an artist's other life 
responsibilities and class status, and harks back to nz mythology of 
what it means to be a 'man alone', and NOT part of a network

personally speaking, my day job/s, my colleagues and friends, 
discussion lists such as this and being able to pay for childcare all 
contribute to my being able to be an artist.
cheers
caro

On 18/01/2005, at 9:44 PM, The Paul Annears wrote:
Dear Soft-Skinned Peeples
There are (at least) two groups that seems very very under-represented 
here on

this discussion.
One group is the indigenous Aoteraoan, however that might be defined.
This is only an issue because we are supposedly discussing the new
media from the perspective of the Aotearoan, indigenous and otherwise
if it is possible (or rather: sensible) to make that distinction.
The other group that seems to me to be under-represented is the
practising artist (full stop).  The practising artist (full stop)
being a person (or other sentient entity) who doesn't have a job at
what is known in NZ as a tertiary institution.  The distinction that I
am making is not that teaching is evil, but rather that the artist,
who doesn't have a job 'teaching' students (most of whom have
absolutely no talent and in any other non-middle-class reality would
have to get a job), this artist, I suggest, has a rather different
perspective and is operating in a rather different realm.
For myself I can say that I have had a number of grants and have
taught in a few workshops but for many years now I have not had a
comfortable middle-class existence and looking at the results of
middle-class art: a huge explosion of galleries and of middle-class
buyers and a extraordinary implosion of completely puke-worthy 'art'
leads in the same direction
as the rest of the bloated society is heading, to wit, down the
non-composting toilet.
The practising artist's role, be he Aotearoan or not, be she online or
offline, is to push the limits, to go where no sentient being has gone
before.  OR, perhaps, is the practising artist's role to work the
room, shoot the breeze with the people who will further their careers
and generally be, at least on the surface, fawning and disgustingly
appreciative of the favours that might be dripped upon them?
In 1982 I had an exhibition of my paintings.  One of them was a
colourful matrix, a labyrinth of uncertain meaning to the uninitiated.
The gallery dealer took me too firmly by the arm with his alcoholic
hand, whispered hoarsely at me that the people he was about to
introduce me to were going to buy the painting and that they would
like to meet the artist before they did.
These people who reminded me very much of my Uncle Brian and Aunty Jean
(who at that very moment were watching The Sound of Music for the 29th
time with their three plump children) wanted to ask me a question.
Fire away, I said, with a euphoric sinking feeling.
They liked the colours the size of it and it would go very nicely on a
certain wall in some room or the other, but what was the painting
about?
I explained that it interested me that young people liked to dress
up...and go out and get covered in blood...and be mutilated...and die
horrible deaths...the red they admired was blood.
It is not the job of the artist to be provocative, mildly or
otherwise.  But it is the job of the artist to question everything, to
stand outside everything, and how can someone who is questioning
everything survive in a
middle-class environment?
I suppose the answer might be: by being wonderfully brilliant.
Voyeuristically yours,
The Paul Annears
--
The Paul Annears
www.xxos.net
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