[-empyre-] The diffculty of creation and Audience

[Patrick Lichty]

For me, creation is from inner necessity.  I have about half a terabyte of work no one has seen, or very few.  It may eventually be destroyed via neglect or degradation before documentation.  It's actually the media/material working out of the ideas I'm writing about at the time.  Showing it, or even putting it in the gallery seems to be a set of social experiments for me.  That is, even if I'm sharing it.  

I've also stopped worrying about the that fact that I'm with a gallery, although I am not necessarily creating grand production schemes.  Basically, I'm not against putting something in a frame - print, computer, video, whatever if someone wants one and it can pay for more materials.  I guess I'm not such a romantic anymore.

On the other hand, there is a whole generation of young New Media MFAs who are focused primarily on the art market.  "Eyes on the Prize", "Make things happen", "Strategy, strategy, strategy" are sounds that I hear coming from these late 20's media artists.  There's a sort of calculation in a lot of these folks that I'm not sure I can quite get into bed with.  Don't get me wrong, I think it's good to have ambition; but I am a bit cool to the almost corporate art-world style that I see in a lot of the young turks.

I'm of the old camp of being prolific with good work, showing widely, trying to be a good person, trying to help out, and letting things go from there.  In the long run it seems to work, but in the short term, it does not make a shooting art star.

In short I still make primarily because I feel that I have to.  On the other hand, I like what Frieder Nake said to me in that "the Work is not art until it is public", which I liked.

I know this is not a defninitive statement, but I hope it's of use.