For the last time Jimmy, I don't make art anymore.
Monday, March 2, 2009 at 03:01PM 
Confused in Tokyo Photo by Mason HastieI have no respect for art it seems. For those of you who don't know, I have a Bachelor's Degree in Painting. That's right I am a fraud...go ahead call me on it, I'm not a trained graphic designer. "But Joel, that's like a sculptor working as a carpenter." Yeah... so... what's so bad about that? "N-nothing..." Good, shut up and let me finish. Anyway... the other night Jenn was trying to encourage me to start painting again, and I was handing back a bunch of reasons/excuses, mostly surrounding the podcast and what a time suck it is. But I'll be the first to admit that I don't have the balls to sacrifice my security to pursue a career in the arts, it's hard work and takes a lot of time and confidence. But that's not the reason at all. It occurred to me the actual reason I don't paint is that I don't get art.
"Whoa buddy, you just said you have a degree in..." Yeah, yeah look, are you going to listen or yap all day? Maybe I understood art a whole lot better before computers showed up. I mean, I can digitally make the same work of art in about the same it takes me to paint it, but without waiting for things to dry in between. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a retard who is going to raise hell over whether a single swash of paint is art. I'm not that guy, I actually get the content part of art. I totally understand the creative process end. I understand why collage can be as awesome as an abstract. I get why a landscape is as valuable as a deconstructionist piece. What I don't get is the after part where it's temporarily commodity and becomes a success/sales dance. Maybe this made sense a few decades ago, but culture has changed so drastically that the old model of 'art' doesn't makes sense anymore. 90 percent of any opening I go to these days is populated by other artists, not patrons.
"Are you saying art culture is masturbatory?" Seriously...zip-it. You're starting to piss me off, kid. I'm not saying that, I'm just not sure who cares about the culture anymore? The old stodgy Sotheby's buyer is still around, and corporations love putting their name and wallets behind art. But it's the subculture of Art nerds, like record collectors with more money, who are buying emerging artist work and storing them in their soon-to-be-burnt-down-in-a-meth-incident apartments. These are the most important people to contemporary art ('contemporary' means 'right now', before you interrupt again, dummy). It's these patrons that buy the magazines read your artist statements and generally give a shit, the rest of the scene is a circle-jerk with free drinks.
Those of you deep in the fray already know this, and well... this is also your paycheck, so whatcha gonna do? The shrewd of you avoid showing in the 'artist-run' centers as often as possible, but will attend to 'support the scene'. "Are you implying they go just for the free booze?" Yes Billy, now kindly stop urinating yourself and pay attention. Music had a huge change this decade, and possibly for the better. Now musicians rely on live shows over record sales... and crap music has less marketing dollars to risk on bullshit with a pretty face. Maybe it's time for visual art to re-model as well... Nobody's making any money anyway, now's the time to experiment... Take the tiered system that's already in play and twist it a bit: Get the genius work out of 'government charity' and charge for shows or booze or something...maybe get a merch table. Commercial galleries are... well, generally doing just fine. They exist to make money and yet have really great artists... most of them... Then there's the mall gallery (shudder). They serve their purpose but nobody would miss them if they disappeared, much like when Color Me Bad evaporated and no one noticed. Honestly if the shit-middle-of-the-road galleries and the artist-runs existed in the same space you'd either have a good place for emerging artists to cut their teeth while making a few bucks, or you'd find a good place to firebomb. You could buy a Thomas Kincaid print for $1500 and an original Joel Jackson for $200... or less.... much less.
Electric Lounge, Digital Print on Canvas by Joel Jackson. 2001.
"That's almost the exact same as how it works now!" Okay Susan, if you're so smart what's a better system? No, nothing?... that's what I thought.... Ahem... so art's a broken system and most artists are having an increasingly tough time right now. I seriously doubt they're going to quit producing for economic reasons... eating maybe... but not producing. It's what drives them. So why would anyone quit such an compelling practice, why would I? Of course, I don't get art. Economically, I don't get the expenses: living in relative squalor... material costs...travel. I'm not even sure how an artist can make millions in the first place only to become bankrupt ten years later (I'm talking about you Attila Lucas). and I don't get what it does anymore, there's so much in any given city it's really hard to even see art. I do get why artists make art, they have to. Hell, even me 'the quitter' has to make something constantly. I get how satisfying a life of creation would be. And I do get it... when art's awesome, it's SOOO fucking awesome. I love artwork, you know, the actual things. I love having it in my house (thank-you), I love making it in some form or another and I especially love artists. I guess it's the culture itself that makes me want to quit (or I guess by now I mean 'makes me want to not start again').
"But what about the therapeutic nature of art?" That's officially the stupidest thing you've said all day Gary...Do me a favor... Go home and tell your family that they're stuck with humanity's only embarrassment... Okay Hippy, that's great for you living in the woods smoking Drum rollies, But gee I wonder how Johnny Lunchpail...would think art affects him: It's this new stink economy, Johnny and his colleagues have made the daily somber death march to work, only to find that the terrible coffee he finally conditioned himself to swallow, has been replaced by something else... far, far cheaper. These are dark days - you can cut the tension in the room with a knife and every second desk is empty. Management has been playing Russian Roulette and so far Johnny's won. But as he sits at his desk, Johnny wonders who's next. The fear of getting laid off has been hanging over his head for the past few months. Suddenly his phone rings...it's HR.
Bam....you're unemployed Johnny, now go buy a painting with your last few bucks. Feel better?
Apologies to all of my friends
Reader Comments (2)
This smells of something personal and has nothing to do with a language. Don't blame art because it asked more from you than you have to give. Maybe you have nothing to say but still have a pathological urge to express it? Who knows... but it sounds like you really don't get it.
Re: Juan, you're probably right. I'm also being cheeky, I really do love art but I do feel the system is broken. Thanks for reading it anyway.