Not the worst way to kill three hours, but this was pretty average as panel discussions go. All the speakers and panel members had their own agendas. So nobody actually addressed, very directly and cogently anyway, the issue of "regionalism in an age of globalization":

Rock Hushka showed paired slides of NW artists in the Biennial next to well-know international artists. (Regionalism is irrelevant?)

David Kiehl talked about his struggles at the Whitney, a museum mandated to collect "American" art, where to his colleagues "multiculturalism" has come to mean African-American art but not Hispanic- or Asian- or Native-American art (or even two-continent hemispheric pan-American art). His colleagues at the Whitney being slow to get it. (American subcultures, not regions, are the point?)

Alison Greene gave a wonderful quick visual tour of Texas art history. Her collecting mandate is so inclusive that "anyone who has done a napkin drawing at a Texas airport between planes," Greene considers a Texas artist, has been the running joke/complaint about her. (Regionalism includes even the most transient residents?)

The local critics panel fared a little better.

Jonathan Raymond from Portland (substituting for D.K. Row who could not attend) pointed out that in the past, people came to the NW to disappear. To get off the radar, deal with themselves not all the international detritus you have to deal with if you live, say in NYC. But today, people out-there are looking back at us, for ideas to the same degree that many here are looking out there to them for ideas. Can't hide away here anymore. (Regionalism as a kind of nest?)

Regina Hackett pointed out that, historically, the NW was an inviting place to the world's odd characters because (at least in Seattle) all the Norwegian and Asian immigrants settled here with their "mind your own business" values intact. Thus the NW became a refuge for all the gay artists of the NW School. (Regionalism as a place where you don't have a League of Decency always looking over your shoulder?)

Jen Graves came closest to a definitive answer: the old rural WPA 1930s sense of regionalism misses the point today. What is going on in Montana and Idaho and the eastern halves of Oregon and Washington haven't a lot to do with where the action really is: the spine of the I-5 corridor Portland-Seattle-VancouverBC, where there is some degree of stylistic and issue cohesiveness worth talking about. She also noted that 5 smaller, more critically targeted exhibitions every two years might be more useful to the "region" than 5 big tourist-friendly catchall shows every decade. (Regionalism as urban-issue art, so ignore the countryside?)

Matthew Kangas's remarks sounded the least sophisticated and most mundane, but ultimately the most provocative. In the age of disembodied technologies, people are drawn again to art as objects. Craft art has long appealed to people who distrust ideas in art, as opposed to the obvious and easily embraceable "labor of love" kind of beauty in old-fashioned craft objects. Craft, then, was down a couple notches on the aesthetic hierarchy from painting. But in recent years craft art has taken on ideas and/or combined craft materials with other materials, raising its stakes. An object with concepts. If you don't like the word "craft," call this "materialized art," Kangas suggests. And because there is so much craft-work done in the NW (beyond just Dale Chihuly's prominence), this makes the NW a place people outside the region look to for art, or come to do their own work. In reaction to what Rosalind Krauss asserts to be our "post-medium" age, and with the return of the perennial question "Is painting dead?," Kangas (bit tongue in cheek) suggests we start thinking of and labeling "painting" as the 7th craft. Even if you are a painter, call the work you do "craft." (Regionalism as the promotional image of and marketing device for NW art, cum "craft"?... and just maybe toss out the word "art" entirely?)

(If you build it, they will come… Though it is hard to imagine Matthew Kangas as Shoeless Joe Jackson.)

Craft with ideas…the future of NW art. And that's the smartest thing anyone said all afternoon!

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This whole Rosalind Krauss "post medium" artists, versus Matthew saying Craft based art is on the rebound, are both silly, reductionist, sweeping statements of supreme ego that have no relevance to the actual observable world.

The elephant in the room, that Critics with a Capital C try to ignore, is Personal Taste. Painting, of course, is not dead, and never will be. But some people dont like it.
Conceptual Art is not Bankrupt, any more than Painting IS Dead.
In each case, there are good and bad artists working, there are charlatans and showmen, there is vaporware and substance.

The same is true, of course, for Crafts. There have always been, and always will be, intelligent, thoughtful artists who are interested in working with craft mediums, just because they like them.
Charlie Krafft is an interesting example- in the early days of his career, back in the 70's, he was a painter, and he showed at Foster White, and he was acclaimed by the local critics as the true inheritor of Northwest Mysticism.
But for Charlie, painting, if not died, at least wilted in his mind a bit, and he got interested in subverting craft techniques, taking classes in Delft, and a hilarious foray he and Eric Nelson made into dollmaking, taught by a suburban zen grandmother expert... ask him sometime, its quite a story.
Anyway, Charlie is, of course, exactly the same artist he was when he was doing gold leaf japanese calligraphy- and now he is miraculously "rematerialised"?

A little definition may be in order here-
sure to be controversial, but here is what I think.

A visual artist is someone who expresses ideas in 3 dimensions.
(for the purpose of this arguement, we will assume that paint, ink, and pencil lines have enough thickness to be called a third dimension)

A writer is someone who expresses ideas in words.
A musician is someone who expresses ideas in sound.
and so on.

Thus, by my reckoning, every one of Krauss' "post medium" artists are in exactly the same category as Charlie. Just cause he paints on a mug, while they email instructions to a fabricator of some sort. They are both expressing an idea, in materials, in the real world.
If Ponza buys a piece of paper, which tells how to build a Carl Andre, its still expressing an idea in 3d- in fact, twice, once as a piece of paper, and second as a bunch of ugly floor tiles.

So the idea that there is some intrinsic difference between a "post medium" artist, a painter, and a crafts based artist- its just Booshwah.

Its all just a matter of what idea the artist had, and how they chose to express them.

Matthew sees Crafts as the spirit horse to ride, but in reality, there have always been craftsmen here, crafts based artists here, and other artists here who are totally uninterested in crafts in any way.
And some of each of them have been quite good, and gotten acclaim out of the region.

Is the work of Micheal Lucero somehow more "materialised" art than Red Grooms?
Both have done conceptually similar work in paper mache- but one has an MFA in Ceramics from the UW- does that somehow make him less of a sculptor?

I sure dont think so.

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I say this because so many people have assumed that I used digital means, or just some other means besides my own two hands and my drawing skills. The assumption was that there was a new way, maybe even an easier way, to make an image and so of course that was what I was doing.

Critics love to play with words and explain things but it's not something an artist should worry about. Let the people in the audience chatter and take notes but don't put the cart before the horse!

if an artist now jumps on the craft bandwagon (or any other bandwagon) solely because a critic says it's the right horse to put the ol' cart behind, i'd say that's the real road to artistic bankruptcy.

rare is the critic who actually captures a new zeitgeist, while at the same time every critic wants to call out the next big artistic movement.

at any one time you can find any number of artists doing similar things. does a critic or a gallery collecting a few artists in one category at a specific point in time define a movement?

are there more or less conceptual artists in seattle now that lawrimore project exists?

is superflat 'made in oregon' superhot thanks to being championed by jeff jahn, or is it the other way around?

was the complex spirituality that reportedly drove mondrian's most recognizable work sidelined for the sake of throwing him into the same category as anyone who was also working with highly geometric abstractions during that time period (and beyond)?

when was the last artist manifesto (or even artistic statement) written that was taken more seriously than what the critic said? would artists choose to align themselves with the other specific artists called out by a critic attempting to define a new or newly 'reborn' (!) movement?

for me, it all comes down to the individual artist. hooray for the artist who works on what they are driven to work on in the medium they are driven to work on it in, regardless of past, present, or future fads.

i don't love all minimalist painting any more than i love all spoken word (by a long shot), but damn, i'll never stop loving the bizarre beauty of tom waits performing babbachichuija or the hypnotic luminescence of anne appleby's summer sky...

There are too many choices. Do you write about the artist's life? When there's just you, the viewer, and the Mondrian painting, is his spirituality important? Why? Why not?

Do you write about the cultural and political context of the time? If you're standing in the Sistine Chapel and looking at Michelangelo's Last Judgment, is it important to know about the Counter-Reformation? No? Really?

How are the ideas inherent in the work made concrete in the physical work? Do you read the artist's statement and take the artist's word about why the work is important? If not, then on what basis do you judge it?

Do you write about the formal elements? The materials? The process?

Do you avoid a discussion of the formal elements because it's so tainted with connoisseurship, which sleeps so blatantly with money?

When you're writing 650 words, or 1200, or 3000, you've got to pick and choose. You're never going to cover the work. You're always going to leave out more than you can discuss.

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Victoria

quote:

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When there's just you, the viewer, and the Mondrian painting, is his spirituality important? Why? Why not? -VJosslin

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in my artistic individuality rampage i apparently forgot to mention the individual rights of critics and all other viewers, but anyway...

a proposed answer to one of your excellent lines of questioning, victoria: if you feel a connection with mondrian's undercurrents, yes. if you feel compelled to mention them for any other reason, no.

why limit yourself to known ways of approaching the subject at hand? word counts? words have the power to leave us unfettered just as they have the power to leave us restricted...

in my catholic upbringing (which i in no way regret but in no way follow in any recognizable fashion) i was taught that your best bet for contacting god was to dial up a) jesus, b) the holy spirit, c) a priest, or d) maybe mother mary (depending on which priest you listened to).

but personally, i preferred to interact with the sublime directly.

same goes for me and art.

if it's the art that points the way to the critique, fantastic. the words of the artist? fabulous. viewing it through a narrow microscope of a movement defined by an art critic or an art historian? not as appealing.

And if you go by that, then Matthew's theory that the craft based fine art work is the up and coming thing seems to be untrue- There are only a couple of crafty things in the whole show- the gratuitious and totally uninteresting glass pieces, and the jewelry- which actually worked just fine as minature sculpture, and didnt have many craft references anyway.
Then, I suppose you could point to Jeffrey Mitchell- who, of course is anti-craft as he could be, making his stuff as un-slick as possible, but it is clay. And maybe Cris Bruch, who made a sculpture from wood.

I found the premise shaky though- in his curatorial statement, Rock mentions how Beauty was a common thread (Huh?) and then talks about current trends.

I am dubious.
Especially since in the gallery next to the Biennial, there was a show of works from the TAM permanent collection, and there were at least 6 or 8 people in that show who were also in the Biennial. Then, yesterday, I went to the "Greatest Hits" show of art from the TAM at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham (who, exactly, is zooming who in that exchange?) and there, again, are the same 10 or so artists who are in both the other shows.

The plot thickens, as they say. 900 entries, but the same people keep showing up in everything the TAM does for the last few years.
Which is fine- and building a collection of artists you believe in, as well as exhibiting them, is a valid thing for museums and curators to do.

But it doesnt really tell me what is going on in the Northwest. It just tells me who Rock likes, and who he puts in every show he does.

In his defense, if you give it the ol' Gorilla Girl litmus test, he comes off with about a 25% woman artist content- not bad, in this day and age. Of course, 50% would have been better, but he sure beats the 3% or so most New York museums hit.

I find it interesting as well that the huge majority of work in this show is conventional painting and photos- average sized, framed, flat stuff you can hang over your sofa.
Maybe 5 sculptors, a couple of craftspeople, and 3 vids- meaning its 75% 2D wallhangers.

Again, it goes against both the "post medium" theory of artworld domination by those pesky conceptual types, and Matthew's Craft Rules theory.
The reality, as it always seems to be, is that painting is here to stay.
I went to First Thursday last week, and the same thing was true- aside from 4 Culture and Punch, every gallery in the Art Nexus Zone was showing about 90% paintings or photos. Framers need not worry about their kids future college educations quite yet.

I got a question though-
Was there anything truly "regional" in this Biennial?
I mean, I know there are a few local artists who have been around long enough so we feel ownership of them, but I cant think of anything in the show that was distinctly "Northwest" in nature- or that could not have been made anywhere else.

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Is regionalism dying in today's global world? I don't have a clue. I've personally been told my work fits into a northwest regional context but I've certianly never thought about my work in that way. To the extent I've thought about it at all I'm more of a NY abstract expressionist fan. But perhaps subconciously the palates I use, or things that come to mind when I paint are influenced by the world I am surrounded in day to day or the art I'm exposed too. Probably less than most would think but more than I know.

I wish I could have attended the discussion but I was reaping in Van Goghs and Pollocks at the MOMA last weekend. The current Armando Reverón exhibition was a huge treat.

I have a question.

How do you all (ya'll) define "post-medium"?

is it a new media versus old?

it seems that video is the same as painting in that respect.

She discusses this term, and thats where it is entering this conversation.

Soon enough, unfortunately, I will have to break down and read the actual Rosalind Krauss book from which it all comes- hard to adequately argue a point if you havent read the source material- although, aside from Dave Hickey, I find most current critical theory to be about as much fun to read as dental surgery.

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quote:

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Is one method better than another? I would say not. But I am attached to my process and feel it gives a certain organic life to the projects - because when you actually make a thing, you sort of pour yourself into it, literally. It had not occurred to me that my practice was part of a larger thing going on here and I'm still not so sure it's true or worth a great debate, but is interesting to consider….

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And Ries notes,

quote:

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I got a question though-
Was there anything truly "regional" in this Biennial? I mean, I know there are a few local artists who have been around long enough so we feel ownership of them, but I cant think of anything in the show that was distinctly "Northwest" in nature- or that could not have been made anywhere else.

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These are questions I was left with after viewing the exhibition with guests from the east coast- like me, they failed to see what was here that wasn't everywhere else. Or how little was there that felt new, or especially engaging.

My own knowledge of what is being made around the region has me convinced a much richer and focused and surprising array could have been presented, but I don't want to rain on the parade of the celebrated ones....and I'm sorry to have missed the panel- just missed getting in despite arriving early. Appreciate the various posts who gave thoughtful accounts of what took place.

Matthew claimed that "craft has restored contemporary art after the bankruptcy of conceptualism." He also claimed that it was the "secret history" of Northwest art and contemporary art in general. I am not ready to declare conceptualism dead, nor am I able to establish that it is the antithesis of craft, but I get his point. He said that he preferred the term "materialized art" to craft and said that it has the advantage of being "optically satisfying before it releases its meaning." He added that it has great appeal "in an age of disembodied technology."

I am all about art functioning as a means of stimulating pleasure first, knowledge second.

Matthew brought up two examples of acclaimed contemporary artists who work in craft mediums: glassblower Josiah McElheny and (fabric artist?) Charles LeDray, best known for his sewing prowess. He could just as easily have mentioned Charlie Kraftt, who learned porcelain painting technique from the late Lisel Saltzer.

I think that Ries is correct when he says that artists rarely think about their medium of choice in terms of relevance: they are simply their means to some artistic end.

There's so much here in this thread -- I'll write back shortly. Regina declared at one point "Jeff Jahn says regionalism is dead!" Jonathan Raymond echoed this sentiment, characterizing the historic appeal of the Northwest -- the impulse to be left alone -- as giving way to a desire for recognition and greater social engagement. Is this part of our changing artistic tradition? Regina seemed to say that it was, citing Matthew's now-famous "Gay Mystics" essay and what she called Seattle's "mind-your-own-business Asian-Scandinavian" temperment. And how did all this talk square with the exhibition in the adjacent galleries? You tell me.

All the panelists agreed that there was a need for more art criticism in the region and that it was time for another Reflex magazine to emerge. It does seem a shame that while there is more significant art being created and exhibited than ever before, coverage continues to wither.

I guess we'll just have to pick up the slack here on these threads.

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Jim Demetre

"It does seem a shame that while there is more significant art being created and exhibited than ever before, coverage continues to wither.

I guess we'll just have to pick up the slack here on these threads."

Never in two decades of writing criticism in the Northwest have I seen the emergence of so many vital critical voices. Smart, funny and engaged critics are all over the Portland to the BC corridor, fighting to be heard and doing good work.

Criticism is withering? When was this golden age of which you speak? In truth, Jim, weren't most of the reviews published by Reflex dull and blankly descriptive? I love the new people and some of the old. We're up, we're at 'em.

But as far as any regionalism in my paintings go, I think that's about it. Unlike other generations, I think there is a TON more input that a modern artist has to deal with, has to make sense of, that isn't any different really in Seattle as it is in New York or anywhere else. You're a painter sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta Mexico and you got a computer, you know as much as me in rainy Seattle, you have to deal with as much as me. Figure things out the same as me. Course you'd probably be using a lot more yellow.

It's a different world than before and I think it does mean that regionalism is history, but so what? You got to deal the hand you were dealt. Or play it, I guess.

As far as art criticism goes, I think things are WIDE OPEN these days and there's a tremendous amount of opportunities to change things for the better, and I think the use of blogs, podcasts, etc. is a good start.

Frankly, the art criticism I've come in contact with over the last five years or so is kind of boring and new blood and new ideas are desperately needed. Maybe to spice things up a little, a critic in Seattle should totally NOT like a show instead of always giving a glowing review.

I think, in particular, critics should be trying to tell their audiences what an artist is trying to say and how it relates to them, instead of telling their audiences how they said it and stopping short of really trying to interpret the work.

For instance, a critic can say about a work that it is about "loss" and that's fine, but why is it about loss? What does that say about the world? How is it useful to me, the audience? How successful was the artist in getting his message across? How does what this artist is trying to say connect with what other artists are trying to say?

quote:

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Maybe to spice things up a little, a critic in Seattle should totally NOT like a show instead of always giving a glowing review.

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Hey, Regina tried that recently, and what did she get?
Hate Mail!

Read on her blog about her mild comment about Alfredo Arreguins last show (I believe she said she was the dead spot on the floor, where a ball wouldnt bounce- not a very aggressively negative comment) and all the humorous to me, but serious to the senders, mail she got, asking HOW ON EARTH SHE COULD SAY SUCH A THING.

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quote:

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From time to time we have discussions about what "provincial" means. One symptom, I think, is having a cow over a negative review. Having a cow over one little honest negative comment is an even bigger symptom. - Victoria

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well that sure puts a negative spin on a word that doesn't necessarily deserve it.

i bet 'having a cow' over a negative review or comment has a lot more to do with the artist in question than it does with where they're from or where they currently live...

What is wilting is not the writers themselves, but the print column inches in daily papers and, more significantly perhaps, the daily papers themselves. As you have said to me before, the quality of arts writing is better now than it has probably ever been in the past. I would argue that newspaper writers, regardless of their beat, probably know more their subject than they did in the seventies, when I started to pick them up.

One of the problems with comparing art writing on the web to its print counterpart is that the former has evolved into a rather different genre. Much of what I post on these threads are sketches, impressions, gut reactions, and half-formed ideas. My responses to others here are often just furtive manifestations of my circumspection and doubt. Both are unresolved chords in a larger composition process. Electronic arts writers who do their thing elsewhere often weigh in with news, opinion, gossip, and personality.

What is missing from the web, however, are old-school art reviews of exhibitions, a traditional genre of writing with particular, well-established formal dimensions. Visual Codec, for one, distinguished itself by publishing them online. Artdish, too, has done this elsewhere on the site and will be doing so more in the future.

Reviews require a certain rhetorical structure and economy of language. There are also requirements when it comes to disseminating information and employing description to dramatize the specific activity generated by the work of art. These, I would argue, are withering. While I welcome the many art blogs that I read each day, the art review must persist along with the art essay and art profile.

I don't want to hold up Reflex as an institution that either reflected or created some "golden age" of arts writing in the Northwest. Much of its content over its nine-year life was, as you say, forgettable. But it was an important institution that provided the community with a kind of intellectual focal point and historical record of exhibits and events. And while the writing may have not always been first-rate, it was comprised of reviews that -- more frequently than not -- reflected ideas.

I think that something like it, though more engaging and timely, could develop here. But don't stop what you're doing, Regina!

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Jim Demetre

You're right about the diffence between online sketches and finished reviews, but sometimes I wonder if reviews themselves are finished, not entirely (look at the enormous response to Elizabeth's lively and intelligent review on the front of this site, online and throughly thought out.)

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Jim Demetre

quote:

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Unlike other generations, I think there is a TON more input that a modern artist has to deal with, has to make sense of, that isn't any different really in Seattle as it is in New York or anywhere else.

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I was driving along the western shore of Hood Canal late last night with a colleague, marvelling at the dark waters to our right.

We talked about recent readings of the history from ancient Greece, of politicians then arguing about a war that ended up continuing for nearly a hundred years, and which led to the decline of Athenian civilization. The tone and content of those debates was remarkably like what we have recently been watching over C-SPAN from the halls of our Congress about U.S. initiated activities in the middle east.

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Jim Demetre