Without Shields

Today I came across an article about a naked photo of Brooke Shields, taken when she was 13 years old:

"The original – authorised by Shields's mother for $450 – had been taken by a commercial photographer, Gary Gross, for the Playboy publication Sugar 'n' Spice in 1976. Shields later attempted, unsuccessfully, to suppress the picture."

The artist Richard Prince photographed the image and it was chosen to be included in the Tate Modern's recent exhibition on pop art. The image has been challenged as obscene by the London police (and has now been taken down by the Tate curators), and it has provoked lots of discussion on our current notions of obscenity (interestingly, the image has been publicly displayed without controversy in the past). Only the top portion of the image was printed in the press, of course, but I find the fragment disturbing enough. It's like a sexualized pageant picture, taken inside a sleazy motel. The naked body, unseen in this cropped version of the photo, seems superfluous.

One aspect of the story that fascinates me though (beyond the obscenity/censorship issues) is the lack of Shields' consent in the display of the image - not from a legal point of view, but from an artistic point of view. Forget the fact that her mother consented to such a perverse image being taken of her daughter for a Playboy publication. What goes through the mind of Richard Prince when he chooses to perpetuate the photo's display, knowing that the exploited child, now grown, does not want the image exhibited? What if a rape had been photographed as part of the commission of the crime - would those images be fair artistic game? Even if they could be legally, should they be? Would it matter whether or not the raped woman consented to the artistic use of the images? Should it matter? The images of the people jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Center towers of 9/11 have generally not been published. Jonathon Safran Foer included a similar image in his book "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", but he took pains to note that although the image was based on a real photograph,the image published for the book had been digitally created. No victims were exploited for artistic purposes.

I think of all the images that circulate on the Internet now - millions of personal, intimate, embarrassing, startling, revealing, horrifying images. For artists, it is a treasure trove, a little shop of horrors. But the more artists work from images, avoiding the confrontation or relationship with the people who inhabit those images, what is lost in the artistic translation? Or worse, do artists become participants in the process of dehumanization that so many of us are trying to overcome?

In my artist talk at Daimler Financial recently, I brought in the two paintings of Elizabeth Taylor that I had just completed. One participant asked me, "What do you think Elizabeth Taylor would think of these paintings if she were to see them?" The implication was that she may be offended or horrified by the disfiguring distortions I had imposed on her image. And while I admit I had not thought of the issue before (due to the obvious unlikelihood of the event), without hesitation I acknowledged that her opinion would in fact matter to me. I would want her to see that I was not trying to caricature her in any way, but rather seeking to find an expression of a deeper humanity lost in the artificial glamour of the original photograph. I would hope she would like it.

I know that sentiment is generally seen as anathema to the conventional artistic credo of "don't give a fuck" - but I'm not convinced of its universal value. I am certainly not advocating any attempt to please anyone in an artistically castrating kind of way, but there has to be some validity, if not value, in respecting the humanity of the person behind the image. There is obvious artistic value to exposing the ravages of our cultural psyche in images such as Richard Prince's photograph, but these images do not only function as mirrors of our culture. For those trapped within the image, they are mirrors of individual souls, exposed, vulnerable, for all to see.

Not The Same

My latest painting: 45" x 33", oil on canvas (no title as of yet)

Untitled, 45" x 33", oil on canvas, Amanda Clyne

Technically, my process is to (1) take a photograph, (2) turn it into a type of painting that (3) I photograph, and then (4) turn into an actual painting, which (5) I then photograph in order to show it to a remote audience. And yet, the point of my work is largely lost when not experienced in the flesh. For me, the work of art that I produce is complete after step 4. Step 5 is merely out of necessity (and desire) to share my work with more people. But the experience of the painting is so different to this digitally distributed image - the scale of the work to the human body, the sensuousness of the oil paint, the warmth of the light and color, the varying views when close up or far away. So much of the experience is lost when re-converted back into a photographed image. I always want a constant disclaimer on my photographed work: " It looks different in real life." Real life. If more people see work as a photographed painting on a screen, is that not the "real life" with which I am forced to contend? Do paintings have a greater significance as paintings or as photographs of painted images - and if so, must we paint for the screen experience rather than the human experience, or is there still value in anticipating and working toward a physical confrontation between viewer and painting?

My Sesame Street Theory

"...an encounter between persons and forms [is] in truth an encounter between persons - the maker and the receiver." (from Susan Stewart's "The Open Studio")

That was the opening to my first artist talk that I delivered to employees at Daimler Financial on Thursday. It was an amazing opportunity to reflect on the developments in my art and life over the past few years, and share my passion for art. It affirmed to me once again that being a viewer of art is in itself a creative exercise, and that the experience of art is a dynamic conversation, and hopefully connection, between artist and viewer.

The employees' response to the talk was amazing - the best compliment for me was that they appreciated how "accessible" I was. We talked about how a lot of artists try to build an aura of artistic "genius" by deliberately making themselves inaccessible. It is as if "accessible" in the art world has come to be synonymous with "mediocre". (I began to discuss this idea in my earlier blog posting "Over-Exposure".) But every time that I speak to people who love art and yet don't have a background in art and art theory, I am constantly struck at how much they want to understand more, and how remote the world of art seems to them. Does it really have to be that way? I work hard in my own practice to engage with the more complex ideas that the experience of art raises, but I am cautious to not make the visual experience of my work alienating. I want those viewers who are not necessarily familiar with the references and theories that I'm grappling with to still be drawn in - seduced - by the beauty of the image, the sensuality of the paint, and the ambiguity of the distortions. I think of it as my Sesame Street theory of art - I want my work to connect with "the kids" just as much as "the parents". Because until relatively recently, I was one of "the kids" too.

Conversation for Critique

I have been receiving a lot of feedback about my posting "A Pleasure to Meet You", and since my computer does not seem to be posting my reply comments, I thought a fresh blog posting in response might be appropriate.

I want to assure all who have responded that I was not referring to any particular person or any particular event. Really. That so many people think I was talking about them helps me make my point though. Over the last few months, outside of the studio environment (which I distinguish from studio visits, when critiques are an obviously essential part of a studio practice), I have found people are either silent in their response to work or have only criticism to offer. It makes me think of the experience of going out to a fancy party after buying a new dress or getting a new haircut - people can say they love the new look when they don't (not what I'm asking for), they can say nothing (where it is easy to assume they don't like it because the change is undeniable), or they can kindly say all the things that aren't working - the dress makes me look fat or uncomfortable, the haircut is old-fashioned or boring or makes my ears stick out or whatever. Except maybe it's a new look for me that I love, maybe they just need some time to get used to it - or maybe I already hate it and am embarrassed that I had to go to the party looking like a freak. Or maybe there actually is one or two things that are a surprising change that make me look better - or could make me look better if that one awful thing was not there. All I'm saying is, making value judgments that are truly constructive requires a conversation. Maybe you think Dolly Parton looks a little slutty, but unless you ask her, you don't realize that that's the look she's going for, that that's her idea of beautiful. Telling her she really shouldn't wear that because it makes her look slutty is not particularly helpful.

I am always open to hearing people's responses and thoughts about my work. It's why I make the work. It's why I have this blog. The point I wanted to make was that as artists, we know that putting our work out there is a brave and personal thing, and encouraging words are just as needed as any well-intentioned criticism. And lately, they have been pretty hard to come by.

The Power of View

Everything feels quiet and still tonight, a little sleepy, and yet here I am.

I've spent the day preparing for my first artist talk. While it's generally not difficult for me to talk about my work, it's been challenging to come up with an approach that enables me to coherently and concisely explain, in 30 minutes or less, the dramatic changes in my life and art over the past few years. Speaking to a corporate audience (ie. the employees of Daimler Financial), I seem compelled to begin with: "I am one of you".

Wanting to explain the influence of my former life (as a New York corporate lawyer) on my art, I have decided that the premise for my talk will be Susan Stewart's assertion that "no artwork can be completed without reception." Although I never created art until after I quit my life as a lawyer (and it was a whole life that I quit, not just a job), I had always sought out the experience of art. If art is understood as a sort of collaboration between maker and receiver, then it seems less surprising that I could emerge from the rational, linguistic minutiae of the law into the expressive, poetic realm of the visual arts. Indeed, I believe an artist resides in most of us.

As an artist now, I am fascinated with the seductive nature of images - the fantasies they induce, the desires they stoke, the frailties they reveal - and the role the viewer plays in perpetuating their power.

In Other's Words

Today someone kindly described my blog postings as "long-winded", and I admit that they are, as I use them to think aloud about all that consumes me about art. But today, I will let a few quotes that are relevant to my art practice speak for themselves (from Susan Stewart in her essay "On the Art of the Future" in The Open Studio (University of Chicago Press, 2005):

"Artworks and persons inhabit a materiality vulnerable to decay and dissolution. They require acts of physical care as well as acts of disinterested engagement in order to continue, and they are finite nonetheless. They literally bear meaning, and once they are materially gone, they exist only if they are carried on in the paralife of reproduction and other forms of description; their uniqueness can no longer be experienced without mediation."

"Every gesture toward articulation is countered by the inevitability of disappearance. Within the realm of visual art, for example, to think only in terms of what has been made visible, or to go even more astray and think of visual representation as only based in what is available to sight, is to miss the long tradition of representing the invisible and the limits of vision by plastic means."

"Whenever art makes visible, it does so by referring to the invisible from which the visible emerges."

"Blockage accompanies vision; deprivation is the partner of sensation..."

I promise to return to my own awkward ramblings next time.

A Pleasure To Meet You

(It has been too long. The first posting of September only now! I will have to make up for it.)

During this extended period of blog silence, I have expanded my studio space, planned two new major art projects (not paintings - details to be revealed at a later date), thrown out the failed paintings of the summer, and sent two recent paintings out into the world (at the group exhibition "Dreamers & Screamers" at Board of Directors). In the midst of this mania, I have been reading Susan Stewart's "The Open Studio: Essays on Art and Aesthetics" - which I have been dying to blog about for days.

But before I do that (more tomorrow), I wanted to put a few thoughts out there to my fellow artists about sharing our artwork with each other. The art world is full of weird and wonderful people, and I certainly embrace the subjective and critical responses to my work from anyone willing to share them with me (hence this blog!). But lately I have been struck by how quickly people are to give an artist a "critique" of his/her work while forgetting to provide any positive words of encouragement or appreciation. Some stick to the adage "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all", while some offer extended critical feedback without any prompting or request. But outside the classroom or formal (or even informal) critique environment, what is (or perhaps should be) the protocol among artists for responding to a peer's work? I know the word protocol implies a rigid politeness that would seem to defeat or detract from the dialogue that we want art to inspire. But is there not a distinction between debating the ideas raised by a work of art, and debating the merits of the work itself? I certainly agree that constructive criticism by our respected peers is an essential part of any artist's studio practice. But when considering the merits of an artwork (particularly with the artist), is it not just as important to consider what is working in the piece and not just what may not be? As artists, we all know the struggles in creating new work and the anxiety associated with the first public reveal. I am not advocating a falsified love-fest, but out of respect for the courage, passion and labor of our fellow artists (and frankly out of respect for art itself), is there not something to be said for giving an artist (and seeking in the work) some (truthful) affirmation of the artist's efforts? And if at first we don't see or experience the merits of a work, do we not owe it to the artist (and even to ourselves) to have a little patience, to stick with it a little longer. You don't have to fall in love with it, but maybe to just be open to the possibility, to be open to persuasion.

In Susan Stewart's essay "On the Art of the Future", Stewart draws an analogy between "the face-to-face encounter between persons and the face-to-face encounter with artworks." The following passage is worth quoting at length:

"Our meetings with artworks are embedded in the meanings and conventions we bring to encounters with other persons, and all nonmonumental art is a means of figuration in this sense. Yet, specifically, this meeting with an artwork that is in itself and for itself is analogous to that free ethical stance in which persons are encountered in themselves and for themselves - without prior determination of outcome or goal. When we consider an artwork as something meant, it is the intention and actions of individual persons that we seek to recover and come to understand in a project of implicit mutuality and heightened responsiveness or intensity." (The Open Studio, p. 18)

Stewart relies on the "paradigm for aesthetic experience" offered by Kant that asserts that "an encounter between persons and forms [is] in truth an encounter between persons - the maker and the receiver." (The Open Studio, p.19)

Perhaps this paradigm could soften the hearts of those who seek first to judge rather than understand, who revel in the chance to criticize rather than patiently find an opportunity for connection.

A Little More Inspiration

Petah Coyne

I'll begin with Petah Coyne, an American sculptor. One website (www.artsandculture.com) describes her works as follows:

"Unlike many contemporary artists who focus on social or media-related issues, Petah Coyne imbues her work with a magical quality to evoke intensely personal associations. Her sculptures convey an inherent tension between vulnerability and aggression, innocence and seduction, beauty and decadence, and, ultimately, life and death."

Love that.

And then I came across an Australian photographer, Rosemary Laing. After looking at Bettina Rheims yesterday, I was struck by the continuing theme. And yet after the explicit sexuality of Rheims' work, these stripped down photos by Laing are an interesting flip side. These photos are from her "grieving blondes" series.

Rosemary Laing

Rosemary Laing

I can't say the pink backgrounds do much for me, especially as a repeated element (they begin to look too staged), but I like the idea of them.

The photographers are definitely taking centre stage for me lately. My camera awaits.

Girls, Girls, Girls

My painting is definitely changing. I seemed to have turned a corner somewhere, and now all I want to paint is girls. Boys just don't seem to interest me as much these days (artistically speaking).

Recovering from an exhausting month of travels and painting, today I amused myself with Fashion Television re-runs. One episode showcased the work of French photographer Bettina Rheims (whose photographs I've posted here). Her work is amazing. Portraits of the feminine, they exude the complexities of female sexuality and desire. The more I looked at her work and heard her speak about it, the more I wanted to pick up my camera and take photos of my own. I was fascinated to read that once Francis Bacon had achieved commercial success, he began to commission photographs from a professional photographer so he could specify particular poses and expressions that he wanted to use in his paintings, giving him more control than he had with the reproductions he so often used as sources. As I find myself increasingly occupied with the figure and particularly interested in portraiture, I am wanting more and more to create my own images. The technical challenges involved in such a venture overwhelm me at the moment, but there must be a way. It may dramatically alter the subject matter of my work, but perhaps not. I guess I won't really know until I try.

All About Steve

Yesterday I went to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal - an amazing building on gorgeous grounds with a bookstore to die for (although I have a special thing for bookstores generally - a bit of a book fetish, really). Since it's the end of the summer, there was only one exhibit on - the rest of the building was closed off in preparation for the new fall shows. The show I was able to see was called "Speed Limits", about our culture's increasing obsession with speed. Upon walking into the first room of the exhibit, I saw a video of moving vehicles (rockets, cars in traffic, planes taking off, etc) projected into a large square on the floor. It took me a minute or two to look up and see a projection of a different video on the ceiling - of snails moving across a white, wet surface in real time. Fast. Slow. I get it. I can't say this is really my kind of thing. But an artist friend of mine, Steve Shaddick, has work that addresses a lot of the ideas that were explored in the exhibit, and I quickly started to see the exhibit through his eyes. I have to say, it became a lot more fascinating. I was charmed by things I don't think I would have taken notice of without having been familiar with (and a fan of) Steve's work. People must have thought I was crazy, because I think I had a smile on my face the whole time thinking about the fact that some integrated media artist had actually entered my brain enough to make me think this stuff was actually interesting!

The experience reminded me of my trip to New York with Nitasha - an artist friend who has a serious dark side and a fascination with things much more grotesque and disturbing than I can normally stomach. But having gained an understanding of her perspective of the world through her art, I found myself looking at artworks that were slightly gruesome or nightmarish in a very different, more curious, even more patient way than I ever have before. I looked harder, with a much broader set of intentions, with a much broader perspective.

And isn't that what art should do? To help us see poetry and potential in things from which we might have otherwise turned away?