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• AoTW: Odd Nerdrum, Onwards Towards Kitsch
• “Jasper Johns Painting Draws $28.6 Million Bid” So What.
• A Sojourner’s Tale, Part One of Two: Failed Utopias, Art, & Bourbon
• A Sojourner’s Tale, Part Two of Two: Failed Utopias, Art, & Bourbon
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• AoTW: Dennis Oppenheim
• Food Art Shenanigans ala Terry Border

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• Top Five Books Every Artist Should Read
• The Deceit of Representation: The Representation of Deceit
• AoTW: Local Exhibits: Joel Sager
• Jimmy Fallon’s Interview with Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, Part 1 (5/5/10)
• Jimmy Fallon’s Interview with Roger Waters, Part 2 (5/5/10)
• How to Look at Art
• List of Recent Artists of the Week: AoTW roll

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AoTW: Hang on to Your Pelotas, Amigos, it’s Guillermo Gómez-Peña

I'm fortunate to live in a city that has a pretty healthy art community. Could it be better? Well, of course! But it's nothing like the dumpster-fire art scenes that I've experienced in some of the places I've lived. With this in mind, I had a grand idea---I'd highlight artistic going-ons happening around my community and feature a local artist for AoTW. And like the best laid plans of mice and men, it went all to crap because there just aren't many going-ons, well, going on. Or if there are, a scouring of the regional interwebz didn't reveal anything of note. For now, that idea is on the backburner. So, I cast my net a little farther west and south and re-discovered, Guillermo Gómez-Peña.

How does one describe him? Well, urmm, I'm not sure but here is a picture to set the stage.

Keep in mind that this is a relatively tame picture of him

Here is a video to further the mood:





Born in Mexico, Gomez-Pena later moved to the United States in 1978 and has since developed a fecundity in a wide array of media producing what is often a cacophony of visual imagery, sound, and outright bizzarro tactics which promote a gestalt of "performance activism and oppositional art."

Some examples of works in this vein:

The Couple in the Cage:

In a series of 1992 performances, Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez-Peña decked themselves out in primitive costumes and appeared before the public as "undiscovered AmerIndians" locked in a golden cage—an exercise in faux anthropology based on racist images of natives. Presented eight times in four different countries, these simple performances evoked various responses, the most startling being the huge numbers of people who didn't find the idea of "natives" locked in a cage objectionable. This provocative tape suggests that the "primitive" is nothing more than a construction of the West and uses comic fiction to address historical truths and tragedies. from: http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?COUPLEINTH

Border Brujo:

Sitting at an altar decorated with a kitsch collection of cultural fetish items, and wearing a border patrolman's jacket decorated with buttons, bananas, beads, and shells, Gómez-Peña delivers a sly and bitter indictment of U.S. colonial attitudes toward Mexican culture and history. Whirling through various Mexican American stereotypes, pulling on costumes as easily as accents, Gómez-Peña emphasizes the collision of Mexican and American cultures, their mixture and misunderstanding of each other, each appearing as a dream/nightmare reflection of the "Other." In turns powerful and playful, Border Brujo poignantly illustrates the double edge of forced cultural occupation. from: http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?BORDERBRUJ

Temple of Confessions:

A documentation of a performance/installation. Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes created a fictional religion based on inter-cultural confessions. Exhibiting themselves in Plexiglas boxes as "end-of-the-century saints", the two performers hear the confessions of audience members willing to reveal their intercultural fears and desires to the saints.

"Considered one of the finest performance artists working in the U.S. today, Mexico-born Guillermo Gómez-Peña and his collaborator Roberto Sifuentes have created a surreal, chapel-like environment. In this space, viewers become participants, revealing their innermost fears and feelings about Mexicans, Chicanos, and Mexican cultureÉ People are disturbed, confused, ashamed, hopeful."

--Kathleen Vanesian, Phoenix New Times, February 9th, 1994. from: http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?TEMPLEOFCO

Gomez-Pena's work is certainly confrontational but it is oppositional by design in order to force the average viewer to consider issues that have a tendency to remain in the murky understrata of society. The interface between the viewer, who is often an average museum goer, and the shocking display of overloaded ethnic and cultural symbolism promotes a dialogue that:

...challenges the traditional art world mythologies of the "Artiste" as a suffering bohemian and misunderstood genius. La Pocha artists perform necessary roles in multiple contexts including those of social critics and chroniclers, inter-cultural diplomats and translators/mis-translators, informal ombudsmen, media pirates, information architects, reverse anthropologists, experimental linguists and radical pedagogues. To us the artist is above all, an active, responsible citizen immersed in the great debates of our times. Our place is the world and not the Art World.

For several years now, Gomez-Pena has worked on developing a cross-disciplinary collaboration of like-minded artists who engage in artistic efforts that compel discussion of race, cultural identity, stereotypes, etc. via:

""living museums" that parody various colonial practices of representation including the ethnographic diorama (as found in museums of natural history), the Freak Show, the Indian Trading Post, [etc...] and their contemporary equivalents in global media and corporate entertainment

...the composite identities of our "ethno-cyborg" personae are manufactured with the following formula in mind: one quarter stereotype; one quarter audience projection; one quarter aesthetic artifact and one quarter unpredictable personal/social monster

from: http://www.pochanostra.com/what/

The living museums and other performances promote an idea that works towards:

...an ever-evolving cartography, which inter-connects nomadic, immigrant, hybrid and 'subaltern' rebel artists from various countries bypassing the hegemonic centers of cultural power...

...We seek to articulate another kind of global culture, emerging from within grassroots communities and on the streets, a hybrid culture that often resists, consciously or unconsciously, the 'legitimate' forces of globalization. In this sense, we are part of the 'Other Global Project.' We are particularly interested in the cultures generated by the millions of uprooted peoples, the exiles and migrants from so-called Third World countries, the orphans of crumbling nations and states who are moving North and West in search of the source of their despair. In the process, these 'orphans of the developing world' are creating a new fusion of high/low culture, which, by nature, is anti-colonial, oppositional and experimental. In the process these cultural migrants and political exiles inevitably meet with other migrants, the sexual misfits and aesthetic renegades of the dominant culture. We are interested in the meeting place.

There you have it. When I first found out about Gomez-Pena's work a few years ago, I certainly found it interesting. I couldn't help but be mesmerized in a "how you can't help but look at a car wreck" kind of way. However, considering the administration's ramping up of the immigration debate and the controversial bill just signed into law in Arizona, I think that Gomez-Pena's work rings a different timbre, so to speak. This debate is sure to become more heated in the coming weeks and months and the issues that Gomez-Pena raise, even if you don't agree with the manner in which he does so, are necessary of consideration.
So, if you are fortunate enough to be in an area where he and/or his group is performing, be sure to check them out.


For more info:

Guillermo Gómez-Peña's website: http://www.pochanostra.com/

An archive with some video of several performance pieces: http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?GMEZPEAG

"That's crap," "I don't get it," and Other Things People Say When Looking at Art

Begin rant--

Having perused many art galleries in my day, I have had the opportunity to not only view some great works of art, but also inadvertently witness the reactions to art that many individuals have.  In fact, there have been occasions when I've spent far more time observing unwary museum-goers instead of focusing on the art that I came to see. 

Many people seem to have found their way into the museum out of an obligatory sense to participate in a cultural experience but, unfortunately, do not necessarily have the tools to help them fully participate in that experience.  I've often wondered why this is.  Every adult there, presumably, has obtained an education, probably public, and were compulsorily exposed to some form of an art program.  It would be reasonable to assume that they were given the tools to understand not only mimetic forms of art but the more abstract and even non-objective forms as well.  However, the truth of the matter is that most art programs don't cover how to observe and interpret the visual arts in as much of an in-depth a manner as, say, the schools cover mathematics or reading.  Viewing art, particularly modern and post-modern art, is as much an exegetical experience as reading works of literature; however, the average 27.2 seconds most people spend on viewing a piece of art doesn't lend itself to establishing a meaningful relationship with what the artist has created.

I think that many people don't spend much time viewing modern and post-modern art for numerous reasons, but one of the primary reasons is that they simply may not know how to.  People identify with what they can recognize--in art, this often means that naturalistic and representational works often win favor because the content is readily identifiable.  Ask people what their favorite artists are and they'll comeback with Monet, van Gogh, Rembrandt, Renoir etc.  Colors that excite and objects or people that are well rendered are never out of favor *cough*Kincaide*cough* There is certainly nothing wrong with such work but it closes off a means of experiencing the world that can only be communicated via the means, methods, and materials that many post-modern artists utilize.  It is akin to not reading any novel produced after, say, 1890.  Yes, there was some fantastic literature produced prior to 1890, but a tremendous amount of significant work has been crafted afterwards as well.

"Pssst. Maybe if we stand here long enough people will think we understand this."

Art speaks about our community, our society, and our world in a way that words cannot.  I think that somehow along the way this has been forgotten or deliberately dismissed--although I can't say why, well I guess I could try but it would take more space than I have here.  It is certainly not uncommon for art to be viewed as expendable within the confines of budgetary considerations.  Art is simply not viewed to be as practical as infrastructure or defense and when viewed in an either/or manner then, yes, it does make sense that art is lower on the hierarchy of needs. 

What I advocate is an integral and symbiotic view of art.  Many indigenous cultures do not have a separate word for "art" as what they create is a necessary extension of their social identity not something that is "separate" from them.  I highly doubt that we in American culture will ever view art as an integral expression of our identity since our tendency to compartmentalize is well established, but certainly steps can be taken to integrate art into our cultural milieu.

So, how can this be accomplished?  Through education.  It will be a slow process but many art education programs are currently promoting the arts more aggressively than before and, more importantly, stressing the critical analysis skills necessary to transcend the traditional barriers that existed between academic subjects.  I think this facilitates--or will come to facilitate--a perspective of the arts that is more flattering than we have had in the past.  Many art rooms have been viewed as a place where students can come to play--which, don't get me wrong, play certainly has its place because learning should be fun, but not frivolous--or, sadly, a dumping ground for students who haven't successfully integrated in the other "core" classes.

The arts can promote skill sets that will help students succeed in whatever field they find themselves and as much as I hate to justify the value of art in terms of its ability to help children get a job sometime in the future, it's important to "sell" art education to those who will be making the budgets.  Further, the arts allow students (aka future leaders of society) to exercise cognitive skills that they seldom use in other academic settings.  Students who have been exposed to the arts have been shown to demonstrate greater achievement in other areas.

Again, I iterate that I think the arts have intrinsic value outside of how creative thinking can facilitate making mo money.  Everything within a community is crafted in a manner that reflects what those people value.  Every artifice reflects who we are as a people--our dreams, hopes, fears, greatness, darkness, and what we may become.  No more effective barometer of a culture can be found outside of its creative expressions.

End rant.

I'm OK, You're OK...but We Could be a Lot Better: Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Art and Society

After researching the previous post about BioArt and seeing all the weird and wonderful things artists are doing with transgenic manipulation of organic tissue, I thought to myself, "Hey, if we can make a fluorescent bunny, what's stopping us from making a glow-in-the-dark human?"  Although it is tempting to look at these biomodified creatures in a darker light, I couldn't help buy wonder how the burgeoning technology in the biotech field could help the collective human race advance--hopefully to a good end and not to an apocalyptic Terminator-style throwdown.  And, like most of my ideas, somebody else had thought of it first.

The transhumanism/posthumanism movement is in full swing in some circles.  Commonly called H+ by those in the know, these thinkers and scientists are working in myriad fashion to enhance, upgrade, and, in short, make people better not only in terms of genetics but also in terms of access to quality health care, improved social well-being, and the creation of technology that will enhance the overall human experience.

Bad genetics bringing you down? No problem, pretty soon someone (for a nominal fee) can engineer a concoction to ensure you and your progeny achieve that coveted ubermensch--which may or may not usher in a bleak and world-wide dystopia.

Miss your dearly beloved, Fluffy?    BioArts International can help by cloning you a Fluffy II.  Well, at least they could before they had some unresolved issues.

Can't lift your inconsiderate neighbor's car who blocked you in yet again?  No problem. Japanese scientists gotcha covered:

full story here: http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/robotics/cyborg-exoskeletons-may-soon-become-common-bicycles

Have trouble hearing? No worries.  This guy can help:

Artist Stelios Arcadiou has had the ear created in a lab from cells and implanted into his skin Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-487039/Artist-implants-ear-arm.html#ixzz0mVjsSDsU

So, what is Transhumanism exactly?  Well, there isn't a standard definition but according to h+ magazine there are a few ways to look at it:

Critical Posthumans: This is what we all are. Critical posthumanism is simply the idea that our concept of “human” as a natural, non-technological thing was wrong from the beginning. Humans are most human when using technology, modifying ourselves and our surroundings.

Transcendent Posthumans: This is what we (most of us) wish we were. Flawless, immortal, godlike. Abilities so above and beyond humans that they are almost unimaginable.

Transhumans: This is what we are becoming [...] Nanotech, organ transplants, genetic engineering, prosthetics, cognitive- and mood-enhancing drugs, cloning, morphological freedom, and anti-aging medicine are a small sampling of the tech helping us overcome our biological limits.

There you go.  Nothing to worry about, right?  Before long, we will engineer our way to that longed-for utopia artists and thinkers have dreamed about for centuries--nay, it shall be an uberutopia of unparalleled magnitude.  Yes. I am being snarky.  Despite my initial concerns, I feel that there is great potential here for creating technology that will benefit humanity.  However, the intent is good but, as in many cases, the unintended consequences of endeavors begun with good intent can have complicated and unforeseeable negative outcomes.

There are certainly critics of the Transhumanist movement and since there are too many counterpoints to list and explain adequately, you can check them out here.

Stelarc, Amplified Body, Lazer Eyes, and Third Hand

We are on the verge of a breakthrough within humanity that will allow us access to power beyond belief. Within this generation or the next, there will be technology available that will allow us to forever alter the course of not only individual humans, but force us to redefine what it means to be human. Too many people are excluded from the conversation necessary to work through what will inevitably come to pass. It is easy to dismiss developments within genomics and the biotech fields as something that will not touch the average person; however, willful ignorance will not work. To turn a blind eye to this dialogue is dangerous.

AoTW: Bio-Art: Boldly Going Where no Bunny Has Gone Before

This week's artist of the week (AoTW-I know it's wrong to capitalize the "T" but it looks cooler) doesn't focus on one artist per se, but instead highlights the rapidly growing movement in art that can be loosely classified as "BioArt."

Alba: a genetically engineered rabbit with green fluorescent protein by Eduardo Kac

So, what is BioArt?  The self-experimentation of a guy who is half-crocked on Busch light, has a homemade tattoo gun and a dream?  Well, possibly.  But, according to wikipedia (so it must be true), bio art is:

... an art practice in which the medium is living matter and the works of art are produced in laboratories and/or artists’ studios. The tool is biotechnology, which includes such technologies as genetic engineering, tissue culture and cloning. BioArt is considered by most artists to be strictly limited to “living forms,” although there is some debate as to the stages at which matter can be considered to be alive or living. The materials used by Bioartists are cells, DNA, proteins and living tissue. Creating living beings and practicing in the life sciences brings about ethical, social and aesthetic inquiry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioArt

So, why BioArt?  It is difficult to ascribe one particular source as the impetus which fuels bioartists' creativity or their choices with regards to methods and materials.  The innate human drive to create is strong and, by nature, always searching for new and creative ways in which to express ideas.  In that sense, BioArt was an inevitable offshoot of the same creative drive that compelled the first humans to draw upon cave walls.  Early man created with charcoal and natural pigments, modern man creates with genetically manipulated tissue.

A replica of an ear created by the group, SymbioticA

Furthermore, it can be said--not without argument of course--that art is inseperably entwined with society and will inevitably come to represent the strata of thoughts that a particular society values or is coming to terms with.  Art is a good barometer with which to measure the good, the bad, and the ugly of any society. 

As our scientific community is currently exploring the new found ability to manipulate the genetic underpinnings of human life, the populi have had little or zero access to the discussion table simply due to the fact that the research is largely inaccessible because of the barriers that are in place.  These barriers are: not having the necessary understanding of the materials utilized in the research; not having an understanding of the processes involved; often taking for truth the intentionally manipulated information provided by organizations with an agenda; deliberate barriers set in place by corporate entities for "trade secret" or copyright reasons; and for a host of other reasons that somebody smarter than me could come up with.

Viral Confections: A model of the virus was printed as a rapid prototype from a 3D algorithmic illustration of the virus from the Protein Data Bank. The chocolates were then cast into the molecular form. Part of the Sentimental Objects in Attempts to Befriend a Virus series, the truffles do not carry hepatitis C. Desire to eat them is mixed with a repulsion for the virus, a dialectic which has proved to be an exciting and approachable way to ignite discussion and create awareness about an extremely prevalent and underrepresented disease. http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/bioart/index.php?page=8  

BioArtists provide a venue for the general public to access the otherwise quasimystical and mysterious world of genetic manipulation and bioengineering.  Getting the public involved in the discussion--not just repeating the talking points--is critical for a society.  To become involved and aware of the issues that the BioArts raise is often the the goal of the bioartist as many people have very little knowledge of the serious bioethical issues that are met and resolved largely behind closed doors in which private interests perhaps win out over public interests.

This video with bioartists Jennifer Willet and Oron Catts discusses some of the issues mentioned above and gives an example of their work:



Concerning answering the question "Why BioArt?" Jennifer Willet's article from her website offers further (and a much more erudite) explanation:

In general, the public holds very little currency in the decision-making processes that dictate research trajectories, evaluation criteria, and the direct application of advancements made in biotechnological sectors. In general, I see the non-specialist public as having a receptive relationship to evolving biotechnologies. In other words, individuals are on the receiving end of a long chain of events contributing to the proliferation of these knowledges and practices in the world – trusting the specialists to manage this aspect of technological proliferation on our behalf. Generally, the public (as well as the specialist class) seems to be content with this arraignment...

...One strategy for combating a programmed public malaise in the face of biotechnology is to effectively trump the authority of the specialist class with the insertion of non-authoritarian individuals into ‘specialist’ rolls in the public sphere. The insertion of visible and intellectual difference into traditional roles of scientific authority can empower the general public to participate more fully in biotechnological debates. I am interested in a participatory interdisciplinary incursion into the practice, and public representation, of biotechnology. If artists, and accountants, and housewives are seen contributing to the production of biotechnology, the authority of the specialist – the doctor, lab technician, and scientist – will be reduced. Alternative voices – subjectivities – and interpretations of biotechnology will be heard and perpetuated in public debate.

Well said. 

From The Race installation by Michael Burton. Antibiotics underpin all of modern medicine. Alarmingly, we are nearing the end of the antibiotic era. Bacteria and viruses are evolving faster than scientific innovation. Trivial infections we hardly think about now will once again become fatal...Medics now recognise that maggots have advantages over more recent forms of treatment, as they kill the bacteria that cause infection, including the so-called antibiotic-resistant superbugs.  The Race proposes that we must now join the race to evolve with them. It also presents a mirror to ourselves to question personal and societal lifestyle practices and our self-perceived superiority over other organisms. http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2007/06/michael-burton.php

 Although there is certainly a strong desire among many BioArtists to bring the often inaccessible world of the scientific community to the general discussion table, I think that there is another component to the reason that BioArtists work in the media they do.  It is simply rewarding to work in the media.  Further, it is the first "new" media available in hundreds of years.  I can only imagine that some of the Northern Renaissance painters felt similarly when they first got their hands on the new-fangled oil paints.  Everything going forward will be uncharted waters--the artist's dream.

To see the works of some BioArtists you can check out the following links:

Jennifer Willet
George Gessert
Joe Davis
Eduardo Kac
Hunter Cole
Oron Catts
Olga Kisseleva