Finally got to catch up on my museums visits for Life Drawing One, kept putting it off due to knee back pain, but eventually I just had to do it.
My first stop was the Bell Museum. I enjoyed it a lot, because while some artists wouldn't really consider it an art exhibit, I find the ability to recreate a natural environment to that believable a degree compelling. This probably has something to do with my focus, which is characters and environments, whether they be hand drawn or digital, for the sake of story telling. Each exhibit has a lot of action to it, rather than seeing it as a lifeless piece to me.
Second, I went over to the Walker. While I did find plenty of pieces I enjoyed, it was really a depressing experience for me. As I walked the halls with a somewhat familiar oblivious feeling, I recognized nothing but unyielding unconsciousness. Each piece seemed like an exhibit in and of itself to the decay of "soul" within the medium. As I viewed maybe a dozen dark rooms with film reals that lack any real community to them, I wondered at which point does this stop being avant-garde? I desperately looked for something that would correlate with my Life Drawing studies to distract me from my depression. I was unsuccessful. As I read one verbose elucidation after the other, I couldn't help but get a sense that it might be possible that these artists have become so detached from the community that originally inspired them to pursue this endeavor. It wasn't that I didn't understand each artist statement, or that their vocabulary was too complex, in fact I understood them quite well, processed their logic, and found the lot of them lacking of any real soul or purpose. When people try this hard to establish themselves as individuals, it seems so sad that they all have become needlessly conformist to the standards that dictate modern fine art. In fact, modern fine art seems like a shapeless nothing to me to begin with. When the anti-art movement rose to popularity in the early 1900s, its validation created this strange logical fallacy in which not only does art=art, but not art=art. With the definition collapsing in on itself it created a system in which whether you do nothing or everything, it's art. Over time it would seem that some foundation would be needed, in order for the masses to still have barred access to this world, despite talent, vision, and creativity no longer playing any part in it. To me, this is the education system. Granted I have grown and learned so many things during my education, but sometimes I have to cautiously suspect it's nothing more than paying the price of admission to be involved in this whole escapade. For every artist in that gallery that thought they were pushing new boundaries or accomplishing something, I find their philosophy and depressing demeanor as antiquated as the brick and mortar forum in which this witnessing must take place. I want to see art live within people, bring all kinds of humans together, and pass like a spirit between one person to another whether they are considered artist or not. I just see so many barriers within the current system that it's disconcerting. I don't mean this as a rant against any of my teachers or to piss anyone off, I'm just frustrated with the experience as a whole. I've learned a great deal at Stout, and am better for it...but I feel like I will never have a place in the Walker's world. I'll be with those "losers" who celebrate each others work on online forums, despite how lame or conservative their work might seem...and I'll love every minute of it.
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