Anita Shapolsky gallery last month hosted a very eclectic exhibition titled ‘Writers who paint’. Among others, it had under its purview artworks by accomplished writers like Jonatham Lethem, Jack Kerouac, W. B. Yeats and Aldous Huxley. I thought the idea was a very cool one, firstly, you had insight into their minds through their writing and now you could explore their paintings, drawings and other objects of their visual imagination through the lens of the individual’s written words. It is precisely for this reason that I think that the artist blogs are a new form of a self-portrait that an artist can develop temporally…
Of course, some of the few art blogs that seemed to cover this event seemed to think otherwise. The comments were very telling of the age of specialization we live in and what happens if we transgress even a little bit from our supposed spheres of expertise.
“Writers should stick to their areas of competence”
“Writers doing art results in art that is just not good”
“More bad art strung together upon a theme”
“Cult of the celebrity in overdrive”
“While you can accidentally take a good photograph, it takes years to become a good photographer”
While I think that the wisdom of the online crowds is a marker for the current times, reading some of these comments gives one a view that unless one is specialized in the arts (like an art degree or is a full time artist), there is a danger of their art being perceived as inferior to full time artist. What happened to the age of renaissance men and women who could dabble in multiple fields and excel at many of them? Are the lanes leading that great town called Specialization getting so narrow that only people with the right calling cards and pedigree are offered entry at the appropriate tavern houses along the way?
I am most interested in your comments.
Weldon Kees, ‘After Hours’, Oil on canvas, 33″ x 43″
Whether or not those are direct quotes, you should probably include a link to the blog or blogs that you had in mind. It would be good etiquette and it would help us understand better the context that inspired those assertions.
No wait, here it is.
Some of the comments there seem a bit knee-jerk, but I agree that the show looks pretty weak (insert disclaimer about not having seen the work in person). I like the Kees and Michaux and the Lorca.
Arthur,
I was not too sure if I should link up to others comments… Thanks for linking though…
My responses might be few and far between as access to this blog has been removed from my workplace by some kind of an automated software bot that seems to filter out A&P….
This is interesting both in itself and for the reactions it provoked. Some of the latter seem to assume that the writers are attempting to stake strong claims as visual artists, though I suspect it’s more a case of the curator (and gallery!) banking on their celebrity as writers. For the writers themselves, it was probably just a matter of something they did (and cared about, of course).
That said, I don’t fault the curator (Donald Friedman, author of the corresponding book) whatsoever, since I think the concept, as you mentioned, of potentially gaining further insight into thinking known through another medium is a great one. I wish I knew more of the authors better; most I’ve only heard of.
Going one direction: most of the art would not cause me to be interested in the writer, but the Durrell (especially the landscapes), Kees, Michaux, and Grass I do find intriguing, and I’ll try to make a point of looking into them. In the other direction: I was surprised by the style of the cummings, though the subject made me think of she being Brand / -new. Kingston’s quite imperfect circle in the manner of traditional Chinese calligraphy was interesting, and Saroyan and Ferlinghetti and Hugo seem to fit with expectations (deservedly or not).
Sorry about your access issues, Sunil, but maybe we should be gratified that A&P is getting some attention from the corporate world…
I’ve seen Cubist looking work by Cummings in reproduction, which makes sense.
Sunil:
What may be a considered business decision on the part of your employer is our loss.
The putative demise of the Renaissance individual may be overstated – no? We may be giving up our skills to the machine, but gaining quicker ways to bring our thoughts to life. Here we are, for example, creating our short illustrated essays on A&P. I personally have done better and worse in this format, but I know that whatever I put up goes out. For all I know, somebody in Brazil is reading this post. Here is a relatively easy way for us to hone any number of skills in a consequential arena, do it on the cheap and possibly excel.
It may be, however, that the image of the renaissance person no longer serves. Better. perhaps, the “impeccable” person: one who does all that he or she is called upon to do, and does it well. It still carries the element of breadth, but better accounts for the necessitous in life. Alexander Liberman distinguished himself in the publishing field and as a sculptor – one might say that he was impeccable in both enterprises. Renaissance, as a term, tends to infer many degrees of freedom, and the luxuries of time and opportunity. It is as much about circumstance as it is about anything inherent. I am donning my helmet as I hit the “post” button.
Specialization. I’ve heard of doctors practicing complex forms of healing and not being able to make a cup of coffee for themselves. There might be some justification here, brain surgery may be more important then making a cup of coffee.
When it comes to being creative there is no rule that says you should not try your hand at something. We all deserve the chance to create something really bad (or good).
As far as the critics go, there should be a higher level of critics with the task of of criticizing critics. Justice I think
I do think generalists are undervalued. I’ve talked about this tangentially at my site–but I think that dilettantism is rarer and rarer and of increasing importance. Expertise is overvalued–while it is great to have experts, they often are so immersed in the minutia of their field that they cannot see “the big picture.”
For instance, I’m a writer with an MFA in poetry. I am also interested in literary criticism. This itself is unusual; creative writing and literary criticism are wholly separate in graduate school and beyond. Literary criticism (and I think this is because of its separation from creative writing) has become jargon-filled, overly theoretical and, worst of all, does not encourage interest or pleasure in the very literature it describes. It is dominated by experts and written for experts, and anything that is locked in such a limited world loses functionality in the greater society.
McFawn:
Have we met your site?
It would seem that you’re the rare bird who is also interested in ornithology.
Makes me think of research on the relationship between religious ecstacy and brain function. It’s hard for a buddy to have a good conversion experience these days without somebody wanting to talk about chemistry.
Bob:
You can do it yourself. The Plain Dealer music critic is regularly bashed for his treatment of the orchestra.
“It would seem that you’re the rare bird who is also interested in ornithology.”
Great line! And I, as a writer, can say that with authority!
You’ve met my site…it is the much less active “sister site” of Art and Perception…litandart.com.
Sunil and McFawn,
I think you’re right about the decline of the generalist and the accomplished dilettante. As for someone who can excel in multiple fields, I think that, outside of art, it’s just so much harder simply because those fields truly have advanced, and it’s extremely difficult to excel in even one field. In art, however you define excellence, it doesn’t seem to have changed essentially over time (if we can separate quality from stylistic movements). Which is a great strength for both artists and everyone. How many of us can appreciate (or even recognize by name) the accomplishments of Einstein already a century ago. Art is not necessarily easy, either, but it’s much more accessible from both sides.
Steve and all,
I think that only certain fields have narrowed and narrowed into specialists — and the ones that shouldn’t but have tried, like lit crit, are miserable –miserable writers, miserable readers, miserable students, miserable prose. One of my all-time detestations is an English prof/ art critic by the name of Mieke Ball (I think that’s it). She had what felt to me like brilliant insights but I had to wade through pages of horrifying jargon to get to them. I read at least one of her works all the way through – it never improved.
But McFawn, back in the olden days (was it 967?) my husband got a degree in creative writing in which one half of the degree was a critical paper and the other half were short stories. University of Wyoming. They’ve probably discarded such notions as dilitantism.
On the other hand, my experience with my writing friends is that they essentially think that eyes are to be used to keep from running into doors. And many of my art friends (all current company excepted, of course) can’t put an idea into a sentence that doesn’t make a sentient person weep. So more power to those writers who try to paint — at least they see that sight is worth more than mere convenience. What about (notable) artists who write (aside from ourselves, that is?)
It may be that as we live longer, we will all have many lives, and some of us will go from the literary to the artistic, becoming freshman again in our 60’s. But me, I’m at least a college junior (add that snort — my cheat sheet’s at home).