a multi-disciplinary dialog
Certain artists are unable to develop because they are disconnected from history. To me development is paramount. I think that development and humility go hand in hand.
-Sean Scully
Do we expect, rather, that successful development demands arrogant self-certainty? On reflection perhaps not, for arrogance implies that an artist knows dogmatically how to proceed, while humility involves productive acknowledgment of deep uncertainty.
-David Carrier, in Sean Scully
Bigland
I first stumbled upon Sean Scully in an Artnet article last year, but only a week ago did I go get some books of his work from the library. This post is about the notion of harmony and Scully’s approach to it, but I want to give a bit of context. Scully’s abstract paintings, drawings, and pastels are all based on a simplified vocabulary of stripes or short bars. This mature style developed by the early 80’s. Each painting has a different structure; the interest is partly in the composition, but more in the colors of each element — which I find lush and restrained at the same time — the and masterful way they are joined and coordinated.
Sunil’s recent post was most provocative. It’s not often that someone seeks comment about his or her self portrait. Turns out that Sunil may have opened a rich vein.
I appreciate the opportunity to witness a participant, not just through the trajectories of post and comment, but as the individual presents his or herself in an image.
In that spirit I would like to throw my mug in the ring.
I could be accused of being stuck on my waterfall project lately, but my excuse is that it seems to connect to various other recent posts and comments. Anyway, it’s the work that I’m closest to at the moment, so it makes sense to write about it while it’s fresh. Fresh enough that the ideas are still churning around without order, which in truth is how I like it. I’m inclined by nature to let things ferment in their untidiness, not attempting to resolve or define, hoping/knowing that that will happen on its own eventually.
So this post is partly a record of the connection between concepts and execution, between thinking about the photographs and making them. In the present case, this is a pretty loose and interactive connection, perhaps similar to David’s “chickens, then eggs, then more chickens…” or Leslie’s “dialogue with the idea going back and forth with the making in a pretty comfortable way.” Karl also has been considering the role of concept in art, and I think his question, “Is art something we make, or discover?” is about the same thing. In other words, do we create from a concept or learn by doing? The answer, of course, is that both go on at once, but how it plays out is always different, even for me alone on this single project.
As regular readers may know, I’ve been intrigued by resemblances noted between some of my photographs, particularly the recent waterfall series, and those of Clyfford Still, the eccentric Abstract Expressionist determined to go his own way, living most of his life in relative isolation from the art world. Over the last year or so, I have sensed some movement toward abstraction in my work and I would like to explore that. What is abstraction for me? How does it relate to representation? What and how does it mean? I’m not aiming for a more sophisticated Statement, I’m just trying to better understand what I do and what others have done and what I can learn from it.
Are artists who ignore potential political impact of their work irresponsible? If the work is subject to misinterpretation or misuse (and what isn’t?), is it the job of the artist to consider this in advance? Is self-censorship in the service of your own beliefs necessary?
