The artist as destroyer and corrupter

I recently saw Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at the Pearl Theater in the Village.

Above all else, for a "problem play" I was stunned at the extent to which the playwright questions the issue of agency and power in relation to both life and art. Of course, there are the overriding themes of morality, love, justice and ultimately mortality but there is also a deep undercurrent of choice, and human agency throughout the work. Combined with this there is also this element of chaos, election and self-deceit as to one's own power.

Personally, I wondered to what extent Angelo's consternation at being infatuated with Isabella is the existential crises for all artists. We are drawn to, even capturde by beauty and its virtue but with the hope of destroying and owning it. The image here is artist as destroyer and corrupter. Paradox of course in this thinking. Sin that raises one up and virtue that is downfall (I paraphrase). And throughout Angelo's agony, he is a slave, dissociated and unable to control himself. Picasso before Marie Teresse. Humbert before Lolita. The sexual metaphor is apt.

There is of course also a subsumed materialist critique here, actually both overt and hidden. Angelo is torn, schitzophrenic in his desire and the power of that desire over himself. Marx and Freud theorized that what passes for reality is in fact shaped and driven by forces of which we are aware only indirectly. This is apt. In measure for measure, the play within a play that is justice, life and love are just a theater of ideas, a blink and wash of the pen over paper, made real only before an audience. Why else does the Duke hide his intention for justice if only to make it the drama, the performance it is in the public sphere?

But overwhelmingly I felt drawn to that character, Angelo, as one that cannot but can only exist in that state of infatuation and fetishization. There is a constant pressure for the artist to define the constants and stakes of their own art; to objectify beauty, vision, warping the very mirror until the lense creates nothing but distortion... the trap is created for us all and we are setup to fail for a hungry public of kings and rulers unwilling or unable to define the absolutes, only able to dole out irony as judgment and mercy as compromise. Man bound on all sides of context, internal and external. Beauty herself is caught; Isabella is spun to the Duke for property, power or passivity.

I want an art without other. An art of beyond context, not pure sense, pure structure nor pure form but rather pure relation in which the art is Dionysian in its puruit. Let us drink with our gods and sleep with our playwrights. In that moment, we shall dance upon our canvases. Free at last.

Is Contemporary Art Dead?

The Biennial only makes one wonder whether there is hope to create...

Whitney Museum

The gallery system is a tautology and style is its dogma. Will artist only be the words of a dogma gone mad or can this cycle of self-flagellation and aesthetic starvation be overcome?

Emergence at Concepto Gallery

Where: Concepto Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Description: young emerging artists from greater nyc area expressing in various medium their conceptual voices
Artists: Juan Hinojosa, Gretchen Kraus, Chris Maddocks , Kathlyn Mclean
Link: Exhibition Images

C O N C E P T O . . . Gallery
613 Vanderbilt Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11238
646-431-2115

Dialogue - A Conceptual Art Exhibition - City Gallery

An Interior Installation Concerning "Dialogue"
Where: The City Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut
Begins: September 1 Closes: September 25

Artists: Chris Maddocks, Janet Van Horne, Pete Onofrio, Laura Joy Lustig, Brian Felson and Celso

City-Gallery Website
Great assorted photos from the exhibition and other locales...

Contemporary Group Exhibition

FdLM Studio presents:

“MiXeD MeDiA”

A diverse contemporary art exhibit featuring works by: Celso, Franck de Las Mercedes, Sarah Detweiler, Kristina Fetkovich, Paul N Grech, Chris Maddocks & Chris Nowlan.

Reception: Saturday, April 30, 6-10 p.m.
FdLM Studio / The Plank


For directions and more info:
URL: http://www.fdlmstudio.com/MIXEDMEDIA.html

Counterpoint at the Project Creo Gallery

Counterpoint at the Project Creo Gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida
May 5th - July 27th

Counterpoint:
a. A contrasting but parallel element, item, or theme
b. Use of contrasting elements in a work of art
c. "to set in contrast

Project Creo URL: http://www.projectcreo.com/

Creative Credentials

OH how I love our post 9-11 world! Trying to take an interesting and engaging photograph on a Brooklyn street (in the style of Walker Evans), I was met with suspicion from many individuals and ultimately aggression from one in particular. I tell my creative attacker that I am an artist. The dispute ends, but I am left wondering what proof I can offer to my claim. In this situation, the first amendment might cover my activities to capture, portray and realize a creative expression of the human/American predicament, but that does not ease my sense of danger. This conflict resolves only if I can provide credentials of my artistic authority/capacity. Have you driven through Battery tunnel? When you approach the tunnel entrance, your vision is accosted by signs declaring "it is illegal to take photographs" and "Photography Prohibited".

How do we define artist, etymologically after terrorism? Simiarly, in the realm of praxis, how do we define the artistic endeavor? Law, social and self-censorship act as horizons and problematics in who/what can be considered artisitc. Alot of questions here, but as a further bit of evidence...

LONDON (AP) -- A porcelain urinal is the most influential work of modern art, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The poll of 500 arts figures ranked French surrealist Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece "Fountain" - an ordinary white, porcelain urinal - more influential than Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's searing depiction of the devastation of war.

Duchamp pioneered the use of everyday objects as art, an aesthetic that questioned the nature of art itself.

Art expert Simon Wilson said the choice of Duchamp's urinal "comes as a bit of a shock."

"But it reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing - the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form," he said.

Empowering Trauma

A recent article in The New Yorker discusses the process of psychological suffering and resilience. The article notes that persons suffering from early childhood trauma stand as much chance as anyone else of leading a healthy and psychologically whole life. Bruce Rind and other published a study in The Psychological Bulletin that victims of childhood sexual abuse showed remarkable psychological resiliency and growth after such trauma. These results seem antithetical to the popular narrative of our time that stipulates individuals are traumatized for their entire lives after extreme crises. Indeed, in the context of Gulf War syndrome, Vietnam-related psychological ailments and even post-traumatic stress disorder would point to a growing awareness of exactly the opposite; the fragility of the modern human psyche.

To quote the magazine, "it is a shift in perception so profound that the United States congress could be presented with evidence of the unexpected strength and resilience of the human spirit and reject it without a single dissenting voice."

Aside from this brief mention of politics, the author of the article, Malcolm Gladwell, extends the discussion of trauma only to the personal and interpersonal spheres of psychology. I believe that there is more import to Congress' vote than censuring "junk science". Indeed, an analysis of the connection between politics and trauma is a missing component to Gladwell's analysis. One hinted at, as apparent in the last quote, but ultimately unfulfilled as he turns his content from psychological research and its relation to popular notions back to the realm of literature, fiction. I believe a contemporary analysis of trauma in relation to the social is essential to understanding the shift in perception of resiliency towards fragility. The past presidential campaign hold particular insights into this relation.

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The recent elections have concluded. This last campaign was an interesting case study of the interaction between social traumas and their lack of resolution. The political modus operandi seems to encourage a perspective of psychological fragility after trauma. Indeed, one might conclude that the 2004 presidential campaign, aside from broad political themes and issues, was driven by psychological trauma. Further, it seems apparent now that the election has concluded, that the presence of trauma within the political sphere is not anodyne. Instead, the decision to raise the social traumas of the past into the political discource appears calculated. A few constituitive themes supplied the backdrop for this election (not in any order of importance or relevance):

1) The mishaps of the 2000 election
2) The War in Vietnam
3) September 11

It is clear that for many liberals, the memory of 2000 and its divisive finish remain an unresolved social trauma. One not vindicated for them by the most current election cycle. The memory and trauma of the last election served as a powerful force for get out the vote drives. Indeed, though President Bush has won the popular vote by over 3 million in 2004, it seems the sting of 2000 is not alleviated; it seems the splinter has been pushed in deeper. Get out the vote drives amongst the African-American community have and will continue to question issues like voter disenfranchisement and fraud. Regardless of current results, it seems that the 2000 elections continue to create a crises of legitimacy for the president, and the voting process as a whole.

It is unclear to what extent the Kerry campaign raised the memory and conflict over the war in Vietnam to highlight his own service and to what extent this conflict exists sui generis within the social consciousness of the United States. What is clear is that such focus on Vietnam has been understood as a powerful psychological and ultimately political tool. The Bush campaign's undermining of Kerry's record and the necessitated affirmation of Bush's own service highlights the political sway that both sides see over the memory of Vietnam. Arguably as much as the current war in Iraq, the actions and conflict in Vietnam continue to demand a carefully crafted political response and approach.

Finally, undoubtedly the first election after the terrorist attacks on September 11th would bear a particular stamp of those events. The question that seems most relevant here is how long memory has been defined and pushed within the political debates. Also, how long will the images of September 11th define the political psyches and futures of the United States? How resilient can we, as a society be, when the trauma is repeated, spinned, leveraged?

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For individuals who have survived childhood sexual abuse, the natural and innate methods of coping, expanding, growing beyond such experience seem to push the individual back towards normalcy. The Rin research suggests that this is a very real possibility. Emotions serve their filtering effect and are done, consumed by either time or new experiences. Can the political and social survivors among us (from all political backgrounds) grow resilient in similar ways? Can political discourse grow beyond empowering trauma and instead allow the nation to mourn and eventually heal?

My own small part...

Local media gets the job done. There's nothing quite like that trusted and friendly local anchorman/anchorwoman to lay down the local truth. DailyKos has been reporting on the embedded video that captured on film the presence of High Explosives that were reported missing by IAEE. The focus in the blogsphere seems to be on the SCLM. The CNN's and USA Today's get hammered with emails to follow the story. This election will come down to a small handful of counties in a smaller handful of states.

It seems to me that the real import here is to hit, and hit hard, the local media outlets; those less likely to be able to handle a radical influx of email and contact on one subject. Volume alone to places like the Columbus Dispatch, WBNS 10 TV (Columbus, OH), the Delaware Gazette (Delaware, OH) should at the least get noticed and tie up some media outlets. At best, this will raise coverage and awareness in local media markets of isues that are taking days to filter down. The problem is, the local media breaking news consumption process barely works for the amount of time it takes big news to hit. It is not a distillation where the news grows more potent but more like a coffee-drip; if you need it now, go soemwhere else. This allows local media to create a second-guess spin in local papers, editorial columns and television stations. The below email I have used to canvass the media in central ohio.

My new mantra is think globally, act locally (or in your nearest swing state).

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"Videotape made by a television crew with American troops when they opened bunkers at a sprawling Iraqi munitions complex south of Baghdad shows a huge supply of explosives still there nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, apparently including some sealed earlier by the International Atomic Energy Agency.


The tape, broadcast on Wednesday night by the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis, appeared to confirm a warning given earlier this month to the agency by Iraqi officials, who said that hundreds of tons of high-grade explosives, powerful enough to bring down buildings or detonate nuclear weapons, had vanished from the site after the invasion of Iraq." per the NYTIMES ONLINE

This story demands top billing. It can also be more fully researched at the following news sources.


http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/NotedNow/story?id=156246
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206847
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/28/174412/70