I’m still here in sunny Britannia. Except minus the sun. Although it could be a lot worse, it’s only rained once so far. Anyways, I’ve been thinking a lot on my long walks around town to various galleries and every Topman I can find (there are like 5 in town) about this whole gallery structure in Glasgow and why and how it differs from Boston’s set-up and what influence this has over the work that comes out of each. The first thing that almost need not be stated, but I will anyways for those just tuning in, is the presence of the arts council. They effectively pick and choose artists and organizations that they wish to support and encourage, and miraculously, they have done a pretty decent job of spreading the wealth to just about every kind of project and idea, whether big-time or small-time artists, large organizations or some guy who just feels like doing something. This fosters a sense that there is hope for those just starting out in the business, that they can come up with a brilliant idea and see it through and the government will support that venture. Clearly the US scene is hindered by their woeful lack of support, but there is still something to be garnered by this kind of thinking, that I believe can translate into something practical.
By this I mean: artists here are more worried about getting their work out there and being seen and heard than about getting their work sold. In fact, nobody buys work here, all artists have jobs, and really that’s the way it should be. There are 3 commercial galleries in the city. The total square footage is maybe 2000 sq.ft. Yet on a given friday or saturday there are 10 things to go see or do, artists showing films or doing performances, or showing some sculpture they made last week, or having some bands play a gig in their space. And, to be honest, most of it is shit. I can count on one hand the amount of shows I’ve been to in 3 years here that I’ve walked out of really impressed. But I am of the opinion that the quality of the work is, at this early stage in an artists career a little besides the point. the fact is that they are going out there, mixing it up, and having a great time.
Back to Boston now and generally all I see (apart from the art schools) is a couple of small, floundering galleries that have shows once a month. I don’t see any excitement, no emotion in the work. It is all, for the most part easy and redundant. And this is from young artists, artists that were in school a year or two ago, who have their whole lives to make boring art. Why is it so hard to go out and have fun with the work, to have shows that aren’t reviewed in the globe or the phoenix, but are done because you love and believe in what you are doing. That’s what being a young artists is about isn’t it? about pure, unadulterated idealistic visions of grandeur and the spectacular. Why do good artists have to bust their ass to get into a show a year (juried no less that they had to pay $15/jpeg) that no one goes to see, or worse, open studios where no one has the patience to look at everyone’s work. Where are the hungry masses? The abused, misused, confused (to quote a phrase). How about this, 5 artists get together and say I want to have a show, and one of them says, yeah I know this place we can have it, and everybody makes some crap paintings and sculptures and some half assed digital photos and invites all their friends? What am I missing?
LET’S DO IT!
Showing art in Boston is hard unless you devote your life to just that – showing art, which means you can’t really have a job or other significant interests. It seems that the attitude among artists in Boston is not to open about opportunities, not to share with the community but to hideout with fellow artists. People here are snobs, stay in their clicks and kill any budding ideas or excitement for something new. All the observations about the Boston art scene in this article are correct. All of the observations are of the drab pretentious feeling that hangs in the air at any art event.
Its not that we need more spaces for art, although it would be nice, we need fun people. Most art students with ideas move away or drop out of the art scene because they are turned off. We need to get creative about how we display art, where we have it and who we show it to. There is good art in Boston, lets not continue to lose it to places like NY.
That’s just it, we shouldn’t be concerning ourselves with “showing” or “being shown”, rather just getting out there and doing something with no preconditions or expectations. It’s more about the doing than the where, who, why, how it gets done.
I was just thinking about this a bit and I came to a little sort of conclusion. Having worked in both Glasgow and Boston, I feel as though here (in Boston) I am expected to treat my work with a great deal of seriousness. There’s a professional aspect of being an artist in the United States that involves spending a great deal of time marketing oneself, and in a way, trying to convince the world that what one does is important. In Glasgow, I found that the entire community already thought that art was important. Professors, students at other universities, locals at the pub, cabbies- everyone- had an appreciation for me and what I do. Since the world there already takes artists seriously, there is nothing to prove. I didn’t feel the need to talk about the economic or social relevance of art-it was understood. There the government gives money to the arts, artists don’t need to spend their time and energy demanding it. The public is excited and interested in local exhibitions, artists don’t need to spend their time and energy (and money) finding ways to get people to come out. Thus, artists are left to what they should be doing- making, playing, thinking, and taking risks.
Absolutely. Remember all those conversations we had about professional practice courses? I definitely think too many people come out of MassArt thinking “I’ve got to be a real artist with real CV’s and Artist Statements and editioned prints and price lists” Certainly art is seen as extraneous, a luxury to everyday society. I wrote a letter to the editor to the Globe shortly after the rose debacle about commodification of art in the US, how it is seen as an investment and an object rather than an idea or a culture. I think you overestimate the public’s engagement with art in Glasgow though. It is certainly higher, but not astronomically. However the governmental engagement is certainly a key factor in the equation.
I don’t think that having such courses in U.S. art schools is a bad thing. They only teach us the realities of the U.S. art market and attempt to teach us how to navigate it. Without such courses I don’t think we’d have any chance of survival, even if surviving in this market isn’t necessarily all that desirable or conducive to art-making. I guess what I mean is that such courses are symptoms of the current state of affairs, not a cause.