Comments on: Glasgow makes the mind wander.

By: aimee

aimee — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:14:00 +0000

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.

By: ajacobso

ajacobso — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:04:14 +0000

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.

By: aimee

aimee — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:54:44 +0000

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.

By: ajacobso

ajacobso — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:30:22 +0000

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.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:18:33 +0000

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.

By: aimee

aimee — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:52:21 +0000

LET’S DO IT!