Tag: art

Interview with Ted Orland!

Nicolai Grossman 1 Comment

Paul Butzi writes at The Online Photographer:

I’m a big fan of Ted Orland‘s books (especially Art and Fear [with David Bayles] and The View from the Studio Door), so I’m delighted to be able to point readers to an in-process online interview of Orland.

The interview started this past Sunday, it’s still going on, and it looks like it’s going to be well worth following.

What he said! I recommend the hell out of both books to anyone who makes art of any kind: photographers, writers, painters, dancers, musicians, sculptors… you, me, them… everybody, everybody! If I grabbed you by the throat, threw you up against a wall, and pushed the books in your face while screaming, "YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST! FUCKING! READ THIS!!!", with the force of a thousand suns, it would still fall short of conveying how strongly I feel about them.

In addition to being a great author, Orland is an accomplished photographer who now mainly shoots with a Holga.

Read the interview at The Well

Via The Online Photographer

Why must we explain art?

Nicolai Grossman 4 Comments

Grayson Perry has written a great piece in the Times about explaining art. Quoting only the really good stuff would require including almost the entire article, but here are a few nuggets:

I am asked to talk about my art sometimes. I sense that hunger for understanding within the audience. I used to feel pressurised to come up with answers to satisfy that hunger. I have learned that it can lead to me coming up with hurried and spurious interpretations of my own work.

…

Nowadays I employ a more open strategy and talk about the things I was looking at and thinking about when I was making a particular piece and leave it up to the audience to make their own direct connections. This feels more satisfying and true than any nailed-down explanation.

I couldn’t possibly agree more. Art isn’t something that can always be put into an intellectual box and tidily wrapped up with a bow. I understand the urge: ambiguity is scary. Looking at what your own interpretations tell you about yourself can be uncomfortable—most growth is. I think there’s an impulse to want to keep your eyes shut tight when standing in front of that sort of mirror. But art is human, messy, and asks more questions that in answers (at least the stuff I get the most out of does). I think when artists or the art world hand down or viewers ask for pat interpretations, everyone is robbed of their own genuine experience, and that’s a damn shame.

I’ve been working on a more direct version of my artist [non-]statement that reflects this better than my current one does. It’s not finished, but here’s a relevant excerpt:

Nobody feeds me easy answers, and the whole exercise would be pointless if they did. Anything I could come up with would be bullshit anyway as the ones I do are only valid for my personal experience at a particular point in spacetime. They’re fleeting, incomplete, unsatisfying, and may completely contradict any previous or future experiences without invalidating any of them or itself. What can you do? Life is like that.

I don’t have any easy answers for you. My father used to say that you’ve got to make sure you’re talking to the right end of the horse, and I’m not it. You are, as only you can tell yourself about your experience of anything, art included.

It’s a little light on heady abstractions and touchy-feelies, but I feel like it’s at least approaching honesty. As the Perl programmers say, TMTOWTDI: There’s More Than One Way To Do It. Suitable as a philosophy for both computer programming and life in general.

Read article at timesonline.co.uk

Via ArtsJournal (my headline lifted from theirs)

Related post: Jörg Colberg on artist statements

Looks like a new must-read: The View From The Studio Door, by Ted Orland

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

Paul Butzi writes in his blog entry, Another Instant Classic from Ted Orland on The Online Photographer:

I had been thinking pretty hard about photography and art when I came across a book that Orland had co-written with David Bayles, Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking. This little book asks (and answers) questions like ‘Why should we make art?’ and ‘Why is it so hard for artists to continue making art?’ When I came across it in 1997 or so, I thought I’d come across one of those happy, synchronistic coincidences—a book that was just right for me came along at the exact moment I was ready for it. Since then, though, I’ve come to realize that it’s a timeless classic—that every artist faces many of the same hurdles, and Bayles and Orland drew on their experience to give us pragmatic, practical ways to not only get started making art we care about but to overcome the hurdles and roadblocks that so often result in our not picking up the camera for months on end.

This is pretty much my exact take on Art & Fear, except that I just discovered it a few months ago. I have since been ramming it down the throat of suggesting it to every artist—be they photographer, potter, dancer, painter, writer, musician, whatever—that I know. I’ve been meaning to do a review of it but haven’t found the time to even try to do it justice.

Ted Orland, co-author of Art & Fear (and noted toy camera photographer), has just come out with a new book, View from the Studio Door: How Artists Find Their Way in an Uncertain World (not available from Amazon until 15 April, 2006, though it seems to be available everywhere else).

He writes, "In The View From The Studio Door I’ve tried to confront many broader issues that stand to either side of that artistic moment of truth.

Issues like:

  • What are we really doing when we make art?
  • For that matter, what is art, anyway?
  • Is there art after graduation?
  • How do we find our place in the artistic community?

"These are questions that count, because when it comes to artmaking, theory & practice are always intertwined. Simply put, this is a book of practical philosophy—written by, and for, working artists."

I’m picking up a copy today and will post more once I’ve read it. In the mean time, I do suggest reading Paul Butzi’s comments on it. It’s got all the poop and he says it better than I can.