Resistance

Studio work is an ascetic practice. It demands that the artist place limits on his or her freedom to do anything in order to do something. The artist must develop ascetic disciplines in order to avoid one of the worst of aesthetic vices: self-indulgence. Artistic freedom can—and usually does—lead easily to an inflated sense of her own will which yearns to be "expressed." This is often the approach of most undergraduate art students, who are often practicing art as a means to celebrate their creativity, their freedom, their emotions—in short, their will. And they acquire various techniques, whether drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramic, photography, or video as merely “tools” in the service of their individuality. This approach leads to immature, facile, decorative, imprecise, and doughy work, which merely “illustrates” some vague idea or feeling. And, quite frankly, there are few things as uninteresting as a twenty-year old's individuality.

But if art is a tense, inextricable union between form and content, if art is the practice of drawing finer and finer visual distinctions, then it is imperative that the materials the artist uses be able to exert some pressure in order to force the artist to respond to them rather than using them merely as extensions of her will. Artistic practice is thus a form of listening, of cultivating attentiveness to one’s materials, giving one’s materials the space to possess its objective reality to which the artist must respond. The vagueness, softness, and imprecision of much visual art is due to the inability to allow the materials and forms this reality of their own. The importance of responding to one's materials is perhaps more clearly seen in poetry than in the visual arts. The poet’s materials are words, which have an objective reality, history, and meaning which the poet must acknowledge all the while attempting to refashion them in a way that embodies or produces a new experience. T.S. Eliot wrote of the “objective correlative,” in which the poet finds just the right word that unlocks a distinctive experience and feeling. He also suggested that the poem hovers somewhere between the writer and reader; it is neither merely the extension of the poet’s intention nor solely a matter of the reader’s interpretation. This is what Melville means when he says, famously, “Truth is in words, not in things.” More than merely plumb the depths of his or her own “feelings,” “experience,” and “creativity,” the poet must plumb the depths of language, of words, and be responsive to the pressure they exert in return--including their use by other poets.

The visual arts also use materials that have an existence outside the will of the artist. Each line or paint stroke has an objective reality that exerts pressure on the artist. Every line that appears on a surface, from abstract shapes to human figures and landscapes are heavy with the freight of meaning that the artist must respect and creatively use. Just as the poet seeks precision via words, the painter seeks precision through paint. (That it might come as a surprise to many that there can be precision in painting is itself evidence of a larger problem.) Just as the poet needs to be a reader, a painter needs to be a looker. An artist must cultivate the virtue of receptive seeing. An artist who does not spend considerable amounts of time looking at his own work—just sitting and looking—as well as looking at the work of others and the world around him—is consigning himself to the prison house of his own experience, his own thoughts, his own will, which, in the end, is not his own but merely the mold of "individuality" cast by society.  And that is neither freedom nor individuality, artistic or otherwise.

Comments

[wayne adams]

Thanks for this post. Albert Pedulla had referenced part of it recently and I was happy to read the rest.

Oddly enough, I recently made a shift in my own studio work as a result of realizing the need to consider the material and form more equally to the content - although I don't know if I can answer whether this has become self-indulgent but I'm guessing that my friends will call me out on it if so.

I agree about the ascetic nature of studio practice. It's interesting to bring an idea of religious practice/thought decidedly into the studio practice. A couple years ago I had argued sort of the opposite - a connection between church and relational aesthetics. I was thinking how they are similar in their use of collaboration, performance and aesthetics. It makes perfect sense to flip the argument and bring ascetic thought into the studio.

[daniel a. siedell]

hi wayne, glad you liked the post and found it helpful. i think an important way to resist self-indulgence is precisely what you say, that is, reflect on the relationship of the form and the content. let me know how it goes.