My studio-based artwork from the past couple of years has been archived in blog form; not all of it, but whenever I think of it. The 2004 archive is here and the 2003 is here; the 2004 wasn't getting regularly updated while I was doing a bunch of animation (even though I was making art, too)--I just added stuff today. By the way, I don't know if I've mentioned that my artistic heroes include Francis Picabia, Sigmar Polke and the late Martin Kippenberger, and I can't think of a better life project than trying to communicate their kinds of quirky, problematic sensibilities in digital-age terms. Not imitating them, but giving in to the perverse turns of mind I think they all represent. The animation, writing, music, and whatever is all a spinoff from, and contingent on, my studio practice. In case there's any question about what I'm up to.
I equate studio practice with a process of intellectually and physically engaging with the material of the world. If this practice is clear it presents an aesthetic sensibility with specific philosophical and moral implications.
Tom, when you describe all the various manifestations of your work as being contingent on your studio practice do you mean that they are contingent on the aesthetics that you have established in this practice? If so, is it fair to critique all of your work through a reading of your studio work?
I ask because I think for criticism to be valuable critics should approach their subjects with sensitivity to the contingent relationships set forth in a given work. Obviously, it would be unfair to, say, criticize Giotto for his inability to properly define perspective in his paintings when perspective had not yet been invented.
I'm not trying to set a trap for anyone here--i.e., saying you have to know a whole lot of information extraneous to the work itself to have an opinion about it. Giotto's contemporaries, at least, were entitled to their opinions about his work--those might have helped move it more toward perspective depth (or anticipated modernist flatness by going the other direction, ha ha). One person came to my studio and said, "I appreciate the narrative of the making of these objects perhaps more than the objects themselves." I wasn't hurt by it, but that was telling me that the work flopped for that person. I'm enough of a modernist to think secondary or anecdotal info can enhance art but shouldn't replace it. A visual narrative is a story, too: "This thing grew and engulfed that thing and was layered over with this third thing." And then there's the whole can of worms of whether things look better or worse online. This probably didn't answer your question, but that's stuff I think about.
I am doing research for an essay and just interviewed Fiona Smyth. Her comix/drawings/paintings are really popular both in fine art contexts and in popular media contexts. She employs a lexicon of images that is always growing. In the back of her collection Cheez she provides a key, like a legend on a map, to some of the more recurring symobls in her work. For example, a little graphic of a Fiona-style troll-head is accompanied by the text: "trolls Asexual, big belly, good luck, great hair. I used to collect trolls." Funny how literal and determined this strategy is, and yet, in this instance anyhow, sharing the "back story" doesn't impede on the viewer/reader's ability to spin their own response to the work one bit. It just ads depth to the experience.
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My studio-based artwork from the past couple of years has been archived in blog form; not all of it, but whenever I think of it. The 2004 archive is here and the 2003 is here; the 2004 wasn't getting regularly updated while I was doing a bunch of animation (even though I was making art, too)--I just added stuff today. By the way, I don't know if I've mentioned that my artistic heroes include Francis Picabia, Sigmar Polke and the late Martin Kippenberger, and I can't think of a better life project than trying to communicate their kinds of quirky, problematic sensibilities in digital-age terms. Not imitating them, but giving in to the perverse turns of mind I think they all represent. The animation, writing, music, and whatever is all a spinoff from, and contingent on, my studio practice. In case there's any question about what I'm up to.
- tom moody 8-15-2004 4:52 am
I equate studio practice with a process of intellectually and physically engaging with the material of the world. If this practice is clear it presents an aesthetic sensibility with specific philosophical and moral implications.
Tom, when you describe all the various manifestations of your work as being contingent on your studio practice do you mean that they are contingent on the aesthetics that you have established in this practice? If so, is it fair to critique all of your work through a reading of your studio work?
I ask because I think for criticism to be valuable critics should approach their subjects with sensitivity to the contingent relationships set forth in a given work. Obviously, it would be unfair to, say, criticize Giotto for his inability to properly define perspective in his paintings when perspective had not yet been invented.
- Aaron Yassin (guest) 8-15-2004 6:17 am
I'm not trying to set a trap for anyone here--i.e., saying you have to know a whole lot of information extraneous to the work itself to have an opinion about it. Giotto's contemporaries, at least, were entitled to their opinions about his work--those might have helped move it more toward perspective depth (or anticipated modernist flatness by going the other direction, ha ha). One person came to my studio and said, "I appreciate the narrative of the making of these objects perhaps more than the objects themselves." I wasn't hurt by it, but that was telling me that the work flopped for that person. I'm enough of a modernist to think secondary or anecdotal info can enhance art but shouldn't replace it. A visual narrative is a story, too: "This thing grew and engulfed that thing and was layered over with this third thing." And then there's the whole can of worms of whether things look better or worse online. This probably didn't answer your question, but that's stuff I think about.
- tom moody 8-16-2004 11:30 am
I am doing research for an essay and just interviewed Fiona Smyth. Her comix/drawings/paintings are really popular both in fine art contexts and in popular media contexts. She employs a lexicon of images that is always growing. In the back of her collection Cheez she provides a key, like a legend on a map, to some of the more recurring symobls in her work. For example, a little graphic of a Fiona-style troll-head is accompanied by the text: "trolls Asexual, big belly, good luck, great hair. I used to collect trolls." Funny how literal and determined this strategy is, and yet, in this instance anyhow, sharing the "back story" doesn't impede on the viewer/reader's ability to spin their own response to the work one bit. It just ads depth to the experience.
- sally mckay 8-16-2004 5:12 pm