I Want To Change The World

It's time to admit that the problems I have with art are as much about me as they are about art.

Art's got its own troubles. It talks to itself in ways that are increasingly hermetic. Its avant garde principles are now codified in the MFA, which means that there is nothing but irony (or bullshit) in these principles anymore. Buchel is the new Bourguereau. Even though the whole point is that you can do "anything," it's true that we all seem to be looking for that sense of boundarylessness within a narrow bandwidth of expensive trash for rich people, neutered political faux-discourse, bad painting, specific artist obsessions with arcana and "pictures of my beautiful, strung-out friends."

But you know, this is not a new development, and I am the dumbass who, and I am serious here, got into art because I wanted to change the world. Seriously. So I can't move forward until I admit that it's my problem that for almost twenty years I couldn't see that a field of inquiry that elevates Bruce Nauman hopping around on one foot

(not that Bruce Nauman isn't great)

simply isn't about changing the world. It can't be. It's no good when it's about changing the world. And while it's true that most art sucks anyway, the thing that I recognize when I find a work of art that truly moves me is abandon. I think that the BFA and MFA have perversely regulated what abandon means, and that we are all subsequently trapped in a destructive, Duchampian definition of abandon. But abandon is still an appropriate artistic goal. It's certainly more appropriate than attempting to change the world.

You can't change the world with art because keeping an eye on what the world thinks is a great way to make sure you never find the abandon that makes art great. You can't change the world with art because ostensibly you mean a positive change, and it's impossible to cling to the idea of improvement and lose yourself totally at the same time, even if you are only talking about yourself. You can't change the world with art because this gets even more true when you start thinking that you can articize your ideas about how other people should live.

I think you can come kind of close. I like my art. But I also think it's a little precious and that it has to get very, very big in order to get anywhere near that sensation of abandon, and it kills me to admit this, but I know from the inside out that all the variations of Wanting To Change The World are what keeps the art tight. But do you know what sucks even more than knowing that I am making less-than-great art? What totally sucks is that I can screw tires together until I give myself cancer and emphysema, and it will never change the world. What a dead end.

I want to change the world more than I want to make better art. Right now, it's true that the world needs changing more than I need to lighten up. And beyond that, honestly, if I can make it through years of professional artistic schooling and move all the way to New York to "make it" as a professional artist without ever knocking this worldchip off my shoulder, then it's reasonable to question how much I can lighten up. Instead of trying to make myself be something that I am not, I need to go find the real lightness that comes out of working with a situation instead of against it. Art makes me feel dark and angry, and it does this not because it's inherently dark or angry, and not because I am inherently dark or angry, but because doing it makes it harder for me to be who I actually am and work toward what I actually value.

So, if I went to graduate school with you, and I told you when I was drunk one night that I am in this to change the world, and acted befuddled because you laughed, I get it now. And if you are a friend of mine who makes art, I'll stop having such poopy drawers about the art market and how stupid art is. Its very beauty is its stupidity, and that is not cracking wise. That is true, and I apologize for having such a superficial understanding of that beautiful truth for so long.

And um, I'll be posting updates about this whole changing the world plan.

Comments

[Glenn Fischer]

I find your brutal honesty and perspective here very refreshing. I can personally relate on many levels. Thanks for being so candid and sharing!

[zipthwung]

Part science fiction thriller and part black comedy, the film echoed contemporary fears of a declining economy, within a culture of greed and conspicuous consumption common among Americans in the 1980s. In They Live, the ruling class within the monied elite are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of subliminal media advertising and the control of economic opportunity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2fnKqbjyyw&feature=related

[Heather Gross]

By lightening up Deb, you are changing the world!

[Oriane Stender]

I had a similar feeling last year during the presidential campaign. I was so not inspired to make art partly because what good, of what use is making more stuff to put in the world? We already have too much stuff. What seemed really important at that moment (October, 2008) was getting Obama elected and making sure McCain/Palin were not elected. So I worked on that, very hard. And I felt a great sense of satisfaction when my efforts helped to achieve the goal, more than the satisfaction I get from making art at this moment. Changing the world IS more important than art right now, and I'm glad you're saying it. I'm feeling it too.

[jason]

Just checking in -- thought I would pop off some inflammatory comments!

I think you're being terribly overbroad here. Art changes the world all the time, although probably in much smaller ways than would satisfy your grandiose ambitions, and maybe not in the way you want it to. Art within the "contemporary art world" has an even smaller effect (when it actually concerns itself with such aims), not because of limitations of form, but because of its narrow context (hermetic, narrow bandwidth, exclusivity, etc.).

Now, that does not mean that art can, by itself, replace worldwide factory farming with sustainable agricultural practices (or some other goal), but it can certainly play a necessary role. Art is great at communicating stuff (just ask the Catholic Church), and presenting or embodying ideas in new, profound ways. It can also help in sustaining and enriching the social movements that actually change things.

Otherwise, I'd be very cautious of the impulse to be a savior. There's a very good reason why evangelicals are annoying as hell. Underlying the deep-seated desire to "change the world" is an assumption that the world actually needs the change you so desperately want to bring. Democratic change (of the participatory, 'rule ourselves' ethos; not the top-down, electoral-politics variety) is all about communication, challenging orthodoxy, imagining possibilities, creating new systems or methods, and viewing the world from someone else's point of view -- things that works of art accomplish on a regular basis, and sometimes even with abandon.

[Ben]

Don't apologize, the original intention of saving the world is true. Even if it's quixotic, the attempt is less about saving yourself and more about saving others, probably people you don't know and will never meet through your personal activity/ art. The narrow corridor of modernism's art schools cause most of us only to dig deeper and associate with people who are similarly trapped. Deep cynicism is a consequence of climbing out of the hole. Art expresses our recovery, the world needs that now more than ever.

[flora]

Hi Deborah,
I've been following your work for a while, but not commented until now. I have been thinking about this or a while (I am nearly finished an MFA and am just beginning to teach, in an environment where everybody is talking about studio PhD's...) I have been rereading David Hickey again, esp "Welcome to the Big, Beautiful Art Market," to ease my pain!

In it, (though you're probably aquainted with the article), he posits the aesthetic roots of the market to be Catholic (luminous, ritualized,trance-inducing), whilst the aesthetics of the cultural institutions to be an essentially Protestant reaction to all that shiny, seductive 'expensive trash for rich people' as you put it. I'm paraphrasing alot here, and it is not a religious argument, but one that essentially puts the aesthetic discourses of art market vs MFA in its place. Neither will save the world. Both are dependent upon the other, to position against (particularly the institutions). Both are valid and not at the same time. And examples of the most frivolous kind of speculative investment there is.

Now this changing the world business. That is also why I went into art. I agree that the current visual languages in vogue are not at all about freedom, change or unction, but form a discourse of failure. I personally hate it, but that is what I see around me. In an absence of articulation of art's value or stirring of the 'spirit', social/activist art moves into design, art schools expand along the corporate model, and money becomes the bottom line of artmaking, not in term of making, but of swindling. (Please, tell me I'm wrong...)

But perhaps this failure is actually a reflection of how we as a civilization are failing, failing to rise to the challenge of breaking out of our institutional imprinting, the chains in our minds that value hopping on one foot thirty years ago over genuine creative struggles today... Perhaps what needs to fail is this whole habit of thinking globally about art, as if it is ever one thing.

Certainly global thinking has been helpful in terms of opening up the arenas to other countries, and the art world has benefited from the influx of alive art from countries like China or Cuba. But it seems like global art markets make the same people alot richer. Can we effect change on a global scale? Certainly, we have to, but I think under the current reins, it is impossible. As an artist, the potential is there to speak to many people, but what kind of people? Spectators or participants?

Damn I want to make a living, but it is seeming more and more that the reason I want to make art is to inspire those who see it to go off and make their own little bit of inspiration to pass along to the next person. To help in creating the kind of community/culture that is courageous enough to be free of ingrained habits of thinking and actually become the alive and capable individuals we think we are. Only those who are actually alive and capable can actually change anything!

So I say (in case you haven't yet thought of me as crazy), forget about the world! Think about your world, and nurture that.
Why I've enjoyed your work is the sense of freedom you give to your materials to become their own landscapes. I think this is what art, at its best, does for us.
Sorry for all the words, and thank you for all your hard work!

[21st Century Plowshare]

Wow, Flora, don't apologize!

I have a lot to say back, to everyone, but for now, my kneejerk reaction is that it's about inspiring participants, not so much spectators. Thanks for that distinction, I am glad you wrote.