The End of a Lovely Season

The measurement of time seems more arbitrary than it did before. Seasons come and go, and it is hard to satisfy the hunger of their coming and going.

As my last entry for this year I am including a working excerpt of a conversation between Thomas Hoveling and myself (which in its final version will be included in the catalog for my exhibition in Australia), and a brief description of the weekend workshop I will teach this summer at the Anderson Ranch.

The Lovely Season
Excerpt from a conversation between Thomas Hoveling and Enrique Martínez Celaya.

“Tell me about the children who appear in many of the recent works,” he said while turning on the lamp by his side. I thought about our other conversations about childhood and I wanted to say something new, even if it was not true.
“Everything seems possible with them but also, they might show signs of the many things that will not be possible.”
“How about the two sculptures of boys?”
“Maybe they’re to the image of a child what a petrified tree is to a tree.”
“You don’t see these children as symbols?”
“No. I realize there’s a tendency to read images as symbols to be decoded though psychological or political machinations, but to me images are flatter. They represent themselves first and foremost. To stop at the thing…,” I said fearing I was sliding towards my typical, and dull, philosophical observations.
“Do you think our society is becoming more sophisticated about images as it is often said?” Thomas asked.
“I guess it depends what you mean by sophistication. One way to see our world is as a river of images moving quickly past our consciousness. Everyone is quick with the glimpse and the quick interpretation. But the whole thing is fairly trivial, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know anything about that world, really. I’m out of the loop,” he said.
“The current seems to be moving towards small screens with little movies and a taste more defined by sampling than by sustained engagement; the art fair booth with the one painting by each artist, the music download with the one hit song.”
When I finished talking, we remained quietly sitting near each other, while I tried to dissimulate my embarrassment. I shouldn’t have been speaking in front of Thomas about the restless spirit of modern life. It must have tested his patience.
“Let’s eat,” he said.


Brief Description of Workshop at the Anderson Ranch

Stumbling Towards an Artwork that is not as Terrible at it Could Be

Topics to be discussed include the challenges of making art in the age of careerism and art funds, the struggle between entertainment and art and the obstacles and help in the formation of an artist. In addition to the lectures, a selection of critiques will be held as a well as a “symposium” between the participants, the artist and his created character, Thomas Hoveling. The “symposium” will include debates with volunteers regarding artistic worldview, question and answer and interviews.

Each day will consist of a lively discussion followed by a critique and/or a directed argument.

Tall Words

I have mentioned earlier on this blog the unnecessary tall words used by galleries on press releases. But the problem is not limited to that type of advertisement. Fancy terminology and confounding statements are, more or less, de rigueur in the art world. The reasons why this is might be illustrative of collective and individual anxieties but rather than explore those, now I just want to suggest we desist on the usage of terminology and postures that are not necessary.

At times, the need for clarity and precision requires terms and methods that might not be familiar to everyone. But arcane notions ought to be tools in the search for truths rather than veils to hide lies. It is more productive to study great thinkers to understand the mechanism of their thought than to find a quotable phrase or a hook for one’s deficiencies; even minor understanding of a good mind brings forth humility. The temptation is always there to firm our soft understanding with the prop of the big word or the important framework, but these affectations tend to hide truths not only from others but from ourselves as well.

Partly because philosophy and literature have played a role in my work and are part of my vocabulary, it has been a challenge for me to avoid the failings I have just described. Whatever the excuse, I am disappointed whenever I can’t find a way around fancy terminology. I think most people should avoid the embarrassment of sounding like intellectuals—particularly if they are intellectuals.

Foolishness

The Head of the Extension Program: Don’t forget your notes on Beckett. Work hard. Remember: The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom

Marty The Fool: It is always a late arrival. And no one is waiting for you at the palace.

The heavy bottom lip of the Head of the Extension Program lost whatever shape it had.

Golden Ratio

I understand the desire for ideal proportions, but the cult of the Golden Ratio seems puzzling to me. For all its divine attributions, the hope for a perfect ratio seems very human, and nowhere are the characteristic limitations, distortions and tenderness of humanity more apparent than in the need to find clues of the definite importance of the Golden Ratio—Fibonacci numbers, pyramids, ideal buildings. In the case of paintings, for instance, it might not make sense to decide shape independently of “content,” and once content has been taken into account, other criteria will reveal the secondary importance of an a priori proportion.