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Value Judgement
“Even the partisans of universals should have to respond to issues of reasoning and evidence, and there is nothing that could be called evidence suggesting that quality is objective and universal, rather than subjective and relative. There is, however, abundant evidence on the other side of the question. First, there is the historical evidence: the simple fact that taste changes over time.”
This makes me not want to see things as quality or not quality, and more or less just different. I want to value things based on differences rather than progressive and digressive, because I think there is an ability to fight light and darkness within most work.
“The classic Modernist solution, which was characteristic of the colonialist era, was essentially to say that every culture but ours was wrong. Nowadays that opinion seems to reflect a chillingly, even tragically flawed self-absorption.”
This is where perceiving something as valuable and anything and everything else as worthless can develop into a pretentious arrogance that goes along with many artist, which seems to be one of the main struggle art cannot seem to overcome yet.
“So what are value judgments for? Socially, they serve to define and bond groups-communities of taste-in ways that are often useful and always dangerous, because by bonding some people they exclude others.”
This is intriguing because this idea completely supports how our as well as most other societies formed. Most have spawned from getting a group of people to single out another group in order for that group to grow. This idea applies to more than just art and should be recognized as a social tool as well.
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Artist Statement (revised)
Ben Steckel
4/8/2012
UV2
Peck/Kolster
Artist Statement
Since the beginning of time humans have been reaping the Earths resources in order to survive. This is a very natural, essential method that if not followed humanity would no longer exist. However this idea has evolved into this grotesque practice of consumerism, which now has instituted itself within most people of American Society. This idea will be the main drive my art deciphering the many connections that exist between human habits, and the effects that they play on the Earth.
The goal is to challenge the stigmas that we are born into and exploit them for what they truly are, illustrating everyday actions or objects in a different light. To me, the most effective way of doing this is through installations. I am very attracted to the idea that an entire room is dedicated to one main idea or object, but still leaving room for other amenities to help push the idea. The plan is to set a viewer into a space designed to make them feel as if they are existing within an everyday scene, but removing the comfort that goes along with that scenario. This hopefully will generate the viewer’s thoughts on how they experience these situations as well as how they are contributing to consumerism.
Installations are where most of my ideas seem to apply to but I do not want to hold myself down to one mode of art making. Painting, drawing, and sculpting are all passions of mine that I never want to have to part with due to me choosing one mode over another. This is why I must amalgamate these modes to avoid being type casted as a sculptor or a painter because I have a great love for it all that should not be taken for granted. However, because I work using my intuitiveness this only expands the possibilities and directions that a piece could go, using one medium, which then influences my next decision. Which in result excites me to know that this integration will become eminent in the near future.
In terms of audience I would say that my work could apply to anybody who would like to learn more about themselves or just people as a whole, in a different more shocking way that they might be used to. Incorporating shock value is going to be a major factor in my creating, because this seems to be the best way to alter a scenario that an audience may be already used to, in a way that they weren’t expecting, rending them almost fearful of the action I am targeting. So in reality, I would like to think my audience exists with individuals who might not necessarily share the same values as me, but are willing to understand how I am interpreting our society.
I am making art in hopes of someone understanding that it is unnatural that we consume as much as we do, and maybe influence them to want to do something about it or help influence more people on this subject. Realistically, I understand myself as someone who is far too apathetic to directly affect an entire culture and address their daily motifs. However I am more than willing to help aid the individual who will, through my creations.
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Artist Statement (short and sweet)
As an artist I wish to spread my thoughts to individuals in hopes of them understanding a message I am getting across. I want people to look at my art and feel that I spilled everything into it, helping them to understand themselves or the art they are creating. I would do this through targeting ideas that generate or simulate the same feelings that naturally come along with being human. When concerning medium, I would not like to hold myself down to one specialized method of making art, because I feel that in doing that you can constrict yourself. This renders the artist left with less chance for a wider perspective due to there being fewer variables in the equations. However, if I were to choose a preferred medium, I feel most comfortable with installations for communicating an idea. I feel that using an entire space to communicate can be a more suiting approach for my ideas. In making installations this also doesn’t just hold me down to strictly being a sculptor, because it allows me to integrate things like painting, drawing, collaging, or any other medium that could help enhance the space. I also feel that I have a good sense of understanding what the area will look like beforehand so I feel that it is that much easier to be confident with this medium. When I make installations I want to be able to make the viewers feel as if they are in a whole new world forgetting that they still are eminent in a gallery, challenging ideas of everyday scenes or not so everyday scenes in a very naturalistic manor. This is where I feel that my ideas, communication, and passion lie and cannot wait to fully explore myself through this medium.
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3 Images
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Value judgements
“Yet it is hard really to imagine what it would mean to say that the peoples of the past were somehow “wrong” when they lied their lives upon the earth as we are now living ours. If, on the other hand, we accept that quality is relative and shifts as time passes, then each age may be regarded as right in its time and in its way.”
I really enjoy the idea that he recognizes that every generation is trying to “correct” the errors of the previous one, making life “right”. It helped me to think about how every generation is vastly different, but there are still some major similarities.
“By recognizing the fluctuations in the idea of quality we are not abandoning the quality discourse, merely setting its limits. The situation that follows is not in fact chaotic, for the history of connoisseurship suggest that quality judgements do have a degree of stability within limited context of time and space”
What I got from this is that through metaphysics, there is a vague definition of what we see as quality and it applies to almost anything that we feel the scale of quality applies to.
“One reflects oneself, and contemplates the reflection of oneself, by bouncing one’s radar of appreciation off of this and that, rejecting this, rejoicing in that, putting certain things in a class with oneself. excluding others from it. and so on.”
This is how we gain opinion from things, as the populous comes to a conscientious of what is “common sense.” Then from that we wither promote or degrade the idea.
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Symposium
Well to be entirely honest, I was fairly apathetic about the symposium considering it was taking time out of my early weekend. However, It ended up being a very interesting experience. Due to me not being excited about it I wasn’t prepared and didn’t write down any questions prior. Still, this doesn’t mean that when I got there I didn’t ask questions. I simply walked up to whomever seemed like they had more interesting art and worked my way down from there. There was one artist named Katie who definitely shed some inspiration on me. She let me know how to contact a director in the third ward who in the past has let her install into abandon buildings in the area, making a gallery space in an unideal space. Which I grew an attraction for because I have always been in love with the idea of guerrilla art, but never get the chance to do it because of that who illegal thing. This would be a legal, carefree way of installing in a vacant, man-made environment. Which I think can only add to the kinds of art that I could be making through this process, which gets me excited :)
However, there were some not so interesting characters there (cough) Chip Kidd (cough). Yeah, yeah we get it.. big time designer in new york with a loud mouth. Whats new? So what you helped make the cover for Jurassic Park. I’m pretty sure anyone who is buying that movie isn’t buying it for the aesthetics on the cover. Sometimes its too obvious to determine art from design.
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Context
Our generation has been exposed to a lot of risque images and stories through the means of television and the internet. We are all used to seeing things that shock us everyday that we are essentially desensitized to its value. To Nan Golden this could have been revolutionary to her time. Making people feel uncomfortable with exotic photographs that they were definitely not accustom is what photography should be about. It should be about encapsulating this feeling or idea that the average person had not thought about or felt already. Nan was a modern day pioneer of this idea exploiting what life was really like behind the glits and glam in the 70’s. However, to me this doesn’t mean anything but a cool story. Yeah she was doing something way different and it shook people up a little bit, but still it’s not as impacting as a Dali painting. But why? Because his paintings were intended to be around for a long time due to them being so unique. His ideas and paintings are still fawned over because they were so revolutionary, that art hasn’t really caught up to the bar that he has set. With Nan the bar quickly was achieved after a couple of years of people getting used to it therefor her kind of art seems to be more ephemeral.
As for Marco Maggi, he seems to put a lot more thought and time into what he was creating. Not basing his art off shock value but simply using time and process to gain attention. His work seems very meticulous which is something I used to think I was not interested in, but now realize that I only disliked it because I was envious of it. Lately I’ve been finding ways of conducting that fine detail in my art just like Marco. So If I said that one artist was more successful than another, I would probably say Marco takes the cake. However, I believe that both artist are necessary in order to keep a balance in art, because if this weren’t the case I think we would have a lot more Dali’s in our world.
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New Exchanges
The Layton gallery had a lot to offer but what instantly caught my eye was The Fine Line magazine’s poster mural thingy. It was filled with many interesting contemporary paintings and manipulated photos. The Fine Line is a local magazine company that chooses not to put any adds in their pages. The idea is that the product will sell solely through the voice of art. This makes me so much more enticed with the mag because it’s doing something different then any other magazine I have heard of. Instead of designing their product about how much money they were gonna make they were more interested in spreading art around to the public of Milwaukee. However, in order to follow through with this concept there has to be some pretty good art backing it up. Which there is. There was one painting that drew my attention right as I looked at the wall. It’s base was a large paint drip that had been watered down, followed by more detailed work over top transforming these paint drips into what seemed like a futuristic cityscape. I related to this work a lot because I was very interested in a concept similar to this one when I was first getting into painting but never executed it the way this painter did. Which got me excited to see a similar, more matured version of my idea. This magazine has a very keen eye on how to relate to our generation through art, and I am excited to see what else they have in their arsenal of kickass art!
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Love & Hate
Like (In no particular order)
Vito Acconci- http://www.acconci.com/
Ray Johnson- http://www.artnet.com/artists/ray-johnson/
Kiki Smith- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_Smith
Sheppard Ferry-http://obeygiant.com/
BLU-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4
Blockhead-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhheiPTdZCw
Hate?
I don’t feel that it is necessary to find art to hate. Even though I may not be attracted to the art, I still must keep in mind that they still are having intentions of being creative, and I can’t hate them for that. I guess there can be art that I don’t think meet my standards but there will always a positive quality that lies somewhere in the piece.
In Blockhead’s animation, he addresses the fact that as humans we are all addicted to sitting on our couches in front of our television. His outlook on our world is all wrong. He claims that animals truly use our earth the way it should be and we humans are merely an infection. What is so wroung about watching a lot of t.v. You get to keep updated in the world, watch funny things happen without having to interact with it, and watch lives of people who are more interesting than myself. I feel that the only source of knowledge I have has been taught to me through t.v, so that alone proves his ideas wrong… As for the animation; it didn’t do anything for me because there wasns’t enough null colors and emotionless characters with the animals, because I mean that’s what they are. Humans should have been the ones who were all colorful and vibrant; after all we were the ones who artificially created these colors. Another thing was he had awful transitions. One animal warps into another animal, into another animal.. we get it, you find them exciting. Still there are some decent aspects of this animation but none are worth mentioning. Blockhead is a fake animator and let’s hope that he forever shall be.
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Artist Statement.. so vauge..
Ben Steckel
Artist Statement
As an artist I feel compelled to impact myself and those around me with ideas. Ideas that will either change or fortify the many minds we have in our society toward moral and mental progression. I am creating art in hopes that someone will use my thoughts as a benchmark for their own.
I would like to see myself as a domino, one of many that together compile the idea of art. This line is a never ending line that will exists as long as humanity exists. Each domino is constantly affecting the next one as the train progresses on. However, it is evident that some people feel that they are more than one domino, which contains a higher level of impact due to the individual being more “effective “then other artist. In my eyes, this is not the case. We are all one singular domino, a part of something way larger then we can even imagine, and no artist will ever change that. The only necessity or goal I have, is to impact the porcelain prism that rest in front of me.
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