Nighttime and a critique of the art world

The nights are the worst (not the mornings). Tonight as I was lying in bed alternately enjoying chest coughs, sinus congestion and, my favourite, the feeling of a giant lump of, I guess, chewed food stuck in my diaphragm area (all of which are why I am up writing now), I was also thinking about an article I read today. It was an article in the New Yorker about string-theory physicists and what struck me as interesting was not so much string theory, which mostly goes over my head, but their crazy stranglehold on the way physics is taught.

As I understand string theory, the idea is that everything is made of stringlike energy particles that vibrate and don't behave consistently. This, so far, makes sense to me. I can't follow along with their 6 extra dimensions, though the idea of parallel universes strikes me as reasonable (in a parallel universe, I'm healthy). I also don't understand why the theory's detractors don't appreciate that there is no one string theory formula--apparently there are many formulae and this is a big deal with the detractors who want a nice simple Einsteinian e=mc squared.

Anyway, the detracting physicists remind me of me and my complaint with the art establishment except that my complaint is opposite. As a practicing artist for the last 15 years and as an art student for the last year I have noticed that the art establishment is super-hooked on I'll call it a single formula. If you as an artist can show that you have followed but somehow made some modification to some previous movement or artist, preferably a big name one, then bingo, you're an artist! If, like me, you think this exercise is beside the point, you're not playing by the rules. (Relatedly, if your art can be read as ironic, this is also very bingoish even if everyone is fed up with irony and the joke is way, way thin. Or if you can in any way get your art to somehow comment on sexulaity, gender and/or other forms of identity: super-contemporary!)

It's a game that serious artists pretty much have to play because the art world, such as it is, exists in academia and granting institutions (the same people, more or less, are in both groups). The art world is insular, not just in my cosmopolis of Lethbridge, but pretty much the world. Like the string-theory physicists who have elbowed out their competition from all major halls of learning, the art academics have elbowed out any dissenting views in art schools and contemporary art venues the world over.

Do I find art that is contrived to link itself to something previous but presents a new twist meaningless? In general, yes I do. What do I care, to give two recent examples I viewed that moved me not, that in the artist's giant, mostly monotone, canvases she copied Rembrandt's strokes or that the blurry surveillance photos of another are "painterly"?

But so what. I don't mind that these pieces weren't for me. I don't mind that the curator of the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, the Lethbridge public gallery of some note in contemporary art circles (public meaning government funded by granting institutions), is a nice lady who thinks that painting, in terms of colour, form and light, is "history." Or that the former chairman of the U of L art department, another nice guy, says he hates it when students talk about creativity. (Needless to say, I'm still all for colour, form and light. And I think creativity is one big reason to stay alive and should be an artist's biggest impetus for making art so maybe the idea could at the very least be broached.). They can do and think whatever they want. What I do mind is that these people and people who think like them have their own stranglehold on what is considered art and, therefore what is shown and taught and perpetuated.

I think people (not art academics, not "contemporary artists") are desperate for meaning and look to artists to provide it for them. They are not looking for edification on how a piece relates to an artwork from the past, they are not looking to decipher clever clues, they want an experience that moves them. I don't know one single person outside the art world whose first care upon seeing art is "how does this fit into current contemporary art?" But this is the first concern of the prevailing art world and this is why so much contemporary art is so irrelevant.

It saddens me HUGELY that I can be inspired by books and movies--even television--but almost never an art show (what book, film or TV show hinges on the reader or watcher knowing how it fits in with current literature or cinema?). My first question as a viewer is: how does it make me feel? My first question as an artist: what is my motivation? Second (related) question: who am I trying to reach? In my year as an undergraduate in the U of L fine art department (I enrolled with the intention of eventually getting my MFA so I can teach art, though I've been an artist for years I have no university art credits; my illness and coming baby seem to have derailed these plans), not once did I hear a faculty member address these questions.

Like I said, I am not against people being fixated on the idea of progression in art (a distinctly modernist idea in what they all blab about all the time: a post-modern world--now that's ironic). I do, however, deeply resent the narrowness of allowed art and views on art. The New Yorker article had some interesting ideas about the sociology of physicists. Personally, I think the sociology of academia is a gigantic goldmine of material with art faculties possibly being the supreme nugget.

Poor art academics, stuck between the all-powerful scientific method and purty colours, they've got to figure out a way to look serious. Poor art lovers, stuck with the results.

Anhedonia (swearing again)

I'm starting to look back on my former poor health of the previous decade as the good old days. On top of my pregnancy-related fatigue and stomach problems, I have been dealing with what I suppose would be termed the flu this past week. These days it's a big deal if I pick up my daughter at school or put in a laundry.

I just have nothing good to say about being so sick for so long. I am swathed in anhedonia. I'm just in it. "It" is a joy-free place where I try not to hate myself for not wanting to connect with my husband, who is also my best and only helper. "It" is a place where I can barely remember that I'm blessed with a growing baby in my womb. "It" is a place where I can get it together to teach my one class but I come home and shut down again. "It" is a place where I can still love my daughter and engage with her but I wonder what effect it has on a kid to have a mother who is so severely joy- and energy-depleted.

"It" is also a place where I feel really, really alone without the accompanying feeling of yearning for companionship. I feel literally inconsolable. I'm an extrovert usually, but in this place I am an introvert. I want a cave to crawl into.

I still haven't let go of my ideas that everything is spiritual/energetic and I'm in the ongoing throes of some sort of karmic job/cleansing. Goody for me, hey? The seeming endlessness of my ill health (as I've mentioned in previous blog entries) culminating in my present semi-invalid state does give cause for asking the universe if I can finally stop always having to learn the things the hard way. Nope.

Sometimes I compare myself to the human race, which is by all appearances even more afflicted by having to learn the hard way. Look, when you're this sick and miserable and no answers are forthcoming... I, anyway, think of all the poor fuckers strewn across this beautiful and fucked-up planet who are struggling, struggling, struggling. So much fucking struggling.

On an intellectual level, I am grateful to my decent husband, my warm house, the food that makes me feel sick, my health care card, my bath tub, etc. On an emotional and physical level, I know all about struggle to fucking keep my head above water. It's difficult right now to think of myself as one of the lucky ones. Drowning is drowning.

It's not like the dark night of the soul (that phrase is like morning sickness; how about dark seasons/years/decades of the soul? How about all-day-all-the-time sickness?) and I have not met before. I have been down this path before. I get that I'm in some kind of major transition period (again). I obviously survived the last ones. I gotta say, this one feels, even if empirical evidence suggests otherwise, much more iffy. I'm not actually dying but, fuck, do I feel like I am. Oh merciful

God (no harm in addressing one), can I get a fucking break and while you're at it could you throw a few to all the other poor suffering fuckers?

Ambivalence

I feel physically better but not physically well. Rather than constant nausea and severe achiness and fatigue, it's more like ongoing indigestion and torpor. I am not in a positive state of mind. I find it difficult to feel passionate about anything; I've lost conviction. I cared about this project deeply. At the moment, I do not. Being so sick made me question everything and I have reached no conclusions.

I wonder what actually makes me happy besides enjoying my daughter. It has occurred to me that I do almost everything I do out of some sense of responsibility or duty and I'm no longer feeling that obligation. I want to have fun and find myself ill-equipped for such a program.

It feels like I crave nothingness. I realize I have to take it easy and stop pushing myself. It simply feels impossible to continue to hurry. To this end I dropped out school at the U of L and am only teaching one class at the college. I have nothing that wants to go into these gaps of time. I read a bit. Almost nothing moves me.

Some of my new feeble/gentle/word? approach feels perhaps what might be termed healthy. I had an interesting meeting this week with two people with whom I have a disagreement. They could be employers or instructors of mine in the sense that they have created part of my permanent employee/student record that I believe does not accurately reflect what I deserve. I laid out many reasoned arguments in a calm manner to support my case. They had not much to counter mine except to say they would not change their minds. I said okay.

I came, I spoke, they heard. C'est la vie. Skipped the whole conquering part. None of my fights ever get me anywhere anyway. Half the time people don't even know I'm fighting with them, they're just doing whatever works for them.

I'm planning to have two more Human Body Project events while I'm pregnant. One in Lethbridge at a date to be announced (probably mid-November) and one in Calgary on the night of December 2 at the Green Fools Theatre in Inglewood. Hard to organize when I don't want to do anything but I feel I would regret not taking advantage of using my pregnant body.