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• New Faculty in Coversation / MP3 (18.9MB) / 40:36

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In 2005 nearly two million Americans said their primary employment was in jobs that the census defines as artists’ occupations — including architects, interior designers and window dressers. Their combined income was about $70 billion, a median of $34,800 each. Another 300,000 said artist was their second job.

In a field that doesn’t require licenses, degrees or certification (for the most part), anyone can declare themselves an artist, and many do. That is part of the beauty of the art world - it embraces its amateurs. From blue-haired hobbyists to Chelsea district veterans, all are artists. There is no such thing as an amateur or self-taught doctor (although there is one in Cloverdale, Indiana that I might argue learned medicine through Childcraft Encyclopedias and a workshop series at the community center), however amateur artists can still claim the title “artist.” Degrees are offered in art and people can be declared “masters” through such programs, but higher education is not required to be a functioning artist.

A portion of art’s longevity can be attributed to this permissiveness. Art could just as easily fall into the traps of “professional” trades: canonized methods, rote memorization and approved techniques. Many people still feel that the move into Modernism never really happened - that art’s trajectory actually followed classic and traditional norms and that what historians call Modernism was not actually art - that art is still a trade of sorts. From that view, art could be a profession that relies on licenses and certification for validation. But, art as we know it is a shifting, disagreeable, motley brew, and that is where its strength lies.

Art allows and even welcomes discord, contrasting views, challenges, schisms and varying skill and education levels. This diversity creates many entry points for people to understand and appreciate art. Therefore, Bob Ross is just as important to the art world as Gerhard Richter; Lawrence Welk is as practical as John Cage; and Carrie Ann Inaba is as useful as Meredith Monk. We’ll take all of you!

Joseph Beuys, who constantly petitioned for wider definitions of art, stated, “Every human being is an artist.” This was not meant that every person is a practitioner of traditional artistic methods, but that creativity, as a social currency, is available to all and all should use it within their fields whether it be law, nursing or agriculture. This new application of creativity was to lead to what Beuys called “social sculpture” - an all-encompassing artwork that deals with economies, societies, cultures, politics, etc.

I side with Beuys when it comes to expanding definitions of art and artists. If each person would approach problems with artistic creativity no matter their employment, rather than defaulting to threadbare traditional solutions that may not work well if at all, then society as a whole would be in a much better state. I hope that by the next census 100% of Americans declare their first profession as artist and their second job as… well, their job.

Additional Resources

• Americans, Beware! Artists Are All Around You! (New York Magazine)

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hillmancurtis, inc. is a design firm that has been creating quiet, well shot video portraits of artists and designers in their Artist Series. This series has typically covered designer/artists such as Stefan Sagmeister, David Carson and Mark Romanek. Below is their feature on Lawrence Weiner, the conceptual text artist. I particularly like Weiner’s dogmatic comments on Helvetica vs. Franklin Gothic Condensed - it really helps to contextualize his art.

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“Out of a thousand art students, maybe five well make a living off their art, and perhaps one will be known outside her city. That’s not a condemnation. It’s the nature of fame, real quality, and genuine influence to be rare. [... ]

“[I]t is still true that most artists do not make interesting art. And it follows that most art students do not make the kind of art that they study and admire. Some people would say they make art that imitates “better” art, so that art schools at any given time art filled with people making art that is roughly emulating more successful art being made elsewhere. [... ]

“Average people — average art students — are not innovative, challenging, aggressive, adventurous, or strong. Most art students do not spend their lives in intense dialogue with their work, and few are reliably challenging or provocative. Whether or not you care about the criteria that museums like the National Gallery promote, the fact is that most work produced in most studio art classes is bound to be utterly normal and low-energy. Few of us master the cutting edge or come to terms with the most radical work in our field.”

Why Art Cannot Be Taught
by James Elkins

The above quote indicates that average students create average work that will never be celebrated outside of the safe circle of friends and family. It is a sad truth, but one of which we are all aware. It would be fantastic if each graduating class was teeming with “genius” and “unfathomable energy,” but it is not so.

Aside from hobbyists who are just taking a class to learn a bit more about art (which is entirely valid), I partially blame lukewarm art on the emphasis on “classroom learning.” Honestly, how much learning and energy can take place in a classroom? Classrooms are all about average. The walls are institutional beige so as not to disturb (how can you learn about art in beige?); the floors are bland vinyl tile designed not to inspire, but to hide stains; or a hearty but unimaginative berber carpet to stand wear and tear; the chairs were purchased more for economy than function or comfort; lighting is fluorescent (with one light spasmodically blinking to induce epileptic fits); windows are scarce; and PowerPoint is for squares. If graded, most university classrooms would get a C at best. The best classes I had were off campus - in artists’ studios, restaurants, museums or galleries or just outside in the fresh air. Lackluster surroundings breed lackluster thinking and thus lackluster work.

A few months ago, I was reading an exchange between John Baldessari and Michael Craig-Martin where they spoke of the glory days of their academic institutions (UCLA and Goldsmiths, respectively):

Craig-Martin: “We didn’t have classes, and students weren’t attached to anybody in particular. Everyone who taught there was available for every student.”

Baldessari: “Yeah, comparable to that, we had one guy teaching the equivalent of critical studies, and class was in session whenever you met him on campus, which I thought was really good.”

Michael Craig-Martin went on to make the following comment:

“Yes, it’s very important to have people whose central world is not the world of education. The great thing about having artists teaching in an art school is that they bring their experience of what it is to be an artist in the world into the school. And so this thing you can’t teach, you’re teaching by example. You’re teaching by your presence. You’re teaching because you’re sitting at lunch with kids and they’re learning as much at lunch, if not more, than they are when you’re talking to them in the studio.”

Most art programs suffer from an administrative plague contracted from liberal arts universities. In an effort to level academic fields, all programs were treated the same from chemistry to engineering to business to art. A certain amount of credit hours are required in certain types of classes in order for a department to receive accreditation from a “higher” power. Quantification is forced over a field that is almost impossible to quantify. Assignments run roughshod over ideas, students worry about silly things like grades rather than learning, and faculty are managers rather than mentors.

There can be a place for assignments. Practices and exercises teach skill - canonized skill, but skill nonetheless. What is often not taught is that those skills are at the service of concept. Skill without concept gives us light studies, color charts, still life paintings and photos, maquettes, and figure studies. Students will spend four years in an undergraduate institution to walk away with a backpack full of skills (exemplified in a tepid portfolio of assignments) and no idea how to use them.

Students need to get out and make things that aren’t assignments or expected. Most importantly, this needs to happen outside of school, away from the watchful eye of the accredited program. Of course, this brings us back to the need for “innovative, challenging, aggressive, adventurous, or strong” students and equally challenging mentors who will chase their students into unfamiliar areas in an effort to help them find their voice in a new era. Art will occur best out in the world and not under the flickering fluorescents of the institution.

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Outside of the commercial realm, the most transparent non-profits generally get is the cost of admission. We never know how much an exhibition costs or how much an artist asks as a lecture fee. So, many people balk at a hefty admission price — it can cost as much as an amusement park ticket to attend an exhibition in New York (which is probably why more and more exhibitions focus on spectacle). The folks over at Good Magazine have published a “transparency” to allow you to see how much of your admission fee actually covers exhibition and operating costs. The results are a little staggering.

Note: “How much do I cost the Gallery of Contemporary Art?” you may wonder. On average, using a very rough estimation, each visitor to the Gallery costs us about $10/exhibition.

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