Category Archives: Meta-Practice

Meta-Practice

how to decide if an art competition is right for you

Save time: If you answer NO to any of the following questions, simply move on from this particular opportunity. Leave it. Be on to the next thing.

Are you eligible?

E.g., basic requirements for geographic restrictions, student status, etc.

Are you an appropriate candidate?

E.g., if disciplines, languages, or career/experience levels are specified.

Are you willing to pay the entry fee?

Are you willing to pay or find financial assistance for fees or costs associated with the opportunity?

Consider travel, accommodations, shipping, insurance, materials, framing, overhead (time off of work, studio and home rent while away), etc. Consider that stipends and reimbursements may be issued as taxable income, fiscal sponsors often take a 10-15% administrative fee, and international bank transfers and checks incur transaction fees.

Do the potential benefits of applying outweigh the costs of applying?

E.g., who are the jurors and how much is a few seconds or minutes of their attention worth to you?

If selected, will the benefits of participating outweigh the costs and risks of participating?

E.g., for exhibitions, how optimal will the viewing conditions be? Who is the venue’s audience? What are the chances your work will be damaged in transport, installation, events, de-installation? For public art projects, how much of the budget will be spent on heavy equipment, insurance, and your own labor over the course of a multi-month or multi-year process? How will your productivity at a residency be affected by its location? How will you access groceries, supplies, and transport?

Are you willing to meet the requirements of the opportunity?

E.g., if residents are required to contribute a work of art to the collection, or eight hours per week teaching, or use headphones in studios; exhibiting artists must submit work ready-to-hang, accept a 50/50 split in the case of sales; grantees must submit a receipts or a final report, etc.

Are you available for the time commitment?

For residencies or fellowships, consider the policies on guests and taking leaves.

Are you willing to list references or request letters of recommendation, if needed?

Do you have adequate time to complete your submittal by the deadline?

For hard copy submittals, note whether the deadline is for receipt or postmark.

Do you have adequate time to develop a proposal you will be happy to realize and a reasonable budget, if required?

Is the call source reputable? Is the call free of red flags? Is the opportunity with a trustworthy organization?

Is the opportunity aligned with your goals as an artist?

If you aren’t sure what your goals are, set some time to write and review your goals in the next 14 days.
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Meta-Practice

what artists make happen

I love this quote from Jeremy Deller:

art isn’t about what you make but what you make happen.

In response, JL asked,

but do you have to void one to validate the other?

No. Still, I conceive of what you make happen to encompass so much more than what you make. To try to work out what I mean, I started sketching a diagram. This is what I’ve come up with (so far):

Christine Wong Yap, diagrammatic study about what artists make and what artists make happen: how objects, events/situations and possibilities intersect to create exhibitions, practice, communities, dialogues and engagement.

Christine Wong Yap, diagrammatic study about what artists make and what artists make happen: how objects, events/situations and possibilities intersect to create exhibitions, practice, communities, dialogues and engagement.

I’ll attempt an explanation:

Artists make objects. The very activity of manipulating materials with an openness to their possibilities is the development of our own practices. We use imagination, courage, and will to take creative risks and sustain activities and engagement that can lead to enjoyment and flow (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow).

Many artists make exhibitions, which are events/situations for engagement between the artist and viewer via the object.

So, largely, I think what artists make are objects, exhibitions, and practices that are opportunities for personal aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional engagement. (See Csikszentmihalyi and Rick E. Robinson’s The Art of Seeing for more on the four dimensions of aesthetic experience.) The engagement is personal—for artists, via our activity with objects and their display, and for viewers, via those objects displayed.

What artists make happen, though, seems to expand beyond what artists make.

Artists also make events/situations (which are not object-based exhibitions) happen. These are spaces—physical or psychological—for attention or interaction. Participatory projects, public interventions, and of course, happenings, are some examples.

Some artists also make possibilities, and some artists make possibilities happen.

Artists make creative possibilities happen in terms of their personal development (object + possibilities = practice). We also make creative possibilities happen in terms of the development of the field, when our object-possibilities are accepted into the cannon, and they shift what constitutes contemporary art, therefore advances knowledge (see Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity). In this case, what artists make happen is a result of what artists make.

But artists can also make the field’s expansion and evolvement happen. We do this by creating events/situations with openness to possibilities—from new opportunities for artists, spaces, viewers, and interactions, to cultivating new art worlds and displacing old ones.

When other artists or viewers attend these events/situations with reciprocal openness, new communities and dialogues can emerge. For example, Obsolete Californias, by Shipping and Receiving (the moniker of collaborative duo Torreya Cummings and Heather Smith) was part-exhibition, part-event space/social space/store/wrestling mat. Amanda Curreri‘s Jean Genet in the Aunque  is a conversation in the form of a participatory reading; parts are available for all attendees.* These events/situations were more like platforms for artists and viewers to enact possibilities alongside each other. In this way, artist and viewer roles can be shed for the roles of citizens of temporary communities, or dialogists.

So what artists make happen are opportunities for shared aesthetic, intellectual, emotional, and communicative engagement and action. The engagement is shared, as there is mutual investment of attention and space for cooperative action.

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This week, articles in the Village Voice and the NY Times bemoaned the vast influx of money in art. Art auctions, art fairs, and mega-galleries that show works collected by the 1% are part of the art world, but equating them with the art world (as the Voice writer did) or only reviewing those exhibitions and fairs (as some NYT writers tend) are mistakes.

As Csikszentmihalyi points out, our most valuable currency is not money, but psychic energy—in other words, our attentions.

There are multiple art worlds. In mine, art auctions, secondary markets, and multi-million dollar transactions are on the periphery. I focus my attention on the center, which is abundant with artists, especially those who make things happen.

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*Included in The Aunque, on now through February 16 at Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, CA.

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Meta-Practice

Call for Artists: Open Cube

Well, this sounds interesting:

An open submission to exhibit at a super-posh, A-list gallery in London, to be selected by an independent curator.

Leading contemporary art gallery White Cube has invited São Paulo-based curator Adriano Pedrosa to curate an exhibition at their Mason’s Yard gallery, London, in July 2013. Pedrosa’s project, titled Open Cube, will attempt to infiltrate the hierarchies of the gallery system by inviting any interested artists to submit works to be included in the exhibition. By opening up the selection process, Pedrosa wishes to unsettle the system of gallery practices, initiating a dialogue with artists that might not have access to this network.

During my single visit to White Cube, I found it perfectly designed, installed, and maintained—and, as these kinds of galleries often are—completely imposing. I felt like my sensible sneakers and backpack was mucking up the super-elite, size-0 atmosphere. This open call is different, and exciting. Even if they pick a commercial-ready artist who makes high-value art commodities, the call is free; it only costs artists a bit of time (10-30 minutes, depending how organized you are) to get your images seen by an international curator. Seems like a no-brainer—the only catch is that they’re looking for art already in London. Restrictions like these improve your odds, London artists! Go get ’em!

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Art Competition Odds, Meta-Practice

Art Competition Oddities

Most of the time, I don’t give too much thought to the art competition application process, but a recent application presented two discrepancies that made me take notice.

First, the entry fee was published as $10, but the slide management content management system (CMS) charged $20. This wasn’t a deal-breaker for me, but price variations like that erode my trust a teensy bit.

Second, the application requirements asked for the names of references, with the condition that reference letters would only be requested on behalf of the artists who are selected for a residency. However, the CMS automatically sent requests for letters to the references during the application process.

The additional $10 is a cost I can bear, but I would have been much more sparing with the time, labor, and good will of my esteemed references.

I hope to minimize how much work I ask of these supporters. They are curators and administrators of small alternative arts organizations that are often stretched thin. I can’t imagine how many artists ask them for their time and labor to help them with these favors. I certainly would not want them to do any unnecessary work, especially over the holidays when they are getting much-deserved down time, as was this case. I was embarrassed to impose upon them, especially when I decided to complete the form shortly before the deadline. Had I known about an off-the-bat request, I would have weighed my decision to apply differently.

Online submissions beat hardcopies, however, user interface design and skills are still developing. I sent these notes to the organization; hopefully they’ll get it sorted for next year’s annual call.

Here’s a big cheer to those arts organizations who do it right — who mind their p’s and q’s as closely as they’d want applicants to.

And loads of gratitude to those unsung supporters who help artists and jurors turn open calls into real-life opportunities and experiences. Cheers to you!

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Meta-Practice

Goals: Looking back, looking forward

Be strategically optimistic. Imagine and implement advantageous conditions.

In 2012, I inserted these goals and attitude reminders into my rotating desktop photos:

  • Be active and injury-free.
  • Forgive.
  • Do six studio visits.
  • Enter [art] competitions.
  • Have a strong show of killer new work.
  • Make work that answers, “What would I do with a solo show?”
  • Be open [to new experiences].
  • Practice kindness.
  • Embrace adventure.
  • Practice gratitude, not garbage.
  • Be strategically optimistic. Imagine and implement advantageous conditions.

Most of these were attended to with solid efforts, to varying degrees of success. Many will require more time, intention and attention. I take it as a sign that these are good reminders for me, as they are not too easily achieved nor unrealistically ambitious.

All still seem like good ideas to carry forward into 2013. They’re what positive psychologists call “self-concordant”—rather than reflecting societal demands, they are aligned with my professional and personal goals.

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If you’re thinking about making New Year’s resolutions, Creative Capital’s goal-setting tips might be useful. I have been using their goal-setting strategies for the past few years and highly recommend that artists espouse and maintain the practice. It is like plotting a course on an open sea.

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Meta-Practice

Via ArtInfo: 10 Pieces of Advice for Artists From Jerry Saltz’s Keynote Speech at Expo Chicago

Stay the course, fellow artists. Some words of wisdom from NY Mag art critic Jerry Saltz, via ArtInfo:

1. Go to an art school that doesn’t cost too much. Those who go to Yale and Columbia might get a nine-month career bump right after graduation, but you’ll all be back on the same level in a year, and you won’t be in as much debt.

2. Envy will eat you alive.

3. Stay up late with each other after all the professors go to sleep. Support one another.

4. You can’t think your way through an art problem. As John Cage said, “Work comes from work.”

5. Follow your obsessions. If you love the Cubs that much, maybe they need to be in your work.

6. Don’t take other people’s ideas of skill. Do brain surgery with an axe.

7. Don’t define success by money, but by time.

8. Do not let rejection define you.

9. Don’t worry about getting enough sleep. Worry about your work.

10. Be delusional. It’s okay to tell yourself you’re a genius sometimes.

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Meta-Practice

Via Art Practical: Practical advice from Holland Cotter

NY Times Art Critic Holland Cotter shares:

I grew up with the idea that if you had the choice between gaining an experience and getting a thing, take the experience. And I’ve always done that. When I take a trip someplace, it lasts my lifetime; no one can take it away from me. I relive it all the time, and that intangible sense is what I really love. Objects I love, too, but not enough to want to have them in my possession.

And, on criticism:

It’s an evolutionary thing for me to figure out my own prejudices and preconceptions of what art should be like. …

What I want to do is be persuasive. That’s my main goal for writing, to invite people to share the experience I’ve had with art and see my enthusiasm for it or lack of enthusiasm for it, whichever may be the case. I don’t want to rap them on the knuckles and say, “You must know this.” I don’t want to talk down to people; I just want them to share my love of this stuff and my interest in it. To give people a way to latch onto it and realize why it’s important to their life that this stuff exists is my main goal.

Bad at Sports, “Profile: Holland Cotter,” Art Practical, 3.16

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Artists, Meta-Practice

From the Economist: Top 10 most expensive post-war artists

The Economist’s blog post (“The Price of Being Female,” May 20, 2012) reveals the most expensive works of art sold. It compares the  top 10 works by male artists against the 10 top works by female artists. The differences are astounding. They created a table that’s data-rich; I wanted to see it visualized a bit more.

Each $ represents $1M.

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10 Most Expensive Works by Female Artists:

$$$ Lee Krasner

$$$ Cindy Sherman

$$$$ Agnes Martin

$$$$ Eva Hesse

$$$$$ Yayoi Kusama

$$$$$$ Marlene Dumas

$$$$$$ Cady Noland

$$$$$$$$$ Joan Mitchell

$$$$$$$$$$ Louise Bourgeois

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10 Most Expensive Works by Male Artists:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Jeff Koons

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Willem de Kooning

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Jasper Johns

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Lucien Freud

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Yves Klein

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Roy Lichtenstein

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$ Clyfford Still

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Andy Warhol

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Francis Bacon

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Mark Rothko

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