I refuse to ossify!

I’m sitting in the airport reading an article by Ben Marcus titled “Why Experimental Fiction Threatens to Destroy Publishing, Jonathan Franzen and Life as We Know it” in Harper’s Magazine. (In the background I’m listening to a middle-aged man bitch on a cell phone to a United Airline service representative. He is angerly saying that he has never received such poor service and that he demands to be put on 5:00 Alaskan Flight and that he will only sit in seat 9A or 9B. This reminds me of the lady at our local Bagel’s and Blenders bitching about her toasted bread after the girl behind the counter says she will give her untoasted bread. The lady says no, that is not necessary, but still continues to bitch about the toasted bread for another 10 minutes...looking at the menu and saying, "It doesn't say on the menu that all bread is toasted. You NEED to tell the owners to change it!." My heart begins to pound and I am unable to concentrate on my order, just like I am unable to concentrate on typing this blog entry…now I can feel this man’s anger while an anorexic woman plugs her cell phone into a wall outlet dialing frantically on her cell phone while putting one person on hold to answer another phone call, slapping the phone shut and frantically dialing another number. Panic, panic, panic…I thought America was on Prozac?)

I take a deep breath, remain sitting in my lotus style position…ahhhhh, serene smile…

So, back to the article. I won’t waste your precious reading time re-capping the article, however, he did talk about the type of books that end up on the best seller’s book list which happen to be made for the average reader. People don’t read like they should he states. The best sellers happen to mimic the easy styles of the past while those who try and push language and our thinking are marginalized. My favorite line Mr. Marcus wrote says,

“The elitists are not supposedly demanding writers such as myself but rather those who caution the culture away from literary development, who insist that the narrative achievements of the past be ossified, lacquered, and rehearsed by younger generations. In this climate artistic achievement is a legacy, and writers are encouraged to behave like cover bands, embellishing the oldies, maybe, while ensuring that buried in the song is an old familiar melody to make us smile with recognition, so that we might read more from memory than by active attention.” – Ben Marcus, Harper’s Magazine/October 2005

This made me think about visual art and how visual art is taught. (James Elkins will argue art can’t be taught in a great book titled “Why Art Cannot Not Be Taught.”) We look at history for greatness. The average person will say their favorite artist in history is Monet, Degas or get a little daring and say Picasso, but not that really abstract stuff…but the Blue Period is nice. Recently, I have heard a lot of rumblings in our The Empty Space Gallery about A.S. Ashley’s “Jesus Christ Satellite of Love” art piece in the Dia de los Muertos art show. One woman grimaced and said, “It’s so dark.” Another woman complained that it was just too disturbing and we should think about taking it down or he should at least have written an artist statement.

Artists don’t purposely make artwork that you are going to hate. At least not usually. They may, however, make art that makes you think. Not just about it, but about yourself. Because truly you are talking about yourself when you make a generalized comment like, “That is so dark.” What part of the piece is so dark? What about that part makes you think it’s dark? What does that part make you think of when you see it? When have you seen something like that before? What other things do you think are dark?

My line of questioning is about us and our reaction. That is also part of the piece. Truly great art was once thought to be disturbing, ugly, just too different then what was common during that time period.

So, I ask myself as well as other artists to not be just a cover band. I ask viewers to not succumb to group think. I ask you to dig a little deeper into your first response emotions and wonder what that tells you about you. And I ask you to hold your damn tongue and just have the poor girl behind the counter get you your untoasted bread.