Goodbye Milton

I have been absent from the blogosphere for over a month, but a headline today brought me back to reflect on my own inspiration for artistic pursuit. Artist Robert Rauschenberg died yesterday. His artwork was not what caused me to feel reflective, although as a photographer and assemblage sculptor, I can identify with his process. No, it was upon reading his life in headlines that I felt compelled to share my thoughts.
The AP article stated:
"Robert Rauschenberg, whose use of odd and everyday articles earned him a reputation as a pioneer in pop art but whose talents spanned the worlds of painting, sculpture and dance, has died, his gallery representative said Tuesday. He was 82.
Rauschenberg died Monday, said Jennifer Joy, his representative at Pace Wildensteins.
Born Milton Rauschenberg in 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas, and raised a Christian fundamentalist, Rauschenberg wanted to be a minister but gave it up because his church banned dancing.
"I was considered slow," he once said "While my classmates were reading their textbooks, I drew in the margins."
He was drafted into the U.S. Navy during World War II and knew little about art until a chance visit to an art museum where he saw his first painting at age 18. He drew portraits of his fellow sailors for them to send home.
When his time in the service was up, Rauschenberg used the GI bill to pay his tuition at art school. He changed his name to Robert because it sounded more artistic."
Click here to read the full article

I particularly enjoyed the New York Times article regarding Rauschenberg.
here's an excerpt:
"Apropos of Mr. Rauschenberg, Cage once said, “Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.”

Cage meant that people had come to see, through Mr. Rauschenberg’s efforts, not just that anything, including junk on the street, could be the stuff of art (this wasn’t itself new), but that it could be the stuff of an art aspiring to be beautiful — that there was a potential poetics even in consumer glut, which Mr. Rauschenberg celebrated. “I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” he once said, “because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”

The remark reflected the optimism and generosity of spirit that Mr. Rauschenberg became known for. His work was likened to a Saint Bernard: uninhibited and mostly good-natured. He could be the same way in person. When he became rich, he gave millions of dollars to charities for women, children, medical research, other artists and Democratic politicians.

A brash, garrulous, hard-drinking, open-faced Southerner, he had a charm and peculiar Delphic felicity with language that nevertheless masked a complex personality and an equally multilayered emotional approach to art, which evolved as his stature did. Having begun by making quirky small-scale assemblages out of junk he found on the street in downtown Manhattan, he spent increasing time in his later years, after he had become successful and famous, on vast international, ambassadorial-like projects and collaborations."

There is some great hope in the retrospection of Robert Rauschenberg's life. As I presented certificates of recognition last Thursday, May 8th (Children's Mental Health Awarness Day) to young artists with whom I spent several weeks working, hope was the message I sought to convey. I shared with the artists, their families, and community members that I was a troublesome student for many of my teachers and I have never been known for my impressive academic record. Despite my struggle with a learning disability, I have become a healthy, happy, productive artist and teacher. I attributed this to a small handful of people who believed in me. People who stood in opposition to the many who said (and perhaps hoped) I would fail.
Robert Rauschenberg is one of so many artists that we can add to the list of students who were marked as failures that made indelible profound marks on society nonetheless! When will the educational system stop basing their assessments of students on narrow parameters that lead to assumptions that may be destructive for those students that can't fit the mold? More importantly, how many potentially Robert Rauschenberg-esque students miss opportunities to change lives because opportunities are not provided to them due to judgments made about them based on assumptions? This was why I came to be an art educator, and it's still a tremendous motivating factor. Recently related to me by Dr. Nadine Kalin was the statement her mentor Dr. Rita Irwin made "we learn more from pain than pleasure," which becomes more true for me as I continue to reflect.

So...thank you Milton. Thank you for defying the preconceived notions of art. Thank you for the example you have provided to us in your life. Thank you for helping me to reflect on my motivations for being an art educator.
Thank you.

Ari Marcopoulos and Paul D Miller: institutional critique re-mix

I just viewed Ari Marcopoulos' exhibition Architectures at the New Orleans Museum of Art. According to the NOMA's website, the exhibit is described as-
A special exhibition of xerox and laser-jet prints...Ari Marcopoulos: Architectures will be the first in the _museological exhibition series curated by Diego Cortez, The Freeman Family Curator of Photography.

a photograph of an architectural model of Tokyo from the exhibit, Ari Marcopoulos
Based on my observations, it was a room full of institutional critique. The near meter-length wide predominately black and white photos were printed on paper and tacked to the gallery walls with pins. The images were familiar, knowable scenes of youth culture, skateboard ramps, graffiti, and cityscapes, printed on humble materials without the recently popularized hyper-precision for which large format photography (I'm thinking of Gregory Crewdson's work, etc.) has become known. It's not the images alone that provide this institutional critique, it's the do-it-yourself didactic label text that Marcopoulos has added that grabbed my attention.
Marcopoulos has intertwined quotes from critical theorists and various other authors with his own philosophical musings in an effort to broaden the way learners define architectural photography to encompass graffiti (dialogue=structural) human bodies (flexible/mobile structures) architectural models (surrogate realities) among other photographic subjects. These sophisticated concepts are not clear in viewing the photographs alone. The key contextual piece (not found in the exhibition booklet) is the textual addition. This was an interesting component to this show that I felt embodied the "artist as curator" role that I have see in previous shows dealing with similar urban/global/culture as collage subject matter. The self-actualized artist as political and institutional critic resonates strongly with my own interests in reinventing the roles of art educators to encompass broader definitions of their practice as well as analyzing the museum as an institution and the role of education within that institution through the lens (literally and metaphorically) of train yard graffiti. That brings us to Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJSpooky.

Dj Spooky and Q*bert Copyright Criminals Graf Wall by Twick and Buder from the ICP Crew "Tire Island" in San Francisco at the end of 24th St.
Lifted (perhaps appropriately) straight from his personal page-
Paul D. Miller is a conceptual artist, writer, and musician working in New York. In 2005, Sound Unbound, an anthology of writings on sound art and multi-media by contemporary cultural theorists followed his first publication, Rhythm Science. Miller’s work as a media artist has appeared in a wide variety of contexts such as the Whitney Biennial and The Venice Biennial for Architecture (year 2000).
Miller is less interested in critique of the museum, but he certainly seeks to critique social systems via his multimedia experiences. As DJ Spooky, his performances in museums are often well received by the young, hip, intelligentsia. He's capable of creating an engrossing experience while maintaining an expository message of societal disfunction.
My burning question for both of these artists (who have had artistic collaborations in the past, incidentally) would be:
Do these artworks create more than conversation and reflection? Further, is action/change in society an intended outcome of the artistic processes each of the artists enact?
I ask these questions in response to the abstract and sometimes esoteric nature of the artistic content. In Marcopoulos' case, I understand his didactics and the art historical basis for his creative processes, but I wondered (as a liminal space interpretive border-crosser) who the intended audience was, and what Marcopoulos' intentions for the outcome of that audience's interactions were.
Similarly, I can't help but wonder if DJ Spooky's Antarctic ice music will facilitate ecological awareness or if his book Rhythm Science will prompt readers (whomever they may be) to read W. E. B. Dubois, Emerson, or Joyce, or if there's any overt educational intent at all.
Why should that matter at all, you may ask. I don't know that it does, directly. Within the context that both of these artists have successfully bridged the gaps between-artist as curator-street/urban culture-art as activism/institutional critique-I tip my hat to them. I am curious about the role of the educator in this equation. Does artist/researcher/practitioner fit into another gap to bring the messages of these artists to a wider audience?
Are educators DJ's too?

Online Graffiti Art

A fellow art educator and blogger posted an interesting link on his blog (which is a verrry nice blog, I might add) that I responded to earlier today, but I wanted to further explore the topic.
For proper background, first check out his post here:

The Carrot Revolution: A Blog About Art Education... and Vegetables.: online graffiti art

Now, assuming you read his post, investigated the web link he included, and read the beginning of my ramble in response format and decided that you wanted to hear me proceed with my thoughts on the subject, read on!

I clearly enjoy the visual experience that is graffiti, as my photography indicates. I enjoy the process of finding it and photographing it, too. I do not, however, engage in creating graffiti. I did grow up with friends that were taggers. They weren't the artists or writers that decorate the global human landscape that garnish gallery recognition. They were kids with sharpies and spraypaint stolen from the theatre department. We grew up in a poor community where 70% of the residents lived at or below national poverty level. I watched my friends tag their world without judging them as delinquent because I lived in two worlds. My 100 year old home was at the edge of town on 20 acres. We had horses, cows, a few milk goats, rabbits, labrador retrievers, and a variable number of feral cats in the hay barn. My parents were both educators by day and farmers in the evening. My siblings and I never went without. Just across the road that ran in front of our farm was a hill that served as a neighbor's hay field. Behind that was the Northside. It was one of the poorest neighborhoods in town. My tagging friends lived there.
Once those friends climbed the water tower and sprayed over the letters to change the name of the town into something humorous and illegal. Often though the tagging was restricted to bathrooms, lockers, walls on the Northside or desks in school. I knew my friends were angry. They wanted their tag on those things because they had nothing else to claim as their own. Many of my tagging friends went home from school to houses with no electricity or food. I doubt that any of my friends back then though of their actions as a way to claim territory, or have a sense of agency, or to bring attention to their plight. I think most of them just thought of tagging as a way to buck the system, in one of the few ways they could.
I wonder where some of those people are today. None of the handful of friends I had from that neighborhood went to college. I see some of them working around town when I go back to my hometown. I wonder if some of them finally had enough of being stuck in the Northside and found themselves stuck in jail as the alternative.
The point is, there is a certain amount of my personal identity that is wrapped up in photographing the graffiti. The tags are both beautiful and ugly to me, all at once. I see my friends and students reflected in those cryptic created identities. The invented names that the tags depict are mysteries to me. Is that name the one thing you can give yourself? Is it your property, your fame, your hopes, your dreams? Are you still tagging or have you found a way out? Do you tag because you need another identity after you leave your 8-5 job? I even wonder if the tags are a tiny bit of immortality for some of the writers that die in the perilous environments that squatters endure. It doesn't happen often, but the thought that some "anonymous" kid dies in the process of writing their alias sends a shiver down my spine.
I made an effort not to glorify or promote graffiti in my classroom when I taught middle school. We studied the history of graffiti (which is huuuuuge, by the way). We looked at the evolution of styles. I showed them some of my photography and some impressive urban bombing and expertly executed pieces. I contrasted that with simple tag images. We discussed key differences between categories of graffiti. The one point I emphasized in all cases was the legality and safety of writers from all categories. Rather than drag you through the rest of that unit, let me say that the students did create their own tags and they were displayed in our school. My principal and the campus police officer supported the unit wholeheartedly. I think that was due to my emphasis on the safety/legal issues and the fact that we didn't use spraypaint to create the final pieces.

I reflect on that unit often since leaving that school. I have mixed feelings about the results. While I think the students learned quite a bit and were proud of their finished products, I can't help but think something about the unit was askew. The finished works weren't really graffiti, by street definition. It's the same weird feeling I got when I saw that the Brooklyn Museum's Graffiti Exhibit. I can't help but think that many people, including my students and the museum goers, have the same voyeuristic fascination I have with graffiti. For some of those people it becomes an interest in making artistic creations of many forms. For others, viewing is enough. Do these hybrid creative forms and appreciative cultural audiences take the urgent messages out of what some of those street tags are shouting? Does transforming graffiti into an acceptable art form further silence the disempowered? As an educator with a heart for the underdogs, I hope not. Conversely, can this proliferation of sophisticated tagging such as the kinds found at Graffiti Research Lab bring the message of youth in peril to the forefront by presenting in in a flashy new media format? I have a sinking feeling that it's often a mixed message that isn't living up to its socially transformative potential.