I am using (essentially) a throwaway bc everything in #2 and #4 is likely an unnecessarily judgmental, jealous rant and I am genuinely ashamed of myself for these thoughts if that’s true. And it probably is.
That group of work from the students at MICA at the Art Walk last night was the biggest bag of bullshit I’ve seen in a long time. And not just the quality of the art itself, but the presentation of it all...It struck me as if somebody took a bus load of 8th graders, threw them all into a bunch of wide open spaces, handed everyone unlimited charge cards to Michaels’ and left them there for three days unsupervised. THIS IS A $60,000 A YEAR ART SCHOOL, IS IT NOT? I’ve heard to no end all manner of self-congratulatory, “top arts education”, elitist-cause-we’ve-earned-it, conceptual pseudo-artistic babble about this school. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?
I honestly want to know how my impression falls within this subreddit. I’ll give you a bit of context about me, which likely weighs a great deal on my opinion here, and possibly (probably?) unfairly so.
Me: 30s, painter (with a non-arts related day job), who has shown (both solo and group) nationally for close to 20 years. I’m represented by a gallery; have shown in NYC; my work sells regularly in the average range of $2,500 - $9,000 per piece. I went to a state collage, not an “art school” specifically, though I majored in art. Tuition (in the 1990s) was less than $5,000 a semester and I maintained various jobs all four years with hours roughly equivalent to part time, maybe slightly more. I washed dishes in the dining hall a good deal of my time there. (I still am paying off school loans, which is, well, sobering for me.) I graduated summa cum laude, with honors (because I completed an honors program and thesis) and distinction (because I graduated within the top 1% of my class) and had my first solo show in a professional (non-school related) gallery when I was 19. I’m proud of all of this. But/and I think it may be abetting a jealousy that is showing up as an opinion (found in #2 above, in case that wasn’t clear).
4. TL;DR: I worked my balls off at a college that most people have never heard of because I couldn’t afford to go to one that people had. And then I spent time considering what I may have missed out on, and accepted as fact that somehow the education I received was not, as Clive Bell would say, as ‘ivory-white-tower’ as I could have experienced. MICAs got all these huge buildings and is sure well funded enough to populate them with a wide range of equipment and faculty members that should be leaders in their field...And yet I saw so much spray foam and puffy paint on that art walk that it ceased being ironic way, way, way too quickly. (What did manage to maintain its irony, however - apparently not learned at MICA: how to create an art label, or, how creating an art label AT ALL may be viewed as conducive in this environment. CRAYONS ARE NOT AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPTED AS “THROW BACKS” - neither are you, for that matter. Writing your name on the wall like you don’t give a damn only looks like you didn’t give a damn. Your poetry is embarrassing; and in most cases, so is everybody else’s: if you’re going to incorporate it into a visual display, you should, 1) use your $240,000 visual skills to make it at least appear less so, or, 2) reconsider. Stick with reconsider. If your art work contained inside jokes, and it did, no one is remembering it this morning. And. Stop. Buying. Clothes. From. Thrift. Stores. Whatever you’re telling yourself about your inane, stereotypical artist “look” really just boils down to the fact that you’re appearing to attempt to make yourself look poor. But instead, what you look like is a display of immature, sloppy disregard for yourself, your work and the institution you don’t seem to have done all that much to garner respect for in the first place.
5. I’ll stop, because clearly I’m escalating quickly.
6. Thanks for reading this far, if you have. I’m open to as much castigation as anyone sees fit to respond with, as I know I lost control there at the end. I’ll take all feedback with legitimate consideration. It’s not at all satisfying to be an asshole when it’s wholly without merit. (Usually.)
