Dushko Petrovich, Plaid, 2013. Courtesy of the artist. Roger White, Lobster, 2013. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Emily Evans.

January 25, 2014, 2—3 pm

Ever wonder why people write about art, how they form their opinions, or how art writing ultimately shapes the viewer’s thinking about contemporary art? What does it mean to be a regional artist and what does it mean to be a regional art critic?

If you are perplexed or intrigued by these questions, join The 2013 deCordova Biennial artists Dushko Petrovich and Roger White with Boston-area art critics to discuss current art writing tactics. As publishers of the contemporary art journal Paper Monument and residents of New England, Petovich and White are invested in the literary contributions of the art world.

Guest speakers:

• Stephanie Cardon, editor at Big Red and Shiny
• Steve Locke, artist and Associate Professor at MassArt
• Lori Cole, Charlotte Zysman Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities and Lecturer in Fine Arts at Brandeis University
• Jenn Liese, Director of the Writing Center at Rhode Island School of Design

Andrea Fraser

1. PAINT THINGS: Beyond the Stretcher at deCordova (Full disclosure: I was in this show.)
2. Andrea Fraser: Andrea Fraser: Men on the Line, KPFK, 1972 at ICA/Boston (Full disclosure: I bought Andrea a bicycle while she was an artist-in-residence when I worked at Skowhegan.  Also, one of my heroes, Gregg Bordowitz, did the Q and A with her after the performance and I gave him my number.  I totally would have slept with him that night, but he was kind of tired.  After all, he had just watched this amazing performance by Andrea Fraser, for god’s sake.)
3. Matt Siegle at Anthony Greaney (Full disclosure: I cried when I heard this space closed.)
4. Andrew Mowbray: Another Utopia at LaMontagne (Full disclosure: I knew this was going to be good, but it even overwhelmed my expectations of how good it was going to be.  I should also add that I have held Andy and Cristi’s smart and beautiful daughter.)
5. Sophie Calle: Last Seen at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Full disclosure: Mike Mittelman and I had dinner with Sophie Calle when we were in grad school.  Ms. Calle had no interest in me, but I am pretty sure she had a great affection for Mr. Mittelman.)
6. Richard Avedon: The Family at the Addison Gallery of American Art (Full disclosure: I gasped out loud in the gallery when I got to the photograph of Andrew Young.  He’s so gorgeous.)
7. Mary Reid Kelley at ICA/Boston (Full disclosure: I met Mary, and her spouse Patrick during the install and they were lovely.  I also met Mary’s parents when the show came down and they were absolutely adorable.)
8. Ridley Howard: Fields and Stripes at MFA Boston (Full disclosure:  I didn’t know Ridley, but after I saw his show for the third time I sent him a note on Facebook and discovered we know lots of people in common, including the amazing painter Frank Meuschke.)
9. the origin of the world /\ the force of the source \/ the cause of the vigor at Samsøn (Full disclosure: Samsøn represents me, and this show made me an even greater friend of the vagina.  Kristin Stoltmann’s work was sublime.)
10. Steve Locke: there is no one left to blame at ICA/Boston (Full disclosure: I was in this show.)

This article is published in the current issue of ART PAPERS which was guest edited by the lovely and talented Dushko Petrovich of Paper Monument fame.  I am humbled to be included in this project which includes a host of amazing people.  There’s also a few of my drawings and collages included in the article.

Growing up in Detroit had its benefits, to be certain. I used to skip school and go to the Detroit Institute of the Arts (DIA) on Woodward Avenue. When I was a kid, there were always school tours at the museum, so a young person wandering about the galleries was not unusual; I attracted no attention. Museum bookstores were not the mini-malls they were eventually to become. You could buy reproductions or catalogs, but not much else. The picture books in the museum store were very expensive things that couldn’t be touched because I couldn’t afford them….

Click here to go to the ART PAPERS site to read the rest of the article.

Dear Senators Warren and Markey:

I am sick to my soul at the news that two pieces of vile, oppressive legislation from Texas and New York have been reinstated by the DC Court of Appeals. The notion that the abortion restrictions and “stop and frisk” being reinstated troubles me, but what troubles me more is that these decisions are being made by a court with vacancies that are being maintained for clearly partisan reasons.

The Republican Party in this country has outed itself as a group of “know nothing” ideologues whose sole purpose is to undo the legitimacy of the President. This strategy is based in the deep seated racism that is now clear as this hallmark of that party. You may disagree with my assessment of some of your colleagues, but that is the only conclusion I can reasonably determine from their actions. They have tried on stop every thing the President has tried to do for the country. They have undermined him at the expense of the safety of the nation. They have pandered to the sickest elements of racism and misogyny in American life.

Please, Senators, the courts have traditionally been the saving grace, the final protection for the disenfranchised. They need to be balanced, fair and accessible. The court vacancies, a continuation of the government shutdown, are another attempt to undo the democratic election of a president. It is seditious and unworthy of the oath of a United States Senator. This cannot stand. The women of Texas, the black and Latin people of New York need your courage. We are suffering, Senators. Please, act on our behalf.

A terrified Steve Locke chats with the amazing and patient Evan Garza

For those of you who missed the conversation that I had with the divine Evan Garza of FIAR at ICA/Boston about my work, the museum has created a new web cast of the lecture.  The Artist’s Voice will be a regular feature of the ICA.  See below:

THE ARTIST’S VOICE: STEVE LOCKE WITH EVAN GARZA
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Launched in September 2013, The Artist’s Voice is a free lecture series featuring some of the most important contemporary artists working today, including Amy Sillman, William Kentridge, Jim Hodges, Steve Locke and Mary Reid Kelley. This lecture series, which aligns with the ICA’s exhibition program, gives visitors direct access to these visionary artists as they discuss their work, influences and inspirations, offering a deeply meaningful engagement with the art of our time.
On September 19, 2013, artist Steve Locke sat down with Evan Garza—curator, writer, and co-founder of Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR)—for an engaging conversation about objects, paintings, and the male figure in art.

Click here to go to the ICA’s site and view the full artist talk. 

I sent this message to all of the menswear designers who have their clothing at Riccardi, Boston.

Dear Madam/Sir:

I am an artist who lives and works in Boston. Recently, I opened a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston titled there is no one left to blame. It has been very well received and as a result, I have had many speaking engagements. These have required additions to my wardrobe and because I love your clothes, I went to one of your local stockists, Riccardi on Newbury Street, to make some purchases for my lecture at the museum scheduled for 19 September.

To say that the staff was rude would be an understatement. The two people in menswear were clearly busy and so engaged in their own conversation that they barely managed a strained response to my hello, but they did watch me walk around the store. I was going to ask for some information but they resumed talking to each other. I walked upstairs to womenswear and spoke with a woman working on a laptop. I said hello and told her I was interested in suits and skirts for men. She told me that she did not work there.

At this point, a man came upstairs and the woman at the laptop told me he worked at the store. I said hello and repeated my request about suits and skirts for men. He replied, “Yeah, that’s downstairs. This is the women’s department.” I advised him that I was aware of that and that I wanted to know what was available in menswear. He replied, “It’s downstairs,” and just stared at me. I thanked him and told him that I would find it myself.

I left the store. I went to Barneys.

I am a 50 year old African American man and I have lived in Boston for a long time. I know when I am not welcome in a store. I know when people assume that I am going to steal something or that I do not have enough money to shop there. I know when sales people want to help me and when they don’t. I assure you that I will never shop at Riccardi again.

I am not writing to the manager of Riccardi because I don’t care about them. I am writing to you to let you know what type of store carries your wonderful clothing. In my opinion, your clothes are too beautiful to be sold by such an ugly retailer.

Thank you for your hard work,
Steve

Sent to Balmain, Boris Bidjan Saberi, Comme des Garçons, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Dsquared2, EN NOIR, ENVISU, Giuseppe Zanotti, Givenchy, Julius, J.W. Anderson, Lanvin, Mastermind Japn, Moncler, Nighborhood Japan, ROAR, Vivienne Westwood, and KTZ.

http://artcorejournal.net/2013/05/06/truth-or-dare-with-steve-locke/

This is a picture of Greg at the Rox Diner in West Roxbury. He’s a badass. And he makes some terrific paintings, too.

Enjoy!

S

I should say first that I know two of the artists in the Foster this year, Mark Cooper and Sarah Bapst (it’s a small town). I was thrilled that they were nominated for the Prize and it was heartening to me that two artists with such divergent practices were being recognized. I’d seen Luther Price’s work at the Whitney and I had never heard of Katarina Burin. Also, the fact that Helen Molesworth, the museum’s chief curator, put this show together – with all the studio visits and conversations that entails – to me said a lot about the commitment of the ICA to the Prize. (In full disclosure, Helen is curating my solo exhibition at ICA in July.)

So here are some things I thought as I read Smee’s Foster Prize review:

The Foster this year uses work across practices. It doesn’t privilege one kind of art making and it allows for haptic and conceptual practices to be debated and discussed in the space of a large contemporary art institution. There is a lot of work in this show and the limitation of 4 artists I think allows each of them to really provide an expansive view of their practices. (Some of the artists in the last Foster show simply didn’t have enough room for their work, and this penalized the brilliant Stephen Tourlentes, who should have won.) Some of it requires a lot of reading, and some of it delights the eyes.

Smee’s criticism that Mark Cooper’s work doesn’t “come together” says something about taste but not necessarily anything about the issues at play in contemporary art. I am hard pressed to accept that in 2013, a requirement of art is that it cohere and make sense. Contemporary life does not make sense so it stands to reason that the artists of the time would be struggling with an unsettled world. Cooper’s project, which at its core is about the jouissance of production and growth, isn’t about coherence. It’s really about the turning the gallery into host organism. Issues of infection, infiltration, and cultural exchange permeate that work. And the ICA install is much more successful than his more chromatically restrained opus in the New Blue and White show at the MFA.

Sarah Bapst is not working with the “ready-made.” I don’t think a Duchampian gesture is a feature anywhere in this work, which I think speaks more to the concerns of an artist like Robert Gober. Her work is deeply engaged in the act of looking, framing, and replicating the visual world-a world that is embodied in a discarded found mass produced object. She is addressing a key issue of art in her work: what happens as material meets material. This is by no means a hermetic concern, it is a basic concern of trying to understand how to make something out of something else. (Interestingly, Gober’s Plywood (1987) lives in this contested territory, and elicited a similar critical response.) Her devotion to and investigation of something we think we understand – and thus cannot truly see because of its function – is powerful. We don’t understand what we are looking at even though it is something with which we are familiar. Bapst’s dogged attention moves the familiar to the uncanny. She makes us examine what we consume, what we honor, and what we discard.

Katarina Burin’s installation was interesting because truthfully, it wasn’t about what we were looking at. It was about the text that she produced to go with the objects. That marriage between text and context is what made this work so challenging. While it left me cold, it is great to have this work in dialog with an artist like Cooper, and I think that dialog is a big part of what the Foster Prize should do. But this is work that is really about the import of language, history, and research. It’s the kind of work that writers like to write about.

Beauty is key in Luther Price’s work, but in contemporary practice beauty is an element, not a goal. Price’s installation is a glorious array of sound and image that is really a death knell for a certain kind of art production. The joy of listening to a projector is a museum experience. The lurid, chemical color of slide photography is no longer part of our everyday experience. Price’s presentation is a concatenation of signifiers that speak to the psyche of anyone old enough to see pictures in the dark with the audible assertion of their manifestation clicking in their heads. The beautiful images belie their creation. Born of destructive and corrosive action, and mixed with the found, the altered projected slides combine to form a poetic shadow of what was once a technological innovation. It’s a symphony to the end of a certain kind of vernacular image making and the loss of a way of recording history. Other people’s Kodachrome slides, no longer important, are altered, resurrect for a moment of glory and vanish into the dull click of a carousel.

Lastly, I will say that to refer someone’s practice as “desultory” is pretty harsh and in my view, unfounded in regards to this show and these artists, some of whom have never garnered public attention until now. I simply cannot see how this applies to anything on view.

So I was/am thrilled with the show. It is challenging. All four artists deserve to be engaged critically and are working in diverse modes that reflect contemporary art in Boston and globally. Judging this will be hard and I hope there is a lot of discussion about this show – that’s part of what it’s for.

I got into an extended discussion on Facebook today.  It mostly came out of the news that former President George W. Bush has been making paintings.  For some reason, this was so interesting that a critic as intelligent and insightful as Roberta Smith devoted space in the New York Times  to discussion of the works.  Among her observations, “one can imagine them being not too out of place in a group show that might include the figurative work of Dana Schutz, Karen Kilimnik, Alice Neel, Christoph Ruckhaberle and Sarah McEneaney.”  High praise indeed.

I’m debating putting the whole post on my blog, with names (excepting mine) redacted.

First of all, why is the intelligent and insightful Smith reviewing paintings by Bush, when Ken Johnson is (poorly) reviewing works of women and people of color?  This situation alone explains the problems with arts writing at the NYTimes and other outlets.

Second, why are we even considering these paintings in the discourse of art?  Is Bush an artist?  If not, then why not?  What makes someone an artist?  Can you just wake up after being an art historian for years and just be an artist?  If so, can I be an art historian now?  Or a chef?  (I own chef’s knives.) Or a surgeon?  Is art a profession, or an avocation?  Or an attitude?

It seems that the de-skilling of art in the 50s transformed into the “anyone can do it” ethos of the moment.  If you feel like an artist, or a writer, or anything, that is enough.  Saturday Night Live took this on in a skit called You Can Do Anything! 

Animals make paintings.  Anyone can.  Is access to art supplies really all it takes to be an artist?

In this Facebook chat, someone told me that I just wanted to keep “bragging rights” to the word “art,” something that they thought would be a hollow victory.  Maybe.  I’m not sure about that.  But I do think that art is too important to be treated casually.  Maybe it’s because I’m an artist, but I think that importance requires that we take art seriously and that we be critical about visual culture. This makes me an elitist by saying that only artists can make art.  I think that’s true.

I also think that artists are taught by other artists.  Either through a singular investigation of the works of others, one-on-one classes or institutions (including the much maligned MFA programs), there is some transmission of skill, history, and context from one artist to another.  I learned from Manet just as sure as I learned from Roger Tibbetts.  I think art is a public discourse, not a private method of personal expression.  I think art talks about life as we live it.  I think the artist embodies and expresses the entire culture of her moment through her activity.  So given the power and importance of art, who can make it?

So here’s my fundamental question to you, Dear Reader, who can make art?