Art essay

Art-11A: Adrian Piper, Mike Kelley, Cauleen Smith (Fall 2020)

Rhea Anastas, Assoc. Prof., Art Dept.

Gosia Wojas, artist and MFA2, Art Dept.

November 13, 2020 updated

Question for Mike Kelley course unit

Quotation 1:

“In the work of some of my female contemporaries (not at CalArts, like Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, or Sherrie Levine) there was a refusal to produce works that read as specifically feminine, even if they addressed feminist issues. These artists were criticized by some first-wave feminist artists and critics for adopting “male” styles in order to attain success in a male dominated art world. Similarly, I have been attacked for “co-opting” women’s practices in certain of my works and not giving credit to feminist artists. I believe, in both instances, these attacks are misguided. The point was to reveal gender as a construct, not to reinforce traditional gender roles.” (Kelley in Eva Meyer-Hermann interview)

Quotation 2:

“John Miller: Why don’t we start by going back to the birdhouse sculptures you made for your graduate show at Cal Arts in 1978. You ended up not only having a reductive object, but the normally “heroic” process of making art was reduced to craft. Even though there may not necessarily be much material difference between art and craft, I think the distinction turns on what an audience is led to invest in a certain set of objects or a certain set of practices; and those become adequate sublimatory vehicles. So in a way, you were confounding those expectations, parodying them.

Mike Kelley: Yeah, I definitely was. At the time, people would generally talk about the birdhouses as formal jokes. People wouldn’t consider sublimation as an aspect of art production except in some heady, Freudian way, like, “Oh, these bad impulses are being nicely put into this object.” Instead of saying maybe it’s not so nice that these impulses are put into these objects. Maybe it’s pitiful that all these energies are pumped into a birdhouse. That’s what I realized I was going for, not some one-line joke like, “Here’s a birdhouse that’s minimalism.” Rather, here’s a structure that’s loaded with pathos, and you still don’t like it, you don’t feel sorry for it, you want to kick it. That’s what I wanted out of the thing—an artwork that you couldn’t raise, there was no way that you could make it better than it was. Its function as art actually makes it more uncomfortable.” (Kelley in John Miller interview)

Quotation 3:

“I’d say my work is primarily about playing with conventions. Many of the subjects and materials I work with have little to do with my personal tastes. Especially in my early career, in fact, I was very much against having my work seen through autobiography—though I have eased up on that stance in recent years. Of course, it’s impossible to escape autobiography in one’s work. For example, class issues were present in my work from the start. The very idea of presenting a birdhouse in the art context is proof of this fact. The use of craft materials was not typical in the art world when I was a student.” (Kelley in Meyer-Hermann)

Question:

Consider Kelley’s work as putting into practice this “theory” of “gender as a construct” and art “as a social construct.” Following Kelley’s refusal of distinctions between -- or a binary of -- high and low culture (he writes of the Birdhouse: “there was no way that you could make it better that it was), closely view and make your choice of one or two of the following videos to write about (Banana Man; Blind Country; Superman…; Mobile Homestead…). According to Kelley, viewing art goes beyond subjective taste, and involves considering the idea that artworks could simply be constructs (full quote): “This is another example of how viewers project upon me, the artist, the belief systems they think are being represented in my artworks. The idea that artworks could simply be constructs” is somehow impossible for them to accept.” (Kelley on Meyer-Hermann)

Focus in on images/texts and scenes as examples of Kelley’s performances, actions, language, and images. Be concrete with your examples, and stick close to the work, and particular parts. The emphasis is to pinpoint when a scene or moment or image might offer you a flash of insight into not stereotypes or representations (how is gender or some aspect of the social is represented or pictured), but what these defiant artworks in their social depictions reveal about the terms and ways of making out what social construction itself is and comprises.

Some tips for writing about film and video:

Questions

1. Point of view: How can point of view be discerned in a scene or section of a film/video, where does it become visible or how is it communicated? Be sure to address camera, artist, the subjective, any voiceover or soundtrack, and where the viewer's point of view comes into play.

2. Sights and Sounds, Situation and Architecture: How do these give the scene its body, shape,

and context, context meaning, marks of time and place.

3. Cuts/mixes: How does the scene begin, continue, end? What comes before? What follows?

Are you sure your scene is bounded in these ways? What other elements structure your scene's

place in the video?

4. Write about your scene: How do you know your scene through not its subject matter but its

effects (if you selected your scene based on subject, no matter). What kinds of effects are

these: can you make a list? What would the lists headings be? Or are there multiple lists? Why

did you choose your scene? Why did you choose this work?

This question is due Wednesday November 18 at 8pm. Submit in Google doc folder.

Respond to this question in the format of a thesis for an argument of no more than 2 pages (written out in sentences and paragraphs). Support your argument with summaries of the artist’s position, presented in artworks and writings, and summaries of your position, from viewing the artworks and studying the research materials made available during the course unit. Please stick to research materials provided within this course. Make sure to distinguish your position from the artist’s, or other writer’s positions. Use a simple system within the body of the text to cite sources you use within parentheses after the summary or quotation (author, artwork title or essay title, year).

See Syllabus for an example of the kind of writing I have in mind.