Eyes on the Prize: Voting to What End?
Nicole Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York and frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. She’ll walk around ArtPrize, observe, listen and write about her experience here. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.
Julie Upmeyer, " Campaign", 2009. ArtPrize, Grand Valley State University. Photo: N. Caruth
The first round of voting has ended. The streets have quieted down. The final contenders have been announced.
Hours before people hit the streets last night, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mary Jane Jacob, Professor and Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She raised a question that you might find interesting at this point in time: Would you vote for people the same way you vote for works of art? That is, if you were voting for an individual artist as opposed to an object would that change your vote?
Consider this: American Idol, a recurring reference here, is in part built on the idea of promoting and nurturing an artist’s career. Singers compete for a major recording contract that will allow them to grow as professional entertainers. The final reward is based not on a single work, but a body of work exhibited over time. This is also what many, though not all, art prizes do. They consider an artist’s demonstrated accomplishments on the whole and/or the possibility for achievement. If ArtPrize’s cash pot had been established to recognize and support artists future potential, or as someone wrote in a recent comment “commitment to a craft,” would you cast your vote the same way? Long term artistic capability and best in show are very different value systems. I believe the former is more significant.
I realize that votes in this first year are, as Rick DeVos stated tonight, “a means to an end” and that end is the conversation. But now that the conversation has started, like Jacob, I wonder and worry what will happen with the top 10 artists, especially the grand prize winner, after all is said and done. Will voters, curators and the media follow what these artists do and where they go? To be more frank, will people care after the excitement dies down? Who will be the Clive Davis, the mentor, for the winning artists here? As Jacob said to me “artists need money,” but it takes more than that for an artist to grow.
Every guest speaker that I’ve interviewed over the last several days — Jacobs, Adam Weinberg, Peter Murray, Michael Kaiser and David Collins — agreed (without help from me) that the next step for ArtPrize is to define its mission, and the only way to figure that out is to keep the experiment going. I’m glad to hear that next year’s ArtPrize has already been announced.
From the beginning announcement of AP the reoccurring focus has been on the word “conversation”. AP wants to “reboot” the conversation about Art. Nicole Caruth suggests we keep the conversation going. I’m still wondering, as I’ve wondered from the inception of AP just what AP wants the conversation to be about?
Should the conversation be about what is Art? Should it be about what is good Art?
What comes to your mind when someone suggests to the public that it is time to “reboot the conversation about Art” ? What are they asking you to do?
If someone or some organization suggested publicly that it was time to “reboot the conversation” about abortion, about gay marriage or the environment what would you think? Well, I would think they want to change the system, the idea, the impression or maybe even the law? What is it about Art that AP is suggesting we change?
Frankly I’m tired of that old game of ‘What is Art’?. It’s a tired question has been knocked around for well over a hundred years now. I’ve come to the conclusion that if you are still asking that question you either don’t know much about Art History (and you should) or you have some personal fight to pick about morals or religion or your own professional standing in the Art World. Art is simply want ever an Artists says is Art. Period. Next question please.
What is good Art is something we can talk about. But I’m left confused whether AP really wanted us to have a conversation about what is quality in Art. Maybe they did and just didn’t do a very good job in presenting a model by which we could have that conversation. What does having a competition filled with poor quality that over shadows the good do for a conversation about what is good Art? What does a populist voting competition that emphasizes personal opinion over a knowledgeable opinion do to ensure a conversation about good Art?
I agree with Nicole when she suggests its a good idea for AP to better define it’s Mission.
I was waiting for someone to respond to this post. Excellent argument, Richard. Although I generally disagree with the idea of an overpowering bias, I thought this was one of your most constructive posts to date. In that vain, I think there should be an open forum “critical discourse” on the merits of public voting. Critics need to understand the public perspective, and the public needs to better understand the value of critics and curators.
Richard,
I must say, I enjoy your comments but I take some exception to your broadside against the “What is Art?” question. I think it is among the most relevant questions to ask, continuously and frequently. In fact considering that our western conception of “Art” is not much more than 200 years old, the comment about not knowing your art history, seems way off base. I think a deep appreciation of history would lead to an opposite conclusion. If Art is indeed anything the artist says it is (lets call this the Duchamp school) than there is no point for competitions, exhibitions, museums, galleries, etc. Because everything and anything is art, and anyone and everyone is an artist. That is plainly untrue. What is Art? IS relevant because “Art” is a modern phenomenon that continually seeks to define itself in the face of ever broadening and (to my mind) reductive tastes and “standards”. To suggest that the door is closed on this argument is (sorry) a tad ignorant. Art history tends to lump all forms of visual creation from cave painting to Damien Hirst, into a type of continuum that is itself a false construct. The work of say Masaccio and Gauguin might share similar characteristics (paint, surface, color, line, etc) but they are not same things. So which one is Art? See where I am going with this?
Alan,
It’s all Art. Philosophically questioning the purpose of art is always an interesting and important question. But today, here and now, to a knowledgeable person discussing this western notion of an Art Competition, the questioning of an Artists intentions is tiresome and needless. I am not saying that “everything and anything is art”. Anyone who enters a competition such as AP, who says they are an Artists and who says that their entry is Art I am profoundly interested in. I take them seriously. From there we can go one to talk about whether it is good Art, whether it in fact works as Art. That is the important question. It’s Art because the Artists says it is and Artists should be taken seriously. I’m much less worried about someone calling themselves an Artists who really isn’t one than someone calling themselves an Artist and people not taking them seriously.
In terms of a competition the discussion of “Is that art”?
sorry not sure how the last sentence in the above post got left in there,
This concept of voting is still missing something. I noticed how much the excitement and participation died down after the top ten announcement. I was on a return trip to see more of the venues and work my volunteer shift when I had a strong sense of loss somehow. I was disappointed that there had not been enough time to see a majority of the entries before the time was up to vote on the whole selection. I finally had the chance to view some outstanding work by artists like Merssmann, Bomhof, Hanka, and so many others yet had not had the chance to cast my vote for them. My hope is that next year, the first round of voting is held off until at least two full weeks have passed. This delay in the first vote would allow people a chance to see more venues, give artists and reporters time to put out more interviews, keep the traffic strong longer for downtown businesses and allow for a more informed voter. This process is an education, and I believe the general voting public needed more time to take in each artist, giving them a broader experience and as I found, a more refined opinion. Giving my “thumbs up” during ArtPrize was almost like voting for an election without knowing who 60% of the candidates were. Over-all a wonderful experience, great for G.R., sparked all sorts of conversations around the region from people whom I did not expect to ever care about “art”. I am excitedly looking forward to next year, and I hope to have my own work among the candidates!