I used to think

I used to think a lot about this idea that in a more utopian society or even in a more communist one, what would art look like and for me personally what interests and curiosities would remain in making art … of course there was and is art made under communism. But what does it look like newly let’s say in these faux socialist locations we frequent or live in?

I think a lot of art would look the same as it does now, even in true socialist spaces, but there would most likely be less focus on individualist practices and more collaborative or community-based exploring and experimenting.

There’s a larger discourse to be had also on what constitutes art but if walking can be art then so can a collective of composters who educate and incorporate accessible and fun experimental approaches and mediums to shrinking the carbon footprint? Of course there are people working in similar spaces but I wonder how certain ideas could be held more collectively versus to a sole person, and not adhering to the capital C collective.

I think more than ever, art needs people to first believe in it enough to make it. When I say believe I don’t mean to believe it will get them somewhere but more so that believing the work should exist in the world and take up space. This believing in art shouldn’t be confused as a vehicle for other means of social commodity beyond art, for example I want to make this painting because then it’ll be in this group show that allows me to join a social group and status that will allow me xyz … or I want to make art to be famous as a personality that has nothing to do with my art, so therefore I produce vapid objects that take up space and resources from others so that I can continue my nihilistic hedonism. This hurts art.

Art needs the edit. It needs us to be more self-critical, thinking more and doing less.

Maybe versus going somewhere every day to move things around and feel busy, we all must sit more and live more in order to understand what even is worth spending time, materials and energy on.

Then, art needs people and spaces and institutions to believe in it for what it is actually doing and has the ability to do or not do. Remember also, the art is often not the person who made it, and should be seen as itself, although of course context is very important.

Art needs pure space to breathe, grow and explore and for that it needs true support. For this to occur it also needs more critical and discerning conversations by artists and institutions alike which would then also alter the conversations had with those who fund these spaces and works.

Maybe more than all though, art needs a different structure in how it’s acquired, paid for, resold.

Most other creative industries have residuals and structures to give back to the artist once something is sold or used in particular ways commercially post the artist’s original production of said work.

Art needs more extreme measures and sacrifice of comfort, a clearing out of riff raff and boot licking. Then, and only then will things have more flexibility and will there be a higher probability of more interesting work being made.

Also, we really need to look forward into what to prepare and do next but based on the present, and less at art history for help or guidance. Specifically referencing and upholding art of a certain time that didn’t care or think about the majority of the world outside of a specific class and accessibility to white bourgeois sensibilities. What’s the use for thinking about this work still and even learning so heavily about it in schools when it excludes the majority of us?

In relation to this, art needs less mimicry, it needs more inner looking and personal desire truly, not in the sense of I express myself through the refried abstract expression but it’s different because of the date and that I made it. In the same way that maybe is not that useful for the end point of an artwork being about the sheer fact that it’s reproduced like a work from the 17th century. There’s so much that art can still do, everything has not been done because the world is ending and there’s lots of new things to consider and try.

I make work, so it’s hard for me to procure a list of things that could be done without cutting into my own ideas or curiosities although I did just think to myself, what if there was funding for an artist to paint hospital interiors in a particular manner to soothe and support those there? There’s rooms for rehabilitation maybe which have a different stimulus activation in its painted approach, and then what about the furniture and sounds, smells, floor texture? There’s those military ships that were painted to be camouflage with particular striping, but then in spaces where we need the most aid and support, art is often nowhere to be found. Michael Heizer’s bunker in Nevada desert cost an estimated 40 million to make and was listed as a national monument, but I’m sure I’d much rather visit a sound bath of half a million varying wind chimes in a forest, while I drink juices that pair with these sounds. That’s of course if we are going adult theme park, but what about the more simple blind spots? Maybe a walk as artwork is still extremely powerful.