A Sitting Girl Productions

Twin Cities ZineFest 2009 Review

2009-07-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

The politically or socially disaffected, the intellectually frustrated, the self-described weird, the retro, the throwback, the visionary, the artist, the writer, the talented hack and the scribe: All of these adjectives describe the attendees and exhibitors of the Twin Cities ZineFest 2009,a two-day, “alternative”-art, underground festival held this July 11th and 12th in the Stevens Square Center for the Arts an arguably, hole-in-the-wall location, next door to, what appeared to be to this author, a combination liquor/convenience store.

Ascending the stairs, the stale smell of books, paper, dust and people floated down. I entered, looking for an artist friend of mine, Sean Lynch , who was there representing 2dCloud, a comic design illustration studio located on University Avenue. The website for the Zinefest describes itself as “the area’s premiere DIY craft, culture and self-publishing event...feature[ing] an art show, live music, craft demonstrations, guest speakers and panel discussions. Most importantly, Zinefest plays host to some of the Midwest’s best self-made talent.”

And “self-made talent,” it was. I walked the small area taking in the entire tables with the zines and their authors on display. The entire room was an art piece, not just the products, if you want to get all “Warholesque” about it. I looked at everything, from zines addressing the perceived rantings and ravings of Rep. Michele Bachmann to a zine that dealt primarily with how to eat raw foods and live a lifestyle based around such consumption. There were zines produced by children—colorful, hand drawn efforts addressing all manner of subjects—there were zines that focused exclusively on poetry and disaffected beat rhythms. There were zines that were collections of recipes for “Southern Home Cookin’” and zines that were collections of fake pamphlets. There were zines that were comic art compendiums and zines that were feminist, music or socially focused. If you wanted a zine, there was a good chance that it was there.

All of the zines were either free or of low-cost (no raging capitalists here!) which reflected the basic ideas behind Zinefest: freedom to do as one will and to express and almost Thoreau-like antipathy to the world, while still being in it at the same time. One of the best items for sale alongside the zines of web comic artist and mini-comic publisher Ryan Dow, was a collection of pins with witty sayings on them and sentiments form his various works, and, this reviewer suspects, his real life experiences: “I’m all about compassion you jackass.”

All of the zines featured an array of art styles, none of which could be pigeonholed into the area, ubiquitously categorized as “Fine Art.” The entire collection of exhibitors defied and yet reaffirmed the sentiment, best expressed through the entire 20th Century of the Dadaists: Art is what we make of it. From collections of what appeared to be random squiggles, all the way to full-on, color photographs, the zines at Zinefest seemed to explode with an intensity and vibrancy that define the characteristics of do-it-yourself.

And ultimately, that is the point. Many of these artists, whether they know it or not (and I suspect that many of the ones I spoke to do) are the direct spiritual, artistic and philosophical descendants of Robert Crumb. Although many artists have gone onto mainstream success behind the philosophy and art shown at this year’s Zinefest, the base remains the same: Artists making art and spreading messages, not for the mass produced, corporate/government run public, but for themselves and their interests.

Review of Bemidji State University Visual Arts Department 2008 Scholarship Show by Jesan Sorrells

2009-05-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

Group visual art exhibits usually consist of substandard dreck apathetically created by complacent artists, and the Bemidji State University Visual Arts Department 2008 Scholarship Show in the on-campus Talley Gallery is no exception. In years past, the show has attempted to recognize the efforts and achievements of visual arts majors in a group setting: One or two works, focusing around either no topic, or a vaguely articulated one. This year’s topic—and overall show title—falls into the “vaguely articulated” category, Climate Change, the most recent ephemeral nonsense to hit the ears of the academic public. For the majority of these artists, the term has become a rallying cry to the political and the mundane.

The twenty-five works—ranging in medium, from painted plastic, freestanding sculpture to carefully crafted prints— reflect the effort of the juniors and seniors to interpret the show title and redefine it to fit their own artistic vision. Regardless of what one thinks of the science behind former Vice-President Al Gore’s strident calls to modify global environmental policy, the term “climate change,” has motivated this generation of artists, similar to Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War, or the way the events of September 11. Unfortunately, all of the pregnant promise fails to crown, much less be birthed. The works resonate as timid, echo chamber repeating of the same tired clichés regarding people, places and decisions, lacking real depth or formal complexity.

However, the work of three artists shames the rest. Lars Voltz’s Reds Assault on the Blues reconciles “the inflated figure of Jackson Pollock,” with something resembling artistic reality. Mimicry of Abstract Expressionism’s inflated style is on display as red and blue swathes of paint cut across a speckled orange background, while drips of blue and sworls of orange, dance across the 36x24 support. The diptych Owl Moon/The Cultivation of Bonsai is a surrealistic attempt by LauraLee Simons to illustrate an internal struggle while skittering the talking point cliché of “climate change.” Owl Moon is especially haunting as it shows through burnt umber and grey the flight of the human heart, torn from a beating body. The Cultivation of Bonsai illustrates through reds and oranges, the pride and joy of life that would make Georgia O’Keefe proud. Finally, Jon Seykora’s two large scale prints—one a screen print, the other a 3D rendered print—recall both the goofy pleasure of comics and illustration and the serious industrial influence of Robert Rauschenberg or Andy Warhol. Obsolete and No Vacancy pull the viewer in with fish out of water, streaks of blue lay across industrial black illustrations of cars, cranes and tire piles, and feathers of delicate red, a reminder that humor and art go hand in hand.

The remaining twenty two works crowd the Talley Gallery space as an unintentional visual representation of global overpopulation. A clear plastic female figure suspended from the ceiling is juxtaposed with blue plastic female figure on the floor; a goldfish circles within her, as trapped and perplexed as the one in Seykora’s print. Hastily rendered prints and drawings crowd the moveable walls, hurriedly moving the viewer from work to work, not allowing a moment’s breathe. Perhaps that is the point. After all, if enough CO2 gets in the atmosphere, no one will be able to breathe. The denouement visible from the gallery entrance is a tree sculpted from wood and mounted to the gallery wall. It is dead and desiccated; no leaves hang from the construction; like the show, it sucks all of the air from the room, leaving the viewer with a vague sense of something.

The power of the visual arts lies in its ability to confront audiences without words, performances, tricks or intermediaries. Artists who accept this and acknowledge it create pieces that matter. The arguments and debates around climate change are challenging. Ill conceived, knee jerk reactions or regurgitated swill about “corporate control,” or “imperialist tendencies,” are banal and unchallenging, as boring as the art that springs from them. Polarizing and uniting, climate change is so broad and encompassing, it could have been addressed in numerous creative ways. Instead, the Bemidji State University Visual Arts Department 2008 Scholarship Show illustrates an unfortunate lack of creative vision in this crop of students. However, harsh judgment may be unwarranted, after all; perhaps, this is the sort of “climate change” scholarship awards were designed to reward.

Review of Blurred Lines By Jesan Sorrells

2009-05-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

Emerging artists showcase a summation of their collegiate efforts—a senior show—as an academic requirement for the completion of a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. It is not only a way of showcasing art objects—and generating potential sales—but also it is a way for faculty, other students and artistic peers to judge the level of knowledge, skill, talent and focus that has been attained over a four year period. Similar to a senior thesis, it is defended and justified to the art faculty. Jon Seykora’s 2008 senior show Blurred Lines—currently in the Talley Gallery—features imaginative screen prints on rich, creamy, off-white paper, encased luxuriously within strong, black frames. The subject matter varies from print to print and reveals the artist’s wavering attention to subject matter even as he is expected to have finally attained focus.

Seykora’s level of artistic skill is not in doubt. Screen printing is one of the most technically detailed and arduous processes any artist can take on professionally, let alone dabble in, for the purposes of generating work for one show. The process involves working with layers of ink and precisely determining absorbencies of paper, cloth and plastic. Seykora combines his control of material and technical proficiency with creative vision in prints such as Do You Come Here Often, featuring an improbable caricature of a buck-toothed beaver cradling a martini in one of its paws, or Lipstick Lesbians, a provocative image of two Marilyn Monroes posed over a pair of full, red lips. In Indebted to the Struggle, thick, streaks of black and blue ink roil over precisely rendered peacock feathers. Though his prints are technically accurate and creatively interesting, they fail to mesh with the remainder of the objects in the show—the mixed media pieces.

A totem pole, Carbon Dance, carved from wood and clay with distended, nightmarish figures of horses’ heads and geese, topped by a pregnant woman holding a halo, dominates the center of the room. Progress at any Price "When the Only Direction Seen is West“ an amalgamation of horses’ heads, gears and faux factory smokestacks, acts as an assemblage near the opposite corner. A swirl of carved wooden/clay figures painted blue, black, yellow and red—Art with Teeth “Never Forget”— is mounted on the wall next to a print featuring industrial madness and gore. The mixed media images are highly rendered and intricately detailed, yet they add nothing to the overall scope of the show. In fact, as dominant as they are in the space, they demand a show of their own.

Finally, the artist statement is mounted on the wall, a few feet inside the entrance to the galley space. Reading the rambling verbiage—a revealing mélange of information about the artist’s upbringing and ideas about concrete vs. realism—the reader wonders what is going on in the mind of the artist and if inscrutability is the point. Seykora’s writing, while making profound statements regarding “form dictating function,” and assertions that “art plays by no rules,” adds nothing to the overall unity of the show. The assertions in his artist statement about concrete action versus idealism do not serve to bring the show together; instead, they push the viewer in search of a unifying theme in the artwork on display.

Many seniors’ shows revolve around issues central to the artist or the way that they create. Art shows serve as a cathartic way of releasing ideas to challenge the public. Blurred Lines neither intellectually nor emotionally challenges audiences; except, with enviable awe at the young man’s technical prowess. Jon Seykora may be better served to concentrate his future artistic endeavors on discovering how he would desire his work to serve him; rather than how to best surprise or impress the audience.

5-8-2008

Giddy-Up

2009-03-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

Moving my drawing table out of my apartment was the best thing to happen to me in awhile.

I started out with comics and the presence of the table inmy tiny apartment regressed me to the point where I had begun my art journey so many years ago. It was psychologically deterministic and depressing all at the same time. So, in an effort to get a more appropriate "audience" in my living space, I gave it the old heave-ho.

Now, the last six months have been hell on wheels for the good old pencil in that used to be in my hands. It vanished, along with any inspiration, pride or desire for a new challenge of any kind. And, after staring at the degree on my office wall that I did cartwheels to afford and avoid debt to get with the assiduousness of an acrobat, I was feeling like a cheap sell out in a job--not a career--surrounded by other cheap sell outs.

Not a pleasant state of affairs.

There are very few artists that I respect in this world and even fewer that I know personally. One of them is this guy Nicholas Jackson, (http://www.nicholasjackson.net/) and the other is this guy Sean Lynch, (http://www.tallsean.com/seanlynch.html). I have more respect for their talent and drive than they realize. I went to school with them. I sat next to them in art classes. They supported me when I was no good. And I have supported them, good, bad, ugly and indifferent. And, where I lost my guts, they followed their bliss. So, I decided to take some steps to get my bliss back. While, whittling away at this feeling of being a sell out.

I am a PRINTMAKER. This means I learned as an undergraduate to be a slave to technique. Now, I have to master it. Or I will die out here with all of the other "great" artists that you never, ever heard of. And the world is littered with them, from Milan to Kyoto and from the lowest Lauscaux cave to the greatest Florence cathedral.

I am digging uphill with a spoon. Wish me luck.

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"When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time."--General Creighton Abrams

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

2008-11-13T20:56:00.000-08:00

WELL, IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I LAST BLOGGED ON HERE. IT ORIGINALLY STARTED AS AN ASSIGNMENT FOR A CLASS AND NOW IT'S JUST OUT HERE.

I HAVE RELOCATED TO MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA AND I NOW WORK FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA AS AN ASSISTANT RESIDENCE DIRECTOR. I WORK WITH STUDENTS, SUPERVISE COMMUNITY ASSISTANTS AND MAKE SURE THAT THEY FOLLOW THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF HOUSING AND RESIDENTIAL LIFE. MY CURRENT AREAS OF INTEREST INCLUDE ASSESSMENT AND RESEARCH IN DEPARTMENTAL POLICIES AND PROCEDURES; ANALYSIS OF PROGRAMS AND POLICIES; AJUDICATE DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS WITH UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS; CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND NEGOTIATION FLUENCY; CAPITAL PLANNING AND BUDGETARY NEGOTIATION WITH FISCAL FORECASTING; OTHER COMMITTEE AND JOB RESPONSIBILITIES AS ASSIGNED BY MY SUPERVISOR.

I ALSO STILL MAKE ART, THOUGH NOT NEARLY AS MUCH AS I USED TO. AND I AM ANTICIPATING IT REMAINING A STRUGGLE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. CHRISTMAS IS COMING AND I ALREADY BOUGHT MYSELF A NEW VEHICLE AS MY OWN PRESENT.

I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE ALL OF MY FRIENDS AGAIN AND I LOOK FORWARD TO YOU READING THIS. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED. WHO KNOWS WHEN I'LL BE BACK.
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"THERE'S SOMEONE UP THERE WATCHING OVER US. UNFORTUNATELY, IT'S GOVERNMENT."--WOODY ALLEN

...Enough is Enough...

2008-03-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

I hate to inform everyone--from collectors and dealers to artists and critics--but, post-modernism, modernism, Freudian theory, Marxism (and all of its concurrent outgrowths, including Socialism, Constructivism and on, and on) feminism, gay theory, "queer theory," and all of the other -isms and theories that have defined art and art production systems for the last one hundred and fifty years, since the Impressionists decided to destroy the European Salon system and any other modes and methods that they could in order to wreck the edifice of art with which they disagreed and felt slighted by, is officially dead in this new century. The "new" modes of representation based in modernism and its subsequent outgrowths, can no longer serve the visual, theoretical, and critical culture that they falsely claimed they would. It is time for artists and creators everywhere to stand up and declare that the determinist "rules" and "theories," written down or propagated by Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, the Dadaists, Clement Greenburg, Micheal Fried, Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucalt, Susan Sontag, Donald Judd, and all the rest who followed them, are no longer relevant--and thus, have been and should be, relegated to the trash bin of weighty art history tomes--and there they should stay. It is long past time for everyone involved in the field of art to open their collective eyes and see who and what Pablo Picasso's "Guernica,"Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," And Warhol's "Marilyn Monroe's," and all of those Conceptual Artists, video artists, performance artists, and all of their ilk, really are. All these -isms, movements, celebrities and others, represent the spirit of nihilism, destruction, anger and ignorance of both the real world and the people in it, who have to make their rent, pay their bills, and live in it. These men, and women, are not great, and neither is the "work" that they have produced and continue to inflict upon all of us.

I hate to put artists--and the people who call themselves artists--on notice, but: if you draw or paint cubes, triangles, cylinders, swirls, dots or anything else other than what you see with your eyes, you are not the second, third or fourth coming of Picasso or Andy Warhol; you are just visually ignorant, artistically lazy, potentially greedy and ultimately untalented. As all those who came before you were as well. If you "conceptualize" art and never execute it--or, even worse, hire others to do so--then you are also lazy, and quite possibly psychotic, and in need of prayer, medication or both. If you draw or paint giant fields of color, then you are a lot of things, but you are not a painter. If you paint drips, swirls, drops, "blips," or the like on a canvas in order to "elevate its flatness," you are not an Abstract Expressionist; instead, you are a charlatan and a con artist, and you should be run out of town on a rail until you actually can exhibit time, talent, and care for your work and your audience. If you crush cars or silverware, congratulations, you are a welder and should pursue employment in that industry. If you perform your "art," on video and then rewind it so that the performance repeats itself endlessly, then, congratulations, you are an actor. Actors are not artists, they are monkeys that read scripts and parade around at awards shows in the latest fashions. They are also symbols of Hollywood banality, pride and greed. So are you. If you make art about "phallogocentric, Western, heterosexual, white males," and how they are "oppressing," minorities, women and others, then you are also not an artist. Instead, you are a politician with no courage, no funding and no real message. You are a giant inarticulate scream that goes nowhere, frees no one and is ultimately self-referential and accomplishes nothing.

If instead, you analyze all of the hoops that "modern art" has gone through over the last century and a half, and are puzzled, worried, or only publicly accepting the dogma, while privately disagreeing with it, because you think that you just aren't "smart" enough or "cultured" enough to "get it," then hold on, this blog is here to bring you hope. I, like you, have had enough.

JMS
3/1/2008