I went to Art Detour and all I got was the number of a clown for my kid's birthday party.
--Anonymous AD attendee
by Jerome du Bois, with Catherine King
Why don't we know more about what's going on in the minds of artists in Arizona, and especially the Valley of the Sun and Tucson? I see three culprits: the media, the art institutions, and especially the artists and the arts writers around them. Doesn't leave much out, I know, but in what follows, I'm going to --what?
What are you looking at? I can change my mind and write about the local art scene again if I want to. Who's going to stop me?
Now that that's settled, I'm going to ask a lot of questions of these three groups (and their subgroups), questions which both stem from and converge on the notion of why artists do what they do. What's going on in their minds? How to tell what's going on? And I'm not talking about an event calendar. I'm not referring to little maps you pick up at the library. I'm not talking about tiny scrolling thumbnails of your artwork blinking up and down both margins of a website --buy me, look at me! I'm not talking about listing studio and apartment rentals. That crap's everywhere, and it's a mug's game. I'm talking about people talking about the art, and about the future. Real studio visits, real interviews. No fluff, no favorite drinks or bands, but the stuff itself --why did you put this here? and why that color?-- and the ideas around it, all across the state. In print and online.
How to do that? I think print is dying, so our answer is in the title to this post: a group art blog, run by a few smart people who care about the future more than their egos. (Don't look at us. We burned out. And don't tell us you're busy.) This generation seems to like to do things collectively, anyway, and there seem to be writers and editors all over town. (Hello, Cindy Dach and Writer's Bloc, where are you?)
Why should any of them listen? They don't have to. They haven't so far.
Why should we two care about any of this? Because we value communication, honesty, professionalism, and thoroughness. And, always, the future. Anybody interested in what we have to say, you're welcome to make the jump.
Check out the status quo:
The media: Print
The Arizona Biennial '05 opened on May 14th at the Tucson Museum of Art (TMA). The Arizona Republic, the Phoenix New Times, and the Tucson Weekly have yet to cover it. The Arizona Daily Star finally ran a short piece on June 5th. (We don't botha with Java. It's a narcissitic, misogynistic party rag. And shade be gone.)
The Arizona Biennial is a local / regional showcase, and for this round, as usual, there's no hint, no run-up, no drumroll, no artists's profiles, no previews, and no early-bird review. That's pitiful. For the last Biennial, my wife Catherine King and I drove down to Tucson the second day, and when we got back she posted a review which, two years later, is still at the top of internet searches for "Arizona Biennial."
I know NT has at least four so-called art writers. It's an easy four-hour drive down to Tucson and back, with some great restaurants to relax in after the show, during the turnaround, while you're noshing on nachos and comparing notes.
And is the Tucson Weekly so short of staff or so stuffed with stories they can ignore, for at least two issues, an art exhibition the Old Pueblo itself created decades ago? Guess so.
As for the Republic, I'm not surprised Richard Nilsen hasn't bothered driving down there. I was told by a Phoenix Art Museum insider that he didn't bother to drive down the street when he wrote about the Natacha Rambova fashion show (which we covered here). It was review by remote. Layzee. And in yesterday's Sunday feature he purports to "cover" the Surrealism USA show at PAM. But read the review carefully; it consists of downloaded paint-by-number art history and lists lists lists of familiar names. There is no sense that he leaned close to that floating green Mussolini head because he wanted to get his words just right . . . Hah! No. I'm guessing he didn't darken the door for this show, either. Writing a review of a show you didn't attend: he might call it surrealistic, I call it dishonest. And he gets paid for this, and precious (and shrinking) column inches.
Now, I know the show just opened yesterday, June 5th. (We were there. Bad art, but very interesting show. Fairly crowded. Seemed like everybody but we two were dressed for volleyball. Review later --of the show, not the people.) If this . . . writing . . . Nilsen did was a just a publicity-pack preview, he should have been honest and said so: "I haven't seen the show yet." But he didn't. And I guess he didn't ask for a sneak preview walkthrough, as basically the only salaried newspaper art critic in town, so he could write a thorough review; and if that didn't happen then maybe Brady Roberts and the rest of the PAM staff are just too unimaginative to get him down there all by himself so he could write it up without distraction. Isn't that basic PR? Or maybe they knew he wouldn't come down even if they asked. Or maybe . . . aw, hell, who knows how or what these people think?
Has any reader seen any coverage on the new public sculpture downtown called "Release The Fear"? It was unveiled on May 21st. I made fun of this piece when I saw the model --it looked like Gumby giving up his wallet to me-- but now that it's unveiled, we're impressed; it's a lot stronger than we expected, and we're going to be taking a closer look at it. The foundation which financed the piece, created by the artist, Robert J. Miley, is an excellent idea and certainly full of human interest. But there have been only two articles written about it yet, as far as I know, in the past two years.
[When I checked out the names on the foundation's website --the backers-- I was immediately reassured to find not one of the familiar operators we have had to excoriate here. Nobody from Roosevelt Row or Grand Avenue or Bentley Projects or even Phoenix Government, except the mayor, Phil Gordon (way to go, Phil). No Lanning or Lopez or Falk or Moore or Rainey or Lineberry or A.O.Orifice (we'll let you guess). Mr. Miley seems to have an excellent bullshit detector.]
But nobody's writing about it. And it's smack dab in the middle of the Arts District.
Enough about the print media in this two-paper town. Just three final words for Wayne Rainey and Joshua Rose about shade magazine's demise: Learn from this.
The media: Online
Neither azcentral.com nor phoenixnewtimes.com take advantage of online flexibility, cheap digital storage space, and increasingly sophisticated blogging tools. They simply reprint the dead-tree copy of their art reviews and pitiful studio visits. Online reviews and interviews could be much longer, with full-color embedded images and popups, and links to other reviews and relevant websites. Of course, the writers' and editors' and artists' motivations are the missing key elements, aren't they? If they wanted to, if they couldn't help but write, nothing stops them anymore from putting their words out into the world.
Why don't both of these websites have rich archives in their visual arts sections, easy-to-find archives that they boast about? In fact, it should be a virtual arts district, with an activated map and links to everything. Every artist who has had an exhibition publicized will tell everyone he knows about it. They could be the go-to clearinghouses gathering the information now scattered all over the internet.
That about exhausts the organized media online outlets. Just about every other online presence is an art institution, artist or artist-collective website, which we get to right after this final question for the established editors and art writers:
Is this the best you can do? I think so. Your masters bought you.
Art Boosters and Institutions Online
Both D-PAC and Artlink Phoenix continue to fall far short of what they could be doing to develop the virtual landscape, the digital cultural profile, of this Valley and State.
Go check out D-PAC and you get the texts of three position papers, the last from December 2004, and some email addresses. These people just got the city government to give them beaucoup bucks a half-million, as a nearly-direct result of their last position paper, but there's no D-PAC blog, no ongoing story here of how that happened: nothing about the new Downtown Phoenix Artists Storefront Pilot Program, with continual updates and postings about their big plans. Nothing.
Hey, D-PAC, one word: transparency.
Sixty-four people signed off on D-PAC's first position paper, under rubrics like Art Spaces and Arts Organizations, Arts Support Organizations and Indivduals, and Individual Artists. Not one of these organizations or persons has a blog.
Artlink is about as pitiful as it gets. Shari Bombeck, its president, recently posted a sympathetic and shmoozy comment here about our analysis of Amy Silverman's last article, but she best look to her own crew, their practices, and her whole bailiwick before she starts throwing the NT across the room.
Artlink has an outdated discussion forum instead of a blog, with a stingy and uninformative format. The "webmaster" who runs it, John Tynan, recently lost all its archives --doot-dee-doo, doot-dee-doot-dee-doo, not much of a loss-- but the new postings are no better: people advertising studio and living spaces, or their upcoming art shows; bewildered newcomers seeking basic information; and one post from someone named Etienne wondering where all the controversy had gone, and adding, "Don't make me go to watch the train wreck over on theterasofthings.net." [Sic.]
A lot more people will be feeling that train looming over their shoulders, gaining ground, speeding up, and passing the laggards by with a sky-splitting blast on its whistle. In the meantime, on the Artlink forum site, nothing at all of substance goes on, and, to be honest, the discussions they had up there before --The Futurists, for the luvvachrist!-- were exhausted from hunger.
So the two major local art booster groups don't have a decent, ongoing, dynamic blog between them to describe, encourage, and indeed embody what they used to call "the burgeoning."
Other stodgy institutions, such as galleries and art museums, often discourage and forbid blogs by their staff. Stupid. They'll just go home and start one far away from any staff control. But let's imagine one for, say, Dennita Sewell, fashion curator of PAM. "In Stitches," maybe. Not only could she post about her ideas for upcoming shows, but also her dream shows. She could ask readers to sent in photos of their vintage clothing, which she would post on the blog; she could do themes and virtual fashion shows. (Or even develop real ones from online sources.) She could follow the international fashion scene and post streaming video and links to articles and comments from Milan, Paris, London, and New York. She could cross-blog with fashion bloggers worldwide. She could edit the good dish from all the magazines, online and not. She could share some of things in her own closet. She could do a lot of things to make people realize that there may be one person at PAM on the ball, or at least on the curve of the future.
Final questions for art museums and galleries: why don't you bother the print media more, and on a more regular basis, about getting better coverage? There's no excuse for the Biennial to be passed over. Part of the blame for that goes to the senior staff at the Tucson Museum of Art. Why don't you encourage your people to blog as well? If they're determined, as I say, they'll just do it from home.
Why doesn't the @Central Gallery at the main library have an archive of every show it has put on? Why no blogs from the Herberger School --neither instructors nor students-- or the ASU Art Museum, or the University of Arizona? Phoenix Institute of the Arts? One of those twee-twee art high schools? Nothing.
The Artists and Art Writers
A lot of local artists have websites, but almost none of them have blogs, and the two that do are pitiful sites indeed. Jon Haddock last posted in April of last year, and the guy who's covering for him last posted in March of this year. No posts in between. Nada. Also, the human I call Little PP has a so-called blog about his tiny world, very rarely updated and always with inanities or gossip or stupid jokes. But he doesn't mind doing a low-troll by posting our blog name in a list to pull traffic his way.
The rest are just websites. Here's my work, my resume, my friends, and my email. Bing! We're done here. Where are the blogs to come out of the collectives like Paper Heart and eyelounge and The Trunk Space? Why in hell doesn't Beatrice Moore have a carefully-kept archive of the Stop'N'Look window, with lots of pictures and artists' names and dates?
Michael The Magic Number runs Strivedreams and founded Thoughtcrime, more collectives, and this is what they announce on their web page:
Strivedreams takes aim at your heart. Create your life. Strive for your dreams. Art is capital. Everyone is an artist. Network. Work together. Build artistic infrastructure. Share tools. Inspire.
But don't you dare blog, the artistic infrastructure of now. As we bloggers say, WTF? I'll tell you what the fook it is. That dude is into control. Like Beatrice Moore, he's been stunting people for over a decade. (Who else but a control freak would be into teleportation and telepathy?) He doesn't really want to work together, and he wants to steal your tools, your inspiration, and your soul. Everyone is not an artist, and anyone who tells you that --check your wallet, then watch your back, Jack, and get your brain back. I mean, just reread that insipid prose, but then remember that one of this guy's group's "art sessions" consisted of volunteers being pushed around and verbally insulted and humiliated.
Now consider someone like Cindy Dach, who declares herself an artist and writer, and who is about as hooked-up in this town as you could be: Changing Hands Bookstore longtimer, owns downtown art properties, landlady to artists, member of art collective, husband with fat local rolodex, and they're probably going to get thousands of dollars from the city for their "storefront" improvements. And she started a writer's group, Writer's Bloc, two years ago. I have yet to read a word of theirs or hers online, that I know of. What the hell else could she need or want? What are they waiting for? What are they doing down there?
Other writers, over the years, have included Kathleen Vanesian, who took her marbles and went home when NT wouldn't run her "Democracy in America" review. If she had had a blog, she could have published it. We ran a whole series! We have serious problems with Ms. Vanesian, but at least she was semi-mature and semi-talented. She should start a blog.
What happened to the writers from shade? In fact, why didn't they just turn the online mag into a blog months ago? When they knew the dead tree was ready to hit the ground of grim reality? Easy as apple pie. And archive every article they ever ran. They could even keep the event calendar. And shade would gracefully continue, and even grow. But nothing.
So we're left with dregs like Amy Young, who must really loathe herself and other women. Besides being a yes-person for Beatrice Moore and an apologist for the whole sleazy Grand Avenue crew, her last squib for NT was about pole dancing at some dumbass art space, sponsored by the makers of the poles. She chose her stinky words well to celebrate the notion that women are merely empty-headed bodies best suited to be human toys for cruel men. She should not start a blog, at least until she learns some respect --if not for herself, then for the rest of us.
Maybe the reason there is no Arizona Art Blog is because these past two generations can't read, or write, at any length, or organize their thoughts into logical chains. That would be the sad answer, wouldn't it? But it might be the case.
I've written before that everyone should blog. Over the past two-plus years, the blog has made us grow and learn so much more than without it. The sections in the sidebars grew organically; we didn't plan very much at all. We just kept writing, reading, blogging. And caring. We can't help it. To paraphrase the song, you gotta want to do it anyway, even if it doesn't pay.
[By the way, comments are open, but be very very careful what you write. You should know by now our level of tolerance for horse manure and piffle.]