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Showing posts from August, 2016

On Being a Professional Artist

First off, let me write that this is not a how to guide about how to become a professional artist.   There are hundreds, if not thousands of those out there, most of them geared toward commodifying the artist personality and by extension the artwork.   I’m not sure if following those guides actually help or not, just like I’m not sure whether my two years in an MFA program actually prepared me for a life of a professional artist.   What I can say is that after the MFA professionalism is something that is not given over by a degree or title but acquired, and even if one doesn’t sell the work they make, does that make them a lesser artist?   I suppose that to be a professional in western culture means to make money off of what one does, but does that immediately negate all the artists that slave away in and out of their studios daily who do not have gallery representation or sell their work, do not appear in flashy magazines, do not get to exhibit in the art fairs and biennials aro

Made In LA

I can’t stand the word archive anymore.   Every curator is an artist and every artist is a wannabe curator.   The tables have flipped almost perfectly against the artist in every imaginable way when it comes to vanguardism and edginess.   No longer, it seems, does the average artist work with any complex issues, though they may appear that way at first. The artist of today is content with towing the line of populist sentiment, pop and pseudo-philosophy, not even commenting on these issues as much as simply cleverly regurgitating what everyone already knows.   The archive is just one of these recent developments that the artworld better soon forget because it is fucking up a whole generation of artists that could have otherwise been helpful in other lines of work, like the food and service industry.    The ridiculousness of the archive is that as a term it has the right tone and desirability for the elite.   It reeks of academicism, and importance. But this importance is also ve