Mitsu posts a report of the Loft Event on his blog.
I have to agree that it went well, particularly on Wednesday, when the Bronx Culture Trolley supplied a steady stream of visitors. He notes that many of the filmmakers were there to talk about their work. I think I was the only "visual artist" there to talk about her work. Without the structure of the video presentations--introduce video, show video, ask artist questions--I was left to simply approach folks looking at my collages, introduce myself, and try to engage.
The horrible dynamic: "What do you think of my work?" What artist likes to ask this question, and which viewer really wants to answer it?
I have wonderful memories of days in museums with my Aunt Eleanor. From childhood on, she engaged me in this manner. As a child, coming up with an impression, an opinion of the art work, seemed like climbing a mountain. What was I going to say about Kandinsky? Why was she asking? Why all this pressure!?
So, I feel for the people who found themselves face to face with this unknown artist from Brooklyn a few weeks ago, trying to come up with something coherent to say about her collages (no Kandinsky, she).
But this is the viewer's part of the deal. The art is communication. I want to know if, and how, the signal has come in. Has the information transfer really happened if you just look at an art work, make a low-voiced, noncommittal expression of reception ("five by five!"), and go looking for the cheese plate? (By the way, the cheese was good, and so were the little slices of sausage; thanks for bringing them, Bronx Council on the Arts.)
One of my last museum outings with Eleanor was to the 1999 "Sensation" show of young British Artists at the Brooklyn Museum. I pushed her along in a wheelchair, checking in frequently so that she was not stuck staring at something longer than she wanted to. This forced me to pause and consider the work more thoroughly, and overall it gave us a lot of time to talk over what we were seeing. How wonderful to look at and talk about art with her, trying on interpretations, smiling together at the amusing works and debating the "controversial" ones. (Eleanor, a psychiatrist, took a medical professional's interest in Damian Hirst's slices of cow, and decided they'd be better seen in a natural history museum.)
How much more empty I'd feel since she died, not having our lifetime's dialogue to remember. She trained me to think, and express ideas, about art.
Posted by Emily at February 20, 2004 09:29 AM