As I’ve entered the final year of my MFA program and putting together the work for my thesis exhibition and lecture, I’ve been reflecting on what I plan to do once I am a “Master of Fine Art” and what opportunities might be available. Most people seek out an MFA education thinking that this degree will help them become a full time art star exhibiting their work within the glamorous network of galleries and museums across the world. Others pursue an MFA so that they may obtain the security of becoming a tenure track professor at a University. While both of these avenues are obviously alluring for various reasons, I question the likelihood that either option is a rational ambition to rely upon. What other opportunities should there be for artists in the real world? Are they relegated to this incredibly small job market in relation to the amount of people wanting to work in that field? Shouldn’t we be employing our same creative skill we apply to our work as we apply to our employment? An artist’s work should be valued as much as a scientist or plumber or lawyer…but in order to be valued as such we need to be present in the daily lives of people in these professions so that they may see the value as well. There is a precedent of artists working outside of these conventional roles that have inspired my research and work around the intersection of art and commerce. In the next few days I’m going to be sharing the work of some of these artists to get a better understanding of how we might look at artists operating in our world in the future.

Last year, when I joined the Art & Social Practice MFA program at PSU I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to be doing. I knew I really wanted to be producing work that was accessible and philosophical, and that spoke to the many concerns I had around sustainability, community and capitalism. Seeing the work of my professors, Harrell Fletcher and Jen Delos Reyes, and meeting with them solidified my interest in the program and made me realize that my various past experiences really had useful application in this new world I was about to enter.

Now, over a year later I realize that it wasn’t some new world I was entering but learning to be more present and actively engage with the real world through my work. I also learned that this work wasn’t far off from what I had been doing on my own, I just didn’t have any reference points to make the connection…but over the course of the first year I became fully immersed in research into people living and breathing a socially engaged art practice. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, one of these discoveries would have a profound impact on the way that I think about art and what it can be…and how it relates to the work I’ve done in the past and what kind of work I’m looking to be doing in the future.

The person I’m referring to is David Greenberger and his project The Duplex Planet. David Greenberger got his BFA degree in painting in 1979, shortly thereafter he took a job as an activities director for a nursing home…the Duplex Nursing Home. One would think the logical direction for someone with a painting degree that goes to work at a nursing home as an activities director would be to organize activities around traditional art making. David, however, quickly became captivated by the art and activity of conversation that he involved himself in with the residents.

These conversations eventually led to the DIY publishing of a zine called The Duplex Planet and has expanded into books, movies, albums, radio programs, exhibitions and more. Through this project he’s also worked on a comic series with some of my favorite people, including Daniel Clowes, Ron Rege and Robert Williams. To say that David Greenberger has defied convention as to what it means to be an artist is an understatement. David’s work has also allowed me to view some of my own past experiences in a new light.

I started the wurst gallery in 2003 while working at Wieden+Kennedy as merely a hobby. It was my excuse to work with some of my favorite artists while at the time I would have never counted myself as one of them. As I look back now I realize that the wurst was my art making. I created shows that had their own ideas outside of the physical work that was produced for them and therefore created their own meaning.

Becoming aware of artists like David Greenberger has helped me figure out a new context for my work and a way to frame the projects that I’m currently working on.

Tomorrow I will take a look at one last example of an artist working outside of the traditional art role and begin investigating how looking to these artists might help inform the role of artists in the future.
 

Participation in this project was more than I expected, not only by getting responses to the questions but unexpectedly people starting using the images I created with their names as their profile image creating an amusing confusion amongst friends of friends.

I feel like this project was also an attempt at achieving something that Don Celender had written in an artist statement:

“Realizing that art, as it is experienced currently, reaches only a small portion of the public, my conceptual movements were initiated to explore the realm of the impossible in order to stimulate innovative and creative approaches to bringing art to the masses.” - Don Celender 1970  

It is my hope with the work that I’m currently doing that I’m coming even closer to this aim. Excessively accessible, exclusively inclusive.

Call and Response, an example from Don Celender’s Art Movement series 1972.