sensations that fade (or: the white cube isn't life)
You usually don't know when you're seeing a person for the last time. When they're gone, you might ask yourself whether you could have done more, should have acted differently...
I find it terrifying to imagine that one would go about one's daily life encounters as if they were in fact comparable to, say, seeing a person in palliative care: wouldn't you place too much of a burden on what might merely be a simple encounter that your whole life would be loaded up with anxiety?
Alternatively, you could simply make sure that the sum of all of these encounters adds up to much ("simple" -- it's a lot of work, but it's worth it).
Life typically offers the most unpredictable coincidences. It's up to us to grab them and make sense of them. One such coincidence was to find a short essay by Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami (who, it appears, is becoming more widely known outside of her home country) just as I was thinking about the above:
Really, what does it mean to remember the people who leave us behind — to remember the sensations that fade?
Still, if you spend a great deal of your time writing stories or making art, it’s worth considering what it means to you, personally, to do this creative work amid the cataclysms and crises we continually face.
This is a line from an essay by Nicole Chung that I've been meaning to include in one of these emails. It was written against the background of what feels like the implosion of democracy in the United States. But it easily applies to any kind of challenge or crisis.
The essay also includes a number of ideas that are meaningful for artists even outside of the context of a crisis (whether personal or societal):
[A] piece of art or writing doesn’t necessarily exist to meet or react to one particular moment—often it will speak to many different people in many different ways over the duration.
Even as it might deeply enrich its creator, all art is made for the future. I think that in a world that's so focused on selecting "talents", handing out "awards", making lists of the "best" books published, it's very much worthwhile to keep this in mind.
I always tell my students to play the long game. I tell them to make something with the idea of looking at it again in ten years: make art for your future self, a future self that might be far beyond from where you are now, a future self that probably will look back with a sense of understanding that you don't have, yet.
I didn't know anything about Ray Johnson until I read this article about his life work: "Recently more than 5,000 colour photographs were discovered posthumously in Johnson’s Long Island house." This might not be your cup of tea, but I find the following very intriguing:
If Cage had staged the first ever ‘Happening’ at Black Mountain, then Johnson did the opposite with his ‘Nothings’, gatherings of people at which he claimed zero events would occur. At one such Nothing: Johnson arrived late to an apartment of attendees, dropped some wooden spools down a staircase, and then everyone left.
Maybe it's because I have been thinking a lot about ideas such as "mundane" or "boring" or "relevant" lately. In many ways, this is connected to a question I've often asked my students: What do you want your photographs to do?
I've always find it surprising how few students had an answer. Many people go to art school without ever having thought about this. And no, I don't mean putting pictures in a gallery or a book (everybody wants that), because once you're there, the question becomes: then what?
What is your expectation or hope all of this will do?
Using Nicole Chung's words, what people do you hope to speak to down the line?
Having just written this, another way to phrase this might be the following. If you create art from something in your life, how do you hope to have that art re-enter life?
The white cube isn't life.
(It's fine to have art exist only in its own context -- art galleries or museums etc. But I do think more is to be gained from it having a life outside of that context.)
A former student just told me that he gave a copy of his new photobook to an elderly neighbour (who has no art background). Much to his surprise (less to mine), the neighbour was deeply affected by the book. I love that story so much. For me, that's what art should aim for: it should touch the hearts of those who aren't part of its "official" audience.
I didn't want to make this email too heavy, yet here we are. So here's my favourite cat picture from recent days.
Before I sign off, I should point out that there still are spots available in my workshops. Have a look at whether this might be of interest for you. And be in touch if it is!
Thank you for reading!
-- Jörg