Andy Moon Wilson: Decision

Artist Andy Moon Wilson of Annandale, VA, continues my recent project by writing about "decision." As usual, I extend an invitation to all local artists who would like to participate in this effort. Just email me!

Queen Victoria's Brave Whalers
Ink on Paper
2004

Andy Moon Wilson: Decision

An artist’s decision to bestow an object or idea with art status is what makes that object or idea “art”. If an artist decides that something is art, then art is what it is.

The world disagrees:
Robert Williams (painter, founding editor of Juxtapoz magazine) argues that, for better or for worse, the primary consideration in determining the “art status” and “importance” of a given piece of work is location, geographic or otherwise. Crossing the threshold into consecrated “art space” enters a piece into the collective consciousness, and thus the dialogue of art history. If a painter falls in a forest, and there is nobody around, he makes no sound. According to this argument, you do not exist unless you are in the marketplace and people are writing and talking about you. However, if you put a monkey on television long enough, that monkey will become powerful and famous; no matter how poorly he behaves himself (just look at our president).

To me, this much is clear; the “art world” is broken beyond repair. Every year, tens of thousands of bright young students are lured into the art school pyramid scam. These idealistic young people dedicate their lives and bet their futures that if they work hard and passionately enough, they will be able to make a living with their art. Only a miniscule fraction of those that bust ass and make it through the entire system to earn their MFA’s are actually able to scratch out a living through their art. Those lucky enough to do so have very, very rarely risen to the top by virtue of the quality of their work. Connections, marketing, geography and luck determine who gets to be seen. The rest of us are forced to scratch out a living as best we can and make art at night and on weekends. Why is it so difficult to make a living as an artist? If an artist somehow manages to show a piece and sell it for $1000, $500 of that goes directly to the gallery. Then Uncle Sam gets his cut, and takes another 15 to 30%, or between $75 and $150. This leaves the artist with around $387 dollars. Adjusting prices to compensate for this rape means that almost nobody can afford art, so nobody buys art. Given this and the fact that it’s so difficult to get a decent show in the first place, it’s no wonder that approximately 95% of MFA students quit making art within the first five years of graduating. Could you imagine the uproar if any other profession were to have such an astonishingly high rate of attrition?

I am disgusted with the art world and the myths it perpetuates. I have decided to reject it. Just as one decides what is and what is not Art, one is free to choose his or her own definition of success as an artist. Though everyone enjoys recognition and admiration, the pursuit of these empty goals should have little to nothing to do with what happens in the studio. An artist has a finite amount of energy. For most artists (myself included), a huge chunk of that energy is wasted at their “daytime jobs”. I choose to spend my remaining energy at my desk, trying to rock bad-ass drawings, rather than in trying super hard to weasel my way into “consecrated” gallery space (which 99% of the population couldn’t give a rat’s ass about in the first place) I figure that if I can keep my artistic practice in a state of constant improvement, it will be all that much more important when and if it comes to light.

Smartdust
Ink on Paper
2004

Previous Posts:

Charles Neenan: Tradition
Kelly Towles: Color
Ryan Mulligan: Originality
Matt Hollis: Confinement
Dean Fueroghne: Originality
James W. Bailey: Obligation
J. Coleman: Depiction

Comments

[Jim L]

Right on! I have rejected the art world as well (I'm sure they are very hurt :-) because I just don't have the physical or psychic energy to enter a lottery that is rigged against me from the start.

Also, I am one of those MFAs let loose on the world - but somehow I'm still drawing and painting after 10 years! I do have some hope that the gallery/museum/"who you know" system will no longer be the only game in town for artists - namely because of this medium that we are using right now, the internet. There are a lot of creative artists making a living on the internet without gallery representation - through ebay and other avenues. Now, of course, their art will not be seen by the "movers and shakers" that rule the art world now - the odds are very much that those movers and shakers *would never* have seen it in the first place because of the way the system is structured. But, at the end of the day, these internet artists are getting paid to make art *and* the buyers are happy living with their art. Who cares what some poser dressed in black in NY thinks?

Wonderful art (such as Smartdust shown above) is being made outside the system. When enough people realize this, I think the system will go the way of the dinosaur especially when the system is so dysfunctional to begin with!

[Melissa N]

I want to let you know that I really enjoy "Queen Victoria's Brave Whalers" and just might borrow the materials/execution...so thanks for posting it.

(Yeah, sick little system we've got isn't it.)