Wow

Heather brings to our attention this brilliant line from the Lucy Hogg show at Flashpoint:

Floating Faces "illuminates fugitive expressions in the portraits that deny the duration of a portrait-painting session and invoke the fiction of the fleeting glance."

I've got a college education and a few years experience reading artspeak non-sense and I can't even begin to understand what this sentence is saying. Perhaps it requires the context of the sentences around it. If so, isn't that a great metaphor for the contemporary artworld. In other words, context required. Must. Have. Supporting. Documentation.

Let's pull the entire paragraph from the press release:

The Gallery at Flashpoint is pleased to present Lucy Hogg's Floating Faces. As in earlier work by Hogg, these paintings are excerpts sourced from Old Master paintings. This time, the criterion for selection was a search for what she calls “the proto-photographic moment.” Hogg illuminates fugitive expressions in the portraits that deny the duration of a portrait-painting session and invoke the fiction of the fleeting glance. Rather than the stilted pose which can be the product of a long sitting, Hogg’s found expressions capture fleeting moments of emotion or attitude, and as a result highly particularize the sitter. Read through the filter of our understanding of the later photographic moment, the portraits seem “alive.”

Nope, no help. Definitely not as clear as the brief text on the Web site introduction for the show:

Lucy Hogg’s Floating Faces captures specific human facial expressions through the art of portraiture.

Yeah, that's what I thought portraiture did. But I'm glad to have it confirmed.

I don't mean to pick on the artist or the gallery and I certainly don't fault whoever wrote these things. It's the product of the times. When I have my next solo I will likely employ a writer to produce similar gibberish. I have to remain relevant, after all.

Comments

[Marc Snyder]

Actually, after having taught drawing for a number of years, I find this premise pretty interesting.

An example: I ask my students to draw a self-portrait from direct observation as a homework assignment. Looking at the results, it is immediately obvious which ones used a snapshot as a reference. The expression in the drawing is one that noone could hold for more than the brief second of the photograph. (besides all of the other clues of flatness, flash lighting, etc). Anyway, there's a certain type of expression that seems pretty unique to the fleeting moment, not one that is easily captured in a long pose. Like a stop-action moment of the face.

So, my understanding of this statement is that the search is for artwork that captured a fleeting moment before it was commonplace to do so - before the camera saturated our visual environment with nothing but fleeting moments.

Anyway, haven't seen the work or read more than what you've posted here, but it makes sense to me and seems like a pretty interesting idea. . .

[J.T. Kirkland]

Marc,

Although it took you several more sentences than the press release, I actually understand what you're saying. Thanks for the translation. I just don't know why we can't write it like you did here. Perhaps it wouldn't seem so significant if most people could comprehend the writing...

[James W. Bailey]

J.T.,

Not to go all TMZ.com D.C. art celebrity six degress of separation conspiracy wild about it, but maybe Blake Gopnik wrote the press release. Aren't Lucy Hogg and Blake Gopnik married? I haven't read the art celebrity sightings section of Washingtonian magazine in a while, so I'm not sure they still are.

But if they are married, maybe Blake is moonlighting as a human version of an artist statement generator, similar to the postmodern essay generator - http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

You don't need to pay anyone to write you into relevance. Just click on elsewhere.org/pomo/ and let the machine do all the heavy intellectual lifting for you...and for free. :)

[John M. Adams]

Hmmm, I guess I get something a little different out of the first quote, and yes because of context. When I read the quote I actually thought it was good writing, not the simplest, but it definitely produced an image that seemed quite intriguing. It seemed very clear and I envisioned vaporous elements of facial expressions like an idealized memory of a certain person from long ago in your life, painted in a manner that would make Francis Bacon jealous. I thought I would totally disagree with you for once.
Then I read on to some of the press release and I thought, oh crap, that ruins my concept about what that statement meant.
So I jumped over to the flashpoint website and took a look at the small jpeg of the installation, and was let down again. I better go see the show before I go any farther.
The postmodern essay generator cracks me up. We had a silly version in grad school we always joked about and sometimes colleagues dropped the generated lines into critiques to see what happened. Occasionally this would provoke a strange look, but most of the time it just slid right into the critique and provided a few more moments of silence, nods and more talk.

[J.T. Kirkland]

John,

Maybe I'm a simple-minded man, but the two small quotes I picked out seem quite redundant. For example:

a) illuminates fugitive expressions
b) deny the duration of a portrait-painting session
c) fiction of a fleeting glance

Are a, b, and c really so different? And b, when reduced as such, is simply hilarious. Deny the duration! DENY!

And then the other quote:

a) captures specific human facial expressions
b) art of portraiture

Pretty much the same, no?

I understand there is a need to contextualize your work, especially if it's not any good (I'm not saying Hogg's work is bad, just speaking generally). I agree with you, if you're going to make such claims then the art has to measure up. Otherwise, what's the point? Oh yeah, today the contextualization of the work is just has important as the work, if not more so.

Oh, and John, I'm not surprised that you think it's good writing. I've read your artist statement. :)

[Lucy Hogg]

Boy, people sure get their knickers in a twist about an artist's statement, which I take full responsibility for. It would be nice if you went to the show and looked at the work.
Thanks.
Lucy Hogg

[James W. Bailey]

Been there done that. Saw the show; read the artist statement.

[John M. Adams]

First quotes, yes they are different.
Second set of quotes, you have to be kidding me... do you think the only goal of a portrait is to capture facial expressions? uh ok.
Yeah you are right about the artist statement comment, but then again, if you are an artist whose statement claims that your artwork does nothing, represents nothing, thats pretty easy to defend right? ;)

[J.T. Kirkland]

I never said that the "only" goal of portraiture is to capture facial expressions. But, when you hear the word "portrait" do you not think of a face? I do. And I can't imagine a face without an expression. Even a non-expression is an expression. So, yeah, if you paint a portrait I expect to see a facial expression. Maybe more. Maybe not.

As for claiming work does nothing in a statement, who cares what an artist "claims" their work does? All that matters is what it DOES, not claims to do. There's nothing worse than claiming your work (a general "your") does something and it doesn't do THAT at all. Further, this isn't some grad school art critique where you have to defend your work. Only requirement in the real world is to make good work. Let people make of it what they want, I say.

This might be an apt time to share that I've finally changed my artist statement page on my Web site. Images have now been replaced with text. GASP! http://jtkirkland.com/statement.html

[John M. Adams]

"And then the other quote:

a) captures specific human facial expressions
b) art of portraiture

Pretty much the same, no?" - sounds like thats all you expect a portrait to do.
And for the other point, I'm just going to give up, after all, you always forget you have this blog where you write about art, god help the artist who tries to write about what they were thinking. As you said, I guess all that matters is what you think about it anyway.