Two stories about art that pushes boundaries and makes people upset have popped up in the news recently. One story involves the Danish artist Marco Evaristti’s plans to turn convicted murder Gene Hathorn’s body into goldfish food after he is executed by the state of Texas. Evaristti and Hathorn have agreed that after Hathorn’s death his body will be frozen and then turned into fish food so that visitor’s to the artist’s work will be able to feed goldfish with the deceased’s remains.

In the meantime Hathorn is appealing his death sentence and Evaristti is helping to finance legal costs for the appeal by selling drawings and other work.

The fish-feeding piece is meant to comment on the inhumanity of capital punishment but it has raised debate on the ethical nature of the artist’s intentions and the legality of the agreement between artist and convict. Read the article here.

In a similar debate the Body Worlds exhibition by the German doctor Gunther von Hagens has drawn the ire of many for putting deceased bodies on display as something uncomfortably close to art. Also rumors abound that some of the doctor’s dissected corpses are actually executed Chinese prisoners.

What “material” for art, be it for educational purposes or not, or is off limits? Where does one draw the line?

On a different note the artist Terence Koh has angered some in Gateshead, England with his recent exhibition featuring erect phalluses on pop icons like Mickey Mouse, ET and… Jesus. Emily Mapfuwa, a 40-year-old Christian is actually suing the gallery that showcases Koh’s work, claiming that it offends her religion and offending public decency. Read the article here.

While this is happening in the UK, such an uproar about offending religious values and ideas of “decency” immediately brings to mind the controversy surrounding Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, a photo of a plastic statue of Jesus floating in the artist’s urine. The photo was at the center of debates over the NEA’s funding of “offensive” artwork in the late 1980s. Everywhere the photo goes it seems to attract attention and protests, especially from the Catholic Church.

Is there any subject that is off limits for artists? Do some artists use charged icons to create a dialog about religion or just to create a sensation and increase their fame and notoriety?

We’ve been hearing a lot about the science of creative thinking recently. Awhile back the New Yorker ran an amazing article called the “Eureka Hunt” by John Lehrer on the science of insight, how those spontaneous visionary moments come out of nowhere, like Newton and the apple, Bell and the telephone, etc. While the entire article is not available online, the abstract is here.

Well Lehrer just published a new article in the Boston Globe called “Daydream Achiever,” which deals with a lot of the issues raised in the New Yorker piece. His analysis has much to teach artists, primarily about how to deal with creative mental blocks and lulls in inspiration.

Here’s a little quote from the article, “In recent years…scientists have begun to see the act of daydreaming very differently. They’ve demonstrated that daydreaming is a fundamental feature of the human mind - so fundamental, in fact, that it’s often referred to as our “default” mode of thought. Many scientists argue that daydreaming is a crucial tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections.”

Read the full article here

After reading the article it seems to make sense if you’re stuck trying to tackle a problem like, lets say, writing your artist statement, instead of beating your head against the keyboard, it might be a good idea to take a walk, let your mind wander and pay attention to the insights that come up. Don’t watch TV to get perspective or insight, it just occupies your brain with more stimuli. Practice the art of daydreaming. Sometimes the best solution to solving a problem can be actively trying to zone out and think about something else.

We are throwing a party for all the artists who have taken the GYST class over the years. Come celebrate your success with other GYSTers, have some BBQ and meet other artists!

GYSTers who attend will get free software updates!!!

This is a potluck, so break out your culinary arts skills and bring something to share.

September 13, 2008
6-10pm
Sidestreet Projects
730 North Fair Oaks
Pasadena, CA
www.sidestreet.org

Get Your Sh*t Together

The Ultimate Workshop for Artists.

Registration for the next GYST Get Your Sh*t Together Workshop begins now. If you are anywhere the LA area and are looking to kick start your art career, get organized, and learn just about everything it takes to make it in the vast art world then this class is just what you’ve been looking for.

Register TODAY through Side Street Projects, an awesome arts non-profit that has offered this class for years.

Seriously, sign up today because this class fills up very fast.

Click here to download the registration form

or call Side Street Projects directly at (626) 798-7774 to register over the phone
using your Visa or MasterCard.
Questions? Email info@sidestreet.org

About the Class:

Get Your Sh*t Together
The Ultimate Workshop for Artists.

Created by artist, curator, and legendary CalArts professor Karen Atkinson, Get Your SH*T Together (GYST) is the often-imitated workshop for emerging artists, and for artists who’ve been “emerging” longer than they expected. Over 400 artists have graduated from GYST since 2002.

GYST teaches you the business stuff you should have learned in art school, but didn’t. GYST values self-sufficiency and presents you with information, tactics, and strategies to make things happen for yourself without necessarily waiting around for some arbiter of culture to validate your work. We’re not concerned with producing slick, commercialized artists, nor is this some new age, touchy-feely “find your inner artist” crap. GYST is a program for artists, by artists that will teach you bare-knuckled, practical strategies for negotiating the baffling terrain of the contemporary art world.

Over 8-weeks, you’ll create and refine your “presentation package,” artist statement, resume, portfolio, and more, with the full editorial and technical support of GYST staff and Side Street Project’s digital lab.

GYST culminates with some good old-fashioned Curator Speed Dating. Get real-world feedback from some of the area’s hottest curators, like LA Times Art Critic David Pagel, LACE Director Carol Stakenaus and Christopher Russell from the Getty Research Institute.

Students also get a complimentary copy of the new GYST CD ROM, which usually retails for $150. The MAC and PC based program is chock full of organizing tools & tracking software every artist needs.

Duration: Wednesdays (7pm - 9pm) October 1 – Nov. 19
+ 1 Saturday (10am-2pm) Nov 22

Location:
The New Los Angeles Theater Center
514 South Spring Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA

Tuition: $275 ($247.50 for Side Street Projects members)

REGISTER TODAY! This class fills up FAST!

For more information visit http://sidestreet.org/services

To register fill out the registration form:

http://sidestreet.org/registration.pdf

or Call (626) 798-7774 to register on the phone using your Visa or MasterCard.

Questions? Email info@sidestreet.org.

SUCCESS STORIES

In just the past 2 years, our workshop alumni have won over $18,000 in grants, including:

• Taz Yisrael received a project grant from the City of Santa Monica shortly after completing our workshop.

• Chuck Feesago & Emily de Araujo both won a 2008 artist grant from the City of Pasadena shortly after taking our workshops.

• David Lovejoy and Michael Markowsky both won a 2007 artist grant from the City of Pasadena shortly after taking our workshops.

“Two weeks after finishing GYST, I had a studio visit from Robert Berman. Because I had recently gotten my sh*t together, I was able to send him a portfolio before the visit. I think it really helped - he offered me a solo show. Thanks, GYST! Really, thank you. I mean it.”

- Alumni Cameron Gray had his first solo show (ever) in 2007 at the renowned Robert Berman Gallery and sold several large canvases. He’s currently represented by Berman.

This past spring, Ari Kletzky was the subject of an extensive article on the front page of the LA Times Sunday Arts section. His featured Islands of LA project was developed over the course of our GYST & WEB workshops. Kletzky (who has a BA in business) recently quit his day-job at a loan agency and was accepted into the CalArts MFA art program. He begins classes this fall.

Sí, Money!
making money work for you

When “Safe” Investments May Actually Be The Riskiest

By Michael Grodsky

How does one determine risk and safety when it comes to financial planning for the future? George Harrison’s Savoy Truffle lyrics from the Beatles’ White Album tell us “what is sweet now turns so sour,” aptly describing the plight of Ron, a 70-year old Pasadena, California man with his life savings of $200,000 invested in only CDs because he thought it was safer than the stock market (Los Angeles Times, Banks hit by fallout from the crisis at IndyMac, Jul 15, 2008, page A.1). While it’s true he is protected from the risk of fluctuating dollar account value (except to the extent his account exceeded FDIC insurance coverage), he is nonetheless exposed to the risk of losing the value of his money.

What exactly is money? Currency is the answer that pops into most people’s heads if they’re asked for a definition of money. Greenback dollars hidden under your mattress can come in handy during the aftermath of a big earthquake when grocery store registers could be offline.

Read more…

By Karen Atkinson, GYST-Ink Founder

“I’m not famous but I always kind of assumed that it would be a bit like having a memory disorder. So everyone knows you, but you cannot fathom who anyone else is, but must always be polite just in case.” Unknown

I thought that fame would be a good topic to address in ARTISTs* AT WORK because, in the past few years, I’ve heard an increasing number of questions and concerns from emerging artists about the subject. Some are very up front about their aspirations while others are not willing to admit that they want to be famous and instead keep it a secret fantasy. And for those who aren’t interested in fame, it is good to be prepared because it can happen even if unexpected and unwanted.

Read more…

From GYST-INK:

image courtesy of the Smithsonian Museum

Studio visits can be arranged with gallery dealers, art consultants, other artists, nonprofits, curators and others. It can be as formal as meeting with a dealer in the hopes of being asked to participate in a gallery or as informal as inviting a friend over to discuss the work. Dealers survive by selling art, so they look at your work to decide whether it will sell. They will consider many aspects in addition to talking about the content of the work. If they cannot sell the work, they may not be interested. You should take this into consideration when having a studio visit.

Studio visits can be arranged a number of ways and for different reasons. It may be a way to get something you want from a curator who has already included you in a show and is interested in your progress. It can result from a formal request or a casual invitation. Sometimes artists will do studio exchanges with each other. This is a great way to practice talking about your work, hashing out ideas and overcoming nervousness. The more you meet with people you know and respect, the more comfortable you will be with strangers in your studio. Things To Consider:

- Have basic tact, humility and politeness.

- Have your artist statement and resume at hand, even if you have sent one already. Reviews, announcements from shows and other printed materials can help them understand the work. A description of the work can also be useful, as well as providing additional descriptions of past work. This can be in addition to the artist statement, especially if your work is fairly complicated.

Read more…

by Bernard Brunon

Bernard Brunon owns a company called That’s Painting Production located since 1988 in Houston, TX. Originally from France, Brunon is an internationally recognized artist, writer and curator. Bernard has curated shows for museums and non-profit galleries in Europe and the U.S

Over twenty years ago, when my day job as a house painter transitioned as my activities as an artist, I took the name: That’s Painting Productions for the company. This development didn’t happen over night, but was the result of a decade-long investigation of the concept of representation, when my practice shifted from easel painting to house painting during the year 1988. Until then, the paintings were motivated by a search for a form of painting that stood outside of the traditional codes of pictorial representation. Overtime, I realized that when painting a house, I was doing the paintings I had been trying to make in the studio: paintings that were void of all form of representation, including abstraction.

That’s Painting Productions was conceptualized in 1989 and two years later was registered as a DBA (Doing Business As) in Houston, TX. The practicality of forming the company enabled me to adopt and implement business structures to manage both the workload and the painting teams more effectively. The name was intentionally generic so all of my activities could be housed under one umbrella: painting, curating, and writing for art magazines. The company is a tool, like any other, designed to make the work easier. It’s only later, progressively, that I recognized the aesthetic implications of operating in a business structure, but that was not the original intent. It happened gradually, as I analyzed the viability of this position

Read more…

The fine line between protecting the rights of animals and the freedom of speech of artists has come crashing down recently.

From The Art Newspaper:

“A committee in San Francisco’s city government has introduced a bill that would allow misdemeanour or felony criminal charges to be brought against any artist or financial backer who causes “the death, abuse or suffering of an animal” when making a work of art.”

This raises serious questions: At what point in the process of making a work of art is the artist responsible for the well-being of animals involved? Does this mean outlawing certain materials like rabbit skin glue for sizing canvases? A ban on fur or leather

Is this law a good or a bad idea?

First there was ART STAR, a little-known reality TV show where a motley crew of artists came together to make work for a group exhibition for Deitch Projects in New York. No one was “eliminated,” and everyone seemed ot get along.

Now, with creativity reality-tv everywhere, with blockbuster shows like Project Runway, Top Chef, So You Think You Can Dance, Top Designer, and of course, American Idol, it’s no suprise that the world of Fine Art has come into the spotlight.

A new show called American Artist may soon air on Bravo and will be hosted by Sarah Jessica Parker. According to Reuters: “Aspiring artists compete to produce various styles of artwork (painting, sculpting, etc.), which is then judged by a panel of experts. Parker’s Pretty Matches production company is helping develop the project.”

What are your thoughts about this? Will this show actually produce interesting art or will the series itself be the most thought-provoking work of all? Is this kind of reality-tv presentation influencing the way Americans view creativity and careers in the arts?

Got any interesting ideas about how contestants might deal with having to make a painting one day, a sculpture the other, a video work the next, an installation, dance, text piece, public art? It may be a little overwhelming (or impossible) but it just might make for some crazy TV!

How about having them compete to make boardwalk spraypaint art?