A Critical Approach to Art

Brandy Graham

Go Manifesto!!!

Never put all of your pom poms in one toilet. Keep making. Explore materials and spaces. Work outside of categories.

If you love your pom poms, set them free. Avoid permanence in work. Forced permanence results in lack of movement. Lack of the potential for movement is lifeless. If the audience or environment changes the work, see it as an opportunity to learn about the audience, environment and work.

Consider where your work needs to be in order to best communicate your ideas. Pom poms in a kiln? Impending destruction. Pom poms in a toilet? Transition. Pom poms in a museum? Expensive.

One pom pom did not build Rome in a day. Engage your community. Educate your community. Encourage participation, (someone else made the,”T”). Create your community.

Trust your inner cheerleader, (the duality of the word pom pom). Critique should foster thought. Projection of what your work, “should,” look like can easily be avoided by shoving pom poms in your ears. The time will come when the thought and the work are indistinguishable as separate. Keep going!

Brandy Graham Selects:

Portion of my response to the Ball-Nogues lecture. It sounds pretty angry. I like to think of it as funny and frustrated. Maybe we should be angry. Unless you plan on moving, Indianapolis is the future hub of our art careers. Or our future at Fed-Ex, doodling on paper towel in the break room.

And speaking of function, the cup holders are a nice touch in the Toby, (thanks Max), however where the hell was everybody from our, “local art community”? If not for our class and the IMA staff, (who were possibly on the clock, or fully aware of Max’s presence- not to be confused with Max Factor, cosmetics icon), a studio apartment would have been a better scaled venue to accommodate the physical presence of the crowd. Where was Dean Eickmeir? Isn’t this the future she wants for her school? Shouldn’t every lecture start off with BFA, Herron, (Emily Kennerk went to Herron and then Cranbrook)? And where were my studio professors- I’ve had a lot of them at Herron. I understand busy life blah, blah, blah…, but how can you continue to teach without continuing continually to educate yourself and pass on the infinite wisdom to your students, whether or not the lecture you saw sucked ass?

I am not suggesting the lack of attendance was a result of a lack of interest for these two wild and crazy guys, but a lack of interest and awareness by the public for contemporary artists in general. This is where, as an artist, I am responsible for not only engaging, but educating the public on my work. And how can I expect the public to believe in who I am as an artist if I am not consistently forthright in my work? By manipulating my intent in order to fulfill the expectations of others, I am invalidating the truth, fostering an atmosphere of mistrust: you might even say stringing the public along, just like the strings of, “Gravity’s Loom”. We need to be a tight stitched community, not some loose saggy booby strings hanging around at the IMA entrance pavilion.

Kate Gilmore’s, “Break of Day,” 2010, Indianapolis Museum of Art

Mental Picture- Bright pink latex paint everywhere, (with some broken ceramics thrown in). I cannot put myself at risk by taking a photo on the third floor. I have other responsibilities and the thought of being imprisoned for having a Kodak moment with some artwork is terrifying, even it is for my education. Really what happened is that I never made it to the museum. That’s right, I haven’t been there since the last time we had to go for class, but I still remember what the work looked like, if that means anything.

Gilmore’s work caught my interest at the lecture we attended for J410. The raw beauty of materials is emphasized even more as she navigates the material in order to accomplish her task. Likewise, the raw beauty of being a human being is showcased as Gilmore includes the documentation of the task.

There is an interesting reversal of importance of media in this installation. The title, “Break of Day,” prompts me to conjure up the image of a landscape painting, with the sun peering over the mountains. As a painting, the physical installation, which would seem to be the reality, becomes the background: hazy with atmospheric perspective, as though it is just a memory. On the other hand, the documentation, which can be considered as the actual memory of the event, instead becomes the foreground and subject of this painting.

It is important to note that I do not refer to, “Break of Day,” as a painting, because it includes paint. I do feel that Gilmore is a painter. What is painting? Think about that. I also feel that the installation feels a bit contrived for the space. What if she left that whole part of it out?