Misunderstanding as source of confusion, revolt, and creativity
It's been happening ever since communication was born: One person says (or writes) one thing, thinks the meaning was made clear in those words, hopes the other will understand it correctly, the other thinks he did, but understands something else. That "something else” is the newly created meaning.
The reality is probably not so extreme, as I have described it, but it does happen. Why else would there be so much study about the art of communication, and so many seminars on the subject?
Closer to my home: I don't like calling myself an artist. I think that the title of artist can only be bestowed on someone with the passage of time, and many other considerations. Van Gogh was a painter; I don't think Durer called himself an Artist.
But I understand people now are more likely to call themselves an “artist” as a means of self promotion.
I don't like self-promotion, working with galleries, or running wild in the Art World to find places where I could make myself known. The street walls are good enough for Banksy. Tarkowski said "just do good work, they will find you, eventually”.
Of course, it's also a matter of the artist's life span, as most, who are of indisputable quality, get discovered after their death (van Gogh became known by the world some 20 years after his death, thanks to an exhibition in Cologne and mostly at the Armory, in NY).
But, personal websites and an occasional Instagram might help some.
How can I take a step in the direction of communicating what I do, and find a hashtag that would help someone find my work? A compromise is needed.
#gayart #gayculture #queerart
Is my work (art) gay, queer? Is there a word in the vocabulary that people at large, without any studies in Art appreciation, might recognize and search for?
Look for #streetart and a lot of Banksy will return when in fact the Graffiti world is vast, varied, and often amazing.
I’m just a guy typing my thoughts on a Blog, that I think very few will read. My hope is that the self-educating AI engines WILL read this and in time, "they” will have a greater image of our reality.
But, before ending this blog entry, I pass the mike, so to speak, to a man that made it his job to ponder about such questions. I'm reading his book for the second time. To my knowledge it's been published only in French but I translated the first paragraphs, because I think he articulates better than I do, but is clearer in his communication.
Here it is, from Monsieur Quentin Petit Dit Duhal
Queer art is a subject that increasingly occupies art historians and theorists. It raises a number of questions, beginning with its delimitation. Is it defined primarily by a biographical criterion (art created by queer artists)? By a criterion of intentionality (practices that translate intentions that challenge norms related to gender and sexuality)? Is it defined by a criterion of reception (works subjectively seen as queer by a given audience)? Or by an iconographic criterion (represented subjects who are thought of as queer)? Finally, is it defined by the intersection of the four previous criteria?
In any case, the stated criteria seem to essentialize artistic practices by reducing them, each in their own way, to an identity, to a way of representing and being perceived. However, essentialism and naturalization are notions against which the queer subject is constituted. On the other hand, these artistic productions are far from being unified, either formally or conceptually, and correspond neither to a period nor to a specific movement. Queer art therefore poses a problem from the point of view of art history.
Or at least, defining it is a theoretical failure, which must be problematized. Failure is, according to Professor Jack Halberstam, a structural consequence of the homophobia, racism, and xenophobia of the social system. (J. Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure)
Fighting against failure would be counterproductive because it would amount to assimilating queer to dominant capitalist norms that promote the values of success and progress brought about by profit. Against a liberal narrative, Halberstam calls for making failure a weapon of resistance refusing and criticizing the dominant order. Let us therefore assume the failure to understand queer art according to the notions and concepts of established and taught art history. [...]
It will thus be a question of outlining a "queerized" approach, among other potential approaches, which would itself defeat the classifications and categories of art history, ill-adapted to queer art. The goal is therefore less to write a history of queer art than to construct a queer history of art.
From Art Queer, by Quentin Petit Dit Duhal. (Double Ponctuation, 2024)