Curatorialist

A few years back, The New York Sun ran an article about a (then) new art magazine, called Paper Monument. I have read and reread this article probably once a month since then. For one thing, it is exquisitely written and of course about my favorite topic of art, creativity and the importance of art and creativity. There is a lot of self-reflection involved in the launch of a new art magazine, that dares to print on paper, in the first place. But it begs questions about the role of art and how, in this crazy world, to reflect upon it. But it is a lesson for everyone, everywhere. I have used it, in speeches, as an example of how to think about new technologies, as well. Most importantly, this line “But nowadays, just standing still, and seeing, and thinking, is a revolutionary gesture.” I truly believe that is true. And it is a powerful notion. Following is the excerpt I try to remind myself of as often as possible, but the whole article is very interesting:

(An excerpt from) The New York Sun
A review of a new art magazine, Paper Monument
By Lee Seigel

Are there any important questions left to raise? I mean the old questions, the ones about the role of the artist in society, about the relationship of art to money, about the seeming paradox of middle-class receptiveness to anti-middle-class art; about the question of artistic form when all artistic forms seem to be exhausted. Add to that new, and unanswerable, questions about the status of art at a time when the borders of truth seem to be blurring in art and life — from Jame Frey to Jayson Blair to lonelygirl15; when the mind-bogglingly accelerated technology of entertainment often leaves the imagination stunned and passive; when the passive imagination is giving way to the assertive ego, which has to get involved in every artistic occasion that comes its way — from popular to high — as voter, mash-up artist, or garrulously commenting blogger.

In all this shifting, incoherent, disheartening, and (maybe) inspiring mess, the avant-garde artist — or bohemian, or adversarial, or simply honest and committed artist — can’t rely on the traditional, as it were, tactic of anti-traditional agitation against the status quo. The decadents, the Fauves, the dandies, the Bloomsbury aesthetes, the Dadaists, the Black Mountain crowd, the Beats — they were all several steps ahead of the official culture. They were avant, after all. But nowadays, just standing still, and seeing, and thinking, is a revolutionary gesture. Being avant is for software companies, cellphone manufacturers, and Citibank ads. The great thing about Paper Monument — and about n+1 at its best, for that matter — is the emphasis both magazines put on seeing and thinking clearly and trying not to get caught up in the general, dizzying whirl, which accommodates, appropriates, and assimilates anything within its force field.