Dzama/Darger
I don’t know why but I was thinking about influence recently, especially after my post about Eric Sall and how I desperately want to have made those canvases. I like them so much that I think about my work in regards to his even though they are no where similar. Perhaps subconsciously I will start arranging items differently in work or be more free with color and chance, who knows. Other shows too have been influential. Like touchstones to where I want my work to achieve, like a coach yelling this is what you have to do…this level of achievement. I guess it’s combination of admiration, being affected and or my competitiveness?
I was thinking about school and how there was an incredible photographer I was friends with. His work consistently blew everyone away, he was the golden boy. His work was uniquely his yet everyone, whether knowingly or unknowingly, emulated his work frequently but rarely achieved his level. He had tapped into his lode while others where trying to mine the same vein. Gold diggers trying to pan in his river after he’d tapped it out.
What I am wondering too, how much generational influence happens when a great blockbuster show happens at a major gallery or museum. Like Morandi or Courbet or when I was in college, everyone saw the Drawing Now show. Kids came back all hyped about drawing. Do these shows find their way into a generational psyche or do they illuminate those who were already riding the same river? Like if a great artist is rediscovered and offered a grand retrospective say like Darger and then all these kids start drawing like him, or does the show illuminate the ones who have visual/conceptual dotted-lines…the old- which came first the chicken or the egg? ( I ate the chicken and then I laid an egg )
One last note, here is interesting read on the power of influence and appropriation from Harpers Bazaar by Jonathan Lethem called The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism.
[...] Two Coats has more Allison Schulnik. Hello My Name is Art does too, but I think the more recent post considering influence as an aspect of art is the one to look in on. [...]
Fascinating article by Lethem! His observation that “most artists are converted to art by art itself” reveals the root cause of conscious/subconscious imitation. Is it not possible that once exposed to images that are pleasurable or stimulating to us, that we might endeavor to incorporate those characteristics into our own creative work?
I also like what Lethem says about a “gift economy.” The idea of making a connection vs. a monetary transaction– is to my mind, art’s primary function.
Thanks for putting out such a great blog. It is nice to read the writings of someone with such enthusiasm for all things art!
Thanks YMB,
there are some really good thoughts in that article. I know personally that when I work I often internally gauge quality by what I have seen already. It make it hard to innovate because you have to have not only guts but a serious belief in what you are doing to make something “new”. It’s my problem with photography, so much of it looks the same because of a perceived quality aesthetic.
thanks for reading!