Too long ago, I asked blogger and critic-at-large Jerry Cullum if he would grace this space with the benefit of his wisdom and decades of experience in the Atlanta art worlds. Several miscommunications later, this is what arrived in my inbox. Print it out, read it and be enlightened.

When Cinqué asked me to write a guest post on some topic of my choosing, I first wrote a couple of Atlanta-centric pieces that seemed to go nowhere. So I never submitted them.

But since Cinqué is quite aware that I tend to write 2000-word posts, I’ve realized that this is the opportunity to write one of those global self-justifications that I would feel awkward posting on either of my own blogs. Here goes:

Buying the catalogue of the Des Moines Art Center’s current “World Histories” show has reminded me that I began writing art criticism in the same year that William Gibson published Neuromancer, the novel that birthed the now-quaint genre of cyberpunk.

It was a good year to make a career shift from the multidisciplinary, but word- and concept-heavy, writing and research I had been doing (which I have revisited often, since 2006, on my joculum blog).

The digital revolution was in the fantasy-of-the-near-future stage. Visual art was already combining sociology and anthropology and poststructuralist and neo-Marxist philosophies on the one hand, and re-inventing depth psychology and traditional artistic genres on the other. And the third hand was doing all sorts of other stuff, such as the graffiti and popular genres that had already cycled through spilling over into serious art and were en route back to a renewed lack of respectability.

Exhibitions like “Les Immateriaux” (and their catalogues) presented visions of the hard facts already being birthed in technology and the world they seemed likely to spawn, one of global networks and late capitalism’s re-creation in the form then still being called postmodernity. (I had been involved with “the postmodern” for a decade or more already, my first major published post-dissertation essay in 1975 having been on “The Problem of a Postmodern Ethics.”)

What was also already underway but less obvious was the sheer scale of global migration, the offshoot of the phenomenon that Tolstoy or someone like him had described a century earlier as “the laborer’s travels in search of work, which beggar the wanderings of Odysseus.” (In many ways, as theorists were already commenting, the second era of globalization was remarkably parallel to the first era of globalization, the era of mass migration and globally linked capitalism facilitated by easy travel and communication circa 1860-1914 that was wiped out in the First World War.)

So by 1994 I was curating my first serious exhibition at Savannah’s Telfair Museum, the Artists in Georgia show called “Mapping the Self: Models of Identity in a Postmodernizing State” (the catalogue for which, I have just now learned, is listed on amazon.com under the name of the person who asked me to curate the exhibition). I pointed out in the catalogue essay that Gainesville, Georgia already had an ethnic composition that would place it surprisingly high in the ranks of emigrant Mexican-born populations.

At the same time, it was the dawn of the era in which the interaction of the art and culture of Africa and the Black Diaspora would sweep away the clichés of the 1960s about the place of postcolonial populations in the world. (I had discovered Derek Walcott and his fellow Caribbean writers, and belatedly studied some of the aftermath of the Négritude movement of Leopold Senghor and his inheritors, on my own around 1977. Also circa 1977, Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff were too unavoidable to require discovering. …Ishmael Reed had globalized the African-American imagination in wonderfully transgressive books by the end of the ‘60s. But in the mid-70s it was far from apparent what was about to burst forth in the second wave of an increasingly global African Diaspora aesthetics.)

But it was the era of identity politics, so I didn’t feel comfortable letting my writing (other than poems) venture very far outside the postmodern conceptual crisis that had come to birth with Nietzsche & Co. during the First Era of Globalization. So in 1984 I had to be lured into writing about contemporary art (which I noticed seemed to have gotten itself out of its minimalist love affair with mathematics) by way of commenting on art history, part two of the Wassily Kandinsky survey at the High.

And then I was lured into newspaper writing by being asked to provide context for Michael Murrell’s collection of New Guinea sculpture (traditional cultures plus the politics of Pacific independence movements having been one of my other interests of the 1970s).

And that brings me, finally, to the topics of my failed Atlanta-centric guest blog posts.

Atlanta was then (1988 or so) just past the end of the first decade of the cultural and economic experiment that had gotten started during the administration of Maynard Jackson, the attempt that one friend had called the wish to become “The World’s Next Great International City” without having been a great American city first. But the city did already have a small but flourishing contemporary art scene that included major representatives of what was then sometimes known as the Black Aesthetic (Wadsworth Jarrell of AFRICOBRA, and others too numerous to mention, some of whom are still on the scene hereabouts) and a healthy concentration of minimalists who were also women artists (and they are still decidedly on the scene). Atlanta was, in fact, one of the cities that made the dominant concerns of the art world in general seem odd, since so much of the aesthetic (as distinct from economic) power structure was already dominated by women and African-Americans.

So there was a lot to write about, and a lot of room in which to do it, the Atlanta daily newspaper being then amenable to in-depth art reviews not quite as long as the New York Review of Books’, but enough to get a few educational points across. And “educating the audience” was a hot topic of the day. The assumption was that if the collectors could be made to understand what was happening in contemporary art, and if the artists could be made to understand what was happening in contemporary theory, utopia would blossom.

It was a very Atlanta-type thing to think, in spite of the scene’s contempt for the city’s boosterism. It was the same kind of naïve optimism that got Atlanta the 1996 Olympics, in a move spearheaded by a financial bloc of whom some didn’t even own passports.

After the Cultural Olympiad had come and gone and the main result for art was that there were no longer any large empty spaces in which to hold artist-organized events like the Great Mattress Factory exhibitions (which had showcased the best and the worst of Atlanta’s under-recognized, all in the same venue)…after all of that, we were back to audiences that stubbornly refused to be “educated,” and artists who were getting tired and discouraged.

In spite of which, interesting things happened, in a manner of speaking. But it was all small-time and underfunded, and there were fewer and fewer opportunities to get the graffiti folk interested in global conceptual issues, or to get the lovers of Impressionism interested in the visually lovely paintings of young local artists whom they would like,

And with the reality of incompatible audiences who needed to be addressed in the shrinking number of column inches afforded by the print media (the broadcast media afforded next to nothing), serious art reviewing became increasingly impossible.

A good review should have set forth the social and historical context of the artist, evaluated the quality of the exhibition at hand in terms of the national scene with which it was competing (and the days when Fay Gold could bring in Basquiat and Keith Haring when they were still white-hot were already behind us, so the world’s new art of the ‘90s was being viewed at a distance), and suggested what type of person would most like the exhibition in question.

The space available and the parameters set by local preferences increasingly suggested that all that could be done was a sentence or two about the intent of the artist followed by the equivalent of “Go look at this” in whatever vernacular or archly allusive apothegm seemed most appropriate to the audience being addressed.

And the editors expected critics to address both skateboarders and sixtysomethings, often in the same review. Plus to pay for their own catalogues and travel expenses and time off from their real jobs if such was necessary. (The dirty little secret being that New York art reviewing was also compensated as a spare-time activity that did not get the bills paid, either.)

To get back to those skateboarders and sixtysomethings…all it takes is a few visits to every gallery opening in town to realize the degree to which the art audiences do not communicate with one another, or even acknowledge one another’s existence except in acts of mutually contemptuous stereotyping.

And since the art from elsewhere that gets exhibited is dependent on the taste of curators and the realities of the commercial market, the already blinkered multiple audiences in Atlanta are not even challenged by artwork from elsewhere that undercuts their presuppositions.

André Gregory, in a film that came out a couple of years before I became an art critic, suggested that theatre was in decline because everyone was already playing their own personal roles so well that they felt no need to go look at anyone else playing one. And the mutually exclusive art scenes of Atlanta are definitely as much about personal theatre as they are about art…but that has always been the case with art scenes everywhere, so that isn’t the problem.

But the audiences that aren’t aware of each other’s existence don’t seem tremendously conscious of their own theatricality, either. A lot of art gets validated, not because it is any good, but because the folks presenting it know how to stage a good party, whether the party is a PBR-lubricated sidewalk event for one group or a launch featuring the cool new liqueur of the moment for another coterie of gallerygoers, or your standard-issue bad wine and cheap cheese for the widely varied middle group that comes to openings for many different reasons.

Some of the gallery owners and others do make an effort to make sure the more thoughtful of their visitors have their horizons expanded. A creditable number of galleries show work that they know their clientele will not like and that those who like it cannot afford to buy, and that loyalty to a larger goal is what keeps this art community going.

But there seem to be fewer and fewer opportunities for critics to say more than “Y’all come look at this.” And that is dangerously close to the fabled Last Words of a Good Ol’ Boy: “Hey, y’all, watch this.”

And given the quantity of art that is tailored to the tastes of the audiences we already have, even would-be serious critics fall prey to the condition summed up by the ancient maxim, “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember you came here to drain the swamp.”

And in recent years, there has not been much interest either in the overall engineering project or in controlling the more obstreperously obstacle-creating critical conditions.

But that is where we get back to the problem that the theoreticians thus far have understood the world, but the task now is to change it. Except that we are all too busy fighting off the alligators to do a whole lot of swamp-draining.

And if you go back to the starting point of this essay, you can fill in for yourself the subject of at least a half-dozen other blog posts—if anyone had the leisure, breadth of vision, and mental clarity to write them, and that is part of the problem. (See the preceding paragraphs.)

Thanks, Cinqué. I never would have had the nerve to put this up on Counterforces and Other Little Jokes.

I find it fascinating that this, one of the most honest and open art write-ups relating to the art scene of atlanta i've seen in some time, goes with zero comments. it goes to the heart of the matter. the thing most avoid and wish to play pretend - as if being oblivious makes it go away. or validates their efforts,within their little circles,their little audiences...
i'd like to address a present state of affairs, a present quest that i think is finally being facilitated in some form or another, the all-inclusive atlanta art happenings blog. This idea has been one that Jerry has been suggesting for some time now.
I find this idea ridiculous. In theory it is fine,but the reality of it is,those that will be doing this blog,this thing that in ways COULD bring the efforts of the atlanta art scene to the present-will not in all reality.(partially due to the fact that the internet is still not "real", as real as it is...)
"they" will not have the confidence or tact to address what needs to be addressed in conjunction with,throughout and mixed in with- their art reviews,their art announcements.. and that is the very thing that this post Jerry writes here appeals to.the awarenes of what we are doing AND the will to have expectations of it..not just smile and write glowing reviews for efforts. why do i see zero comments...(i write this on october 16th)
why?
because many do not understand.or they are afraid. They have entered out art scene through somebody else's illusion of a front door and wish to continue the game of play pretend.
On their critic blogs,they strive to validate themselves relative to this,for fun or love (or in hopes of getting asked to one day get a paying job?)...it amounts to the same,because intelligent opinions are held back and held within their own circles...jrking each other off in hopes of a momentary nugget of gold...a moment that usually serves only the self. not an overall art scene.

it requires real expectations and honesty. this honesty reveals differences and in its process would actually define it. it also requires good art. perhaps the graffiti that jerry uses as a general description is not far from the mark... references to haring/basquiats are inspiring,evenias they point to a glimmer of a moment that atlanta had that did not grow.
it's not going to happen.
funding is not the issue.
it takes creative genius and the balls.
neither exist together at once in this city...but maybe one day it will.

Thanks for the comments, Mr. Tooth, but why so vague? You've done a great job of saying what real discussion is not and no time telling us what it is. So what would, say, a collective blog that works actually do differently?

i left a tooth under my pillow last nite,

upon waking
i noticed
under fluff
ruffles,
that

the freakfairy modmother had left me THE INTERNET,

goshes, how i wish it was real!

pumpkin.

i composed a response the other night that was lost in the reality of the internet. let's go for the haiku version of an answer instead.

self a.t.l.-ware
context values art wont fall
critical grafts scenes

Napped half the day;
no one
punished me!


Kobayashi Issa

Hey Mr. Troylloyd: you asked some good questions about a zillion years ago over at Counterforces. I meant to answer and then time when by... and then it seemed irrelevant... and then...

well, anyway, in answer to one of your questions, it will be a good year before I'm publishing anything on current research, though in some ways most of what I write for the loaf in a sense revolves around Mapping Creative Ecologies. But formally, no, for a little while at least.

hey Maze, don't be afraid to post excerpts from the work-in-progress right here on this blog, it's highly interesting stuff -- i haven't came across anything similiar being done w/ the depth & breadth you're utilizing to depict such precise cartographical formulation on the topic, almost sounds to me like an "unified theory of everything cultural", altho yes, i'm largely unfamiliar w/ current trends in sociological writing, your project seems to be cutting a new direction in such investigation.
- - -
as far as the art-scene in Atlanta goes, i really have no opinion. is that sad? i enjoy art functions 'n stuff, but don't go out as often as i should. i'm also unaware of other major cities art-scenes, besides what i read in Art in America & in general i'm kinda turned off by the political dimension inherent w/ position jockeying & how as Jerry said, how throwing good parties works the equation away from the art itself.

i try to put such things into historical context & since one of my touchstones is DaDa, i think about how that scene "worked", their contemporary audience was small, they were globalist in scope, they were "small pockets" & continued to work thru hostility or indifference -- the question of how to strengthen Atlanta's art-scene is a valid one, but often the cost of achieving "official recognition" can be detrimental to the more radical elements & the compromise of "mainstreaming" or "dumbing-down" in order to gain some sort of universal unified collective presence could ultimately degrade an audience's ability to engage w/ the difficulty of artistic/creative operations.

i mean, what are "we" looking for?

is Atlanta stagnant?

will the political climate of Atlanta ever allow a proper funding of local arts?

aren't there some positive indicators that Atlanta is (slowly) growing art-wise?

in other words, i'm kinda dense -- so, what is the major complaint that can be lodged against Atlanta's state of Arts?

one makes an artist
two makes a audience
three makes a collective
four makes a scene
five makes a movement

Hello y'all,

Yes, I am reading outside of my little world, although mostly in a month's worth of backtracking in one giant binge.

I though it was very interesting, for instance, that the illustration here was used by Cinque for one of Karen Tauches' "urban interventionist" events from 2006:

http://www.influxhouse.com/archives/A2006101/

I found this quite by accident on my first read. Fitting, in that vague "mono no aware" sort of way.

"Fighting alligators," huh? That's an excellent metaphor. I suppose in that metaphor it's also possible to be guilty of "feeding alligors" too. Food for thought... (I direct this at myself.)

What if someone compiled images to go with your Atlanta art narrative--if there could be a *J.W. Cullum's Illustrated History of Life in the Urban Swamp.*

I think that would be very instructive, for the youngin's and the 40-somethings too.

Atlanta "one of the cities that made the dominant concerns of the art world in general seem odd"
&
How to make scenes "aware of their own theatricality"...provoke honest validity out of the artists.(?)

no defining categories exist anymore,that is what is the definition.
the global migration is via the internet in many ways.

If the compiled images/narrative were compiled,following the same feel & direction of his original post,it would be perhaps too Honest. would/could reveal Too much.
of course you joke about actually having it continue the notion of a swamp. you'd want something positive.right? Lacking the pejorative (truthful?)tone of "swamp"(sidenote:i agree)and perhaps do well,but of course,only amongst a same circle of people.
idea: i know it parallels an optimism described by jerry "education of collectors/artists = utopia",but it will be fun to try.from a safe weird honest disguised perspective.

Criticart chapter novels.
Unbuilt Atlantis.single chapter novels at a time,based on an Idea,in the actual sense of the word. No necessary beginning or end. "about nothing" It is a fictional place,but it is not. "Your" first person narrative,done through another art's eyes. It is as real as your own perception of your place in a community. In this case,an art community,something that easily lends itself to interesting possibilities for representations of personas (and their personas). The environment is called Atlantis.
Atlantis represents a sort of recurring element or sound, that is an inconsequential environmental context,representative of the internet,and the washing away,migration of, civilizations in ways that don't seem entirely solid.
I freely admit,as its author,that this Idea,is of course mine,this subjectivity is unavoidable. It is a manner of art that i feel bridges the critic and the author, or the artist,in a time when the context in which art is reviewed need be addressed at once with the art. this version of a tradition of writing could suit the accomplishment of a goal.

Building actual art reviews through the eyes of this world..which still means i have to experience a zillion other art venues,environments & crevices than are known to only gods' tiniest underground critters- and then some regular folk right in my face,but that's fine.
Various walk's writers' need to critique each other in one place over art.

http://theeggtoothblog.blogspot.com/

wow, good essay. . .I think it should be posted to ARTNEWS. . .

I've really been thinking about local criticism lately, especially given recent changes in social contexts due to online culture. (am I alone in noticing this?? that since the economic downturn -- increased crime, less funds for going out, a kind of general quietness on the actual streets of the ATL-- I feel like there's been a resulting activity surge in online communications. . .people are locking up indoors and going out into the public through their internet doors & windows. an interesting and important shift. . .also wonder if this is a national trend, as well? so we're looking for common virtual public places. . .I hate facebook, but that's where so many people gather, I'd be lonely not to have a storefront there. . .)

so, jerry nailed it when he said there were expectations that critics should address both skateboarders and sixtysomethings both. it may be something to consider when your aim is to talk to the masses. that means being light and fluffy to everyone will get it. but is it still criticism if it's empty and light. I think not. this kind of coverage (photos & words) are just being promotional, and socially active, which is nice, too.

. . .instead of writing to the audience's tastes--as cullum complains that's how our art scene is producing art shows (and to some extent, I agree!)--unofficial critics should have the courage to write from their honest convictions . .a person willing to care enough to make a report on some art, for free to the public, is only writing a personal opinion. and, the better that opinion is backed up with argument or lots of pictures, and with interesting writing style, probably the more effective that voice is going to be.

I suppose if those voices repeat with consistency and intereact with humility and intelligence to the discussions, then they gather interested audiences and become, as a group that criticism we've all been longing for.

-kt


see my blog entry for some discussion on criticism: "back of killers" dec 6, 2008

http://everythingdisappears.blogspot.com

-kt