So You Want to be a Contemporary Artist: A Membership Guide

Eleven years ago, I had just entered the Visual Studies MFA program at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Having moved to the west coast from Indiana, my exposure to the broader context of Conceptual and Contemporary art in the modern age was a jarring, upsetting, and ultimately mind-expanding process, one I was eventually grateful for, but at the time felt excluded from. On a deeper level, embracing Contemporary Art felt like wholesale disposal of any historical standards of technical skill– an aspect of artmaking that my own practice forefronted, and relied upon heavily (and still does). I felt unwelcome in the abstract halls of Contemporary art, as though my work was a call back to a patriarchal, elitist, and ultimately useless time in art when the mastery of a technique was all that mattered. I eventually came to understand by my thesis year in the program that my work was actually quite Contemporary, and that I was right at home in Contemporary Art. This realization and acceptance, however, came about a year after this essay in which I take sarcastic and frustrated shots at the world of Contemporary Art, in the form of a cheeky membership pamphlet. After re-reading for the first time in a decade, I had a laugh, still liked the piece, and decided to share it here, perhaps for those of my illustration students still feeling excluded from the world of "fine art," and perhaps because it still rings true to me in a small way, keeps a fire burning in my heart, and serves as a reminder of the elitism of the fine art market taste-makers (not its actual artists), despite its strongest efforts to relate to the general public. Here it is:

So You Want to be a Contemporary Artist: A Membership Guide

Congratulations! We are pleased to welcome you [new member name], to the amazing world of creative self-expression known as “Contemporary Art!” Whether you knew it or not, the art world has been ceaselessly discovering new pieces to a puzzle that has no defined borders, and with your membership you will undoubtedly take part in this perpetual grand mosaic of time. As you have probably suspected all along, art may be so easy to make it almost makes itself! This membership guide is designed to help you get started on your new contemporary practice, and hopefully answer some questions you may have about where you’d like to go from here.

We’ve all had that moment; that flash of realization. That chance visit to the gallery exhibit in the ritzy part of town, when was it? Ten? Twenty years ago? The man with the beard or the woman with smeared lipstick, they were wrapped in white sheets, rolling around on the floor. He was speaking in tongues, she was moaning. The lights were dim, the floor was glossy hard wood, and there was a smell of melted wax in the air. The title of the performance was “Back Talk” or “Memories of My Father.”  It was then, wasn’t it, that you knew you could be an artist. That anyone could be an artist. All it took was a white sheet, a room, and the guts to make funny noises in front of rich people. Well let us just say now that a majority of our members are right there with you, and it’s exactly why our organization is alive and thriving today. If you’re one of the gifted ones that figured it out this early, then let us confirm: if it comes easy, then you’ve got nothing to worry about. A dance and a grunt and a clever title will be your vessel of deliverance into the gilded halls of art history, and an undeniably integral part in the discussion of contemporary art. That’s right, pat yourself on the back.

Let’s dive into some of the benefits included in your membership. Some of the more popular basics of contemporary art practice you are now privilege to include:

-       Random Object Appropriation
-       Directed Community Space Sharing
-       Exploitative Performance
-       Overly Excessive Visual Stimulus
-       Authorship Hijacking 

Any of these time-tested methods of art creation are at your disposal. As always, you’re welcome to make your own changes and additions as you see fit. We like to assure new members that formal structure and experience is something that will develop over time, and need not be a deterrent to your involvement.

Any of our honored members will have most likely told you about our most popular benefit: The Art Party. This spectacle gala has been crafted by a myriad of institutions, museums, and galleries in an effort to unveil your incredible creativity and unique voice to the world, and to classify another distant star in a universe that is simultaneously ever-expanding and collapsing in on itself. The Art Party is an ongoing event, like a gallery open 24 hours a day. The venue has undergone many additions; rooms assembled within rooms, walls preserved, reinforced, moved, demolished, and rebuilt. This restructuring and expansion has been necessary to provide enough standing room for an anthology of guests, and to accommodate the conversations, criticisms, and egos that will help fill the void. Don’t worry, members are allowed in the contemporary wing while it’s under indefinite construction. Besides, it’s the only room any new members are expected to visit. When you first arrive, you may find yourself asking “Why has the door been removed from the entrance to this palace of festivities?” Well, in a gesture of goodwill we have decided to no longer turn anyone away, and will now simply answer your question with another question: Does one need to open a door to enter a room? What more must one ultimately need to enter than a means of transportation?[1]

Your current membership to contemporary art carries a surplus of other exploratory permissions that artists have not been privileged to in the past. Originally, the term “contemporary art” referred to any work created after World War II; inspired by cutting edge, avant-garde forms of expression. Riding the tide of this new postmodernist era, performance art, installation, and pop art became major focuses in art practice. Michelle Marder Kamhi attributes the new-found freedom of postmodernism to the dismantling of traditional systems in western art. “”Contemporary art” has come to include virtually anything--from a pile of wrapped candies on the gallery floor, as in Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Untitled (Lover Boys), to Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, consisting of a dead shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde.”[2] Robert Irwin even goes so far as to say that that the term art "has come to mean so many things that it doesn't mean anything any more."[3]

If you haven’t been given information about the term of your membership, rest easy. There is no foreseeable end to your contract as the scope of contemporary art is expanding exponentially by the day. Since it has yet to be defined as a movement in art, which would give it set parameters and guidelines to classification, traditional systems of criticism and analysis cannot be applied to it consistently. The advantage contemporary art has within its undefined boundaries is the ability to be anything. It will only raise questions about one’s own choice to apply traditional foundations of art to their own practices, or not, to achieve a desired outcome. It is therefore up to you to determine what amount of knowledge is necessary to create something that will be regarded as fine art, and not simply as a superficial involvement, or an uncultivated exchange of ideas. Rather than searching for ways to include (and contain) contemporary art within the chronology of fine art evolution, you are encouraged to find ways to redefine what contemporary art is as an independent form of creative outlet. Your participation in this redefinition is crucial, and feeling that your art practice may initially lack association to your membership is normal.

As you familiarize yourself with the nuts and bolts of your new membership, you may feel a sense of concern for the growing disconnection between our educated, historical understanding of art, and this new era of contemporary work. The Applied Design video game retrospective you saw at the MOMA may not have left you gasping in awe like a classic impressionist painting at the Louvre. This may seem like a clear distinction in skill and judgment, but new systems of critique ask you to focus more on the experience of the work as it relates to our time.

Consider Rirkrit Tiravanija, a contemporary artist and member, whose installations often take the form of stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading or playing music. The quantifiable success of the installation relies on relational aesthetics- the interpersonal experience of its participants. There is no need to formally judge the culinary knowledge of the food cooked for his guests–we can assume it was certainly edible–or the proficiency of his music-playing ability.  With modern social and living structures being a core focus in his work, he can enjoy immunity from traditional criticism. This kind of work is able to evade traditional criticism through the absence of accessibility to a representation. Because we are unable to revisit a work of art like Tiravanija’s in a fixed state, one must either attend the event in person, or rely on a retelling by the few who were there and face the distortion of second-hand experience. Unlike traditional art criticism, which tends to qualify work based on cultivated craft, simulacra, and mastery of medium, contemporary art, as Laura Hughes notes, can rely on a revolving criticism typically “determined by relevance to current conversations in publications, influence of other artists, and even sales.”[4]

After reading this guide, please take time to consider whether or not your art practice feeds the inquiry into what can be art. Undoubtedly your existence in this contemporary age of art will bear you witness to the disintegration of the tradition of technical mastery. Luckily, new contemporary modes of art creation need not be subjected to antiquated systems of criticism. Now that any object or application can seemingly be sheltered ambiguously under the roof of conceptual genesis, your lack of formally cultivated craftsmanship can easily be labeled as intentional through the transitory contemporary lens. Think of it as finding your own door to creativity, and removing it from its hinges.

Many of our members have felt excluded by contemporary art, while still classified as part of its system. In order to shed light on what art practices the contemporary does not address, we’ve created a short list of the most frequently asked questions:

Q: It seems that we are all now considered contemporary artists given the climate of art nowadays, but why doesn’t anyone refer to themself as one?

A: This is a valid concern. We’ll leave our solution to the esteemed Liam Gillick:

“It is as rare to hear an artist describe himself or herself as a contemporary artist as it is to hear an architect tell you that he or she is a contemporary architect. This sense of the unsaid has emphasized the role of the contemporary as a loose binding term that is always pointing away from itself rather than a term articulated and rethought from the center. That is the reason for its durability and stifling redundancy.”[5]

Q: Why has contemporary art made such a drastic departure from the skill-based foundations of traditional art?

A: Contemporary art doesn’t necessarily depart from traditional mediums, but rather gives away the ability to limit itself by them. Think of it as a sacrifice for unlimited access to infinite concepts. Contemporary art has sacrificed the historical foundations of art practice to declassify its limits in the world. Henryk Fantazos has told us:  

“Across millennia art has been executed in particularly permanent materials. Artists would make a statue in marble or bronze rather than papier mache or cabbage leaves. It simply makes sense to match seriousness of commitment with permanence of the material. But when gravity of professional commitment is absent and replaced with light-hearted, spirited impishness, then pretty much anything goes. It should be noted that this boldness is bolstered by vague recollection that at least equally surprising materials were already featured in “Art in America” or “Art Forum” and therefore made legitimate. Of course ever since the toilet was accepted as art-piece the gates were wide open to allow some decades later a sliced cow in formaldehyde as great breakthrough in art materials.”[6]

We can assume that Fantazos has not considered becoming a member for his own reasons, but he does expose the accessibility to contemporary art by those who have a limited understanding of the principals and history of art practice, yet want to be included, and cited in the conversation. Your membership is not, after all, a pledge of service to an institution and it’s beliefs, but rather an entry point to furthering your own ideals about art.

Q: Some say contemporary art falls victim to it’s own time. Is that true?

A: Not if your time is not now, and all we really have is now. In an effort to consolidate artistic maturation, no formal knowledge is seemingly needed to reference catalogued information, as any drip, mark, splatter, or appropriation can be sited in works already created in history. This is how contemporary practices associate themselves outside the boundaries of time, yet are held entirely within them. Giorgio Agamben has referenced this contradictory state in his essay What is an Apparatus?

“The avant-garde, which has lost itself over time, also pursues the primitive and the archaic. It is in this sense that one can say that the entry point to the pres­ent necessarily takes the form of an archeology; an ar­cheology that does not, however, regress to a historical past, but returns to that part within the present that we are absolutely incapable of living.”[7]

In this way, contemporary art may never fully find a home in the world of fine art, but it can never completely sever its ties. We are given the opportunity to revel in its mystery.

Q: I think my art practice is still based on traditional methods where the final product, such as a painting, is subject to classic art criticism. Why can’t I identify with contemporary art?

A:   The doctrine of Art is based in a long history of systems of practice, accountability, and structured beliefs. These systems have evolved over generations of people and communities that honor a tradition of higher understanding and a continuous search for truth through its practice. Like organized religions, art is a belief system with thousands of years of refinement, individuals who have spent their lives educating themselves on its concepts, devoted to its theology and craft, with an ever-expanding group of followers that live by its philosophies. These systems will always allow for searching beyond what has been established, and must be continually redefined and challenged for better understanding to be achieved, but there is a stark difference between the advancement of knowledge and the simplifying of it. The understanding of classic art advances when established skills are applied in new ways. An origin must be established in the current realm of practices, informed by history, as an evolution of existing knowledge. There are no shortcuts in the revealing of new truths. When a system is simplified, details will dilute themselves over time. Out of desperation to claim association, earned, intimate understanding can be replaced by an efficient, broad faith in basic membership. The artist with a basic understanding of the contemporary ideology that ‘anything can be art,’ is now allowed to approach work from a conceptually self-determined level of skill without a need or consideration for the basis of technical mastery. No intricately carved, level-hung door need be placed in the doorway of creation when the lack of a door gets you in all the same. Furthermore, it is then useless to ask who the locksmith might be, or who holds the key. Without structured guidelines, a creative idea is all that is needed to create art. However, if the evidence of mastery in the presented outcome poorly reflects its conceptual quality, one must then also assume that any thief, adulterer, or murderer with a Christian cross around their neck will get into heaven.

If you haven’t got it by now, this membership is your golden ticket. Until something else comes along to define boundaries in the contemporary, bask in the glow of the now, for you cannot fail. The contemporary is tuned in to this life as it happens. It is in constant motion revising, resurrecting, reincarnating; working in a system outside and across time, aware only of this moment. It unchains itself from the cumulative material concerns of the classically trained, and like a prisoner out of bonds raises its hands to the sky and cries out “freeeeedoooommm!” Free of its shackles, art can finally asks new questions, and whether responding with profound insight or a defeating shrug, the contemporary answers all the same. Your own participation is all that is required for a membership to contemporary art, and your only subscription fee is to call yourself an artist. The level in which you engage with everything our program has to offer is completely up to you. Like contemporary art itself, your understanding of it will change over time, ask new questions, and offer you new insights into how you feel accountable for the work you create. We have not provided a clear definition of what can be considered or limited to contemporary art, and have no clear sense of when that day may come. Until then, we only ask that you are aware of what you create, why you create it, and how it influences others. There are a lot of people out there that think they can do what you do, and may try it themselves. They’ll earn memberships too, so please understand your responsibility in this endless contemporary conversation.

Now that you’re up to speed on your new contemporary declaration, let us once again revisit the missing door to The Art Party and ask:

Must a threshold be established and then traversed to merit association?

Amory Abbott
Contemporary Art Seminar
MFA Visual Studies, PNCA
December 16, 2014 

[1] Any more questions about inclusion may be directed toward DuChamp.

[2] Michelle Marder Kamhi, Understanding Contemporary Art, for Aristos, 2012

[3] Robert Irwin, On the Nature of Abstraction, Rice University, 2000

[4] Laura Hughes, So You Want to Be A Contemporary Artist (by Amory Abbott), Rough Draft Review Notes, Pacific Northwest College of Art, 2014

[5] “ Liam Gillick, Contemporary Art Does Not Account For That Which Is Taking Place, e-flux and the author, 2010

[6] Henryk Fantazos, Noble Materials, Against Modern Art, www.againstmodernart.blogspot.com, 2012

[7] Giorgio Agamben, What Is An Apparatus?, Stanford Press, 2009