dayton is not in ohio

Currently my studio is undergoing a transformation. I’m packing up, and emptying it. I’m erasing it. I’m stamping around it. I’m looking for an advantage in the metamorphosis from my own very specific workshop to a generic graduate studio. It’s the difference between our houses, and Plato’s house. One is where we live, the other is where meaning lives. In some places space is a utility (galleries, for example). In other places, space is a metaphor (old prisons, for example). I’m looking to find the studio where meaning lives. Mine just happens to be the ideal studio to search for meaning, because what’s meaning without an audience?

I’ve been floundering in my fishbowl for a while now. I’m looked down upon daily while cutting, hammering, gluing and making a terrific mess of my artistic practice. The occasional passerby will condescend to knock on the glass. We wave and smile. I don’t mind, I just go back to my crafts. But just up the street at the Shedd Aquarium they mind. “Please don’t tap on the glass,” the signs say. But what if the fish began tapping on the glass? What if, rather than just going about their business, the fish assembled in a row along the glass, and stared back? What if I stare back? Well, there’s nothing like a thirty foot tower, a four camera video surveillance system, and a digital video projector for finding out.

More soon…

If I had thought about this ahead of time I could have made it really interesting.

Probably, about a year from now, I’m going to travel to Philadelphia to dismantle my Eastern State Penitentiary sculpture, and haul it off to sell it for scrap. This is the unfortunate necessity for the non commercially viable sculptor that I am: eventual destruction and disposal.

So it goes with my chopstick bridge. I’ve needed to do this for a while now. With the scale of the piece, the difficulty of transport, no storage space, and no takers, it had to go. It was the first project I did in grad school, it took a lot of time, and I liked it quite a bit, so it was kinda sad for me. I’m wondering if this is what it feels like to shoot a faithful injured horse that you’ve loved and ridden. I don’t know, but I had to grit my teeth to smash the thing, and it certainly wasn’t any fun. OK, maybe a little fun…

I’m gonna try to crank out a good run-down before Anna wakes up from her studio nap. Advising kicked off this week and I had great conversations with both of my advisers, Shane Campbell and David Raskin, both in the art history department at SAIC.

David taught my winter term art history class on Vito Acconci, and I was very impressed. He’s an expert on Donald Judd, and I’ve been influenced by Judd for all of the wrong reasons, so that ought to keep our conversation lively. He had some good thoughts and insights regarding my current project.

Shane is ABD for a PhD in Art History from Iowa, I believe, but more interestingly owns Shane Campbell Gallery in Chicago. I met him last year at the Armory Show in NYC. He was the only Chicago gallery represented. He’s refreshingly irreverent, for an art historian, and that’s because he’s a gallerist first. He has encouraged his advisees to read Dave Hickey’s, Air Guitar, which I’d borrowed and read a couple of years ago, and which causes most of the respectable art historians at the Art Institute to cringe. Read the first chapter and you’ll know why. I’m also reading The Uncertain States of America Reader, a publication spawned by the exhibition from which it takes its title, curated at Bard College a couple of years ago. I’ve only read the first short essay, but it’s a spot-on, if somewhat clumsily written, account of what it’s like to be an art mover. It explains a bit about why I was eventually fired - only you have to also insert the character of the evil stepmother from Cinderella as my boss, give her a mustache, and describe all of her dialogue in profane, gravelly, guttural outbursts. And her pumpkin is a home-made race car.

Shane’s gallery has two locations. One in Chicago, and one in Oak Park, on Harvey Avenue. If Harvey Avenue doesn’t ring a bell to you: that’s the street we live on, several blocks south of the gallery. It’s not just any gallery, though. It is a part (shares space with, sorta) of the Suburban, a independent artists’/project space started by Chicago artists Michelle Grabner and her husband Brad Killiam after they moved to Oak Park. You must go to the website and read the history of the space. It’s really fascinating, and an amazing place to discover right down your average suburban street.

I’m enjoying going to art openings weekly. They are rapidly becoming less nerve-wracking. For those that have never been to an opening, the reason they can be nerve-wracking is that they are usually crowded, loud, and they are often lousy for seeing the art. In the past I would just pick the openings that I thought were interesting, or was invited to by a friend. But the last month I’ve been to probably fifteen openings and have been running into the same folks a bit, which makes it enjoyable. I’ve also started to realize that, unless I become famous, my work will never undergo the same relentless scrutiny that it has for the last year-and-a-half. You learn this by looking at the art that people make that gets shown in galleries, and knowing exactly how it would be dismantled at your school. I hope to always make good work and receive healthy criticism, but it’s still a comforting thought.

I saw a lot of work this month and it ran the gamut from really interesting, to forgettable. I had my own opening, and I’d give my work in that an okay. By far the most interesting opening was Clive Barker at Packer-Schopf. Clive Barker is probably best known as the author of the novel Hellraiser, and for his writing and directing the movie of the same name.

[Clive Barker Liar Oil on Canvas, 24 x 24 inches]

Well, the book/film has a cult following - a horror cult following - and I spent my first thirty-minutes at the opening wondering whether Barker was aware of how utterly boring his paintings were, when surrounded by his fans. On any other day the paintings might have been more arresting (although they still looked like board-book material compared to an average Odd Nerdrum), but that night they played second fiddle to the freaky, freaky fans. It took me a while to figure out who he was, but he turned out to be pretty normal looking guy.

Downstairs was work by Ron Bell. I enjoyed the work for its craft and complexity and meaningless machinery, but it ultimately felt like a side-show to the circus upstairs. I’d be interested to see a couple of these works in a large, open space, rather than a dramatically lit, white cube dungeon. They work perfectly in the dungeon, and that’s the problem, it seems.

[Ron Bell]

The show I was in was a group show at Gallery 2, one of the Art Institute’s exhibition spaces. I made two new pieces for the show, neither of which am I enthralled with. I don’t hate them either.

[Cargo, 2008, wood, digital video, monitor, peephole]

[For the Love of Guns, 2008, MDF, rhinestones]

The real highlights of the show for me were works by Tom Gokey and Daniel Lavitt. Tom graduated from the department last year and Daniel is a first year sculpture MFA.

[Tom Gokey]

Tom’s work stole the show for me. Tom’s a gimmick guy, but his gimmicks are always so good that I immediately forget whatever might be bad about gimmicks. As elegant as these four grey-green hand-made paper panels are, they are equally as ignorable in the midst of a sculpture show. It’s this type of aesthetic understatement that acts as a foil to the medium, as the paper is made from $49,000 in shredded US currency. In fact, it’s made from the exact amount of Tom’s tuition at the Art Institute, acquired from Uncle Sam, who constantly shreds cash, apparently. It reminded me of Tom Friedman’s work in which he places a microscopic ball of his own feces on a pedestal. Very understated. Very invisible. Very loud. Crap in public just is, tiny or not, and so is money, reconstituted or not.

[Daniel Lavitt]

I don’t have a detail shot of Daniel’s bronze cast McDonald’s cheeseburger, but it’s really nice, resting in its styrofoam nest. It reminds me of my own unapologetic affinity for McDonald’s burgers and begs the same question really: “How could something so bad, be so good?”

Finally, I’ll mention a group sculpture show at Kavi Gupta Gallery. The work that caught my eye immediately was a skeletal chandelier by Tony Tasset. I’m currently becoming interested in making skulls, and I recently discovered that Tasset lives in Oak Park.

[Tony Tasset, Capuchine Chandelier, 2006)

The work is well done, but not remarkable if you’ve, A) ever imagined what the production designers for Goonies could do with a chandelier while napping, or, B) seen any of Adam Wallacavage’s octopus chandeliers. However, I’m still thinking about making some skulls, so I was interested.

[Adam Wallacavage, Venus in Furs, 2006]

finis

I’ve really wanted to have a new, easy to use website for some time now, and I’ve finally got it. I have to thank Philly-based artist Norm Paris, via Philly-based gallerist Jenny Jaskey, via Philly based artist Rob Matthews for it. I went to Jenny’s site to see what was coming up there, and it reminded me that Jenny recently sold Norm’s installation Michael Jordan Save the World (pictured below).

I love the piece. I looked at his work on her website, and was reminded that Rob had a link for Norm on his blog. I like Norm’s website and discovered that it’s produced by a company that makes websites for artists. Or, more accurately, they’ve created an interface for artists to make their own websites. It’s really easy to update with new work, which was my biggest concern. daytoncastleman.com

The blog will continue to live at its current location, and you will be able to access the new website by clicking on Portfolio in the right hand column.

1. Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists.
They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
2. Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.
3. Irrational judgements lead to new experience.
4. Formal art is essentially rational.
5. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.
6. If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises
the result and repeats past results.
7. The artist’s will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion.
His wilfulness may only be ego.
8. When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition
and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the
artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.
9. The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the
latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept.
10. Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find
some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
11. Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected
directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one
is formed.
12. For each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.
13. A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s.
But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist’s mind.
14. The words of one artist to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same
concept.
15. Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an
expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally.
16. If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not
literature; numbers are not mathematics.
17. All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.
18. One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present,
thus misunderstanding the art of the past.
19. The conventions of art are altered by works of art.
20. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our
perceptions.
21. Perception of ideas leads to new ideas.
22. The artist cannot imagine his art, and cannot perceive it until it is complete.
23. The artist may misperceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art but
still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual.
24. Perception is subjective.
25. The artist may not necessarily understand his own art.
His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.
26. An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own.
27. The concept of a work of art may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which
it is made.
28. Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist’s mind and the final form is
decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side effects that the artist
cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.
29. The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with.
It should run its course.
30. There are many elements involved in a work of art.
The most important are the most obvious.
31. If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one
would assume the artist’s concept involved the material.
32. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.
33. It is difficult to bungle a good idea.
34. When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art.
35. These sentences comment on art, but are not art.

It seems that almost every person whose blog I read has made a pledge to post weekly on some topic. Fifty-two is hot. It’s a great idea and here are some places to go for a weekly dose of art:

Tim Gierschick - Tim is a Philadelphia artist and he’s putting up a post a week on a different work of art at his place of work, The Barnes Foundation. Tim is great with words, so it won’t hurt to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the… umm… dictionary.

Rob Matthews - Rob is also a Philly artist and is posting each week on a new album. Rob knows everything about music, and it doesn’t hurt to have an encyclopedic knowledge of indie music when reading. But even if you’re like me and know nothing, he’s entertaining. He also likes a little gossip, and I probably shouldn’t say this… [Dayton politely covers his mouth with his hand and coughs] SOLOSHOWINCHELSEAINSEPTEMBER… Excuse me.

Matthew Fisher - Matthew is an artist based in Brooklyn (I think)… he’s covering a different painter each week - and avoiding New York artists right now, so read it now while it’s still good. Matthew operates on Rob Matthews’ Matthews the Younger blog team, which also includes Rob’s wife Tracy, and Houston based artist Robyn O’Neil.

Wayne Adams - Also based in - “no sleep ’till” - Brooklyn, Wayne doesn’t really have an official “fifty-two” post on something pledge, but he does maintain a ‘weekly’ pledge… and usually comes through. He’s had a lot of really insightful posts lately. Really can’t think of a good way to make fun of him.

I know… I know… You’re thinking what all of the fan mail has been saying: When are you gonna start a weekly theme-post Dayton?

Well, wait no longer! But mine comes with some significant qualifications, so don’t uncork the Champagne until I read you the fine print. I’ve identified a common thread among the above-mentioned bloggers: 1) No one is in grad school. 2) No one has kids. I just can’t promise a weekly post. But I have made another weekly goal that I promise to write about, and if all goes well, then maybe I’ll pull off the fifty-two week pickup.

My goal is to attend at least one show opening every week this year. There’s always at least one. I was frighteningly close to being forced to attend a vanity gallery opening of ‘contemporary fine art horse paintings’ this coming Friday, but was saved by two others. Within the next couple of days I will catch up by blogging on what I saw last weekend, which was great overall. This goal relates to my recent confession.
So check back soon for more…

It seems that everyone I know has made some sort of resolution to blog more regularly this year. I’m not making any promises, but I do want to focus this thing a bit.

I’ve decided that the blog needs to be about art. If I want to blog about sports and stuff like that I’ll start another blog, but my thinking is shifting a bit and I want to redirect my focus here. The blog will be about art in Chicago, friends’ art, and what’s happening in my own work. Feel free to call about my thoughts on the Phillies or what-not.

This leads up to an important confession that I need to make before I proceed, and which will require a little explaining: I’m starting to like art. I know that may sound odd to some readers, but I suspect that some others know exactly what I’m talking about. And I’m not talking about art objects. I know a thing that I like when I see it. I’m talking about the culture, the people, the conversation. Let me explain…

As a junior in high school I took an art class, picked up a National Geographic, and did a shaded pencil drawing of a black and white photograph of a soldier. It looked really “real” to me, and so I proceeded to spend the next year-and-a-half drawing Michael Jordan and every other basketball player I liked at the time. 6B pencil and a paper stump. I had discovered that I could “draw,” which, more accurately, was a knack for picking up art media quickly and making images that appeared a bit like the real thing. This, to me, was art - I was good at it, and I had discovered what my college major would be. It was the only subject that I liked, and it was easy, so why not.

In college, a couple of good professors tried to chip away at my isolated enjoyment of life-like images. It wasn’t that they were opposed to representing the world as it appeared, but they recognized that my enjoyment was disconnected from the much larger conversation about images and ideas that had been happening for a long, long time. They failed to fully penetrate my stubbornness, but they succeeded in planting a few seeds that began to germinate, so that upon moving to Philadelphia I had begun to ask myself why I was doing art.

In Philly, working as an art handler, I was exposed, for the first time really, to the subculture that is contemporary art. This was important in that it set the work I was doing in contrast to a very different way of thinking about, and working at, art. My work shifted from painting to sculpture, and I embarked with a slightly shifted mindset as I continued to work.

I also now had a group of friends that kept me vicariously connected to the art world, but I still often felt like the odd man out when the conversation turned to contemporary art. Whose work did I like? Don’t really know. Have you read such-and-such? Probably not. It was friendship, a common faith and my skills as an organizer that kept me connected to these folks, but not really a common interest in the art world. I liked to make stuff, and I liked to talk about theology-and-art, but I rarely went out of my way to investigate the work of those also making art in Philadelphia. Any of those folks who know me would probably agree.

I don’t actually think this was a bad thing, just the way it really was. I was very interested in the things I made an effort to know something about, namely theology and making stuff, but I was less interested in the thing I was surrounded by and gave little attention to. I was making art primarily for the “atta boys” from folks who knew just as little as I did about the art world. Still, I was good with images and ideas and making things, and this resulted in two opportunities to make some fairly conspicuous site-specific works, and score a little attention from the world I was hovering outside of. I immediately cashed these projects in for a ticket to grad school.

School has been fantastic. It has done what it’s supposed to do: learn me some stuff. It’s taken a while, even in this environment, but as I’m immersed in the art world that is Chicago, I’ve discovered my curiosity about what’s going on has gained some traction. The more I’m getting to know artists and their work, galleries, museums and all, the more I’m discovering that I’m actually interested in this stuff. I’m reading art theory just out of curiosity (of course when I admit that this is my first time reading some of the more foundational writings some folks are a little shocked). This feels like an embarrassing confession for a person that is about to finish his MFA from a recognized institution, but the truth is the truth. I’ve always been a late bloomer - I process stuff like a crock pot cooks. So after fifteen years of education, I think I’m finally starting to like art.

Here are a few images from Anna’s little exhibition at the Art Institute. Karen and I planned a little opening for her, and while none of her little friends were able to come, we had a nice time as a family. All of these painting were done on paper scavenged from a Felix Gonzalez Torres stacked paper work, and most were created using Crayola washable paints. On Mondays, when Anna is with me at the studio, I hang her a sheet of paper. She tells me which colors to dish out onto her plywood pallete and what brush she wants. I encourage her to experiment… some are done with her fingers and hands, and she’s done a couple with plastic bag covered feet and shoes. She often asks for music. Sometimes she is very active and aggressive, sometimes more methodical and cerebral. I just enjoy watching her go. Bottom line is Anna really enjoys painting and this has been a fun project to work on as father and daughter.

Steel, motor, springs, baseball bat, bearings, switches, wiring, power supply, hardware (48 x 48 x 72 inches, variable)

Here are a couple of images of a sculpture that I made this semester. Didn’t make much to write home about, but this one ended up looking kind of cool. I will post some video of it as soon as I shoot some.