What do we do with what we have learned?

Upon a recent viewing of The Peabody Museum’s Oceanic collection, it struck me that I need to do something more with the knowledge that I have gained. As I peered into case after case, I realized that I could make many of those artifacts myself. Mine would be less refined than a master's work, but I know the essence of the making, learned and lived in the boats, beaches and jungles of many places. After spending fifteen years in and out of isolated island villages, I have acquired a layman's knowledge in the making of artifacts. From mat weaving, tapa pounding, harpoon carving, costume creation, seed work, feather work, pottery, fish hook carving…the list goes on and on. But here I sit upon the fair isle of Manhattan wearing the most unlikely face for the keeper of traditional knowledge.

Something about my nature allowed me into the lineage. I appear completely harmless, I am fearless, athletic, and in their eyes, completely lost. So I become adopted quite readily, and then promptly put to work. My pied piper personality type keeps me in good company in all times, and my young consorts allow me to add amateur linguist to my skill set. I can say niceties to appease all of the tribal elders just in case they stopped by to check on my fern frond costume.

Not only am I a ready gatherer, but I have also been known to display remarkable hunting tendencies. In the past I have displayed underwater harpooning skills, the ability to make a woven grass harness for carrying land crabs back to the village (so they are unable to break your fingers) I can bring a rock fish up a 350ft cliff face without teenage seagulls getting it, I can hold a stone to my chest and plunge to the bottom of the sea to collect clams- without busting my lungs-and so many more useful skills. But what do I do with this knowledge here?

As artists our lives and our work are so intertwined. But right now I feel like there is a great rift between my daily life here in New York and the knowledge filled, more traditional life that I naturally return to when I get away from this place. Artists are not always known for their adventuring ways. Society views artists as urban dwellers, subway riders, cafe sitters. I even know one New York artist who proudly backs this social view by claiming that he will not travel to any place where you cannot buy a proper cappuccino. During my transit to the museum, my seat mate turned to me and said, “so you made it all the way to Boston all by yourself?” Knowing that he had already learned that I was travelling from New York, I decided to let that one go. I made really big eyes and blinked them twice before responding, “I sure did” as I quietly began carving a harpoon.

Now and Then

Tonight, Gabriel Orozco spoke about his piece Mobile Matrix that is part of his mid-career retrospective that ends March 1st at MoMA. In this panel discussion, Orozco again pointed out that he shuns the imposed classifications of he and his work. These classifications frequently allude to he being a nomad, and his work being romantic or poetic in nature. He also brushed off those die hards who loved his dabbling with chaos and order in the nineties (with myself being included in that herd.) As I travelled home, I couldn't help but think about the role of the conceptual artist today.

Considering that my own work was deemed "too conceptual" by the Education Department of a major NYC museum just two weeks ago, the topic has remained in the front of my mind. In my case the museum felt that my work may be too cerebral for the common man. Orozco seems to be having the opposite effect. The art public adores his work, and shows their adoration by coming up with analogies or generalizations that are at times humble, but still simply human efforts to reach an understanding about his work and are then left to struggle with language to describe it. The artist (Orozco) rejects these simple classifications as he continues to change his work in what may be an effort to remain just out of reach, or else simply remain in the present.

It is hard to overlook the fact that Orozco once cupped clay in his hands, then opened that heart-shaped object to the camera, displaying it in front of his own bare chest. In another example he rolls plasticine around a city. This ball of material mimics his own bodily form by being the same weight as he. This performative act allowed the object to absorb the textures, substances and the experiences of a place. Both are blatantly sensual acts, but is it wrong to call them so? I am frequently accused of being a sensualist, but I cannot possibly reject the obvious. It is part of why I work in water and also in sculpture, the sensual is part of my nature.

So what do we do as conceptual artists, and at what point does the conceptual artist become a romantic notion in it's own right? Conceptual art isn't new by any means, and as we all know time has a way of romanticising everything. Orozco spoke as if the 90's were ages ago, while most of the people in my seat row and one panelist were still in art school in the 90's. The young Orozco still has a decade on many of the artists who were nurtured by his work while we were in school, or shortly thereafter. For me, the 90's are too fresh to be romanticised, while he seems to want his ideas from the 90's to go away. He lives in the "now," while many are still captivated by what was "then."