Artsramble Archive

This is not about the NCMA. It's not about that guy in the uniform, because he was just enforcing The Rule. It's almost about The Rule, but just as a way of greasing the tube.

The Rule? A non-posted Rule, that we're all just supposed to know? You can't make sketches of the artwork. I'm not talking about taking out an easel and a little wooden box of dusty, messy chalk and making a damned mess. I have a habit of carrying a little pad and pencil and jotting down essential information about artists and work, dates and stuff, and then making thumbnail sketches to jog my memory. Several guards had spoken to me about this or that, saw what I was doing, didn't seem to object.

While visiting that excellent show on its last day, which I wished I had been in town early enough to review, COMMON GROUND: DISCOVERING COMMUNITY IN 150 YEARS OF ART, I was busy scratching away at several thumbnails of a complicated photograph by Adi Nes. A guard told me I could not do this; it was against The Rule. English was his second language, which created a communication gap. I tried to explain that these were just notes, like the written ones on the same page of the tablet. He said the written ones were OK but the sketches weren't. I pointed to a sign that stated photography was prohibited and asked why there wasn't a similar sign saying sketching was verboten. This sent him into some sort of diatribe which ended with: go to the information desk."

The woman at the information desk had me fill out the appropriate form which only took 4 seconds at the most. She also politely informed me that I had to sketch in pencil. I asked if I could use pen if I were just taking notes. "Yes." I went right back to the gallery, certified, tagged, but still myself, and finished my sketches. Sadly I had to finish the sketches with a pencil–not my medium, I prefer a thin-nibbed pen, in black, thank you–and the flow had been broken. So the sketches aren't really good enough to remind me of much but the incident with the guard.

Also sadly, when I went to buy the catalogue, I didn't have the 50 bucks to shell out, what with child support and all, and there was no soft-backed version. A mistake, museum people!

This is all background though. Question 1. If the museum folks are afraid of someone poking a hole into a piece worth katrillions, they seem to consider only artists crazy enough to do it. Writers are not that destructive, I guess. Newsflash for you guys up there on the top floor. Crazy is as crazy does. Writers can poke holes with their bics. A sharpened number 3 can poke holes even better than those dull nibbed bics. This makes no sense. Question 2. The art museum is about the image. If you've read my last review, I start with the image. I honor the image. Yes, I take notes with words, but it's the thumbnails that give me the information I need. If you guys in the art museum can't get this, who can? This is a sore point with me. We fools that communicate in pictures have been beat up by the writers since the Torah. The left brained have been running the damned world since the first written symbol of an object, action or thought, making people who communicate in the less tangible ways with the very abstract, like music, perhaps the most elegant form of communication, hanging out with their peckers blowing in the wind. (ArtsRambler, can I say"peckers?") Lucas Samaras immediately comes to mind—well, for all kinds of reasons. But this is a guy whose self-portraits contain more than reams of clinical notes–not that he would talk that much to tell anyone why he felt more at home in a padded cell apartment than Macy's. But it's all there, and to paraphrase an elite art gallery owner friend of mine: if you have to ask, you shouldn't be buying it. If you can't understand why the image is as intelligent, information-laden, even to the footnotes, as important as the written word, you're in the legions of the left-brained. I respect you. Respect me.

Finally, somebody asks this question outloud. Someone besides me, I mean. I’ve been harping on this image versus word war my whole professional life, very possibly my whole cognizant life. And then the question predates me by about 6000 years, or so, as in: thou shall not make unto thee a graven image, even any manner of likeness….
This is a tangent I will not pursue. I only site it to document a prejudice that has ancient roots. Prejudice comes from fear. I submit that the power of the image is potentially so strong that there is a continuous effort to contain, subdue, categorize it and to triviaize image-makers in our society. The child’s work of sums and compositions are relieved by the “play” of crayon time in the minds of many. Certainly the work of a well-shown artist doesn’t carry the gravity of the work of voluminously published scholar.

It’s all so odd. We grow up in a world of images, a point SJCoop has made. How then is the average person still so incapable of reading the image? Is it the equaivalent of teaching the public to read only up to the 8th grade level? I really don’t know.

However, the image is potent. I do know this. I hope Henryk doesn’t mind me quoting him. About 10 years ago, he had a show complete with an announcement in which he defined the importance of image. I’ve tried to find that announcement and can’t. But I refer you to www.fantazos.com where he has a few essays. I don’t agree with Henryk on a few significant themes, but when it comes to image, he is my brother.
From Symbols and Representation:
“In contrast language of representation with its directness, immediacy and irreducible complexity feeds and rewards the viewer in a way that can never be fully exhausted, cannot be dipped-out to its bottom. Yet, because images exist on the outside of discrete language, they don’t generate much text under the fingers of art commentators. What is so importantly, manifestly there remains uncanny, in plain view but appealing to viewer’s intimate acquaintance with directly experienced reality rather than covering the resplendent nakedness of images with rancid rags of ideas.”

All work on this site © 2004 by Andrea Gomez, all rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, republishing, posting or duplication of any of the material on the web site is prohibited without express written permission from Andrea Gomez. The artist reserves to herself all rights of reproduction and all copyright of her work.